What you should take into account when building a blog

Building a blog can be an exciting thing. Many will start one thinking they can make it big enough to become independent in life at some point.

It’s certainly possible, and quite a few have done so. But the truth is that it’s an uphill battle, not just to generate traffic, but also to properly monetize it without alienating your users.

So, here are a few basic things about blogs you should know before you start your own:

1. There’s a lot of optimization involved

From the outside, it looks easy and comfortable. But blogging involves a huge amount of moving parts, and you have to learn each of these in order to properly make a living off it.

This takes time. A lot of it. Not just to learn how to master everything that goes into a website, but also how to implement it properly on YOUR blog.

Say you have two blogs in the same niche, with 30k traffic. Both choose to monetize using ads. However, Blog A learns to go beyond Google AdSense, and unto to the more premium ad publishers such as AdThrive or MediaVine, who happen to have a much higher RPM.

Not only that, but Blog A also optimizes their posts, layouts and format so that it serves more ads, but without making them obnoxious.

At the end of the month, Blog A is coasting at around 1,000 dollars, while Blog B, who didn’t put in the effort to learn more about optimization, will struggle to beat the 300-400 dollar mark.

2. It takes time

Building up a steady stream of users that come around constantly is a lot of work. You need to write the articles, optimize them, add graphics, and then promote each of them. But even that doesn’t guarantee success.

The way it works is that some articles are hits, while others are duds. It’s in the name of the game that you can’t have hits every time.

Experimentation also takes a lot of time. Finding out what works and what doesn’t is time consuming, especially when you have few visitors to properly test hypotheses, and find out the right design for your blog.

3. Some niches are much more profitable than others

Making a blog about electric toy cars is a lot more profitable than one that’s about psychology or relationships. Why? Because toy car blogs are much closer to the user’s intent. People who browse toy car blogs are obviously passionate about this niche, and are more open to make a purchase.

Not only that, but they’ll actually be looking for tips, tricks and reading reviews about new toy car products. This makes them a prime target for advertisers who seek to leverage their audience.

Psychology blogs can monetize in their own way, but it’s difficult to reach the same level of income per user as an electric toy car blog.

While it may be easier to acquire traffic, it won’t be quite as profitable.

Conclusion

Blogging, when done right and with great care, is a wonderful thing that can help people achieve a sort of financial independence. But it takes a lot of effort, and one should go into it with their eyes open.