26 Comments
10 Things Everyone Ought To Know About Blogging
June 8th, 2007 by Court
- It isn’t easy - on the contrary it’s quite difficult.
- You have to be pretty smart to be good at it.
- It will take a lot of hard work to make a lot of money from it.
- Your blog will likely not make hardly any money for 3-18 months.
- Your blog is not the exception to the items on this list.
If you’re ready to stare down the barrel of those 5 shotguns, you are ready to start treating your blog like a business. If you learn to treat your blog like a business, you will be able to reap the rewards.
- Blogging has the lowest startup and maintenance costs of any business in the known universe.
- Blog traffic is almost residual by nature.
- Building a brand is easier and cheaper through blogging than through almost any other method.
- Successful bloggers can easily position themselves as experts in their fields.
- The social aspect of blogging makes it less technical than most other methods of building a web presence.
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blog, bloggers, blogging, building_a_brand, maintenance_costs, money, social_aspect, traffic, web_presence
Posted in Blogging
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June 8th, 2007 at 8:18 am
Sorry Court I agree with rules 1-3 but disagree on the other 2. There are plenty blogger out there who have made good amounts of money after just 1 month Matt Coddington was making just under $1000 after his 1st month blogging, now makes $1500 per month after 6 months and as you are probably aware has just sold his blog for $12k or $13k (I can’t remember)If you have enough time anyone can do this, it’s just getting our name out and about and good promotion and content.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Hi Martin! As always, I value your opinion. Number 4 states that you will likely not make hardly any money…. I definitely don’t think that it’s impossible.
Here’s an interesting fact about netbusinessblog.com: If you check the domain history that site has been up since 2005. That tells me that even though the blog is 6 months old, Matt wasn’t starting from scratch!
I still don’t think it’s impossible though, I just don’t think that it’s likely.
June 8th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
To show another example:
My site is more than 1 year but my blog(subdomain) is only live since Feb 2007. People will come to the site and may read the blog. I’m sure that many top bloggers making money now had backgrounds(web) or got websites thus using that existing traffic to promote the blog.
Court:
My Blog(business) serve me to promote my main product but still give other information because I want to(content). Yet, I’m still new to blogging and don’t make money out of it.
June 9th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
Very good point Steve. Some are content to use their blog as a learning experience, or to promote their products.
In this case, I would definitely ease up on my stance. For those that want to make serious money fast, I would seriously consider my stance.
June 8th, 2007 at 10:45 am
If you can come to terms with the first 5 points then you’re ready for advancing to the next five and taking advantage of a fabulous business and pleasure vehicle.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Absolutely. I think that the realities are hard to stomach and once you do, you’re ready to advance to the benefits. Well said, Steve!
June 8th, 2007 at 10:54 am
Do you have a different list for people who blog for pure enjoyment rather than to make money? Just curious..
June 8th, 2007 at 12:10 pm
I should make one!
June 8th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
I generally agree with most of what you listed, but I disagree with your first reward. There are business that cost zero to start while you have to pay for hosting and a domain with blogging, unless you go with a free blog with blogger or something, but in that case you are forfeiting ownership to a lot of your blogs value. I do agree that from a monetary standpoint blogging is a fairly easy business to start, though. Good list.
June 8th, 2007 at 3:59 pm
So there is a way to start blogging for free?
June 8th, 2007 at 6:25 pm
Great list, Court. I especially like that you pointed out that “your blog is not the exception” rule. I think a bunch of people read blogs like yours and John Chow’s and Zac Johnson’s and think they’ll make $1000 their first week out. When that doesn’t happen, they just give it up. If you’re new at monetizing it’s definitely an uphill climb. I’m almost three months in and it’s slow going.
I’d say that the number one thing needed for a new blogger who wants to make money is patience. I’m certainly not going to be quitting my day job next week. =) But that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop blogging either.
And thanks for writing your blog. I always learn great stuff from you and a lot of it has helped me a bunch with Pajama Professional.
Sara
June 9th, 2007 at 3:36 pm
I’d agree with the statement about patience. Just look at all the dead blogs out there, especially on blogger. Most only have a month or so worth of post and for whatever reason, the poster stopped blogging.
Lucky for me, some have PR
Don
June 10th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
Tons of people give up just in time for the traffic to actually start coming.
Good time to pick up the blogs!
June 10th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Thanks Sara! I think that most people read lists like this and think that they are the exception. It’s sad when people give up for that reason - I would much rather see them have some patience and get to the money eventually.
When people try to be full time bloggers from the get go there is way too much pressure. Pace is pretty important.
June 9th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
I agree with the tip about not making money for 3-18 months. The exceptions to that rule are minimal, at best. The average new blogger needs to have realistic expectations about the time it takes to cultivate solid traffic and readers.
The aforementioned new money-making blogs: we those new blogs or new bloggers. Big difference.
June 10th, 2007 at 6:36 pm
There are definitely exceptions to that rule, but most of them are blogs of people that have prior experience.
For people starting out I think it’s a good rule that should be kept in mind.
June 11th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Heh. You were able to appropriately response despite my odd typo above.
Yup. I agree that new bloggers need to allow themselves a learning curve. I am not a new webmaster. I have been doing that over 10 years. As a blogger, though, I have only been doing it *regularly* since October. So, I suppose I am still new.
June 9th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Can I suggest something , as many would like the same result as you. as you are good in blogging why not set up a program that provide the whole idea from set up blog to adding inform to their blog and charge a fee with it .
I have see other start up this idea . and it will be launch on 19 June .
June 10th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
As soon as I have about 100 times the information I have here, I’ll think about stuff like that. For now, I just want to get a lot of good info on the site!
June 10th, 2007 at 6:34 am
nice article,
this is my first comment on this blog : )
June 10th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
Welcome!
July 22nd, 2007 at 3:24 pm
[…] 10 Things Everyone Ought To Know About Blogging | Make Money Online … Make Money Online Free | Internet Marketing Tips … 10 Things Everyone Ought To Know … Do you have a different list for people who blog for pure enjoyment rather than to make money? http://courtneytuttle.com/2007/06/08/10-things-everyone-ought-to-know-about-blogging/ […]
May 26th, 2008 at 5:00 pm
It will take a lot of hard work to make a lot of money from it, absolutely agree with this. Blogging really needs time devotion to actually bring out somethnig nice from it.
Thanks for the post.
May 30th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
I have a blogger account and have been working on it for a little less than a month. I saw the above comment about losing partial ownership of the blog. I think that may hold true if you were to try to sell it but as far as the revenue from adsense or kontera its all yours pretty much.
So far I have yet to make any money but I can see some page impressions and that is all the motivation I need to keep going. I decided just recently that I was no longer going to work for someone else. I realized all the sudden in the middle of the day at my job that i was wasting my skills on some company whose owner doesn’t know who i am or doesn’t care about me. That notion alone made me realize that i was being taken advantage of. I will allow this to go on as long as necessary until i can finally break free of the chains. In the meantime I need to support my family so I still work. I think Court is a very knowledgable person when it comes to this. I am very impressed by her work and her words.
August 10th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Thanks Courtney for the pointers and for all the comments that followed thereafter - a big thank you. I’ve learned a lot more than I expected and the best lesson here is Patience.
I’m a blogger newbie and only thot of getting into it on 9th Aug 2008 when a friend asked me to do an(y) article relating to Weddings for her website (She saw I wrote little articles on facebook and thot I might wanna do it). Well it got me thinking so I did. I put it on Blogger too where I can pile them up on their webspace. However I dont expect to make money from that blog or from my friend.
Thanks to you Court I realize that I have to deisgn a blog with very useful information that I know first hand about and to worry about getting a lot of the content up on the blog clearly and simply. Traffic will start pretty slow, and the money will eventual follow however slow the pace. I’ll start working on my blog nxt wknd ; )
September 7th, 2008 at 6:34 am
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