Blogging is a Business: Start Treating it Like One
It never ceases to amaze me how many people want to succeed at blogging.. yet they know virtually nothing about the business of blogging.
And, I am not talking about brand-new beginning bloggers who are still learning their way around WordPress.. learning about keywords, content, traffic, monetization and all the various parts of building a blog.
After all.. everyone has to start somewhere.. and beginners are expected to have questions.
But.. I am talking about people who have been blogging for six, eight, or even ten years and are still asking questions that reveal they have barely scratched the surface of the business they are hoping to succeed at.
At some point, this needs to be said…
Blogging is not about luck. Blogging is not simply “writing posts” and hoping some money will appear. Blogging is a Business! And, if you want business-level results, you are going to need business-level knowledge.
If someone were to apply to be the CEO of Apple Computers.. we would expect that person to have a comprehensive understanding of technology, products, innovation, operations, customers, marketing and the industry itself.
No one would take them seriously if when they applied for the poisition they said, “I really don’t know much about computers, but I am pretty sure I can just wing it.”
If someone has hopes of starting a brewing company.. the likes of Anheuser Busch and Coors.. we would expect them to know everything there is to know about the equipment, hops, yeast, fermentation, quality control, branding, distribution and what all it takes to make a beer worth buying.
No one would consider it reasonable for them to start a brewing company if they were to say, “I don’t really understand the whole brewing process.. but I started a beer company and I am not able to figure out why it isn’t working out the way I had planned.”
Yet in the blogging pofession.. people do this all the time!
- They attempt to start a blog with very minimal knowledge.. or even ZERO knowledge.
- They know nothing about SEO.. or how and where to use it correctly.
- They know absolutley nothing about keyword research or content creation.
- They have no idea how affiliate marketing works or how to get sponsored posts.
.In other words.. they have NO clue at all what they are doing.
Obviously.. they are not taking the business of blogging seriously. They are just muddling through with no plan and a total lack of organization. Then several years later.. they wonder why they are still not able to get the results they had been hoping to achieve.
The answer is NOT complicated!
You Do Not Need to Know Everything Before You Start:
Let me be clear. I am not saying you need to know everything before you begin.
Nobody starts as an expert. Every blogger who has achieved success was a beginner at some point. They had to make an investment of their time.. and most likely invest some money as well in learning all there is to learn.
There is nothing wrong with asking questions, making mistakes, taking courses, reading books, testing ideas, and growing over time. That is all part of the process.
The issue is not being clueless of the processes at the beginning.
The issue is still being clueless after several years of blogging.
There is a huge difference between a beginner who is actively learning and a blogger who has been online for years but still lacks knowledge of the basics of the business.
I recently had someone ask me what a permalink is. This person said she has been blogging for 4 years. Permalinks are something you need to understand and know how to use from the very beginning.
I cannot even imagine what kind of mess she has created for herself if she has been blogging for 4 years without understanding the importance of permalinks.. what they are and how to use them properly.
Anyone who intends to be a successful blogger needs to take the time to learn! They need to set things up properly from the beginning to avoid having to start over and re-do everything at some point down the road.
A successful blogger pays attention! They need to know exactly where to start and how to progress from there.. and they need to pay attention to what is working along the way.
Successful bloggers do not treat their blogs like a casual hobby and then expect it to provide the same rewards as a successful business.
Blogging Requires More Than Just Publishing New Posts:
There are nearly 1.5 billion blogs and/or websites online. A large percentage of those people have no clue what they are doing.. which is why their sites are not being found in the sea of a billion blogs.
One of the absolute biggest mistakes is in thinking that one can simply sit down, start writing about whatever comes to mind, publish it to your blog, and readers will magically show up and want to read what you have written.
This is not a business strategy. This is wishful thinking.. along with just plain ignorance.
A successful blog requires a content strategy. It requires understanding what people are searching for, what sort of problems they are trying to solve, what content already exists on the subject, and how your content can be better, clearer and more useful.
It requires understanding how search engines work. It requires understanding headlines, formatting, site structure, internal linking, user experience, affiliate placement, calls to action, branding, email marketing, and conversions.
It requires knowing which posts are bringing traffic, which posts are earning money, which posts need to be updated, and which posts need to be deleted because they are negatively affecting your blog authority.
If you do not know these things yet, that does not make you hopeless. But, it does mean you have some work to do.
And, if you have been blogging for years and still have not made the effort to learn.. then the problem may not be the algorithm, your niche, social media, the economy or “bad luck.”
The problem may be that you have not been taking your own business seriously enough.
