We all want to learn how to make money online. When we start learning about making money online there’s usually one extremely common strategy. The most common strategy is usually to start blogging these days. Instead of talking about blogging for money, I wanted to switch things up and address a few fundamental questions– Is blogging really the most effective strategy for making money online?– and what are some other ways to make money online?
Unfortunately I must be the bearer of bad news and inform you that blogging to make money online is likely the least successful strategy. Why?
Competition. Gone are the days of a few profitable blogs. Now all bloggers are ruthlessly going for the advertising money out there. A keyword you may have ranked highly for last month may now be ranking very poorly for you. This is simply due to all of the competing blogs out there.
Lots of work. Setting up a profitable blog is not as simple as thinking of a catchy domain name and writing “quality content.” It extends far beyond your writing capabilities. You need to market your posts, optimize them for search engines, reach out to others, and much, much more.
Attrition. Many respected bloggers have sold their blogs or simply called it quits over the years. I’ve heard many ambiguous quotes about growing a popular blog. All I know is that at any point in time burn out can kick in and you’ll want to just call it quits.
Ironically, the skills that are needed to run a successful and profitable blog can be used to make money online without actually running a blog. Let’s look at some of these online money making ideas:
Freelance writing.
If you have decent writing skills, have the focus to consistently pump out great content, and enjoy helping others, then this is the option for you. This is likely one of the most realistic options for making money on the internet from writing. I also must inform you that this is one of the most challenging techniques to earning money online. I will spare you the details here, but if you want to learn more about the topic, I’ve included a link below.
Check out: How-to make money online with freelance writing.
Blog theme work.
If you love setting up a blog, but hate promoting it or you don’t want to write multiple articles per week, this is the idea for you. Bloggers (myself included) often want to focus on writing content and not dealing with theme work that tests your patience. If you have any skills in this field, you could make some decent money.
Check out: Make money online with blog design work.
What’s the point of this article?
Too often do I receive emails from interested pre-bloggers that are looking to make a quick buck. Some of them will get as far as set their blog up. Some will even get as far as post articles for a few months. Unfortunately most will never earn a penny from their blog.
A blog can serve as an excellent networking tool or a portfolio for your writing. Blogging to learn while helping others can also be an amazing intrinsic reward. Sadly, blogging is one of the worst strategies if you want to earn some easy money online. You can have lots of fun blogging and earn an abundance of money. The money just won’t come easily at all.
I think the gold rush is still happening. There is less gold out there but that hasn’t slowed down the number of people entering the blog world.
Endurance is a major factor. I’ve launched a few sites in the last six months and I don’t expect any of them to be successful until they’ve hit the two year mark.