Your blog not making money seems to be more frustrating. Despite consistent efforts, it can be frustrating to see minimal or no income from your blog.
Starting a blog is a huge decision. Writing blog posts while shuttling with a full-time job and other day-to-day chores is no easy task.
Despite continuous efforts, it can be frustrating if your blog does not provide any returns.
Monetizing your blog is more difficult than starting a blog.
Failing to see returns from the blog after a year or more makes many bloggers quit a passionate venture.
It can be more painful to see your peer bloggers who started after you earn an income and you do not.
You may think, “Why can’t I monetize from my blog? What is it that my blogs lack?”
Whether you are a budding blogger or an experienced blogger, you must put consistent efforts to get organic views and engagement.
Sometimes, even after these efforts, you may think, “Why is my blog getting no views?”
Time and patience are a must to see results in the form of revenue from your blog. But before setting expectations of your monetary timeline, you must tick some checklists that will open your monetization channels.
Let us learn some of the challenges bloggers face when they try to make money blogging.
Also, we will analyze some monetization difficulties and how to overcome them.
Why Can’t I Monetize My Blog?
- You may have a clear goal and content calendar.
- You may have top-notch content.
But the problem starts when your blog not making money.
It lies in your blog not reaching the right audience. As a result, your blog does not get sufficient traffic.
Without enough views and audience engagement, your money-making dreams will never take off.
Audience engagement in the form of comments, feedback, sharing your blog posts, participating in your social media, etc., fetches views for your blog.
These views are crucial to proving your blogging authority, making search engines prioritize your content to reach the right audience.
How Hard is it to Make Money Blogging?
Monetary returns in blogging require patience and perseverance.
It is tough to wait for the first few months or a year when you keep giving blog content yet get no income.
Always remember that blogging isn’t just writing content and letting it find a way to reach the target audience.
To make money, you must leverage all possible metrics to promote and market your blog.
Understanding monetization metrics and following them throughout your blogging journey can be overwhelming.
Partnering with Ads platforms like Google AdSense is one of the easiest ways to earn revenues from blog views.
Affiliate marketing, promotional content, and paid partnerships are some ways to attract quality backlinks and revenue.
Initially, finding such opportunities to earn backlinks is very hard. Once you grab such opportunities, there is no turning back.
Why is My Blog Getting No Views?
Organic views come to your blog when they appear on the top 10 results of search queries on related topics.
Assess your blog quality for top ranking by going through the following checklist;
- Choose a blogging domain or niche that you have expertise in. If you don’t, learn the basics and figure out what innovative content you can offer.
- Your chosen domain must have a demand for new content among a large audience group. Stick to one common niche to avoid confusion among your readers.
- Research the topics you will cover for a year and plan content skeletons for each.
- Provide relevant, informative, and lengthy content to convince search engines and users that you are not a random opinion-spewing online writer.
- Promote your blog across social media channels and online communities with equal engagement and effort.
- Make sure your blogs are Search Engine Optimized (SEO) and have the right keywords, first-hand experiences, and other metrics of Google’s SEO algorithm.
Why My Blog Not Making Money [7 Reasons to Know]
Not adopting the right promotional and optimization strategies can keep your blog stagnant.
No matter how much you research and come up with new content, you must ensure your blog reaches those who need to read it.
Spend time researching your blogging niche and target keywords for blog topics.
As a parallel task, you must find and explore various monetization channels from blogging.
Let us explore some of the channels that may be hindering you from being able to make money from your blog.
Reason 1: Insufficient Traffic to Your Blog
You blog on a set of topics after finding that these topics have a high search volume and lack informative content.
You will expect that once you publish your blog posts, traffic will flock and read your blogs just like that.
This course of action is far from reality.
Unless you optimize your blogs for SEO, your blogs do not have a chance to reach organic viewers who query on search engines.
Search engines have various filters to look out for high-quality content and not just find matches of keywords in search queries.
If your blogs are relatively new, it will take time for the search engines to understand that you publish authorized content in your domain.
Nevertheless, you must put all SEO-friendly elements in your blog posts and wait for the magic to happen.
What Should I Do Now to Avoid My Blog Not Making Money?
- Optimize your blog posts by adding focus keywords at strategic locations,
- Provide sufficient internal links within your blog, and
- Write long-form quality content with first-hand experiences.
- Another great way to attract traffic is to find target groups on social media and promote your blog posts there.
- Facebook groups, YouTube channels, Instagram Reels, etc., are some great ways to make sure your content reaches those who want it.
You may encourage your followers to share your blogs in their social media feeds and subscribe to your content.
Such content marketing strategies are mandatory to set off making money from blogging.
Reason 2: Ineffective Monetization Strategies
There are many ways to monetize a blog and everyone wants to try all possible channels.
But this very idea of being a jack of all trades and master of none can lead you to not being able to make money blogging.
Here are a few common ways;
- Earning from Google AdSense,
- Direct advertising,
- Affiliating marketing, and
- Writing content for product sales.
Not all fit with your blogging goals and blogging niche.
If you are going to write content with the sole purpose of monetization, you can never fulfill your goals.
So, it is important to analyze what monetization strategy works for your blog. Find new ways to sell your content. Also, focus on one channel at a time.
There are so many stories of successful bloggers tarnishing their brand image after becoming an affiliate marketer for brands with bad reputations in the past.
- The key is to make money without letting your readers know you are actually making money! Sounds interesting?
Here are the Ways to Monetize Your Blog;
- Ads are the go-to channel for bloggers for money-making, followed by reviews and recommendations.
- Instead of directly recommending or advertising a product, explain how you use a product or service in a series of blog posts.
- The more engaging and original you publish your experiences, the higher the views and trust you earn.
Reason 3: Lack of Audience Engagement
Whether you have a single-digit audience or millions of subscribers, your zeal and enthusiasm in engaging and interacting with them should be consistent and motivational.
Engagement in the form of promotions, discussions, Q&A sessions, etc., help you understand the following;
- How much has the audience learned from your blog?
- What do they seek next from your blogs?
- Other ways or content forms they wish to see in your blogs.
- How many are your loyal subscribers?
- Feedback and suggestions from the audience.
Your blog may have passers-by and referral traffic coming to read your blog posts.
To make sure they return, your blog website must have sufficient Call-To-Action (CTA) prompts like subscriptions, newsletters, e-mail notifications, etc.
How to Increase Audience Engagement?
- Encourage your readers to comment under your blog posts if they find it useful, and let them rate your posts.
- Create a list of loyal subscribers from your organic followers for special updates and premium content. Such special treatments let your audience keep coming back for more.
I have already discussed this practice of keeping your blog content friendly.
The tone and word usage must be like having a first-hand conversation with a friend in need of advice (to make your content more engaging).
Reason 4: Failure to Diversify Income Streams
We came across some of the most common and traditional money-making channels in blogging. Still, if your blog not making money, it’s time to research for the reason.
As I said earlier, you must captivate your audience with your content without letting them know you are into making money.
To achieve this feat, you must first win their trust. Your experiences and expertise must convince them that your aid will benefit them.
Many non-technical, non-university vocational courses have surged thanks to experienced bloggers sharing their expertise with the world.
Courses on vegan baking, stock-market trading, makeup artistry, and many more are trending with no university backing.
Such paid courses and the resulting certifications help many establish their brand.
How I Diversify My Blog Revenue?
Take my blog as an example of this diversifying revenue from a blog.
- Many people read my blogs and then decide to come to me for 1-1 mentorship.
- A few readers take up my blogging course to help them figure out a blogging domain, and so on.
You may also provide premium content for loyal subscribers for a special fee.
Publishing an e-book or a handbook and selling it is another great monetization strategy.
Reason 5: Poorly Targeted Audience or Niche
We came across how blogging on a niche with minimal or no expertise does not fetch you sufficient views.
Similarly, blogging on a niche without an audience is a reason why your blog not making money.
I have already covered a topic on how to choose the right blogging niche.
Audiences prefer different niches depending on trends and time. However, organic search queries are very specific. Bloggers must target such query topics and analyze their demands.
Targeting a common yet broad query that does not satisfy specific audience requirements will never let your blog reach the top spot of search results.
It is because popular and established blogs and websites rank high for such queries, leaving your blog far below in search results.
To increase your SEO score and rank higher, you must target a quality group of audience looking for specific search queries.
How to Target the Audience?
- Using long-tail keywords in your blog can target a small yet significant group of organic viewers to improve your SEO.
Whatever blogging niche you choose, ensure that your niche has sufficient scope for providing content for the next two or three years.
Rest assured, you can also blog on several sub-domains within the same niche.
My blog, OnlineHomeIncome covers all possible ways in which you can earn income from home, like blogging, affiliate marketing, trading, vlogging, etc.
Reason 6: Neglecting Affiliate Marketing Opportunities
Displaying Google Ads in empty space in blogs is the most popular way to earn from blogging.
Almost every blogger starts their monetization journey with Google AdSense.
However, AdSense has certain limitations like;
- Lack of control over ads displayed.
- Irrelevant or offensive ads can make you lose organic followers.
- Takes a year or more to see significant monetary returns.
- Completely relies on Google’s policies, which can change over time and affect your earnings.
Depending on the kind of content you write, you can seek affiliate marketing and guest posting opportunities.
All you need is a sufficient number of followers prescribed by brands to qualify as an affiliate marketer.
How to Integrate Affiliate Marketing?
As a blogger, you must create convincing content and a CTA click to the merchant brand website.
For every redirection and purchase from their website, your blog will fetch a commission.
You can track how many clicks are made from your blog to the product page, thus letting you evaluate your earnings.
Warning:
Affiliate marketing is not just about reviewing trending products and services. It can be for promoting any new method, a way of living, or anything else.
For instance,
If you blog on gentle parenting, you can write about a child-friendly education blog run by a psychiatrist.
For every redirected click or consultation, you get to earn a commission.
Most popular portals, like Amazon, Flipkart, etc., have clear rules for becoming an affiliate marketer.
Some product and service brands offer similar marketing opportunities for budding writers on their official websites.
So, explore as many affiliate marketing options from top websites in your blogging niche.
Reason 7: Not Leveraging Sponsored Content or Partnerships
While your blogs shouldn’t make it seem obvious that you wish to earn with your content, it is a good choice to write sponsored content or have paid partnerships occasionally.
Partnering with popular brands and content creators in your domain fetches high-quality backlinks. These backlinks have a high chances of converting to your regular organic followers.
As we know, increased organic followers are key to improving your monetization goals through Ads or referrals. However, you must assess and review the brand or blog you partner with.
Paid partnerships and sponsored content fetch you a decent income for every blog post you write for your partners.
Simultaneously, their followers will come to your website and look at your other posts, click your Ads, etc., further contributing to your income.
How to Start Sponsored Content or Partnerships?
If you feel that your blog not making money, consider this multi-purpose money-making strategy through sponsored content.
Paid partnerships come with their own blog revenue challenges.
- First, you must partner with a trustworthy brand without a bad reputation.
- Negotiate your payment with brands in your domain and enter into the agreement.
- When all terms are met, start creating and publishing content on your blog.
Use your blog’s statistics depicting steady growth in your organic traffic and referral traffic to describe your content potential.
Finally, Why Does Your Blog Not Making Money?
Monetizing from your blog is a journey that requires patience, persistence, and strategic planning.
We came across some of the reasons why one may not be able to make money blogging.
No matter what stage you are in your blogging journey, you must put consistent efforts into looking for various monetization channels.
Explore traditional methods and unique strategies specific to your niche to make money.
If you are unaware of the prerequisites of making your blog friendly for monetization, I have a checklist on Why Bloggers Fail to Make Money Today.
Update your blog with the quality metrics that I have mentioned in this article, and then read the current article again to be in sync.
At many stages, one may feel that blogging was a wrong decision, especially when they do not see increasing views and monetary returns.
Go through my article on Why Blogging isn’t Working For You and review your decision.
Please feel free to contact me if your blog not making money and want me to handle in monetization journey.
