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Is blogging a good business idea?

Idea threads

CashflowXplorer

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Hi everyone!

I would like to know if starting a blog is a good way to make money? If yes, what are the best ways to make money with a blog?

Here are a few of the subjects I am an expert in or know a lot about. Is there any I should focus on?

- Nature and wildlife
- Earth sciences (volcanoes, glaciers, geology ...)
- How to create a wildlife friendly garden for birds, bees and butterflies
- How to cope with depression
- Public speaking for small and larger groups. Preparing a talk idea ...
- Writing (french and english)
- Minimalism, digital minimalism and improving your analog life

Thanks for your help!
 
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Knugs

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I dont know if anybody can answer that question since you are asking an extremely vague question.

For example:"is selling cars a good way to make money?"

Back in the blogging days it was certainly easier to rank up in SEO and get viewers. All you had to do is write articles on your website, get affiliate links or sell products/services. With time a lot of niche subjects have been saturated by bloggers and especially by companies which have realised the value of blogging.

The entire concept of Instagram relies on blogging/vlogging. Youtube, Twitter, Tiktok, Snapchat, Facebook etc. are businesses that focused on that market segment too. You can sort of say that a blogger has evolved into an influencer. You will find that the most succesfull influencers are on all social media platforms.

Then on the other hand, TFL is all about finding that gap and doing things better. For example James Jani from this Forum cracked the Youtube algorithm and has had explosive growth since. Considering all these platforms, can you do the same?

Sure it can be a good way to make money but it will demand a lot of time and effort from you until you get reasonably well compensated for your time. And you might never reach any compensation because you could be unsuccesful in your attempt. Chances of dissapointment are quite high.

Then again on the other hand being succesful in this space is extremely lucrative. I personally would still choose selling cars, because I would see immediate fruition from my effort.
 

alexkuzmov

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Hi everyone!

I would like to know if starting a blog is a good way to make money? If yes, what are the best ways to make money with a blog?

Here are a few of the subjects I am an expert in or know a lot about. Is there any I should focus on?

- Nature and wildlife
- Earth sciences (volcanoes, glaciers, geology ...)
- How to create a wildlife friendly garden for birds, bees and butterflies
- How to cope with depression
- Public speaking for small and larger groups. Preparing a talk idea ...
- Writing (french and english)
- Minimalism, digital minimalism and improving your analog life

Thanks for your help!
The book Unscripted contains the answers to your questions.
 

Johnny boy

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Is playing baseball a good business idea.

Maybe, if you are in the top 0.001%. Otherwise it will suck if your goal is to make money.

To be a successful blogger, you will have to be absolutely amazing at it to have any chance of success.

To make much more money in other areas of business, you only have to be decent to have the same level of success.

Why make it hard on yourself?
 
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alexkuzmov

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Why make it hard on yourself?
I kind of disagree with this a little bit.
"Hard" is kind of subjective. Whats hard for some is easy for others.

I think that OP is just money chasing, dont think he`ll actually start a blog, hard or easy.
 
D

Deleted78083

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Depends.

If you write articles like "how to make 10 million dollars in 2 days without going through any hardships whatsoever (step-by-step guide)" and the knowledge you give actually works, then you'll probably be successful.

Now, I have to say two things.

1. The question is not "iS iT a GoOd WaY tO mAkE mOnEy" but "can I give value through blogging"?

2. I asked the same question some weeks ago on this very forum and was happy to learn that a blog is not an end in itself, but a vehicle to acquire customers for a real product.

Here's the thread: My first blog bombed. Should I start a second one?


Good luck
 

MTF

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Is playing baseball a good business idea.

Maybe, if you are in the top 0.001%. Otherwise it will suck if your goal is to make money.

To be a successful blogger, you will have to be absolutely amazing at it to have any chance of success.

To make much more money in other areas of business, you only have to be decent to have the same level of success.

Why make it hard on yourself?

This 100%.

There are certain industries that are so competitive that it makes very little sense to enter them unless you're 100% sure you belong to the elite (and even when you're 100% sure, you're probably wrong lol).
 
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Matt Sun

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Marketing is key. To be that 0.001% Johnny Boy and MTF talk about, one aproach is to start your own unique category, and be the best. Ej something like "Stoic Vegan". Are there vegan blogs ? Many, Are there stoic, yeah, some. But the combination, doesn't exist. And then you add crypto currency to the mix, and songs that you compose on the electric guitar on Ableton Live about crypto, lol. It could be anything. It's just your own category where you are the best.
Though uniqueness is the marketing strategy, providing value and solving problems is the north.
 

boschmktg

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Hi everyone!

I would like to know if starting a blog is a good way to make money? If yes, what are the best ways to make money with a blog?

Here are a few of the subjects I am an expert in or know a lot about. Is there any I should focus on?

- Nature and wildlife
- Earth sciences (volcanoes, glaciers, geology ...)
- How to create a wildlife friendly garden for birds, bees and butterflies
- How to cope with depression
- Public speaking for small and larger groups. Preparing a talk idea ...
- Writing (french and english)
- Minimalism, digital minimalism and improving your analog life

Thanks for your help!

I would say yes, there is money to be made from blogging but not purely blogging. Affiliate commissions, boring top 10 lists, generic boring product blogs, that type of stuff is so saturated and overdone it will be hard to go at it this way.

If you are passionate about something it has never been easier to start a niche BRAND around a topic. Look at it from a more holistic approach than simply a blog. Yes, posting long-form content is the backbone of this type of model but write about cool and interesting things that people actually want to read. Come from a place of education and authenticity.

Drive traffic and a real organic following from a passionate group of people interested in a topic and willing to spend money. Looking for quality not quantity but you will want to scale it to considerable numbers.

Keep control of your asset, assign ad space yourself, reach out to smaller boutique brands or businesses in your space and pitch them ad space to an engaged, loyal following. Trust me, there are plenty of brands out there looking to advertise to this.

Think micro-influencer but the influencer is your site.

Develop cool t-shirts or some sort of product to sell to your followers.

If you do this right you will print money but you have to be providing valuable and engaging content to readers/followers.
 

neelamtewar

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Hey ya! :)

I'd say - pick one that you are excited about and start writing. You can become a contributor to many online magazines that'll pay you to write for them.

In short: yes, there is a future and it depends on how long you'll stay in the game till it monetizes which comes from building social proof, relationships with media houses among many others.

Good luck and hope this might have a helped some, cheers!
N
 
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trylks

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Does not seem a hard question. Let's see how good is blogging with the CENTS:
  • Control: choose a self-hosted option; or mail-list, keeping the addresses to which you are writing. Fair enough control, I would say, as long as you don't upset the internet cancel culture mobs. Audience-based business models have that problem, normally each individual member of the audience creates less revenue than customers in other business models, so you need a larger audience, and your audience has more control over you than your customers would have.
  • Entry: are you a world-class expert on any of those things? Are you going to offer a unique selling proposition fixing something that sucks with SUCS? I would say that's unlikely, but more importantly, N.
  • Need: do people need any of those things? Have you found anyone disappointed or complaining by the lack of options in any of those topics? Are you aware of people needing it? The kind of people that would find it and enjoy it, if you wrote it. How much impact would the blog have on them? If it is high, you may have subscriptions, if it is low you may rely on advertising, which would require a much larger audience.
  • Time: How much time are you going to put on it? I would say you can have a decent weekly blog with a 4-hour work week, assuming you are already an expert on the topic. This is good, because by the rest of the points, you are most likely not going to get a huge profit from it, or any, possibly.
  • Scale: I covered this in the need point, a blog scales, but the market size may be relatively small, and hard to reach.
Another thing that is not covered is the possibility of someone plagiarizing your content. If the content is for marketing or building an audience, this may be in fact helpful, even flattering. If the content is part of a business model, you may lose revenue, and not be amused.

Related: Books, productocracy, and the creator economy

TBH: I do not like content as part of a business model.
 

KushShah9492

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I have started writing some articles right now, and in all fairness, I must tell you that if you're writing a blog(or starting any kind of business) the goal shouldn't be to make money, but to provide value. There are a number of ways in which your blog can turn into a money making machine, but to get to that point would take a lot of time and countless hours of work you have to put in. You should know that when you're publishing articles on your blog, absoloutely NOBODY would be reading those. If you focus on the quality of your articles, rather than the outcome, no one can stop your blog from ranking on google.
 

swerving2sucess

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Hi everyone!

I would like to know if starting a blog is a good way to make money? If yes, what are the best ways to make money with a blog?

Here are a few of the subjects I am an expert in or know a lot about. Is there any I should focus on?

- Nature and wildlife
- Earth sciences (volcanoes, glaciers, geology ...)
- How to create a wildlife friendly garden for birds, bees and butterflies
- How to cope with depression
- Public speaking for small and larger groups. Preparing a talk idea ...
- Writing (french and english)
- Minimalism, digital minimalism and improving your analog life

Thanks for your help!
It depends on whether you’re looking to get some money as soon as possible or not. After all, in order to get some money with your own blog, the name of the game is patience.
 
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CashflowXplorer

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Hi everyone! Thanks for your help.

I know that blogging is a long-term project. If I start one, I will need to focus on providing value. I am an expert in a very niche market. There are almost nobody in this niche yet, especially where I live.

My first goal is to be recognized as an expert in my niche. This would, hopefully, help me find another job. So what I need to do right now is create a new category and be the niche brand like some of you have said.

I would like to post one blog post a week and I don't want to be on social media. I hate social media and I consider it a waste of time. I prefer to focus exclusively on creating great new content by providing value.

My second goal is to make some money from my blog. Not a lot, but just some money.
 

Ywan

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Is playing baseball a good business idea.

Maybe, if you are in the top 0.001%. Otherwise it will suck if your goal is to make money.

To be a successful blogger, you will have to be absolutely amazing at it to have any chance of success.

To make much more money in other areas of business, you only have to be decent to have the same level of success.

Why make it hard on yourself?

Makes sense to not make it hard on yourself.

What areas of business do you have in mind, where you only have to be decent/that are not that competitive?
 

StrikingViper69

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It can work as a strategy for a business, if that field is not saturated.

It's probably hard to do as the "personal branding".

Neil Patel has some great free resources if it's something you want to look into.
 
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