Is Doing A Blog Worth it? The Answer Might Surprise You

Lots of people are blogging these days.

There’s hardly any topic on which you can’t at least find a handful of decent blogs out there.

But what does actually go into blogging (full-time) and does it really pay out in terms of money?

 

Is doing a blog worth it: Expectations

I do personally believe that most people drastically underestimate the time that is needed until your blog will finally generate some money.

You will later see that blogging can indeed be incredibly lucrative.

But one thing you will need to overcome as a blogger will most certainly be that at the beginning stages of your blogging journey (let’s say the first year), chances are that your income will be incredibly low, maybe even 0.

Blogging goes a long way and the first six months writing on a new blog, most blogs resemble a ghost town.

This especially holds true if you are counting on traffic from Google (which most people do).

It will take Google a long time to evaluate and rank your fresh content. Especially if your blog is all new.

It is very common that in the first 4-6 months of your blog, your traffic (from Google) will be close to 0.

And to be brutally honest, it’s all about traffic. Traffic simply means money in the bank.

That said, it becomes apparent that if we don’t get traffic, we don’t get money. It’s often as simple as that.

Also, not all traffic is money in the bank. You need to get traffic from the right places.

So, if part of your expectations would be that you would like to make some fast money, blogging is most certainly not gonna work you.

If your expectation would be that you would like to earn a decent (passive) salary in the long run, then blogging might be just what you are looking for.

Expectations in terms of money

 

Is doing a blog worth it financially?

Well, the short answer would be: It depends on your blog.

If you manage to run a successful blog, your earnings could be anywhere from a couple of hundred dollars up to like 50’000 dollars a month.

Sky is really the limit here.

The long answer is a bit more complex. Let me try to break this down for you.

First of all, we all have different expectations as far as what a good salary is.

But I guess we can all agree to that a salary of 10’000 dollars+ would be considered a pretty good salary almost anywhere.

And this kind of salary is definitely something that can be achieved while running a blog.

So from that standpoint, if you do believe that you do have the talent and the perseverance to become a successful blogger, then you should definitely go for it.

But, wait a minute. Is there any guarantee that I will be indeed successful with my blog?

Of course not. But another important aspect that goes into the question whether it is worth to run a blog or not is actually to ask yourself how risky is blogging actually?

Interesting question, indeed. Let us go down that alleyway for a second.

 

How risky is blogging (financially)?

There are obviously levels to the blogging game.

But let us just suppose here for a moment that blogging means that you run your first blog (just you, not a company blog or something like that) and you would like to know whether blogging is coming with a certain (financial) risk for you or not.

And as far as money is concerned, I am pretty positive that we can answer this question with a clear no.

The amount of money that you will need to invest to get your blog going (we are talking about the basics here, guys!), is incredibly low.

Ok, let’ us just calculate this real quick. To get things started, you will need a decent blog host, you will most probably need a domain (www.yoursite.com) and you might want to buy a nice-looking template for your website, so that you don’t need to start from scratch when building your website.

If you are short on cash, you could even just use a free (WordPress) theme to get things running and then later on adjust your design (buy a paid theme).

So how much is that going to cost you? Let me do the math real quick (I am horrible at math but I think I’ll be ok adding 3 numbers):

Hosting: You can get hosting as cheap as a few dollars per month. Especially if you are comitting for a year or two, the monthly fee for decent hosting will be incredibly cheap for a new website (blog). 5 dollars should do the trick here to start out.

Domain: As far as the domain name goes, it depends a little bit on the type of domain you would like to get. If you are going with a new .com domain, you might end up paying something like 10-20 bucks a year. If you are going for some country-specific domain, this could be a little bit more expensive, but everything over 50 dollars a year is very unlikely.

Template/Theme: Let’s say you are running your blog on WordPress, all you really need to do to make your website look pretty much amazing is to head over to a website like themeforest.com and get yourself a premium WordPress theme. These themes usually cost around 49 to 79 dollars. If you are working on some other CMS than WordPress, the price that you will pay for a nice theme will most likely be in about the same range.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is really about it as far as expenses go when when you first start blogging.

So, let us put these pieces together: 5 dollars +20 dollars + 79 dollars

And the magic number is…

104 dollars!

This is what it is going to cost you to really get going with your blog.

And as you surely have noticed, I went with 79 dollars and 20 dollars rather than with the minimum.

So, it will only cost you 104 dollars to get your blog going.

And that’s just frigging amazing, in my opinion.

And yes, there are lots of people who did not spent more than that in the beginning and made lots of cash out of it.

That said, I think it becomes pretty much obvious that blogging can be an absolutely great business model.

 

Is blogging worth your time: Final thoughts

If blogging is worth it or not, ultimately depends on what your personal goals are.

But as far as money goes, almost any number can be achieved, if you are indeed willing to put in the time and dedication that is necessary to create a successful blog these days.

And this could very well be thousands of hours of work.

The first year of blogging is most likely going to be very very tough in terms of earnings but if you can make it through that, chances are that you can make good money out of blogging.

As far as the monetization of your blog goes, there are many different options for you to explore.

My favorite way to earn money with blogs (websites in general), is through ads.

There are other great ways to earn money with your blog, though, such as through affiliate marketing, adding an online-shop to your blog or by selling your own digital info product (such as an ebook).

And what happens if my blog is not successful?

Well, then your blog is not successful. But chances are that you just spent about 100 dollars on your blog. Let that sink in: ONLY 100 dollars.

Is there any other business out there that can potentially earn you thousands of dollars every month that initially only costs you 100 dollars to begin with?

Not many, I would say!

 

Is blogging worth it: FAQ

 

Can I earn decent money with blogging in 2020 and beyond?

Absolutely. A blog can earn you anywhere between a couple hundred of dollars to multiple thousands months after month.

 

Do I need more than one blog to earn good money from blogging?

Not necessarily. There are many successful bloggers out there that just have one single platform (blog) and they earn good money with it. However, there are also lots of bloggers out there that have a portfolio of websites. If you do know what you are doing, it can make a lot of sense to start a second or third blog to further increase your blogging revenue, as much of the skills and knowledge that you’ll need to make your blog successful can indeed be transferred over to a second/third or even fourth blog (website).

 

Is starting a blog expensive?

Starting a blog is incredibly cheap these days. All you need to get things going is a domain (about 20 dollars a year), a server where your blog is hosted (will cost you about 5-10 dollars a month in your first year) and maybe some nice theme for your website (optional, will cost you about 49 to 79 dollars often paid as a one-time fee).

 

Is blogging easy?

Blogging is definitely not easy. But it’s also not terribly difficult. Many people don’t get into blogging because they think their writing is not good enough. Most of the time, this is not true, though. Many bloggers aren’t exceptional writers. The true core skills that you should have as a blogger are: self-discipline & perseverance. If you manage to publish content regularly over an extended period of time (let’s say 2 years), you have a realistic chance that your blog will take off sooner or later.