I Haven’t Made a Dime Either. Believe Me. It Will Happen.
We all believe when we start blogging that we will be the next great blogger, we will be the mountain everyone looks up to, to try and find the pathway. Life isn’t that easy though, as everyone knows, there isn’t any magical way to suddenly get to the top, but you can try your hardest to try and get one. It just won’t be a single step.
Before I go any further, I would like to make you aware that this is a follow-up to Alexander Heyne post on Pro Blogger – Why I Haven’t Made a Dime From My Blog and How You Can – following on from my comment on the article.
Why I Haven’t Made Any Money
I haven’t made anything substantial yet, even though I have made enough to be in profit, it has been nothing that I wanted to brag about. I have spent two years trying so hard to post three times a week, that by the time I have done that, I really cannot be bothered to try and engage with the community and build an audience to read those posts I am striving to post. I’ve had a couple of months where I would work harder, and see the results, but then just stop again.
This is where I go wrong…
If I haven’t learnt but anything over the course of two years since I started doing this blog, it’s that the people who read your blog are the most important aspect of blogging. I have been on so many blogs where there are hundreds of comments, but the content isn’t anywhere near as good as a blog with two comments on.
When you are building a blog, you have to comment on everyone’s comment, listen to the feedback you get, help other blogs out and all in all, try and fit into the community.
Retaining a customer is 5 times cheaper than gaining a new one.
2012 is for change, and as pointed out in the original post. I need to ‘Consciously build your audience and list’ and try and engage more and that is my target for the year. The quote at the end is so true – “Do a couple posts here, a couple posts there, maybe get some ads on there, write an ebook, and then I’ll be making $5,000 a month.” – We go on websites like ProBlogger etc. and assume we can do the same thing, without realising really how much work goes into them.
Assumptions should never be made.
Hi Simon,
I have made a few dollar since start of my blog. They are not much but I am happy that I made at least a few $. Like every business, blogging is competitive and it takes a lot of time before money flows in. The thing is to keep focus, engage and keep writing without worrying about the results. I am sure 2012 will be great for you .
Have a great day
Every time I see a little bit of money come in I am over the moon, but it would be great if I could get a little more, imagine how happy I would be then.
Yeah putting the effort in is how we get there, and I’m sure I can continue on and be more successful, as can you. Growth is the only way.
Thanks for commenting.
Regards,
Simon Duck
Hi Simon,
If you keep doing what you’re currently doing (and what you just said), I believe that you’re going to be very successful online.
I haven’t been focusing on earning money at all. I have just been focusing on people, and creating relations with people. And I strongly believe that this is the path to success online. Keep helping people, and focus your attention on helping out, when you do, people will eventually start focusing on you and you’ll get paid
Hi Jens, sorry about the spam problem don’t know what happened there!
Thank you very much for the encouragement, it means a lot.
I haven’t focused too much on this site about earning money, as I don’t want it to intrude on people. I have added a few adverts to try and cover the costs though, every little helps!
That is my plan over the next few months, build up good relationships, get better at doing the smaller things and then in turn I can grow leaps and bounds in the months after the next couple.
Thanks again
Regards,
Simon Duck
Hi Simon,
I remember that particular Problogger post and, believe it or not, your comment (although I admit I did have to go back and re-read it).
I’m a relatively new blogger, my blog is not even a month old yet, and I’ve got a long way to go before I will even consider monetizing it.
What I am doing though is focusing on creating content and building relationships. And I think relationships are a big deal (as Jens hinted at).
Thank you very much for stopping by David, and welcome to the blogging world.
As I have come to realise over the past few months, building relationships is the best thing to do when starting out and this will lead to having some instant readers, so make sure you keep it up, I look forward to seeing your name around the commenting world!
Good look and I hope to see you back here soon!
Regards,
Simon Duck
Thanks for the welcome, Simon.
The importance of building relationships is something that immediately made sense to me when I started reading about blogging.
Monetizing, SEO and all that stuff, although important, is rather overwhelming at this time, so I decided to make friends first.
Anyway, I’ll be back!
That is where I went wrong, I focused on everything apart from relationship building when I set out! Oh well, we live and learn
David,
I am big fan of lessons learned and I share your take you put it here. So you put two years into it and I think the biggest revenue so far is the lessons learned. It will help you reflect and adjust. Hey… this is what you have just done here in this post, eh?
Very true Alik and thank you for stopping by!
Regards,
Simon Duck
Nicely written article Simon! You make a lot of good points and I find it helpful for a young entrepreneur like myself. I realized that the profits may not come within the first week, month, or maybe year…but it’s important to stay focused and the time will come!
I enjoy reading your content! Keep up the good work.