Why your blog might be failing

Many of you, right now, are making a huge mistake with your blog, and you don’t even realize it.

This mistake could be costing you hundreds to thousands of dollars each month.  This mistake is causing your blog to fail, and not allow you to see the success you’ve dreamed about.

Right now, many of you have a blog that is running a great looking and fast theme, your blog has all the basic necessities like an about page and contact page, you publish content on a frequent basis, and even do SEO for that content.   You have lots of followers on social media and you work hard to promote your content (but not too much).

You have Adsense running on you blog to earn income, and the ads are optimally placed, and not too invasive.

You’re doing all the right things per the thousands of articles on blogs across the internet, but you’re not earning any decent money.  In fact, you’re barely earning any income from your blog at all.  You’re frustrated … maybe even beyond frustrated.

You’re frustrated because you spend hours upon hours on your blog each week, for little to no return.  You constantly ask yourself, “What am I doing wrong??”.  Why am I not successful like Problogger, CopyBlogger, or Blogging with Amy ?

Sometimes you feel like just giving up.  Many of you have. Blogging is hard.

How do I know all this?  Because I’ve been right there with you, far too many many times.

Let me assure you, you are doing the right things.  The issue isn’t what you are doing, but how you are doing it.

The answer can be found by asking yourself one simple question.   This question is critically important to visitors arriving at your blog, and even more so to the readers that subscribe to your email list.  Failing to answer this question accurately will result in the complete an utter failure of your blog because you aren’t meeting the needs of the people that follow an read your blog.

The one simple question?  Are you ready?

 

Is your blog solving problems and providing unique value?

 

Like me, you may spend hours writing up and researching your content, proofing it, revising it, and making sure it’s as perfect as it can be … BUT before you hit that publish button you absolutely have to ask yourself: Does this article solve a problem for people and does this article provide unique value?

If the answer is “no” or “maybe”, than don’t hit publish.   Honestly, you really need to ask yourself this question before you even begin writing an article idea.

You MUST solve people’s problems

Today, the internet is full of blogs on just about any topic you can imagine.  Chances are, if you have a problem or need to know how to do something, somebody, somewhere, has published a blog post that solves that problem.   As a matter of fact, you’ll probably find many blogs that solve the problem with the same exact answer in the same exact way.

Hmmm.   I smell an opportunity.   Ok, well maybe that’s one of my kid’s socks, but regardless … Distinguish yourself, and provide a unique and new solution.  Or at the very least a different perspective or “angle” on an existing solution.

Think about it, why should people visit your blog if you provide the same answer that every other blog does?

Ask yourself these questions: Why should people visit my blog?  What do I provide that can’t be found anywhere else.   What is your blog’s unique proposition?

If you don’t have answers, come up with answers and write them down.  Remember them.  Refer to them whenever you write content for your blog.

Earning money from blogging these days is hard

Being able to answer these questions correctly has direct impact to your blog’s revenue.

Six years ago, blogging was new.  Lots of people were starting blogs, many of them sharing information with others about what they were doing, how their kids were doing, what their cats where doing, what … well you get the picture.

Another popular trend at the time was “celebrity” blogging, where bloggers became famous by just writing about “stuff”.  I’m not even really sure how to describe “stuff”, but the topics were around random various things, that while sometimes interesting, really only served the purpose of wasting time.

Ironically enough, both of these types of blogs did earn money.  Maybe not a lot, but they did.  I remember reading stories about them and even seeing the bloggers post some fairly large Adsense checks.

Fast forward 6 years.  There are currently  152 million blogs on the internet, and a new one is created every 1/2 second.  152 million….let that number marinate in your brain for a minute.

With that many blogs, if you aren’t unique, providing value and solving problems, than you’re just another drop in the ocean and you cannot hope to be successful, let alone earn money.

Gone are the days of writing about random “stuff” and earning money from ads.   People have progressively learned to block ads and have in many cases become blind to them.   Advertising on blogs has slowly become less and less effective.  This is particularly true of technology blogs, like this one.  Advertising has done so poor on technology blogs, that Brian Clark at Copyblogger removed ads from Copyblogger some time back.  Copyblogger gets a huge amount of traffic, and if Brian wasn’t making enough money to keep ads on this blog, than that’s saying something.

Ads aren’t completely ineffective though, and in fact ads that solve a problem, tend to do very well on blogs.   What that means is that people are looking for solutions.  By providing solutions to problems on your blog, you are not only helping people, but increasing your ad revenue as well.  That’s is a win/win scenario.  I love win/win scenarios.

If you’re wondering How do you earn money from a blog?, the answer is simple:

Provide value.  Solve problems.  Be unique.

Alternatives to Advertising

While advertising can work and be effective on blogs, it’s most likely not going to allow you to become that 6-figure blogger many of us dream to be someday when we grow up.  Again, in the past that was possible, but reaching that level of income from advertising today is incredibly difficult and requires some additional income strategies.

These alternatives to a advertisting work very well and frankly have made many people on the iterate really wealthy:

• Affiliate Sales – Provide visitors with helpful and informative reviews of products.   Provide visitors with unique and helpful tips on certain products.  Answer common questions that visitors have about products.  In doing so, use affiliate links in your articles so that if your visitors make a purchase, you earn a commission.  Affiliate sales are the primary source of income for this blog.
• Create and sell eBooks – eBooks have consistently done well, especially in the “how to” and “do it yourself” areas.  A number of bloggers have done well with eBooks, like Steve Scott.  I’m currently reading a number of his eBooks now, and learning a lot from them.  I’m even working on writing a few eBooks to both giveaway and sell here on Side Income Blogging.  Ebooks are just one option, but selling products in general can be a great source of revenue, as long as it solves a problem.
• Sell Services – If you have an expertise in something that could help others, consider selling your services to assist others.  This is something I do as part of Side Income Blogging Services and proves to be a large part of my income each month.

The bottom line here is that the internet is a constantly changing place, what works well one year, might not work well at all the following year.  Keep an eye on trends, talk to other bloggers in your niche, and always be wiling to explore and try new things.   Most importantly though, remember: Provide value.  Solve problems.  Be unique.

Photo by: Troublemakers Inc.