I want to sit down with you and talk about blogging and the five reasons why starting a blog might not be the right thing for you.
Yeah, I know the domain name of this site is startablog2day and I should never really write a post with the title like that.
I have been blogging for a decade now and I am obsessed with it, but the truth is that it is not for everyone.
You can start your own blog in literally ten minutes without any technical knowledge these days, so it is very easy to have your own dot com.
But, do you know that 95% people quit blogging within the first year?
There are many reasons why the vast majority of bloggers abandon their blogs and I have listed them below for you so you can make the right decision and save yourself from lots of disappointments down the road.
1) Blogging Is Not A Get Rich Quick Business
Literally, thousands of blogs are created every single hour since it has never been easier and cheaper to start your own online business from the ground up.
Even if you are a 60 years old person, you can create your own blog if you go with the good managed hosting, so everyone can go and buy the domain name and buy the hosting plan for it but only a small percentage of people will make it.
Many people think that blogs will make money quickly and easily, but it does not and never will work that way.
You have probably seen websites where owners brag how many cash their courses make and they try to sell you their products that supposedly contain some magic information that will help you to earn cash quick and easy online.
I am here to tell you that it is all bullsh1t.
Do not ever waste your money on such products.
If you someone tells you that you will make money fast, then you should avoid such person.
Unfortunately, most of the new webmasters do not know any better and they fall for the attraction of the quick money and they listen to these so called gurus so it is no wonder that so many people fail at blogging.
If you are just starting out, you will have to fill your blog with new posts regularly for a few months before Google sends you any organic traffic.
The truth is that there are more online sites than ever so every single niche is filled with thousands of bloggers that are competing for the high rankings on search engine sites like Google.
I can safely say that if you did not buy an established blog that already has hundreds of unique posts and does well SEO wise, then you will have to add new content every single day for three months (the bigger niche you are in, the longer you will have to wait) to get first visitors from Google, Yahoo and other similar websites.
Now, I am not trying to say to you that blogs can not make money, they surely can and mine do lots of it, but do not expect to earn hundreds of dollars or even a few dollars overnight.
Blogs like Theminimalists make as much as hundreds of thousands of dollars each month, but they all made $0 in their first months but as they grew, they started to make more and more sales as affiliates.
If you want to start a blog today and become wealthy in the first month, then sorry, but I am 100% sure that it will not happen, no matter how hard you try.
You will need to work hard and AFTER posting regularly for a few months, you will reap the benefit and you will be rewarded greatly.
2) Blogging Requires Hard Work
Have you ever seen anyone become successful without working hard day in, day out?
Some Olympic athletes have to train tirelessly about seven hours every day for a few years without any rewards before they can actually compete in the Olympics.
In fact, I have read today that athletes had to put over 10,000 hours of practice before the Games.
Like it or not, everything in life that is worthwhile does not come easy and the same applies to blogging.
Talk to any honest blogger that has been blogging for years and they will tell you that they spend many hours managing their online babies.
I know that to some of you it might be shocking since so many popular bloggers try you to believe in their bullshi1t dreams that you can make a successful blog without putting a lot of effort.
It is pretty obvious that you have read something along these lines:
“Sign up for this hosting, buy this course, then post some posts and wait a few weeks and you will be rich.”
I want you to understand something.
They offer products like ebooks or courses with fancy looking covers and many endorsements from other influential people that happen to be their friends and they basically want you to buy these products and believe in their get quick schemes.
Funny thing about this is that they have worked very hard for a few years, adding lengthy and comprehensive posts and videos for their audience before they made it big and they started selling their shady ebooks.
If you want to become successful online or in any other field nowadays, you have to provide value on a regular basis for some time before you get any rewards.
So, let’s say you start a blog where you will teach people how to repair broken things.
You will not only have to add new posts that are really helpful for your audience but you will also have to promote them on various social media platforms so that someone actually reads your blog, because without readers your blog is not worth anything.
You will have to research a lot before posting your articles even if you have lots of knowledge on that topic, because you have to make sure that your posts are better than the ones from your competitors.
Do not forget about working on the email marketing, editing, advertising and market research.
Just do not think about creating a successful blog that will bring you a handsome income without much of an effort.
I have never seen it happen even a decade ago when there was lots of less competition so instead of thousands of blogs in a particular niche, there were a few hundreds of them, but you still had have to work your ass off to make it to the top as a blogger.
The bottom line is that, if you are willing to get out of your bed at 7 am every morning and write comprehensive posts that really aim to resolve your audiences’ problems, market them on different sites, make sure that everything works on your server and do these and a few other things for a long period of time, then you are guaranteed to achieve success in blogging, sooner or later.
3) You Are Not Willing To Invest
Do you want to start a blog and you are not willing to invest any money whatsoever?
Well, you might use a free hosting but I would never recommend you to touch such services unless you are okay with having your site deleted one day for no legit reason (believe me, it does happen every day) and you do not mind having your blog loaded with third party ads that are not related to your posts and you are not allowed to move your blog to a paid hosting.
If you want to make a successful blog, then you will have to spend money on some things like your own domain name, a paid hosting and a theme if you want to stand out from the competition.
All these three things are the bare minimum if you are starting out an online business without breaking the bank.
They will cost you only about $100 a year if you are on a very tight budget, but this is the lowest price at which you can start your blog with.
Ask yourself:
Would you invest money in your new coffee shop that you are about to open?
I am sure you would, because otherwise, you would fail.
If you are not willing to spend a few bucks a month on your online business that is going be your main income, then you are not serious enough, my friend.
Google and other popular search engine sites are not going to take you seriously, if you do not have your own domain name and a paid hosting and they will simply ignore your blog so you can forget about any organic traffic from them.
A week ago, I spend over $500 for themes and I knew that I had to do that if I want to move things to the next level.
Now, I do not want you to spend hundreds of dollars right away, I just want to emphasize that you have to invest at least five dollars a month into your business.
Even if you are having a hobby blog that you update episodically, you better spend these few bucks on hosting because free host sites come and go and they can remove your data including posts without any prior notification.
In 2005, when I was starting out my first dot com company, I would have to spend hundreds of dollars a MONTH for just my server and a few template tweaks done by my web designer.
We live in beautiful times and you can start a new blog for the price of a coffee at Starbucks so do not be a cheap a$$!
4) You Are Blogging Solely For The Money
The fourth reason is kind of related to the previous ones.
I can promise you that if you are starting your blog right now and your sole purpose is to make the money out of it, then I have to tell you that it will fail fast.
I have seen many of my friends that went into blogging with the only intention of earning thousands of money and they all abandoned their blogs after about a month.
If you want to succeed as a blogger, then your main objectives should be to help people that face particular problems, change lives of your readers, and basically have fun while providing value to your audience.
Do you know why so many small hobby blogs become successful?
It is because some bloggers are so obsessed with their niche, it can be computers, books on business, flowers, you name it, so they do not have any problems with creating long posts and they do not care much about money.
So what happens is that they provide tons of great information that visitors perceive as valuable which results in their posts getting shared everywhere, and soon they become an authority in their field.
It does not only apply to blogging, this rule works with anything.
I have seen entrepreneurs invest money into markets that they do not have much knowledge of and their number one intention was to make as much money as it was only possible and guess what happened?
They all failed miserably and if they would learn about the market that they were targeting, if they would understand the needs and frustrations of their potential customers and especially if they would expect monetary gain after they provide value, they would produce radically different results without a single doubt.
If you are starting a new blog now, then it would be wise to give yourself at least three months before you even start monetizing it.
5) You Lack Of Concentration And Patience
If you tend to jump from one thing to another then I have bad news for you, you will not do well as a blogger.
Also, if you can not imagine yourself sitting at your desk and writing posts and working on your blog for hours, it is going to be really hard for you to create even a single post, let alone hundreds of posts.
One of my good friends works for a hosting company and he sees every day new webmasters who create dozens of blogs at the same time or they create a one site but after a week they get bored and they make another blog in the different niche.
I have to admit that I am guilty of that, too.
Back in the day, I created a site around the subject of self development, but after about a month, I lost a patience after not receiving any traffic, so I started another website this time in another niche.
All these blogs eventually died but I learned a very valuable lesson from this mistake:
You have to focus on one blog at the time, keep on adding new content constantly and do not start another one, if you have not achieved any success with the first one.
But the good news is that you can always change yourself and become a more patient person. It is definitely doable if you really want to do that you will have to work hard on yourself.
Conclusion
If I come off in any way as a person that is against making blogs, then I am here to tell you that I think that blogging has made me a better person and it has completely changed my life.
Do you think I would have time and money required to travel around the world if I would still work a regular 9 to 5 job?
The answer is obvious.
In fact, after creating different blogs for a decade, I can not imagine my life without it.
I do think that blogging can be a very attractive source of income but I also do think that it is not for everyone like any other thing.
I can understand that you have seen some popular websites that are making millions of dollars and you might feel overexcited, but you need to know that:
Like with building any business, blogging also requires a lot of patience, hard work and passion with no immediate return to make it successful.
Do you have to be a pro?
Absolutely not but you have to be willing to learn new things, because otherwise, you are going to be left far behind.
You can start slow, you can turn your hobby into a very nice profit, if you put forth the great effort and strategies it requires you to succeed as a blogger.
I do make a quite lot of money online, well… definitely not a lot compared to people who are best of the best but I am able to travel around the world and make each post from the different country!
I am nothing special, really, so if I can do it, you can too!
If you have questions about whether you should start a blog or not, please post them in the comment section.