When you work and work on your blog and only earn pennies and cents… it is easy to want to give up.
Perhaps the niche is not profitable, the keywords pay too low or it you are in an overcrowded niche.
I want you to consider this…. that eventually, your blog may not be your primary source of income. You may want to think of alternative ways that you can potentially make income indirectly from your blog.
The truth is that majority of people will not earn enough from their blog or YouTube channel to make it into a full time living because they are only paid pennies or cents for each click.
However, they would end up building an email list and eventually selling ebooks, courses, consultation, seminars, services and even other products that they developed.
Personally for me, I have been approached to help build websites or write content for company sites. This happens because they found out I am a blogger.
For example in this blog, it is primarily about blogging. Blogs about blogging is really saturated. Hence the revenue I earn from advertising is very little. If I have a blog solely on blogging, I am afraid it would not even cover hosting.
I have written about blogging since the initial days when I started blogging. I know I cannot compete with the popular bloggers out there. And even for them, it is tough because seriously, it is very very competitive. Bloggers that were famous when I first started have mostly dropped out of the radar.
Why kept me going? Because I love writing about blogging so much especially on things I have learnt along the way even though I knew from day 1 it would not pay well.
Now, I am a blogger from Malaysia, and have been blogging for more than 10 years. I have started blogs on other topics, made tweaks and write content- hence I know what needs to be done to drive traffic to one’s site. When I meet with friends who shared with me on the declining sales of their products or they have problem getting clients, I would first check on their web presence.
If they do not have a web presence, I would strongly suggest they create one especially if they are agents. Don’t rely on free hosting or a Facebook page. I would ask them to get someone to write in a style and manner that is similar with the persona that they are trying to showcase to their clients if they have no time to do it themselves or they are not well versed in writing.
They often look a little lost…. and then I would ask them to take a look at my blogs for some ideas. After that, they would ask if I could build a site for them and write some articles. They would pay for the service.
As for company sites, I would take a look at their site. Usually it would take me a few minutes to know at least a few basic tweaks they can do that can dramatically improve their business. This is through experience from blogging since I also run intranets in my full time job and I have to get my staff to use my site and gather their feedback.
I love to figure out these stuff and often would explain in very animated way to them. I would also ask them to take a look at my site if they don’t believe my credentials.
Some of them would then ask if they can outsource the task of upgrading their site and some content writing to me.
This is all from showing them my blogs and let my writing speaks for itself. My target audience is not someone from US or even from another country. But someone within the same area, and whom I also know (so that also know my character and my working quirks, hee hee) that we could meet if we need to sought out stuff that is hard to explain over the phone.
It is the same also for you- you may be writing in a niche that is oversaturated. You may dabble with affiliate but the traffic from the blog is too low to earn enough to cover your living expenses.
People trust you if they like your writing style and can sense honesty and sincerity. You may not realize but your humble blog is there not to earn a few dollars but to help boost your brand name and help you earn potentially a much higher income indirectly from it.
Don’t let that poor earnings get you down. Think outside the blog, get creative and find ways to use your blog as your personal branding. It is worth the effort, domain name and hosting fees that goes into it.