Can You Make Real Money Blogging?

Making a living as a blogger won't come quickly. If
you've lost your job and decide to start a blog to
support yourself, good for you. But keep job-searching,
especially if you don't have a spouse to bring in
revenue — because odds are, this isn't going to work
out.

For awhile, it looked like blogging might be everyone's
answer to the question: How can I become rich while
working at home and focusing on a topic I enjoy?
Not that that isn't happening, but for those who are
younger or who haven't been paying attention, about 10
years ago, blogging was just beginning to buzz. As Michael
Liedtke of the Associated Press wrote in 2003, "The online
diaries known as Weblogs or 'blogs' seemed like a lot of
inconsequential chatter when they surfaced a few years
ago. But ... what once seemed like a passing fancy has
morphed into a cutting-edge phenomenon that may
provide the platform for the Internet's next wave of
innovation and moneymaking opportunities."
In the years since, some blogs have been sold to
companies for millions of dollars - but most haven't.
According to the Nielson Company, there were 181 million
blogs at the end of 2011, which begins to explain why the
country isn't full of multimillionaire bloggers.
"Bloggers usually underestimate how hard it is to make
money from blogging because there are so many blogs out
there ... They assume that just by putting the blog up, it
will be enough. Kind of like the 'if you build it they will
come' mentality. That's not likely to happen to most
people, though," says Jacqueline Bodnar, a prolific blogger
in Daytona Beach, Fla., and author of "Starting Your Career
as a Professional Blogger."

READ: WHY YOU SHOULD LAUNCH A SIDE GIG NOW

So for bloggers who are trying to become filthy rich — or
at least aim for a respectable middle-class income — here
are some things to keep in mind.
Making a living won't come quickly. If you've lost your
job and decide to start a blog to support yourself, good
for you. But keep job-searching, especially if you don't
have a spouse to bring in revenue — because odds are,
this isn't going to work out.
But let's say it does. It may take months before money
dribbles in from advertisers. Generally, bloggers set up
ads on their site, frequently with mainstream ad players
like Google AdSense, Amazon Associates and Pay-Per-Post,
all of which are fairly user-friendly. But after finding the
advertisers, you'll need to find readers - a lot of them.
A few years ago, the money for ads on blogs was "very,
very high, at least for established blogs with large
audiences," says Amy Corbett Storch, 35, who lives in
Bethesda, Md., with her husband and three kids. She first
began blogging in 2003, but then the economy tanked, and
advertisers began to become more choosy with their
dollars, and they still are.
Storch's blog, Amalah.com, which gets its name from a
nickname given to Amy by a co-worker, was initially a
humor-personal memoir blog. But since she had her first
child in 2005, it's been considered a "mommy" blog, of
which there are many.
In 2006, Storch quit her job as managing editor for a
financial publishing company to be a full-time blogger
working from home while raising a family. She also
branched out beyond her own blog, and now blogs for
sites including ClubMom, TheStir, Babble, AlphaMom and,
in 2007, she co-founded Mamapop.com, an entertainment-
culture site for parents.
Storch says the ads at the top of a blog or website —
banner ads — are paid on a CPM basis (cost per thousand
readers). "In the heyday, you might get (advertising)
campaigns for $15 or $20 CPM," Storch says. "This month,
my highest CPM ad is paying $6. Most are around $2 or $
3."
That can work out pretty well if you have an audience —
Storch says Amalah.com has about 700,000 page views a
month. But if you're only getting, say, 1,200 page views a
month, you might only make enough to treat your family
to a night out at McDonald's. Even if you're pulling in
enough money to pay the mortgage, Storch says bloggers
have to remember they're going to pay commission to
their ad network, taxes on their blogging income, hosting
and Internet fees, and she pays for childcare.
"If Amalah was all I was doing, I'd be completely freaking
out. Diversify, folks," she says.
Utilize your expertise. Sure, you can start your blog as a
memoir, which certainly worked for Storch. But if you have
expertise that people pay for in the non-blog world,
definitely consider blogging about that.

READ: 3 STEPS TO REINVENTING YOUR CAREER

"It's not enough to just know how to write well, but you
have to write something that provides value to the
reader," Bodnar says. "When they feel they are getting
something out of it, they are going to keep coming back.
What that 'something' is that keeps them coming back is
going to differ by the person and type of blog. Some
people visit a blog day after day for advice, recipes,
celebrity gossip, or just to be inspired."
And some people visit a blog to learn more about real
estate investment trusts. Brad Thomas is a textbook
example of someone who has turned blogging into a
viable profession, although it isn't his only income. He is a
senior vice president at Bull Realty, a commercial real
estate firm in Atlanta, who also works as a consultant. Still,
his blog — the Intelligent REIT Investor
(theintelligentreitinvestor.com) — has taken off.
In 2010, Thomas says, "I started basically writing and
blogging just as a hobby. It was something I liked to do,
and the real estate market wasn't very strong, so I just
thought I'd write about it."
He quickly built up a following, with 10,000 to 20,000 page
views a month. "I thought that was a lot back then,"
Thomas says. Now, three years later, he's seeing up to half
a million page views per month.
Blogging may not be digging ditches, but it's mental
work. It's also time-consuming. A lot of people ask
Thomas if he sleeps at night, and he does, but he says
there are many late nights where his energy is spent, but
he'll "find a way to push that last sentence out."
Jill Smokler agrees, also noting that much of the work in
blogging isn't blogging itself, but getting your name out
there, which usually means writing on someone else's
blog.

SEE: 10 QUESTIONS THAT WILL HELP YOU EARN MORE MONEY

"In the mommy-blogging community, commenting is key,"
says Smokler, who is based in Baltimore and writes Scary
Mommy (www.scarymommy.com). "Find blogs which you
somehow connect with and comment on them. Click on
the blogs belonging to the other people commenting and
comment on them. Comment anywhere and everywhere
you can, linking your URL. Are you sensing a theme?"
She knows of what she speaks. Smokler's blog helped her
land two book deals. Her second book, "Motherhood
Comes Naturally (and Other Vicious Lies)" just came out a
few months ago. It looks easy, but it isn't, Smoker says:
"Very few blogs strike gold with a crazy viral post. I'm still
trying after five years."