Editor’s note: This article is contributed by Jedi (J-e-d-d-y) Nyachiro, an Internet based entrepreneur living in Canada and founder of ThemeTemplateReviews.com, a website that helps both entrepreneurs and small business owners find the right tools to put together successful websites. You can follow Jedi on Twitter.
Are you thinking about starting a blog right now or in the near future? Well, what’s taking you so long?Jokes aside, Its important to know your reasons for starting your own blog. There are millions of blogs out there, However just because there are lots of them, it doesn’t mean that each and every blog is doing well financially.
It’s common knowledge that you can make money blogging, however do not allow greed to overshadow your main purpose. Greed can ultimately lead to your site’s downfall if you are not careful.
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You’ll need to consider the skills you have that will help you be an asset to the online world of blogging. You don’t have to be a deep thinker, an amazing writer or a fountain of endless ideas.
The building blocks of any successful blog is to have useful and interesting content, and the ability to provide information and content that other people need and are looking for.
Recommended Reading: Popular But Bad Blogging Advice
Early beginnings
For whatever reasons you have for starting a blog, the motivation varies from person to person. In the beginning people started blogs mainly because the concept was still very new.
Competition was scarce and readers were hungry for materials, so it was easy to gather a fanbase fairly early in the game. Once blogging platforms became more accessible to the general public, just about anyone can get a blog up and running in minutes.
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The Rush Begins
All of a sudden everybody was writing and reading blogs, and online dairies start popping up. As the number of blogs keep rising, advertising agencies started coming in, asking for ad space in well-read blogs. More bloggers starting writing and more requests for ad space came rolling in.
In time, every square inch of the Internet real estate was covered with ads and banners.
Impacts of blogging for ads
Blogging suddenly became a great source of income and everyoen wanted in. This lead many things happening, include:
Cheating
This capitalistic view of the Internet led many people to do whatever it is they had to do in order to play the system and earn more money from ad revenue. This gave rise to the Black Hat SEO as many shady individuals started creating lots of blogs and placing identical content across blogs in order to attempt to attract more traffic and get more ad space.
Fake Meta-Tags
Lots of meta-tags became filled with popular search terms regardless of whether they were related to the blog’s content or not. Content became virtually unreadable and forced, as many people take to stuffing keywords into their blog posts, forgoing grammar, spelling, accurate and useful information.
Rise of Content Mills
To work a content mill is the practice of paying writers low fees to generate tons of content to push a blog site to the top of the search engine results. These articles are usually not high-quality and contains a lot of keywords to help push the rankings higher up. It would have worked if Google wasn’t paying attention.
Recommended Reading: Bloggers: 10 SEO Mistakes You Should Avoid
Policing the blogs
Google is the number one search engine in the world. To get on Google’s bad side is to ask for an eviction notice. Consider Google the landlord on the Internet. If you are always breaking house rules, drumming up a bad reputation for yourself, even if your landlord cannot evict you, they can use other ways to make your life harder, such as by increaing your rent when it comes the time to renew your lease.
Google does not have a grudge against individuals who have banner-riddled websites, or irrelevant meta tags. They are just looking out for the quality of their own product. High-ranking, low-quality websites undermine the effectiveness of Google as a search engine. It’s time to wrestle back some control.
Of Pandas and Penguins
A few tweaks of the Google algorithm, and with constant updates, once again everyone is able to gain access to useful information via the search engine. If your site makes money with shady practices such as buying links and duplicating content, Google will make sure you do not turn up anywhere. If however your contents are useful and are worth reading, Google has every reason to push up the rankings.
for a quick Buck
If you’re starting a blog for the sole purpose of making money, then you should take a step back and re-evaluate your priorities because blogs don’t automatically generate you a nice income. It requires a lot of hard work, time and effort. Compared one-for-one with a 9-to-5 job, managing a blog would give you slower and lower returns.
Check Out: 20 Reasons To Say “No” To Freelancing
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And that’s when you may start blogging for ads instead of blogging for your passion, or enlist the help of black hat SEO and other shady techniquest, or worst still, quit! Truth be told, if you want a six-figure income, working from the comforts of home, you’re better off buying a lottery ticket.
This May Help: Beginner’s Guide To SEO: Best Practices (Part 1)
Conclusion
You need a lot of patience and resilience to avoid turning over to the dark side and losing out to your greed. Provide something of value, build a loyal readership base and your blog will grow. When that happens, the money will come.
Bloggers: Blogging For Need vs. For Greed
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