Yes, you can earn a lot with blogging but not in the way you think.
A lot of people think that they just find a topic that a lot of people are interested in.
They then build a blog around it and post content.
And pretty soon, all this money comes.
Best of all, you get paid month after month for work you did once a long time ago.
That's the awesome promise of digital passive income.
Think about that.
Unlike "normal" active where you have to show up somewhere, do the job, and then get paid (or else, you don't get paid again), passive income flips the script.
You work on something once but you get paid again and again when people find your content, click on ads, buy stuff, or do whatever else that makes you money.
Yes, you can make passive income with blogging but not in the way you think.
This is where a lot of people screw up because gone are the days of instant income with blogging.
I'm lucky enough to have started in this game at a time when instant income was possible.
I started around 2008 and I got to admit, the first few blogs that I produced were just garbage.
I didn't know what the hell people wanted so I talked about stuff that I was interested in.
That’s why they failed until I figured out the power of keywords.
I started creating content that actually has demand, and that's when I started making real money.
But Google has changed.
You can't do that anymore.
First, you got to wait because the Sandbox is real.
Depending on your niche, you may have to wait anywhere from 6 months in the best-case scenario to several years in the worst case.
On top of the wait, a lot of the ad networks out there are not as forgiving when it comes to niche specificity.
So, in many cases, you're settling for cents on the dollar.
Does this mean that blogging doesn't pay anymore?
No!
The precise opposite.
If you know what you're doing, blogging pays even better today.
Why?
Back in the day, it was easy to be lazy.
You just get on an ad network like AdSense, slap on the code, and it pretty much takes care of itself.
If you have enough blogs out there, each blog will be getting traffic passively, and there's enough aggregate and enough ad clicks for you to be comfortable at the end of every month because it's all about volume.
Well, today, thanks to Google's updates, there's less and less traffic.
But it doesn't necessarily translate to less and less money because if you are getting laser-targeted traffic and you are selling your own products, you can make way more money blogging today than at any previous point in time.
Why?
When you create your own products (and it can be ebooks, short reports, resource lists, or even courses and seminars), you are in control.
You control the sales page, you control the content, and you control the sales process.
This is way more than the control you get with a typical affiliate program product.
In fact, it doesn't even compare.
Because, for example, try to promote stuff off ClickBank, you are at the mercy of the sales competence of the people behind that product.
What if they can't sell even if their life is dependent on it?
Then, your chances of turning your traffic into cash pretty much go down the toilet.
If you want to make money with blogging, sell your own product.
Know your traffic.
Figure out their habits.
Get them on your list and use your list to do your selling for you.
Now, of course, this makes more sense in some niches than others.
But that's just the name of the game.
Still, when it comes to making the most money with the least amount of time and effort, selling your own products with your blogs is the way to go.