Blogging is a TRAP! [But I’m glad I did it]
The good news is that once you start doing something, you will be more advanced and better than the ones who never started.
Like they say, you’ll miss 100% of all the shots you never took.
The bad news is that you look ahead of you too often…
Do you ever feel just great about your accomplishments – where you are, what you’ve done, how far you’ve come in life – only to realize that you’re still far behind someone else?
Blogging is a whole lot like this!
One minute you’re celebrating breaking 100 pageviews each day.
But the next thing you know, you get an email from a prominent blogger with their $50,000 monthly income report.
That takes all of the oxygen away, and suddenly, you’re ready to throw in the towel on your blog.
Well, the best advice I can give to someone who just started and don’t seem to see the end of the tunnel is:
“Don’t compare your humble beginning to someone else’s middle.”
Yes, before you make $1 million in revenue, you have to be in the middle, because blogging is not a sprint, it is more of a marathon…
The reality is that everyone, every blogger out there – even if they’re making $1 million each month – started at the same place that we all do: at zero. And it took them years to get to the $1 million mark.
It’s so easy to look and see these big bloggers and think that you could never be where they are, and then throw in the towel.
It’s a whole different thing to remember that at some point they were freaking out over that first Amazon affiliate commission of $0.02, too!
Don’t believe me?
Here is my very first “income report” (or “lack of an income… report”).
During my first 5 years in blogging, I did not make any money.
That’s true, not a scent went into my piggy bank!
I watched my 1st blog grow from one visitor a day (myself) to half a million visitors a month. Yet, I didn’t make any money (I’m not kidding), but I did learn quite a lot!
At that time, it was hard seeing how much time and energy I was putting into my blog and getting NOTHING in return.
But looking back on it now, if I hadn’t struggled and worked my tail off, then I don’t think I would have been where I am now.
The truth is that I thought my blog was a dog.
So, I started another one, completely different.
Because of my previous experience, I reached 400,000 visitors a month in less than a year, but I was still making NO MONEY.
How could that be?
Are you a quitter?
I knew the secret sauce to bring hundreds of thousands of visitors to my blog, but I had NO IDEA how to monetize them.
But I never through the towel…
My feeling was, “if they come, they will buy.”.
Looking back, I just realize how wrong I was.
I wondered what’s the secret sauce that bloggers who make hundreds of thousands of dollars each month have?
Was there something out there that makes them better than everyone else? Or more qualified? Or all-around more likely to succeed?
The successful bloggers have all of that, and they also have a system that they learned from someone else. Of course, you can try to learn by yourself through trials and errors. But do you know how many errors you’ll make that will set your clock back?
One of the best kept secrets is persistence.
As Colin Powell once said: “Success is the result of perfection, hard work, learning from failure, loyalty, and persistence.”
Yes, emphasis on PERSISTENCE…
If you quit because you aren’t making $10,000 in your first month, you will never know just how much you could grow with time.
Let’s take a look at Colin Powell though:
- Perfection: Don’t mistake activity with achievement
- Hard Work: The harder you practice, the luckier you get
- Failure: It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed
- Loyalty: Anyone can sell a product by dropping their prices, but that does not bring loyalty
Your secret recipe:
Mix all those ingredients, add a little bit of persistence and you are at the beginning of a long, rewarding journey.
Notice that I did not say that you have arrived…
If you are determined to make this blog of yours work, and I mean really work to make you money, then quitting isn’t an option.
Giving it your all, putting on those blinders to other people, focusing in on your work, and getting it done are what is going to change your world.
Take control of your own journey… and make it incredible!
The best way to make sure that you get where you need to go is to make smart investments of your time and money for your blog. There are plenty of places to spend money on the internet, but very few of them are really worth it.
That’s what I wanted to make sure to spell out for you just what you will need in order to make money from your blog.
Disclaimer: No matter what, this will take time. You will grow slowly at first and then you will start to see your work paying off as you grow and grow.
It isn’t always easy, but if you focus on the things that will help you to grow and earn, you can see the changes in your business.
Here are the Cliff Notes of what you should plan to get for your company as you grow (without breaking the bank!):
Starting your blog – Hosting is $2.95/month to start.
Elite Blog Academy – The only class that you should plan on taking and paying for this year. It’s not on sale yet, but get on the waitlist here! (I don’t know how much it will be, but it is an investment that I paid off within the first 2 months after buying it!)
Pinterest Strategy Master Plan – Learn a winning Pinterest schedule ($28)
Goal Setting Workbook – Set your goals for this new year really easily. (Freebie!)
The 12 Week Year – Get this book and get ready to start it next year! ($13)
Blog Structure Blueprint – Set up your blog so that you can make the most money from everything you do. (It’s free!)
Core Affiliate Strategy – Learn how to use affiliate launches to control your income
Boost Your Blogging Income – The easy ways to start making money from your blog very quickly! (Free!)
To help you get started on the right foot, I’ve made the 10 Steps to Start a Profitable Blog guide that will walk you through, step by step, how to get started with a profitable blog. It will help you get started while you wait for the Elite Blog Academy sale!
What can you do to earn money right now from your blog?
In December, Christmas and holiday posts are already taking over Pinterest! December is it the perfect time to start or promote a gift guide.
You make a gift guide by getting a bunch of Amazon affiliate links and images together in one post. Sure, it’s gonna take you a little bit of time, but a great gift guide and a great Pinterest image to go along with it can really boost your Amazon affiliate income in the next few months!
Some ideas to get you started:
- Top 10 [color] gifts for her
- Last minute hostess gifts
- Teacher gifts they want
- Gifts for the manly man
- Pampering gifts
- Mother-in-law gifts
- Gifts under $10 (or $20 or $100)
- Personalized gifts they’ll love
- Weird gifts they’ll actually use
- Bright/ Neutral/ White/ Colorful accents under $…
These are fun ideas to help get you started with gift guides this year! Seriously, get them out there and make sure to share them!!
What is your biggest blogging struggle right now? Hit reply at xavier@myadgency.com and tell me about it!
Of course, if you started as a DIY but suddenly realize nobody is an island, I can help you by doing some of it for you… Landing pages, shopping cart integration, copywriting, email marketing… So, keep my email handy (xavier@myadgency.com), you may need it one day.
