If you want to make a living from writing, I think you need to aim for 1,000 posts per year. This may seem like a lot, but if you think about it, how many good posts do you really read? Nowadays most blogs tend to be either passion projects or content mills. Pretty much no in between.
You need to get to the point where you’re pulling in 200k views per month.
This will pretty much only happen if you’re able to push out 1,000 posts. You might reach your income goal sooner, but you should aim for that rate. I’m basing this on my own traffic numbers. I’ve written almost 100 posts and am still struggling to break past 1,000 views per month. This is ok, because I’m going to monetize this blog with products. But it’s still quite rough.
Blogging is a long slog at the beginning. You receive very little attention for what you post at first, and you have to get over a certain “hump” before you can even have a hope of growing and audience. If you want to make a living just from writing… good luck my friend. You’re going to need to do the writing. Here’s why.
Writing has a cost
Unfortunately, the internet doesn’t allow people the opportunity to just put out articles and get 1,000,000 views. Google is a search engine, not a recommendation engine like TikTok. This means that all the writing you do has a cost. The only way to make up for that cost is by creating a large body of work that keeps paying you for years to come. So if an article is worth $30, and you want to make $30,000 in a year, you would want to publish 1,100 to 2,000 articles within that time frame. Thankfully, most articles are worth more than $30.
You can’t count on the major ad networks
The real money in blogging is made with a premium ad network. Premium ad networks have deals with companies that are big on display ads. As a result of their relationships, they’re able to get the right brands. Your income also hinges on those brands if you work with an ad network. If they don’t want to work with you, you’re out of luck, and might need to stick to normal networks like Adsense.
You need a different skillset
Written content isn’t necessarily valuable on its own. But it can be used to sell things. The products you sell with your writing are what will make you rich. This blog is about life coaching and personal development. The digital products I sell help people improve themselves. This is done through a combination of skills and life experience.
It’s possible to make money from just writing, but you’ll need a team
That team will also need to be skilled. When you’re blogging, you’re in competition with a lot of the best writers in the world, along with major conglomerates that want to run media outlets. You’re probably going to struggle to get over the hump if it’s just you. Having even one or two writers on your team can make a world of difference when you’re writing. You’ll go much farther much faster. But with ads only, making a living will be difficult. You basically need to become a 1-man media outlet if that’s your goal.
Blogging is a long, slow grind, and that’s pretty much true no matter how you go about it. But if you want to get paid *just* for online writing, it gets even harder. If you want to make big money as a solo blogger, you’ll probably need to tap into e-commerce and/or digital products. Keep this in mind as you make progress in your career.
Thanks for paying attention.
By Rising Current on .
Exported from Medium on November 8, 2024.
