6 Reasons Your Blog is Still Struggling to Make Money

It’s been months and your blog posts have barely gotten any engagement. No one is signing up for your emails and now you are frustrated because you don’t know what the problem is. Believe me, all newbie business bloggers can identify and it is at this point when the weak are inclined to give up. But that’s not your style. You want to make this work because you know that this is your answer to personal freedom. This is your ticket out. So, what do you do now? You go back to your business plan and objectively review the process.

Did you allow enough time for Google to find you?

Remember, there is a lot of competition and if you are new, Google won’t even index your blog for months so maybe you just need to be patient, keep blogging and wait it out. In all seriousness, don’t expect to see much of a return for at least the first six months to a year.

Have you checked out what the competition is doing?

Find medium-level competitors within your space who are already at the level where you want to be. Use a website like BuzzSumo to reverse engineer your competitors' articles and find out which articles of theirs are doing the best. Find the keywords they are ranking for. Go to Google and type in those keywords and see if there are any lower-tier websites ranking for those keywords. If there are, you can rank for them too, but give some time for Google to find you. Just be sure to use these keywords in the titles of your blogs.

Are you trying to monetize your blog too early?

Blogs make money because they have an audience that sees ads, buys products, and other wise engages in things that bring in revenue. But if you are trying too hard to sell product when you first launch your blog, chances are, you will not attract a lot of interest and therefore, your audience will be nonexistent. Don’t let your ambition to make money cloud your presentation. This might also be the reason you are not getting repeat traffic. You need to build a reputation first in order to attract an audience. Give them a reason to trust you. Focus on dazzling the readers with great quality articles, provide information that is helpful, will answer their questions and get them interested so they want to come back for more. Pay attention to the quality of your work and hold it to the standards of your competition. Once you get an audience interested, then you are ready to monetize your blog.

Are you writing the right kind of articles?

Again, check out your competition and see what they are writing about and the style they are writing in. The wrong type of content will target the wrong audience, so don’t write about everything and anything. The more unique and informative articles you publish on your blog, the more readership you will attract. Make sure you design a campaign and strategy based on what your competition is doing. Also, it’s okay to do "unbranded" articles--that is articles without any ads sprinkled throughout but remember, brands know better than anyone else about their audiences so use their keywords.

Are you getting your name out there?

Join forums relating to what you are marketing and answer questions or post comments. Don’t forget to add your name and website. Find the influencers in your field and follow them. Make intelligent comments about their blogs and always reference your website. Guest posting on other blogs is also another great way to attract a following. Do content curation. Get your name out there where people can see it. And don’t forget you will need to upload articles daily or at least on alternate days if you want to see your blog grow. You should also consider doing SEO analysis, Social Media promotion and backlinking (for ranking in Google).

Are you marketing the right products?

You should be knowledgeable about the niche you are marketing in order to write articles that people will enjoy reading. If you are an Affiliate Marketer, your niche should have services or products that you can sell and that these are products people want or need. Your niche should include one high ticket product that you can affiliate with and this will primarily be what your blog will be known to advise on. You can also include other low or medium ticket products that your articles can revolve around.

A lot of bloggers don’t just struggle but many of them quit within the first year of starting their blog because they don’t do the hard analysis needed to keep going. The secret of being a successful blogger is: there is no secret. Success is more about your habits, your ability to analyze and course correct when needed, your mindset, your curiosity and your drive than it is about following a particular formula or identifying the next big thing. And if you use the right approach and think about how you add value then you will find that there is good money to be made if you are willing to keep at it.