Everybody have a blog these days. And everybody wants to make money with that blog, if possible, the very next day after the first post. Well, I’ll say it straight from the beginning: it’s not that easy. It’s doable, of course, but it’s not the easy peasy piece of cake you see advertised all over the net. You need persistence, trust, self esteem and a positive attitude. You need to make a profession out of it, like any other profession out there. You can blog from home, of course, you can set your own hours and chose your own topics to write about, but fact is you have to take it seriously. Otherwise the compensation won’t be serious at all.
I started to blog in a “serious” manner 6 months ago. I consciously chose to switch from being a full time business man owning my own online publishing company to a full time personal development blogging career. I knew from experience that this won’t happen over night. Every important achievement comes after a decent amount of work and needs a certain timeframe to start, get a momentum and bloom. Having my own business for 10 years was surely a big advantage and we’ll see later in this series of posts why.
Oh, yes, this introduction is the beginning of a series of posts about my first 6 months of serious blogging. I reached my first main milestone and I want to share my findings. Overall, I’m more than satisfied with the progress of my blog so far. For me, it’s a personal success, regardless of the traffic / money numbers, although those numbers are pretty big for a 6 months old blog. There are other sources of satisfaction and I’ll try to cover them as I go along.
The series will cover several topics, including writing, promotion and, of course, making money. I bet the making money post will be the biggest surprise. Well, here’s how is going to be:
The first article, Writing, will focus on the aspects related to the actual activity: your writing routine. Having a blog means writing blog posts. It’s fundamental, you can’t really avoid it. I will describe my experiments with several posting speeds, how a posting speed can be maintained with self-discipline, and how the writing can become a very organized and fulfilling activity, instead of becoming the biggest burden and source of worry for the average blogger.
The second article will be about Promotion. Promoting a blog is something that most people seem to ignore big time. They expect to write a good article and then to be flooded with visitors. In good Law Of Attraction terms this will happen at some point, if you keep writing good content, that’s a fact. But it can happen quite late if you don’t speed up the process a little. The problem is that there are tons of good articles out there and you must find a way to let people know that you exist in the first place.
The third article will cover the blogging Money. I will tell you from the beginning that money wasn’t my main focus when I started to write this blog. It is something that I want to happen at some point, but I want it to happen in a certain way. In the money post I will talk about my revenue streams, about my strategy and about my short and medium term intentions in creating and maintaining more revenue streams from this blog.
The final article will be the most technical one, about the Tools. I left the technical stuff in the end on purpose. Not all bloggers have a strong technical background and things like writing and promoting can be done without strong technical know-how. With the latest progress in the software development and server maintenance, they don’t actually need to be geeks anymore. But they need to have the ability to use some basic tools for various tasks. It will showcase some of my traffic numbers, traffic tracking tools, browser extensions and some of my own designed tools (a brand new wordpress plugin).
That’s it, stay tuned for the first article.
I am glad to have found this resource. I look forward to going through those 4 areas that you elaborate. Than you for putting this together.
Hi Dragos,
I’m glad I stumbled upon your blog. And this series of yours is way too awesome. Looking forward to really learning from your experience. Thanks!
Reading the first of your series… NOW! 🙂
will be reading more of your articles….thanks for sharing them….
.-= Jerome Baladad´s last blog ..Dostoevsky’s "The Brothers Karamazov" =-.
Guess I should have read this first. I started with writing and then promotion and just commented about revenue….and that’s your next topic. I fully know where you’re coming from in the statement about money not being a main focus. Blogging seems to come from this deep desire for communicating what you have inside and know that it can benefit others. Income/revenue/money is a side benefit that is almost only intended for you to be able to maintain and keep doing what you want to do and plan to let abundance take care of itself.
It is a hard road when working another full time job, but we have to remember that nothing comes overnight – We’re a culture in search [some people in expectation] of instant gratification and rockstar status.
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@Evelyn You’re right, there is a need to give up on something, but what I give up on is only burden. I don’t feel I have to sacrifice anything in pursuing this path. On the contrary 🙂 Thanks for your comment and for you wishes, I appreciate them 🙂
Congrats about making it to 6 months. It seems like you have to give up a lot to do what you are doing now. That certainly takes courage, focus and persistence! I wish you every success and luck!
Evelyn Lim’s last blog post..20 Funny Money Quotes
Stumbled upon this post as part of a Google Alert I have on the term ‘blogging’. I have a personal blog and a fledgling blog associated with my recently launched business, so I am interested in reading your insights on this topic. Be back for the rest of the series!
Andi’s last blog post..Save the date: Sex and the City 2
@Jonathan thanks, I really hope it would be something useful 🙂
I am excited about this series! Between your technical background and personal discipline with regard to writing, I feel these articles will be of value to all bloggers. I look forward to each and every one.
Jonathan – Advanced Life Skills’s last blog post..What Controls Your Happiness?
@nutuba thanks for the kind words 🙂
I am thoroughly enjoying this blog, so I am really curious to read what your findings are. iMHO, this is a model of what a blog should be like. Show us the results!
nutuba’s last blog post..DC in a Day
@Kikolani thanks for the comment and look forward for more, hope the series will be useful.
@ggwbach thank you for the nice words. As for the tips, I really appreciate it sharing those here. I agree with all 3 of them, but especially with #2: don’t go fot the killer article immediately. In fact, don’t go for a killer article anyway, just be yourself as much as you can. You’re the killer article 🙂
@melissa welcome here and look forward for your comments 🙂
@BunnygotBlog you’re right, this series is more for bloggers who want to make a profession out of it. Blogging for pleasure / for hobby is a different thing, but be careful: it can lead to a blogger career 😉
This series sounds like it will be a great guide to new bloggers, so they can know what they are getting into in the different aspects of blogging. Looking forward to it!
~ Kristi
Kikolani’s last blog post..A Comprehensive Guide to Using RSS
really looking forward to this series. I’ve been wearing my current blogger’s hat since December … and am really learning a lot. I’ve had many blogs in the past few years, but this is the first one I’ve REALLY taken seriously. And reaping some of the benefits too. Just some quick lessons –
— when you start out, network. Comment on other blogs, ask for feedback. Try to connect in ANY way possible. You might only get 10-50 hits, but its enough to get you started
— don’t go for the killer article too early. Learn, and build. Make your blog a database or repository of value
— refine and work on your template. At first, its pretty bare bones, but it gets modded out pretty quick. Add links, images, etc. Spice it up.
I really admire your presence dragos. You’ve quickly attracted an intelligent, committed, and participating crowd. Love these SU shares you send my way.
regards, ggw
ggwbach’s last blog post..Step 32 – Reach One, Reach All
Look forward to reading more.
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WOW- Great job.
In my own experience I differ because I blog as more of a hobby but do enjoy it very much. It does take a great deal of time to get traffic in but my reward are the comments.
I am looking forward to this series very much.
Cheers
@Brain Gomez thanks for your comment. Stay tuned for the rest of the articles in this series, I’m just scratching the surface with this introduction.
That is very inspirational. Hope a lot can read this for them not to give up their blogging career. Keep it up!