It’s true. A while ago I was paid R2300 for writing seven words. How did I get it right? There is a long and a short answer. From what I’ve experienced people generally want the short answer whenever it comes to making money. And I’ve discovered that is probably one of biggest barriers to being successful.
Because when people want the short answer they are essentially saying “I don’t care about the backstory, the foundation, just tell me how you made that money”. I’ll expound on why that is such a major problem, but first I’ll give the short answer that so many crave:
Blogging.
Yes, blogging. That’s how I was paid R2300 for writing seven words. And it wasn’t a once-off either. I’ve been paid similar amounts for minimal effort quite a few times.
So why do I say it’s such a big problem to skip the backstory?
Because when people read about how “easy” it is make some money by blogging, they get all excited and rush off and set up a free blog, type four or five “journal entries” and then sit back and wait for the money to pour in. Soon they realize that no one is reading their blog, no one is offering them big money for their writing, and the despondency sets in. They abandon their blog on the steadily growing pile of hundreds of thousands of abandoned sites in the blogosphere.
How do you become successful at blogging?
There are a few key elements:
Firstly, find a mentor, someone who has done it already, somebody who has built a blog with at least 70 quality articles. And by “articles” I don’t mean one-paragraph thoughts, or their favourite quotes from celebrities. Articles are uniquely written pieces of at least 350 words.
Secondly, be consistent. There will most definitely be times when you want to give it up, especially if you are expecting to see instant results. But, like building any business, you’ll need to realise you will have to spend some time building the asset without necessarily seeing any financial results for the first few months.
Thirdly, don’t be lazy and try shortcut the process. Blogging is about time and effort. There are absolutely many ways to fast track your blogging success, you can buy better themes and plugins (they are not necessary though), go on courses etc, but there is no substitute for putting in the time and effort (unless you outsource and pay someone else to do it all).
I have often been asked “is blogging hard work?” and the answer is “it’s all relative”. Is building a house hard work? Is data capturing hard work? Is any job hard work?
Blogging is difficult in the sense that you will have to do some part-time work for a few months without getting paid much. But it’s more than worth it because you can work from home (or anywhere) whenever you want. It’s your hours. It’s your vision. You are your own boss, and you determine your income.
So do I have a point to make in all of this?
YES.
I recently started a free coaching program where I wanted to coach people who were interested in blogging, either starting one from scratch or who already had a blog, but were battling to find any success with it.
And what I found was quite disappointing. A few people tried to shortcut the process, and many expected a complete handout in that they thought I would do everything for them. Make no mistake, in the course I show everyone exactly step by step everything they need to do, but I’m not going to personally go and create each individual blog for them and develop their content.
And while I am on that topic let me quickly mention freely hosted blogs, such as blogspot and wordpress.com: these are not bad if you want to first practice the whole “blogging thing” – but you ARE NOT going to build a profitable blog with a free a blog site. It doesn’t work, search engines don’t like them, advertisers hate them, so you are never going to make any decent money from having a blog such as rorywilson.blogspot.com You need to get your own site hosted (link enjoylife.co.za), and I show you exactly how in my program. (Note: if you already have a free blog that you’ve been using I’ll show you how to keep all your articles and transfer them to your new blog)
When I was starting out I would have LOVED to have found a course like this; one that took me from the start and showed me exactly how to build the strong foundation, and ultimately create a profitable asset that enabled me to work from home. Of course there were always a few courses going, but they all cost thousands of rands! And people paid that money because they knew the value in it.
And if I had found a free course (like the one I am running) I would have jumped all over it and invested all my time and effort into taking the course seriously and learning as much as I could have from someone who had already walked the road that I was setting out on.
Along the way I have spent thousands on rands on various courses, and although it was tough to initially fork out that money I don’t regret it because those courses enabled me to more than make the cash back, along with a healthy profit. Blogging works, but only if you do it properly.
In the Coaching Program that I offer, not only is it free to join, but I actually pay my students money every time they complete a level in the program.
If you are interested in learning how to properly build a profitable blog, and get paid to do it, then feel free to sign up for my free Coaching Program here.
Non-South Africans can sign up for free here.
Oh, and just to tell you exactly how I made that R2300… I wrote an article and a certain company liked the article. They asked me if I could include a sentence at the bottom of the article that would advertise their service. I typed a seven-word sentence and they paid me R2300. Nice. And I’ll show you exactly how to do it in my free course.
If you feel you have nothing to blog about, trust me, you do! Everybody has some area in which they are passionate or knowledgeable. Other people are looking for your opinions and insights – let them access it through your new blog!
