Financial Samurai - Forums

Career => Entrepreneurship / Side Hustles => Topic started by: PandaAtlanta on December 08, 2018, 02:50:59 AM

Poll
Question: How much income does your blog make per year?
Option 1: Zero votes: 12
Option 2: Less than $10,000 votes: 2
Option 3: $10,000 - $30,000 votes: 0
Option 4: $30,000 - $80,000 votes: 2
Option 5: $80,000 - $150,000 votes: 0
Option 6: More than $150,000 votes: 2
Option 7: More than a $1,000,000 votes: 0
Title: How much income does your blog make per year?
Post by: PandaAtlanta on December 08, 2018, 02:50:59 AM
I know that making a six figure blogging business is a dream side hustle for many of you. These are the statistics in the blogging industry that may surprise you.

69.4% make Zero from their blogging business.
22.6% make Less than $10,000
2.5% makes between $10,000 - $30,000
1.5 % makes between $30,000 - $80,000
2.2 % makes between $80,000 - $150,000
1.2 % makes more than $150,000
0.6 % makes more than a million.

First I am curious to see if Sam agrees with these statistics. I am not discouraging anyone pursuing this side hustle, but the odds of success seems very slim.

Only 8% of the bloggers make more than $10,000 from their blog. Of the remaining 92%, the majority (69% of the bloggers) are earning zero. Something to consider. I wondered why so many Pro Bloggers promote a several thousand dollar coaching programs of how to launch a success blog business when 92% of the bloggers make less than $10,000 from their businesses. Sort of feels like a successful real estate flipper having a $3000 - $5000 coaching programs on teaching you how to start a real estate flipping business in 2018.

What do you guys all think?
Title: Re: How much income does your blog make per year?
Post by: Sam on December 08, 2018, 08:32:35 AM
Cool statistics! What is the source? That's pretty great that over 30% of bloggers make money from their sites since I would say a vast majority are just  writing for fun without the intent of making money.

The key is to just keep on going. Too many people quit before the going gets good.


See: https://www.financialsamurai.com/how-much-do-bloggers-make-a-lot-more-than-you-think/
Title: Re: How much income does your blog make per year?
Post by: PandaAtlanta on December 08, 2018, 08:54:56 AM
Sam, these are the two source: Wow! You must be in the top .5% to 1% among the pro-bloggers. I remember a poster on FS stating that blogging is an extremely difficult path to glory.. after seeing these stats, I believe him.

Sam, you have certainly overcome very difficult odds to become successful in your industry. I really respect you that you were are able to focus on your ONE THING for almost 10 years. This is where I believe most entrepeneurs fail as they can't focus and sustain over a long period of time. A sane person would give up if the business they are operating is not their passion and core competence, especially during major setbacks and challenges.

I am genuinely happy for you.

-Panda

Stat Sources:
1. https://convertkit.com/reports/blogging/money/

2. https://www.blogtyrant.com/new-blogging-statistics/


Title: Re: How much income does your blog make per year?
Post by: Sam on December 09, 2018, 07:06:06 AM
Thanks Panda. My philosophy is, "Why quit when you can keep on going."

Blogging is an avenue where there is a strong correlation with effort and reward. This correlation is all I ever wanted, which is one of the reasons why I left my day job. I performed well, and wasn't getting rewarded commensurately. So I engineered my layoff instead of stayed back and complained.

Yes, if you love what you do, it's so much easier to keep on going.

With this forum, it'll probably take years to grow into something significant. But I know that if I keep nurturing it, it will keep on growing.

Do something for 10 years in a row, and I'm pretty positive good things will happen!

Sam
Title: Re: How much income does your blog make per year?
Post by: RealWealthManagement on April 16, 2019, 05:48:14 PM
It appears with just a small sample of 8 votes, the numbers seem to match the percentages below. For the one voter making $30k - $80k from his blog, how long have you been at it before making this side hustle income? How are you generating this income and what has been your main source? Google adsense, Affiliate Partnerships, eBook?

Sam, Do you have any good books or resources you can point me to how to build a profitable online blog business and become one of the top 30% who actually make more than a dollar a year? This is something I've always wanted to do and realize it is going to be a long game. One of the things you have done that no one has ever done before is create an $75 eBook. How did you come up with this idea and become successful at it? How did you know it was going to work?

69.4% make Zero from their blogging business.
22.6% make Less than $10,000
2.5% makes between $10,000 - $30,000
1.5 % makes between $30,000 - $80,000
2.2 % makes between $80,000 - $150,000
1.2 % makes more than $150,000
0.6 % makes more than a million.
Title: Re: How much income does your blog make per year?
Post by: Sam on April 17, 2019, 03:33:00 PM
RealWM - I'm sure others have created $75 ebooks no?

I knew the book would work bc there was and still is no other book like it, only books on how to get raises and promotions.

Further, my severance negotiation and package changed my life. Gave me the confidence to leave a well paying job to pursue my dreams. It's what everybody who doesn't love their job wants.
Title: Re: How much income does your blog make per year?
Post by: RealWealthManagement on April 25, 2019, 07:29:19 AM
Sam, you are the only one I know who is able to create and successfully sell a $75+ ebook, but at the same time you are truly exceptional and remarkable.

What was your reason for going the digital ebook route vs creating a physical book and have it reviewed and sold on Amazon? You were able to create your own distribution channel thru FS which I think is a amazing.

Sam, do you believe that blogger income stats provided by convert kit and blog tyrant is accurate? If the stats are correct, only 3.46% of the bloggers generate more than $80,000/year. I was comparing this blog data to real estate agent data, where 36% of real estate generate more than $80,000/year and the bottom 13% of the real estate agents generate less than $10,000. In contrast 92% of the bloggers generate less than $10,000.

Suppose a poster from FS is looking to leave his W2 Corporate job and deciding to start a new (low risk capital exposure, high reward) business deciding between being a real estate agent vs a blogger, it seems that the chances of generating income favors the real estate agent by 10x vs a blogger. However, If you are among the fortunate top 3.46% of the bloggers, I believe you can scale much faster to a seven figure business than you could as a solo real estate agent. Do you think the opportunity to build a successful blog has sort of closed vs 10 years ago, just like when ecommerce 1.0 was hot in 1999 - 2000? Just wanted to get your opinion on this.

Thank you,
RWM





Quote from: Sam on April 17, 2019, 03:33:00 PM
RealWM - I'm sure others have created $75 ebooks no?

I knew the book would work bc there was and still is no other book like it, only books on how to get raises and promotions.

Further, my severance negotiation and package changed my life. Gave me the confidence to leave a well paying job to pursue my dreams. It's what everybody who doesn't love their job wants.
Title: Re: How much income does your blog make per year?
Post by: Sam on April 26, 2019, 09:57:16 AM
RWM -  I think if you can stick with blogging for at least three years, and write regularly, you will get lucky as well.

After five years, you will start to get even more lucky.

And now after 10 years, I feel really really lucky.  There's just endless opportunity. I could easily start creating a lot of products to sell on my site.

But I am really trying to spend more time being a dad. The advertising revenue from the site is good enough.

A lot of people start something, but never finish or never continue. That is the majority of the world.
Title: Re: How much income does your blog make per year?
Post by: My Money Wizard on May 08, 2019, 08:29:26 AM
Quote from: PandaAtlanta on December 08, 2018, 08:54:56 AM
Sam, these are the two source: Wow! You must be in the top .5% to 1% among the pro-bloggers. I remember a poster on FS stating that blogging is an extremely difficult path to glory.. after seeing these stats, I believe him.

Sam, you have certainly overcome very difficult odds to become successful in your industry. I really respect you that you were are able to focus on your ONE THING for almost 10 years. This is where I believe most entrepeneurs fail as they can't focus and sustain over a long period of time. A sane person would give up if the business they are operating is not their passion and core competence, especially during major setbacks and challenges.

I am genuinely happy for you.

-Panda

Stat Sources:
1. https://convertkit.com/reports/blogging/money/

2. https://www.blogtyrant.com/new-blogging-statistics/
I think the most telling part of those Blog Tyrant stats are these two back-to-pack questions:

-How much does your blog make? 69% say Zero
-How much time do you spend on your blog? 47% say less than 5 hours per week

There's your answer, IMO. Personally, I probably triple that benchmark each week, at least. And unless I'm traveling, I don't think I've taken a Saturday off since I started my blog three years ago.

Blogging looks really easy and has the lowest barriers to entry of any business. So you get a ton of people who start a blog on a whim thinking it will make a quick buck. The problem is, you've gotta be extremely passionate about it or else you'll fizzle out before you ever see any results. And ironically, blogging is about the slowest get rich quick scheme of all the side hustles. Complicating the issue is that the returns of blogging are so delayed. In a normal job or side hustle, you work a few hours, and then get paid for those few hours. In blogging, the results of that work might not show up for months or even years. Most people quit first.

Anecdotally, I'll say almost every single blogger I know who hasn't quit after a couple of years is making some kind of income. Granted, many quit for very valid reasons, like they realize they don't actually like writing or there's better uses of their time.  The ones that do stick around can make decent money, but they're definitely working more than 5 hours a week.
Title: Re: How much income does your blog make per year?
Post by: FinancialNordic.com on July 19, 2019, 01:42:48 AM
Making significant money blogging is definitely not an easy task. But it can be achieved with enough consistency and quality. Building a brand and credibility takes time. There are no shortcuts, unless you aim to write anything that clicks globally. But that's not the way to go. So many bloggers end up giving on their blogs when they don't see enough results in the beginning. It's hard, I have to admit.
Title: Re: How much income does your blog make per year?
Post by: Logan Allec on July 20, 2019, 07:38:24 AM
It's true.  Making a significant income blogging is not an easy task, but once you've "gotten lucky" through continually putting out content and being relentless about SEO and social media, I would gander that it's a lot easier to make a significant income blogging than to make a significant income doing most other things.

To use the income points in the survey, of course it's "easier" (in terms of getting there) to make $10,000 or $30,000 or $80,000 in hourly or salaried employment.  In some professions that don't even require more than a bachelor's -- engineering, finance, etc. -- $150,000 can come relatively easily as well.

But is that really "significant" income?  Of course it's all relative, but I'd say that a high multiple six- or even seven-figure net income would be considered "significant" by most folks reading this blog.  And these income levels are pretty much unattainable for the average person in corporate employment (apart from very specific career paths that probably have to be planned for very early on in life).

For most, the only way to make north of, say, $700,000 per year is via your business, and I would say that blogging -- or Internet businesses in general -- is one of the easier businesses to scale once you've "gotten lucky."  That said, the entire Internet marketing space is quite risky, what with the low barrier to entry, constant Google algorithm updates, and increasing ad costs, so while sure an Internet business may be easier to scale, there is probably a lower degree of security than in many other businesses.
Title: Re: How much income does your blog make per year?
Post by: Sam on July 20, 2019, 09:31:44 PM
 One of the best reasons to start blogging for money is if you actually don't make a lot of money in the first place. Think about it. Let's say you live in some small town in Idaho and can live off $30,000 a year just fine. You could conceivably just make $30,000 a year online and then just quit your job. It's so much easier for people with low living expenses to make a go at blogging. It's also one of the reasons why the majority of bloggers don't live in expensive coastal cities
Title: Re: How much income does your blog make per year?
Post by: FinancialNordic.com on July 22, 2019, 01:33:12 AM
Quote from: Logan Allec on July 20, 2019, 07:38:24 AM
It's true.  Making a significant income blogging is not an easy task, but once you've "gotten lucky" through continually putting out content and being relentless about SEO and social media, I would gander that it's a lot easier to make a significant income blogging than to make a significant income doing most other things.

To use the income points in the survey, of course it's "easier" (in terms of getting there) to make $10,000 or $30,000 or $80,000 in hourly or salaried employment.  In some professions that don't even require more than a bachelor's -- engineering, finance, etc. -- $150,000 can come relatively easily as well.

But is that really "significant" income?  Of course it's all relative, but I'd say that a high multiple six- or even seven-figure net income would be considered "significant" by most folks reading this blog.  And these income levels are pretty much unattainable for the average person in corporate employment (apart from very specific career paths that probably have to be planned for very early on in life).

For most, the only way to make north of, say, $700,000 per year is via your business, and I would say that blogging -- or Internet businesses in general -- is one of the easier businesses to scale once you've "gotten lucky."  That said, the entire Internet marketing space is quite risky, what with the low barrier to entry, constant Google algorithm updates, and increasing ad costs, so while sure an Internet business may be easier to scale, there is probably a lower degree of security than in many other businesses.
You are definitely right. Blogging is easily one of the most scalable businesses in today's world. With so much potential audience, there is really no limit. Of course, it depends on the content, but even for a specific niche blog, there is so much potential to scale it up. Blogging is really similar to being a Youtuber: both need good and attracting content in order to make money, and both have BIG potential to make it big and go viral. However, I'm not ready to put myself in front of the camera - at least not yet.

Title: Re: How much income does your blog make per year?
Post by: PandaAtlanta on October 13, 2020, 04:13:04 PM
69.4% make Zero from their blogging business.
22.6% make Less than $10,000
2.5% makes between $10,000 - $30,000
1.5 % makes between $30,000 - $80,000
2.2 % makes between $80,000 - $150,000
1.2 % makes more than $150,000
0.6 % makes more than a million.
Title: Re: How much income does your blog make per year?
Post by: SteveGood on October 31, 2020, 12:22:22 AM
It is a big process we make quality content and attractive titles, post the content on a regular interval and share it on social media channels. I think we make less than $10,000 per year.