3 Reasons Why Your Blog Doesn’t Make any Money

This is a part of the “Getting Started with Blog Advertising” blog series.

The simply truth is that most blogs and bloggers won’t make any money from their blogging efforts. For most people this isn’t a problem but it is a earth-shattering problem if the blogger has high hopes of earning millions for their efforts.

The biggest challenge is the fact that 9 out of 10 blogs are not created in such a way that makes it easy to monetise simply because of one element: Content.

I know that all blogs have content, but not all blogs have content that is both marketable and targeted for advertising let alone the high volume of traffic

So how do we “fix” that problem? How can we make our blog more marketable?

Here are a few things to consider:


Focused and Obvious Content Attracts Advertisers

Does this scenario sound familiar?

I’ve been blogging for years and my traffic is increasing year after year but still I can’t seem to sell a single advertisement or make any money from my AdSense. What am I doing wrong?

If you look at some blogs and the content that is being published the problem is quite obvious: Lack of focus. They blog one day about how their cat did the cutest thing, the next day about the new phone they about on sale. The next post is a YouTube video that they randomly found when searching for hairstyles for their toddler. This image has nothing to do with the content around it.

The content is everywhere (and nowhere). This is not necessarily a problem because blogger have freedom to blog about anything and everything they want to! But, the problem occurs when they are trying to pay for their blog hosting with a few advertisements and nothing is working.

The truth is, the more focused your content is and the more obvious your focus, the more attractive your blog will be for advertisers and potential sponsors.

Although this might be an obvious statement for many of us, the fact is that many bloggers are struggling with this very issue. Here are a couple of things you can do to make your blog more attractive to advertisers:

1. Focus your content. Decide what you topic/s you want to talk about and Blog more consistently about those things.

2. Let your categories drive your content. Make your categories obvious to the readers and advertisers.

3. Stay focused, cut out the randomness of your posts. If you must blog about random stuff create a second blog discuss those types of posts.

4. Blog more consistently. Now this does not mean blog more, it just means be more consistent and systematic. Get a schedule! Oh boy this took me a heck of a long time to get on board with, but it works.

The more you can follow this strategy the more opportunity you have for making money because you will become a much more attractive prospect for advertisers.

 
Build a Better, Stronger, and More Obvious Blogging Brand

Bring on the brand!

This is such a simple thing, but people seem a bit embarrassed that they didn’t think of it before.

The fact is that your readers, especially new readers and potential readers, have a limited attention span and you’ve got one shot at a first impression. You must exploit this one and only opportunity to be obvious about who you are and what you’re about. There is no guarantee that they will click on your ‘About Me’ page, regardless of how amazing it might be!

How do we take advantage of this one and only opportunity? Here are things you need to consider:

1. Be Obvious

Be as obvious as you can about your brand and the content that you’re creating.  Your logo, copy, and even design should communicate effectively and quickly what your new reader can expect without requiring them to actually click on that ‘About’ page!

 2. Don’t Use Your Name and Other Cautions

 This is a highly debatable subject. I would seriously reconsider using your name as your blog name and URL.

The reason I don’t use DawnWoods.com as a blog is because it describes nothing to anyone and requires explanation to be of any value. It is not obvious.

Unless you’re already well-established as a personality, such as Victoria Beckham, your name is simply not a strong “brand”. Of course there are those few occasions when some people have made it work and they really are the exception to the rule, so why limit yourself, especially if your a new blogger?

Another no-no are long and hard to spell (or say) domain names. If you’re too creative people might just not visit you because it takes too long to type out your blog name without misspelling it wrong every time.


3. Too Many (Random) Advertisements Already

There is power in limiting the amount of advertising space available on your blog – we call this the power of exclusivity. It’s not exclusive when everyone is.

Businesses want a high ROI (Return on Investment) for their ads on your blog and any competing advertisement/affiliate ad lowers their potential earning power. A blog with 20 spots all of them filled, is not a very attractive deal and they’ll most likely pass on your blog..

If the blog has a mixed-mash of advertisements (different types of advertisements with many different products, services, etc.) a marketer will interpret this as the blogger doesn’t actually have an established brand and conversion rate will be low

If the advertiser sees too many ads at rock-bottom prices they will know that both the conversion rates are poor and that the blogger is desperate. These spots are not exclusive and will not produce a high ROI.



So Now What?

Now that you have an idea of why your blog doesn’t actually make any money we can begin working towards making some. The next step is to discuss how to begin advertising strategically for your blog.

We’ll discuss this in the next part of the “Getting Started with Blog Advertising” series coming soon!

This is a part of the “Getting Started with Blog Advertising” blog series.

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