Why Some Blogs Just Can’t Make Money

There is a huge missing ingredient to blogs that make money versus those that don’t. Well, it isn’t missing, really. It is just that most beginner bloggers who have dreams of making money don’t put enough thought into it. It is actually really, REALLY simple.

Oh, yeah. And I have a confession to make…

We all talk about the importance of choosing your market. We talk about choosing your niche. It is really important. And now, with that, I have a confession:

As well as PCMech is doing right now, if I were just getting started today, I would not have started PCMech. Just wouldn’t have done it.

Why is that, you might ask? Surely tech blogs are pretty popular, right?

It is a difficult market to make money with. Computer users are generally self-sufficient. They are really, REALLY cheap (especially PC users). They would rather spend hours on the internet surfing around for a solution to an issue than pay anybody to show them how. I mean, why do you think there is such a war on software hacking out there? Because they don’t want to PAY for anything. They would rather hunt around for a hacked piece of software than pay anybody.

In short, though, that is just the nature of the market. There isn’t anything wrong with it. They are a highly interested bunch. I include myself among them. I LOVE technology and computers. But, if I weren’t in business for myself, the idea of spending any money outside of my actual computer equipment would just not be there.

Tech blogs can generate a lot of traffic. You can sell ads and make decent money with that if you are successful in standing out in this very saturated market. But, if I were starting out today, I would never enter the tech blogosphere with any monetary aims. I have managed to do OK with it because I started it awhile go. Plus, I know a lot more about marketing than most people who run tech blogs.

The Importance of Choosing The Right Market

If you desire to make money as a blogger, the road is a lot easier if you choose a solid market to begin with. A few guidelines would be:

1. As a blogger in your prospective market, can you help your reader solve real problems that exist in the real world?
2. Does your prospective market have certain goals that would give them pleasure? Or perhaps something they fear that would give them great pain?
3. Does your market have any kind of traits that would just make them not willing to spend any money?

With those guidelines, you can begin to see why certain types of blogs are going to have a much tougher time making any money. If your blog is essentially a news site, for example, what problem would you be solving? What are the goals or fears of people on a news blog? And surely you’re going to have a tough time getting anybody to pay you since people are USED to getting their news for free. A celebrity blog would be in the same boat. It is just pure entertainment. Entertainment blogs are tricky to monetize and that is because the audience is just there for fun. As a collective audience, they have no common problems, goals or frustrations. Plus, people expect online entertainment to be free.

The best markets are those where there is a real-life problem to solve, there is a goal which they feel strongly about, or there is a nagging fear which they are afraid of.

It isn’t a coincidence that some of the bloggers who make good money talk about how to make money blogging. Ever thought about why that is? It is simply because there is a big, overriding GOAL to the market. In other words, MORE MONEY. And who isn’t motivated by that? However, don’t go into “make money” blogging just because you think it would work. You have to have actually done it before you can talk about it with authority.

The same philosophy works in a BUNCH of different markets:

• Musicians have the common goal of being better players. They want to perfect their craft, gain respect, pick up chicks because they’re so good. They’re a potentially good market.
• Business owners have the goal of making more money and retiring early. Easy market.
• Dating is a good market because everybody wants to have a partner and men want to get laid. I mean, face it.

Markets where there is competition among members of the audience are good, too. For example, I’ve seen popular sites that are all about taking cars and making them look better. drive faster, etc. Modifications, essentially. Great market because you have a rabid audience of people who are out to impress their friends and have a generally more bad-ass car than everybody around them. And they’ll PAY for that.

(I once knew a dude who paid more for the rims on his car than he did for the car itself. I was floored).

So, market selection is very important. When we talk about making good money blogging, the entire thing is going to be much harder if you’re not talking to a market which has goals or pains. It is much better to think about this before you start blogging for money. If you’re already blogging, then take stock of your market and see if it adds up. If it doesn’t, you might want to adjust to better align with something having market potential.

Either that or just blog as a hobby.