17 reasons why your blog Isn’t making money
In this post, you’re going to learn why your blog isn’t making money and what exactly you need to do to change this horrible status.
Starting a blog is an easy decision to make, but it can be heartbreaking if you don’t really have the power to stand on solid ground and fail.
You were excited to launch a business that you hoped would end up improving your financial situation and making you a free person who writes his articles sitting on his couch in his comfortable pajamas while the world outside is striving to make money and live.
A few months later, you discovered that you had roughly made some dollars, or worse, that you had wasted a lot of time working hard but that all your dreams were gone with the wind.
I know how killing this feeling is, but this is the most common fact among bloggers.
The harsh reality is that most bloggers give up at this point, but the good news is that it is possible to make money blogging if you understand your flaws, believe in yourself, and change your way of thinking.
We will begin analyzing the reasons why your blog isn’t making money and will assist you in resolving the issue. Every small change you make will have a positive impact on your business and will undoubtedly help you make more money.
Reasons why your blog is not making money
Now we are going to discuss why bloggers fail to make money blogging and how we can fix the related issues.
1. Not having a clear plan
It goes without saying that a business (whether online or offline) requires a plan to survive before it can be established. In this environment, where millions of bloggers compete to get a spot for their site, nothing is arbitrary.
Let’s say you are going to open a restaurant. First, you must prepare the venue. You will be ready once you have chosen a location, hired staff, created a menu listing, and made numerous advertisements before the opening. You cannot start this business without prior planning; otherwise, you will find no customers to come and visit you.
This is exactly what happens when you start a blog without planning. It is not a good plan when you start the first line of it thinking about how to make money.
Before money comes, you need to set up your business plan and follow the steps with patience in order to succeed.
A good blogging plan starts by asking: who is your expected audience? What kinds of posts are you going to write, how do you intend to make money, and what steps should you take to put this plan into action?
To sum up, do not start a blog without having a clear and detailed plan that, when followed, takes you a few steps towards achieving your goals.
Even if you started your blog without a plan a few months ago, it’s time to start over with a new plan because it’s better than publishing haphazardly and later regretting it. Allow some time to analyze the results and make any changes required, and you will be on the right track.
2. Not niching down enough
One of the deadliest mistakes that beginners make is starting with a broad niche.
This is somehow psychological.
They think that by doing this, they can attract more people to their blogs.
Unfortunately, blogging is not a suitable place to brag.
Choosing a sub-niche is the best way to start. It shows people that you are an expert in this particular field and that they will always find what they are looking for regarding the niche.
It also makes it easier for search engines to understand what your blog is about for better results.
This will make your blog a brand that people visit every time they need to learn something.
Your blog will also attract new visitors who will subscribe to your email list and join your regular audience.
Furthermore, your blog will be targeted by people, which leads to an increased bounce rate and decreased dwell time.
For instance, if you plan to write about digital marketing, narrow it down to a sub-niche, like making money online, affiliate marketing, or another sub-niche. Write as many valuable posts about it as you can, because this will make you an expert.
After building your audience, you can add another sub-niche and grow more and more.
3. You still don’t know your target audience
The most important thing that makes a successful blogger is knowing who he is addressing.
Knowing your target audience qualifies you as a specialist, someone who understands what to write to this specific group of people.
Your posts will not appeal to everyone in the market. That is why you should have a preconceived notion of the type of people you are capable of attracting.
Let’s take this example.
When I first started my business, I was thinking about how much I had to suffer in order to find answers, learn, and grow it. I wanted to pass this knowledge on to those who need help, as I once did.
So, I started targeting beginners to help them create their own websites and email lists. I also write mostly about blogging, in addition to offering numerous solutions to the problems they face due to my previous experience.
Every post is based on a real-life case study.
Learn about your target audience so you know what to publish and how to build this targeted audience around your blog.
This audience will be your loyal customer and bring money into your pockets.
4. You are using free blogging platforms
It is important to mention this again.
If you really want to build a real business and make money blogging, then you need to show some professionalism.
Think about this, what is the first thing that people use to visit your website? URL for sure.
Do you really want them to see scattered parameters and ugly signs and numbers in your URL?
Put yourself in their shoes, do you stay on a page where a “not secure” sign appears on top of it? or a strange domain name?
And last, how can you convince someone to buy from you if you have all the above issues?
Although reliable hosting and an SSL certificate are not always easily affordable for many bloggers, creating a profitable blog without them is pointless.
Read more>> How to start a blog that generates money?
Read more >> Hostinger web hosting, quality for an affordable price
5. You waste your time thinking you can do everything
The harsh reality is that while playing Superman in movies may be successful, doing it in blogs is not. Before you started blogging, I’m sure you felt you could write about whatever you wanted and that you knew everything.
Blogging is all about answering questions and finding solutions to those concerns. I understand how difficult this is for you, but you had nothing to do with it. because I’m sure you’ve heard about folks who make thousands of dollars a week blogging, and believed you were ready to compete with them.
But let me tell you that most of what they write or say is part of their marketing plan and that their exaggerated numbers are baits that hook you and others to their blogs.
Thinking that you can write about everything, and work on different money-making activities will leave your ideas scattered, confuse your readers, and show your unprofessionalism. This will prevent you from having the chance to gain authority as well as build awareness about your business.
Organize your ideas and write about something that makes your business stand out as a brand.
Although it is hard to stick to one subject and repeat yourself, this is the best way to start, and later on, you can easily choose another topic to add.
6. Too much content alone doesn’t make money
You may be asking why your blog isn’t making money despite having a lot of content published.
Well, the hard fact you should know is that blogging on its own doesn’t make money. There are many things that you put into your blog in addition to the posts that let you make money.
For example, if you have 100 posts on your site with no ads, affiliate links, or something to sell like online courses or e-books, or any other activity that makes people buy, then all of your posts are just tossed up on the wall.
Before you write too much content, you need to know how to use this content in order to monetize your blog.
It all depends on what money-making activity you choose to start with. For example, if you want to start selling courses, you need to grow your email list, and if you want to start with ads, you need to increase traffic to your site by studying and executing SEO tactics.
Remember, you should never post and then hope for money to come your way. Stick to your monetization strategy, start small, be patient, and add another monetization option.
7. You don’t have an email list
One of the first recommendations, when you start a blog is to build your email list as soon as possible.
Email marketing is one of the greatest channels you can use to make money. It is the place where you can build relationships, gain trust, and promote your products, whether they’re physical or digital.
This happens when you keep in touch with your list by sending your readers regular emails of all types to turn them into real readers. Real readers are people who read your site on a regular basis, comment, share, interact with you on social media, and purchase your goods and services.
8. Your email list is either too small or filled with the wrong people.
You may have started building your email list early, but you still don’t have a significant number of email addresses.
Unquestionably, one of the best things you can do for your blog is to grow your email list. This will keep the same readers coming back and bring in new readers every day.
If you haven’t already started developing your email list, consider it the first thing you should do after finishing this post. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on it at first. You can begin for free and then upgrade later.
To do so, I recommend using Get Response, which allows you to build email lists for free while also allowing you to develop your own pop-up to allow people to subscribe to your list. This free plan allows you to add 500 contacts before upgrading to a premium plan.
Create your first pop-up form to let people subscribe to your list, offer something like an e-book or course in exchange for their email addresses, and start promoting your posts and services.
Remember, you should always delete all non-active users in order to know exactly how your campaigns are performing among active users only.
9. Little content
Another reason your blog isn’t making money is that it’s still new and only has a few published posts. It’s always a good idea to stick to a weekly or monthly blogging schedule. You must be prepared with content ideas, topics to write about, and a publication schedule.
Most bloggers begin by publishing two to three posts per week in order to fill their blog with enough content to be accepted by a publisher or advertising company. If this applies to you, go back to your posts and work on optimizing them since it’s more probable that you overlooked a lot of crucial information.
Read more: How to optimize your blog (checklist)?
What is on-page optimization? The ultimate guide
How to do technical SEO? the full guide
Once more, optimize your published content again and keep adding new, valuable articles in accordance with the publishing schedule you’ve set in your blogging plan.
If you feel it is hard to add more content, check this post, or use AI writers to help you do that.
10. You spend much time on social media
Although social media platforms can help you promote your blog, they are also a time waster because they entice and drive you to spend all of your time responding to comments while pretending to run a successful business.
I am aware of how exciting it is to receive your first Facebook like or comment, but this is not how businesses are developed.
The same thing happens when you get your first upvote on Reddit. You’re so happy that you’re doing something good, but on the other hand, you end up wasting 2 or 3 hours of your time without making any meaningful progress on your blog.
This is not to say that social media is not useful; in fact, it is crucial to our blogs. However, we must understand that we must use social media to help us raise awareness and spread our work, rather than allowing it to use us.
Instead, concentrate on SEO to get consistent organic traffic that will grow daily and last longer.
11. Not getting enough traffic
When it comes to online business, traffic is everything. Without traffic, whatever you do is pointless because your business is dependent on it.
What is the value of something written that no one can find and read?
How can you sell your products if no one can see them?
How can you benefit from advertisements if nobody clicks on them?
These are the questions that you need to ask yourself.
Additionally, if your blog is not receiving any traffic, it is likely that it is not operating correctly, and you should find out why immediately.
Focus once more on expanding your audience by making your blog SEO-friendly, understanding how to generate organic traffic, and, if at all possible, running paid advertisements.
12. Not prioritizing SEO
SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of improving your blog’s ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). This will improve the number of visitors to your website and your chances of making more money.
There are numerous SEO-related tasks that need to be completed, starting with:
- On-page SEO: which entails optimizing your post so that search engines can crawl and index it
- Technical SEO, which entails resolving any issues that stop your blog from being indexed
- Off-page SEO, which entails obtaining backlinks and raising your domain authority.
Along with having quality content, these factors will help many of your posts rank on page 1, bringing in steady, long-term traffic that will come every day.
A lot of businesses are drawn to websites with high SEO traffic. Depending on your authority and the number of visitors, you will charge them for sponsored postings.
Additionally, it encourages guest posting, and the more visitors you have, the more money you can earn through advertisements.
So, as you can see, SEO is where you should start if you want to understand more about the tactics you must use.
Always prioritize SEO because, once you master it, you’ll start earning money from various sources and through various actions.
13. You don’t have the product to sell
One of the biggest mistakes that a blogger can make is not offering a product or a service to sell when he has enough traffic and a significant number of subscribers in his email list.
Remember that most of the people who regularly visit you or have subscribed to your email list are already your potential customers.
They love what you write and offer, and that’s why you should give them what they love to read, learn, and buy.
By neglecting this, you are risking not making money and giving your seat to another blogger.
If you are ready to start selling now, go and create something to put in front of your audience. It can be as simple as selling a short e-book on a topic they need to learn about, as well as an online course, training, and other services.
14. You’re not investing in your blog
Maybe it is somehow hard for beginners to afford tools that help them grow their businesses. They can barely afford to pay for hosting at the beginning (many use free platforms instead).
But to be successful and build a lucrative blog, you need to treat your blog as a real business, not a hobby, unless you want to keep asking, “Why my blog isn’t making money?”
First things first, you must not start a real business using free platforms. Then you need to have a nice, appealing theme that is simple, responsive, and direct.
There are many things that you can have for free, but investing some cash in your business will make you more money faster. I’m not asking you to break the bank, but having some tools is a great way to make your life easier.
You may invest in paraphrasing tools, proofreading, AI writers, SEO (these are the most expensive), and others depending on what weaknesses you need to cover and what gaps to close.
15. Not promoting enough
Your blog isn’t making money because you are not spending much time promoting it.
There is a rule in blogging called the 20/80 rule. This means that your writing time should be only 20% of your time, while your promotion time should be 80% of your time.
Newbies fail to apply this during their blogging time and end up with a lot of frustration, which leads many to change their businesses into other forms like freelancing, print on demand, or others to escape their responsibility of getting no revenue.
Promoting your posts is an everyday act. Social media and other platforms will not help you show your posts if you do not promote them consistently and in various ways.
You must know that your posts do not last more than a few hours because others will replace them. That’s why you should learn how to promote your posts and how to get free traffic.
Set aside 80% of your working hours for promoting and showing your posts to the public, and in a short period of time, you’ll notice how effective this method is and why your blog wasn’t making money
16. Not publishing consistently
One of the many reasons why your blog isn’t making money is that you are not sticking to a publishing schedule, or you don’t even include it in your plan.
Many bloggers work on their blogs in their spare time and fail to publish posts regularly. By doing this, they’re telling their audience that they have nothing new to offer.
People are unlikely to return to a blog if they find the same content or the most recent post written 10 days ago. They come to your site because they enjoy what you have to offer, but what if what you have to offer takes a month to publish?
They’ll never come again.
Be certain that you can post at least once a week. Pick the most productive time for writing, schedule it, and stick to it.
17. Giving up early
I know how frustrating and even heartbreaking it is to put in that much effort without getting a penny in return. Although blogging is not a risky or expensive business to operate, the time and effort invested without a return will break your heart.
Believe me, I went through all of this.
There were times I wished I had never dreamed.
You will feel demotivated and will hesitate before turning on your desktop. You will waste your time looking for other ways to make money, including black hat methods, and eventually, you’ll notice that a lot of time has passed meaninglessly.
To be honest, I don’t think anyone should have gone through this. But wait.
This is inevitable. Every blogger will have the same feeling, but not everyone will charge themselves to succeed.
Stop asking “why my blog isn’t making money? ” and start asking, “What can I do to change this?”
Sitting in the corner crying will not make you a hero, facing with patience and learning will do.
Final thought
There are a lot of reasons why your blog isn’t making money. Being proactive and Knowing how to find the issue is half the job while reacting quickly is the second half.
Your blog is your baby so set up the best plan to raise it and take huge care of it
Optimize it from inside and outside. Make it appealing and provide your readers with valuable content.
Choose a profitable niche, start building your email list and send regular emails to your audience.
Publish consistently and promote a lot.
Never give up; you can do it, just like all the other bloggers before you, so believe in yourself and be patient.
No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time. You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant
Warren Buffett
How about you?
What is the reason you feel that most blogs fail and don’t make money? Let me know in the comments below.
Until next time
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Most of my posts are based on real case studies. When I solve a problem of mine, I write about it, my reasons and my solutions