Building a blog that makes a lot of money isn’t something that just anyone can do. According to research, there are more than 100 million active blogs, and only about 13 percent of those bloggers make more than $1,000 per month.
If you want to be part of that small, successful percentage, then you’ll need to start a monetizing blog and really focus on bringing in the profits. That will require identifying problem areas and making some big changes.
Here are some of the reasons why your blog is failing.
1. You’re just writing.
In some very, very rare cases, someone who simply writes and publishes blog posts can be “found” and obtain success from just their writing efforts. But these instances are few and very far in between. Simply writing without doing any kind of promotion will limit your profits.
Alongside writing and editing great posts, promote your content on social media, share with your friends, invest in SEO, sell advertising, collect affiliate links, and engage in other marketing tactics.
Additionally, try selling products or services. Starting an online shop is difficult, but it’s important for making the money you need to keep your blog up and running. Writing quality content simply won’t be enough.
2. Readers can’t distinguish your blog from others in its niche.
This is a clear problem with a lack of branding. Bloggers who have success in their market have a logo, color scheme, writing voice, and niche. It’s easy to tell who they are and why they’re successful.
If you want your brand to be clear, you need all of those things and more. Focus on developing a strong brand that sticks out in a crowd. Your target audience will return if they recognize your brand and know how to find you.
3. You don’t optimize your content for SEO.
Note that this is different than making your entire content revolve around SEO. Optimizing for search rankings is about focusing on quality, using keywords in your title, following Google trends and other relevant news, and running tests. It’s not about keyword stuffing and writing to please the search engines only.
Search engines know when you’re trying to evade their algorithms with poor SEO tactics. They reward blogs with SEO plugins that publish only high-quality content for their readers.
4. You’re marketing in the wrong place.
If your blog is showing up in places where your content audience doesn’t spend a lot of time, you’re in trouble. Many bloggers make the mistake of marketing in the same place as other successful bloggers, regardless of their niche. You need to be marketing to the people who read your blog within your niche.
Start with Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. If there are forums and other social platforms that fit within your niche, market there as well. Go where your people are in order to make a living and stay in business.