Should you take blogging as your full time career?

www.ankursharan.blogspot.com 02/10/2011

Your future, your life and your family strongly depends upon the choices you make today, so re-think before choosing to take blogging as your full time career.

During the midst of the first decade of the 21st century folks started expressing themselves through their blogs and later on this phenomenon was coined as ‘Blogging’. In the year 2003 when Google launched its new product named ‘Adsense’ that helps the bloggers and webmasters to implemented text, and banner advertisements on their websites and blogs, the said folks who were previously blogging for the sake of expressing themselves in this juncture of democracy now started blogging for nothing but money.

Within no time, the blogosphere was over populated with thin blogs, black hat SEO technique, spammers and etc. Thousands of folks jumped into the Blogging Ocean to catch the delicious fishes arising out of Google adsense treasure caves. While catching fish, some webmasters and bloggers caught huge treasure boxes containing gold and diamond biscuits, and thus they came out of water becoming multi-millionaires, in fact some even became billionaires, but here the big questions is what happened to the rest?

We should not forget that, while throwing the net for catching the fish, there were some ill luck folks in the midst of ocean who were caught by the deathliest sharks and were engulfed therein. Thus, for some, the journey of blogging brought millions of dollars to their fortune and for some it brought pennies to pay their bills, but for the majority, it brought nothing, absolutely nothing.

Why you want to be a blogger ?

Ninety nine percent of bloggers, blog for money and the remaining 1 % either doesn’t know how to earn revenues from blogging or are banned from the special advertisement programs.

No, it’s not at all a taboo to do something for earning money, especially blogging, but as a matter of fact, the harsh reality is that at the end of the day, the majority of bloggers are living in poverty, throughout their life.

Some of the excuses that you give yourself (to your subconscious mind) to start blogging are listed below:

1. I want to become a millionaire, and I found no way to do I, but blogging.

2. Wow, it’s amazing how website like gawker and techchruch are earning huge, let me start building my own empire likewise.

3. I believe in positive thinking, I believe in myself, and I strongly believe that I can make the next Yahoo. Let me book a domain for my next website. Hope it works.

4. Well, if Darren Rowse from Problogger can do it, why can’t I.

5. I’m fed up with my present job; let me start a blog to release the venom of my frustration.

6. My boss is a pure bastar*, let me quit my job. Hey, I am jobless now; let me start earning through by blog.

7. I don’t want to work under anybody. I want to become the master of my own ship, let me start my blog tomorrow.

8. Hey, I heard from somebody that people are really making money from internet. Hey, let me give a try.

9. My girlfriend suc**, I am alone, betrayed and jobless nothing to do, let me start blogging. After I become, multimillionaire, I will shows off to her... Who am I?

10. Hey, my goodness! Stupid folks are earning with Google adsense, amazing. Let me have Google adsense first and then I will start my blog. (LOL)

11. This point, I think needs a big separate title. Read below.

11. Misdirection

Have you ever watched a magic show? One of the most powerful techniques used by the magicians is the techniques of misdirection. You fail to catch his secrets, not because the magician hands move faster than your eyes, but because he misdirects you, and in the background he completes his tricks intelligently.

Well, very similarly many bloggers (not all bloggers) misdirect their visitors by posting incorrect revenue reports. One of my very close friends, using this technique is now really attracting more than 50,000 visitors to his blog per day. This technique really works. Check it out.

For example,

2 years before. One of my friends X, a blogger having an Alexa rank of 32,000, posted on his blog that he earns $ 120,000 per year doing nothing but blogging, and revealed thereby than he makes 40 % of the revenue from Google adsense, 25 % from affiliate marketing, and the rest by selling his eBook.

But, the truth was something else, which he shared with me. Right, at that time; he was making only $ 8200 yearly from his blog. And he never sold a single piece of his eBook. Moreover, he himself submitted his eBook to various illegal and files sharing websites and later started posting articles against it, to get the sympathy of his visitors.

Anyhow, when his visitors learned that X makes $ 120,000 from his blog, they regarded X has their mentor.

1. All of a sudden his general visitors became royal visitors.

2. These royal visitors started reviewing his website free of cost.

3. The news that X earns $ 120,000 from his blog was all over the internet.

Soon, X’s blog was flooded with thousands of visitor, asking for tips, tricks and help. They started purchasing his eBook and within no time, all these organic traffic made him– X The legend.

At different point of time, at different places, thousands of followers like these innocent visitors, start their blog, all of a sudden hearing the news that someone, somewhere is making money. But they don’t have that much wisdom to understand the truth, nor do they have someone, who could tell them that they were just: Misdirected

Case study of your blogging career

Let's assume that an average guy like you and me named “A”, with little knowledge about the complexity of blogosphere started his blog with a dream to become the next internet millionaire. A is highly self-motivated, dedicated and have good knowledge on managing blogs. So let’s find out what are his chances of becoming a legend in his field.

A’s Successful Factors

A will achieve success, only if he has the below given abilities.

1. He should have good writing abilities.

2. He should have a little tech background.

3. He should have a bit of idea about domain, website and hosting.

4. He should write regularly without delay.

5. He should concentrate on writing quality articles.

6. He should be adaptable with changing technology.

7. The main purpose of his blog should not be merely to earn money but otherwise.

Content Planning and Pages View

A started writing 4 quality articles a day so in a year he posted some 1460 article to his blog. Let’s assume that for a single article he gets 10 pages view, so altogether his blog will receive 14600 page views per day within a year.

Here the big question is, in which year did A started his blog? If the year is 2004 – 2006, then A could earn a good ecpm in between $6 to $ 10. Yes, we have seen people in the year 2005, earning a six figure income ($100,000) yearly with just 20,000 pagesviews per day.

But if the blogging period for A is 2008 – 2010, then probably he couldn’t earn beyond 2 or 3 ecpm, thus his monthly earning will be somewhere between $20 to $ 30 depending on his niche. Ironically, we have seen bloggers even earning less than $ 5 with 14,600 page views per day.

Timelines

1st year - 14,600 pages view – $ 10 - $25 per day.

2st year - 29,200 pages view – $ 25 -$50 per day.

3st Year – 43,800 pages view - $ 50 – $80 per day

4th year – 58,400 pages view - $80- $150 per day.

5th year – 73,000 pages view - $150- $250 per day.

So as a matter of fact, for A it will cost 5 long years with full time dedication to earn an average of $ 200 per day.

Unavoidable Factors that may ruin your (A’s) success

Dropping of ecpm

In the year 2004 the average ecpm was $6 but now in 2011 the ecpm has dropped below $2. Now, if these stats are true, then my friends, bad days are coming. Well, if every year, the ecpm with drop like this then an average blogger will be earning even less than an average beggar in the year 2016.

Dropping value of money

Secondly, the value of the money is dropping day by day. For example, just five years ago, in India the average cost for 2000 square-feet of land was somewhere between $ 20,000 to $ 25,000, but now even 1000 square land costs more than $40000. Likewise, the cost of living, including everything has gone so high, that now even with $1000 per month, one can’t live comfortably.

Now, when all the commodity prices are rapidly increasing, the ecpm, hosting price, domain prices as well as prices of software’s are becoming cheaper and cheaper. So, in a scenario like this, I ponder, what would be the value of $200 per day in the year 2016?

So, at the end of the day, the poor blogger A remains poor forever. But by this time, A has lost his 5 fruitful years doing blogging and now at this age, neither he can get a good government job nor a private one.

Let’s continue reading about some other interesting unavoidable factors that can give a great hindrance to A’s success.

Change of niche

Let’ assume that the blogger A was blogging on tips, tricks and hacks on the niche “Wordpress”. Suddenly, one of the below mentioned event occurred:-

1. New version of the Content Management system was launched and the development process for the old version was closed.

2. The brand name of the product was changed.

3. The parent company developing Wordpress was suddenly closed due to unavoidable reasons.

4. Wordpress was acquired by a competitor and its development was closed thereby.

5. Another product was out, which was far better than “Wordpress” and thus gradually the demand for “Wordpress” decreased to level zero.

6. The big corporate blogging companies entered this niche and started blogging on the same topic hiring lots of talented writers, then within no time A’s blog will be lost somewhere in the darkness of blogosphere.

7. Many newbie’s, amateur and professional bloggers started concentrating on blogging on “Wordpress tips, tricks and hack” and thus the traffic was divide among all these blogs and A’s blog got only a share of few hundred visitors.

8. Due to a change in technology, people were more attracted towards new products other than “Wordpress”.

So, if all or any of the above events occurs, then A will suffer a great lose of contents, traffic and visitors. And if, things continue likewise, A will have no option other than crying on his own misfortune.

Change in Google algorithm

The success of any website depends 100 % on Google. Ya! I know that many of you will not agree with me. But certainly you can’t totally disagree. If by chance, due to change in Google’s algorithm your site is dropped by, then even God can’t help you. Any alter in the said algorithm; can put a big full stop to all your master plans, project plans, hard work and everything else.

“Your website or blog is connected with Google is the very same way as the leaves of a plant are connected with their roots.”

Search engine penalty

A is not God. All human beings are subjected to make mistakes and errors. And I guess bloggers and webmaster are human. Aren’t they? Well, the point here is to be noted that, if either knowing or unknowing A did something which was against Google’s webmaster guidelines then, at the stroke of a second, all the dreams of A will be ruined either temporarily or permanently.

Although, Google allows the webmaster to file a reinclusion request but certainly no one truly knows about when and how the penalty will be lifted from the affected sites.

Dead of Advertisers

Each and every website or blog that don’t have its own products entirely depends upon text, banner and in-text advertisements for earning its online revenue. Again, here Google has its own monopoly over providing advertisements to publishers.

A website or blog on blogging, SEO, web designing and Photoshop or in other words, to sum a website or blog on “Technology” may remain alive depending upon the revenue earned from BSA (Buy sell ads), but definitely many strong sites will certainly perish without taking the support of Google.

Change of the law of the county

This is almost a rare thing, but the law of country changes from time to time and from state to state. Sometimes the law of your country may change and that may kick out your business from the mainstream.

Conclusion

From the above factors, it can be concluded that although A is adequately talented and dedicated towards blogging, but still there are certain unavoidable factors that may eventually check his progress or even ruin his entire blogging career within minutes.

If you think blogging is an essay job, then my friends, wake up from this illusion, and face the harsh reality of blogospheres. Now rethink on the biggest question of this decade: - Should you take blogging as a full time career?

Should you take blogging as your full time career? :- Answered

The universally accepted answer to this mighty question is: - Think and take blogging as a full time career. My friend, just name me a single business or a single profession which is free from ups and downs, from risk and danger, from success and failure. Well, the most important point to consider is that life is itself uncertain, it is mysteriously mysterious. If right now, anything is absolutely certain, it’s nothing but 'Death'. Death is something that will eventually come to all of us one day… and everything else is just a big illusion.

Everything is this world is perfectly organized. Right from conception to a funeral, everything is organized by the unknown. So if you and I have a blog and we call ourselves bloggers, then certainly success and failure will be always with us, side by side.

In the coming years, some of us will be the next internet millionaires, some of us will get at least something from the internet that we will not regret upon and of course some of us will be caught by the wild sharks, as I said earlier, and will eventually die. But still, life must go on in the blogosphere…