First-year blogging income what to really expect. How long is a piece of string? It's entirely up to you to get results by learning the rules
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Table of contents
- What are the rules of blogging for beginners
- First-year blogging income what to really expect if you get it right
- What is the best way to make money as a blogger
- What incomes are others making so you can compare
- Chasing advertising returns
- Does your income depend on the chosen Niche?
- Marketing high ticket items versus volume sales of lower value items
- Plan on production not on time
- Conclusion
What are the rules of blogging for beginners
- Know your target audience
- Understand the importance of Keywords
- Write content for readers
- Use your affiliate links properly
- Follow the Best SEO program
- Blog as many times as you can
First-year blogging income what to really expect if you get it right
If you Google this question you will see results ranging from a few dollars to over one million dollars. Where are you going to sit in the spectrum?
First of all, the number of blogs will determine where you sit.
One blog will never make it however a hundred or a thousand will give you a fighting chance.
Google does not like one-hit wonders. He wants to see that you have staying power. Then and only then will he/she move your work to the first page of a search term.
No one searches past the first page so to get there you must really understand Keywords
Your income will result from your page placement.
What is the best way to make money as a blogger
You make money by choosing just one way or all of them at one time.
Blogging has no limitations. It is open ended in what you can do and what you can earn.
a) Gain from Affiliate Incomes, more than one
B) Get referral income from others.
c) Sell your own stuff or that of others
d) Write product reviews and link to them all
e) Run advertising and get paid for clicks
Income can be a one off payments or recurring income paid every month. Perhaps a combination of both all on one page.
What you make and how quickly you get it done is up to you. However the volume of posts is important in building up your following.
What incomes are others making so you can compare
Very few people will divulge the income they get. They may not want to brag, maybe they are scared of the Tax man and they are often not believed.
A fiend of mine was challenged on his income. A person in a similar company posted on the internet that he was full oi it, could not possible make that sort of money, and he was sick of the lies being told.
A few days later he posted an apology but why?
My Friend fronted to his door step and had his bank slips in hand. He showed hard proof of his claims and infact a lot more. He demanded an apology and got it.
At Wealthy Afiliate there is an annual competition with a prize being an all expenses paid trip from anywhere in the world to a funded week in Las Vegas. They even throw in some gambling money.
The problem is that you must make 300 sales of the Wealthy Affiliate program over the 12 months period. Many of the same people make it every year with about 20 newcomers to make up the group. On month 12 with 300 sales on the board you would have a monthly return of about $8000 or close to a $100,000 a year income.
I know many that are regulars at the event, most in the top group at WA. I have witnessed them over several years and read their glowing reports of the week at Vegas. Think about a1000 subscribers signed to WA, that would suggest over $25,000 a month income from one affiliate channel. You are really talking a good income.
Chasing advertising returns
Companies pay to run advertising on your site. Everytime someone clicks on an advert you get paid. This can count up to a whole heap of dollars but there is a catch. You must have good traffic first. In fact in some cases at least a hundred thousand visitors a month.
Income generally returns about $28 a thousand so a soft $2800 a month for nothing. Remember many blogs are making 10 times this amount.
The problem lays in gathering anough monthly visitors. It is not done overnight
Does your income depend on the chosen Niche?
There are just so many niches it would be impossible to compare. However some will naturally have a lot more followers than the more obscure ideas.
This is not all bad because we look for a balance between traffic and competition.
The more popular the niche the greater the competition. Thus it is harder to rank your page.
Writing a cluster of articles around a common theme will provide a nice framework for internal linking. This will then gather more traffic for all your posts.
Tragic is equal to income so you are of to the races.
First-year blogging income what to really expect if you sell the wrong product.
Marketing high ticket items versus volume sales of lower value items
First of all this is a choice that should be made early in your planning.
In general terms you will sell less expensive toys than the cheap one. However the cheap ones can lead to higher sales so where is the answer.
It is easier to sell low cost products. So naturally sales will be greater but what of your margin.
My main income focus is on a Wealthy Affiliate program which includes Hosting and training.
They have a free trial, monthly subscriptions and annual payments. Guess which is the easy sale.
However a monthy plan that lasts the 12 months will pay me a lot more than the discounted annual premium. But some will back out after a month or two thus reducing my income.
Therfore a monthly premium is generally the winner then upgrade them to annual and get a double hit.
Selling books with a 5% margin will never earn enough to pay for the effort needed. Selling a Kindle at $200 for reading books is a lot more value and better margin. You need to sell about 30 books to equal one Kindle.
The answer to this lays in cash flow planning. Use a Google Excel sheet to plot your annual sales and work out a return. You can feasible sell a Kindle a month but 30 books would be pushing it. Be realistic and know what you are up against.
Income results from knowledge.
Plan on production not on time
If you start blogging and realise you need about 400 blogs to start the high traffic accelerations you will plan for that.
That many blogs may take four months if you are pumping out two a day, however, and realistically, it will be over a year before the target is met.
That is your first target and one of many going on from there. Beware of over committing yourself and facing early burn out. It is better to build your platform solidly than rush it with an inferior product. Finally concentrate on the end results and celebrate the many steps needed to get there. Thus you are not worrying about early failure.
You will succeed it is just a matter of when.
Conclusion
No one can forecast your income except you. There are so many variances that must be taken into account.
However doing a plan, being realistic and providing a long term estimate will give you a target.
You may or maynot hit it the first time but repeating what is working will reap rewards.
Blogging is a career so treat is as such and dream of the rewards that will come your way and set out to make them come true.
It is all up to you
First-year blogging income what to really expect by Peter Hanley
