With many bloggers earning a killer living, it is no surprise that there are approximately 600 million blogs on the internet.
In fact, I got started after discovering Wealthy Affiliate as well as following an internet marketer/blogger known as John Chow.
John Chow runs a blog that makes him money by showcasing how much money he makes on the internet.
Unfortunately, there are many “make money online websites” with false claims and even make attempts to scam you.
You’ve probably fallen victim to one or multiple misconceptions from these so-called, “How to make money online” websites.
What happens is, beginners are oftentimes misinformed about what they should do to create a successful online business.
For example, you have to write your content and publish them on a predetermined schedule.
However, does it actually work? Will you really see any real results?
In this article, I will be covering common misconceptions of blogging to give you a clearer picture.
Common Misconceptions of Blogging
#1. You must write every day: Google made an announcement that they will index websites faster when the publisher posts more frequently.
Simple right? Unfortunately, many people took this the wrong way and started publishing every single day with the hope of increasing their traffic and making more money.
What happens is when you rush your content, you run the risk of producing mediocre content (low quality).
Remember, quality is always better than quantity.
You can definitely write every day if you like, but make sure each article you publish is considered quality and helpful content.
Would you turn in a half-assed essay to your teacher? I did and the results were less than satisfactory.
My recommendation is to follow your own schedule. How many quality articles can you produce per week?
It’s okay if it’s ONE quality content per week. That’s better than 7 mediocre ones.
#2. Make sure your articles are LONG: I remember in the beginning, someone told me to ensure each article I write contains a minimum of 1000 words.
I was a beginner, so I took his or her word for it.
My best word of advice is not to focus too much on the number of words. But instead, focusing on writing until your content gets its message across.
You don’t need 1000-2000 words for every article. If you force yourself to make sure you meet that standard, you will fall back on actually providing the right amount of information.
Example: You are writing about Google AdSense. You ran out of things to say and realized that you’ve only typed up 500 words.
What are you going to do next?
If you focus on that magical number, you will naturally try to type up whatever it takes to meet that magical number (example, 1000 words).— When you do that, you are providing useless information and will eventually turn off your readers.
#3. Your blog needs to be perfect: My friend once told me about the imperfections of my articles and how I should fix every single grammatical error.
My response was, I am not an English major and I’m not writing for the San Francisco Chronicles.
I don’t have paid editors to check every single one of my articles to ensure it is perfect.
There are millions of blogs on the internet, what makes your blog unique is YOU. You want to write naturally as if you’re talking to a friend.
However, even though your blog doesn’t need to be PERFECT. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to minimize your spelling and grammatical mistakes.
I remember reading an article and I couldn’t read past the second paragraph because I just couldn’t understand what the author was trying to say.
In other words, make sure your readers can at least understand what you’re trying to say.
You can always go back and revise your content.
#4. You can make money fast: That is total bullshit! There is no way to make money fast through blogging.
It is rewarding and easy to start, but nowhere near fast in terms of making money.
Take a step back and ask yourself this. What is going to make you money from blogging?
Blogging and marketing of course! Each content you write will take time and with so many contents being published on the internet daily.
What makes you think yours will get noticed immediately?
If you really want to make money online, you need to clear that mindset out of your system and snap back to reality.
Focus on creating quality content, utilize a keyword research tool to find keywords that you can easily rank for.
There are lots of websites claiming that they can help you make money fast—If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is!
#5. Traffic is the key to success: This is true, but it depends on what kind of traffic you’re getting.
I remember a few online marketers recommended me to a website to BUY traffic.
It sounded like a great idea at first because companies like Bing, Google, and Facebook offers Pay-Per-Click advertisement.
I was guilty of trying it out on my first website and the results were again less than satisfying.
On Google Analytics, the traffic number skyrocketed, but I wasn’t converting any of these people into customers.
What is the point of having traffic, but you’re not making money?
When you BUY cheap traffic from websites other than Google, Bing, and Facebook.
You’re pretty much paying for the thrill of having people on your website. If they are even real people…
Click here to learn more about the importance of quality vs quantity traffic.
#6. Just blog and you will succeed: Blogging is important because you need content before you can gain traffic.
However, blogging is about building a community. Publishing an article is the end of writing that article, but it’s only the beginning of the next important step.
The next step is to share your content with people in your community.
Why is it important to build a community?
Your blog community contains people that you can share your content, collaborate on new ideas, ask for suggestions, etc.
#7. It is not important to plan ahead before you blog: Even though you don’t have a storefront with hundreds of employees working for you.
Your blog is still considered a business (a highly competitive one because it’s inexpensive to start).
When you run a business, it is important that you understand your competition, how much money you are willing to spend on advertisement (not recommended for beginners), what your goals are, etc.
*When you have a plan, it keeps you on track and reduces the chance of your procrastinating.
#8. Your website is too new to monetize: To some extent it is true! New websites are not recommended to monetize through sources such as Google AdSense because new websites don’t have sufficient traffic.
However, that does not mean you can’t monetize at all with a new website. You can absolutely monetize your website through affiliate marketing.
Blogging and affiliate marketing pretty much work together.
You use your blog to provide information to your readers and promote products and earn a commission when a visitor buys something from your recommendation.
In Conclusion
The truth to the matter is, there is no easy way out when it comes to blogging. And there is much misinformation (common misconceptions) on the internet.
I hope this article has helped you debunk most of those common misconceptions when it comes to blogging.
If you have any other questions, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment down below. Have a good one and be safe!
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