Last time I did a reader survey, so many of you took a few minutes from your busy, busy days to fill it out (thank you peeps). I eagerly checked and re-checked Survey Monkey to see what I could learn. As the number of respondents grew, I started noticing a troubling trend.
First, it started like this. Over 61% of bloggers who took my survey spent 10 hours a week or less on their blogs. Over 36% had no more than FIVE hours to spare. By itself, these stats aren't a big deal other than showing the limited time most of my readers have.
When I asked what the biggest struggle was as a blogger, by far the most common answer was NO TIME. I also asked why you didn't take Blog Clarity courses. The overwhelming responses were: no time or “I limit my blog-related expenses.” Again, by itself this information makes sense.
But here's the kicker. Over 85% of survey respondents said that making money is important to them…
Wait. Wait. Wait.
Most Blog Clarity readers had limited time and they also limited blog-related spending… yet they still said that they wanted to make money off their blogs.
It's time for some tough love, my friends!
If you have neither time nor money for your blog? Then you're going to have to manage your expectations about making money from your blog.
YES you can make some money and YES you can grow, but the process will creep along for ages.
So let me say this: If you want to make money from your blog, treat your blog like a business. How? Invest in your business: with time, with money, or with both.
Yep, it's so important I made it tweetable:
That being said, let me say that I totally get it (and that I have some tips so keep reading).
I get it because I work practically full time at Burt's Bees. Plus I have two kids and a “hobby job” of teaching group fitness. I sooooo GET being time starved.
I've also held off on SOME blog-related purchases because I didn't want yet another monthly subscription fee. BUT, given my lack of time, I make up for it by paying for many tools that make my life easier.
If you ARE serious about making money from your blog, then you'll need to find some time or spend some money (money tree, anyone?).
I've got some tips for you no matter which direction you go:
SPENDING TIME NOT MONEY: “I'll find more time to spend, but can't spend more money.”
Educate yourself with lots of research: Not having the money to invest in courses or paid ebooks doesn't mean you can't learn. It just means you'll have to piece together info from many different places and connects the dots on your own. Use Evernote or OneNote to create folders of what you want to learn so the articles are in one spot.
Rack up fonts and design elements with Creative Market's free weekly goodies: Every week Creative Market offers six free goodies, everything from fonts to blog themes. Sign up for an email to get a weekly email letting you know each week's free goodies. It's a great place to get high quality designy stuff fo' free!
Focus on what really matters: Spending two hours trying to figure out how to change your font doesn't matter in the long run if you're trying to make money. If what you're working on doesn't directly grow your traffic, income, or opportunity potential, limit the time you spend on it. Just because you can't afford to hire someone to do something for you, doesn't mean it's worth doing yourself.
SPENDING MONEY NOT TIME: “I'll find more money to spend, but no more time.”
Invest in a tool or course that saves you time: With limited funds you can't afford multiple tools, so pick the one that helps you reach a main goal. Growing your email list important? Invest in ConvertKit. Want to drive mega traffic to your site from Pinterest? Try the Pinning Perfect course or use Tailwind to schedule pins and repins. Need to get your content in order? Go for the Content Brew course or use CoSchedule to organize your content calendar and share on social.
Invest in people that save you time: Hire a virtual assistant to help with some recurring blog or social media tasks. Or go onto Upwork and find someone to help you with a one-time project. Having extra hands on deck can do wonders for your productivity.
When I moved my courses to Thinkific, I hired someone to literally copy and paste lessons, upload videos and images, and all that to move my three courses over. As a business OWNER, I shouldn't spend my time on that kinda stuff. It took me a while to REALLY get that, but it would have taken months longer to move if I'd done it myself.
Bring on contributors: Grow your traffic by hiring a contributor or two (or three). Not only will you gain more content on your blog, they'll be promoting your site to their audiences as well.
These next ones don't cost a thing, but help you find a little more time…
Stop Netflix binging every day: I love me some Netflix, but I know better than to do serious concentrating when I'm plopped in from of the couch. Use some of that time to get stuff done.
Go the bed early, get up early: Although this is one of the hardest habits for me to keep, I work at lightning pace in the morning when my head's reset from the day before.
Don't waste extra time on things that don't matter: Just like I said earlier! Time is money so need wasting two hours on something when you could hire someone who could do it in 15 minutes.
Where do you land?
If you want to make money blogging, these tips should help you find time or know how to spend your money wisely. Where are you going to focus?
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Hey- I'm Melissa! I'm a mom, side hustler, online course instructor, and brand marketer. I run a 6-figure blog helping online biz owners find their a-ha moments with can-do tips, tutorials, and online courses. I also work at Burt's Bees as the assistant manager of Brand Engagement (yep, it's as cool as it sounds). Jump start your biz productivity with my free worksheet!
Yes, yes, yes! A thousand times yes! Blogging for profit is hard work and you get out what you get in.
One caution about those Creative Market freebies … those often come with limited licenses so read the fine print and be careful how you use them.
Thanks for your tough love, Melissa!
You’re welcome, Christa! And definitely a good point about CM licenses.
I completely agree! I have the Content Brew, and just went through it again last weekend, the ideas were flowing!
That’s great! I love that you can revisit the course for a dose of inspiration to get the ideas flowing again.
Great points. And, you had to go all “puppymonkeybaby” in the email, didn’t you? 😉
Haha- oh you know it!
Thank you so much for this post. It is true what you put in is what you get out. As one of those that took your survey it is interesting to see what you are learning from it 🙂
Thanks, Jen! I’ll be sharing a fuller report in the next week or two of my learnings!
I published a post about how I’m finally treating my blog like a business this morning. Great minds think alike! For the longest time I was on again and off again with my blog. Weeks would go by and I wouldn’t even look at it. I didn’t start to spend time consistently until late last year. I decided to reinvest in a custom made blog design and going forward will put more time and effort in the blog. The effort is slowly starting to pay off in terms of opportunity and monetization.
Funny how all these things come together at once! I published a two-part series today about when to hire help and how to find them. Glad your efforts are paying off for you, Karen!
Oh that’s funny- I went to read your post and in my comment said “great minds think alike” and forgot you had written the same thing- ha! Great post– sometimes a little investment (like the blog design) is all you need to start diving in deeper!
I was just talking with a friend/fellow blogger about this very thing this morning. You hit the nail on the head. It will take time, it is a business, a job. Thank you for all of your wisdom and tough love!!!!
You’re welcome, friend!
My blog is gaining more follows. My blog started out documenting my dream, and now I am living my dream with our winery, inn, farm, art collecting, it’s everything I have ever wanted!
That sounds SO fun!
I squeeze time out of my schedule to get done what I feel I need to get done. Of course, I could always spend more time if I had it on something, but I feel like I have a good balance right now. I just started investing a little more money into my blog though. Mostly for tools and services that I have been hesitant to buy in the past (just for the sake of saving money), but I know they’ll make life and the quality of my blog way better.
Thank you for standing up and conveying all of this info, Melissa! Tough love = Great advice in this case. So true – making money in the blogging world ain’t easy; however, it can be simple. It all comes down to truly putting forth the resources (time, money, consistent delivery, etc…) and treating blogging/publishing as a stand-alone business. I l-o-v-e and consistently revisit several of your courses/resources to get back on track when I falter, including DIY Blog Critique, Momcomm List of Resources, and the Pinning Perfect. Keep on rockin’ and sharing your brilliance! We appreciate your expertise and advice!
I was reading through the comments with other people saying how they’ve just started thinking of their blogs as actual businesses, and I just did a post along the same lines. It’s funny how it seems to be kinda a moment of realization for people – connecting blogging to business.
I know a lot of bloggers get into blogging for the fun of it (I did) and then kinda wonder if they could make money from it, but it seems to take a particular change of mindset to really start treating it like a business. And it does take a lot of time. It’s so easy to underestimate. You’re right on when you mention investing in tools or outsourcing work to grow a blog. You gotta choose to invest something in order to grow. Whether it’s time or money.
Your points here are… on point lol. Really, I’ve started looking for seriously at where to invest time or money, and strategizing and reevaluating and then changing strategy again. It does make a difference, but it takes work.
I thought your graphs were really interesting, and really illustrated the point, could I ask how you created them?
Hi Melissa, I just loved your comment about focusing on what matters. I’m in the process of starting a new for-profit blog and your advice is spot-on.
I’ve been a reader for a long time and did your Content Brew course several years ago, but I’m just getting back into the game. Thanks for what you do – it’s a big help!
Love your outlook! Thanks for the reminders!
Hiring a contributor is huge. As a blogger, you want to write engaging content that is deep and really helps people out. But you may not always have time. At the same time, you don’t want to just put up some cheap article to fill space. What we’ve had some success with is to look at those that write for some bigger blogs and websites, find the author (usually in the bio) and ask if they would have any interest in writing for your blog.
This way you have a really high quality contributor and you’ve already enjoyed reading their stuff, so you know they’re good!
Definitely need to invest in myself. Thanks for th e tips, much needed. 🙂
This is extremely helpful! I just launched my blog a few weeks ago and have really been struggling to find my own balance and groove with it all. This encouraged me and inspired me, so thank you!