It turns out that I have a problem with the internet at my current location that makes getting any work done very difficult. When I can’t get a connection I find myself struggling to get all the stuff I need done. On most days this isn’t a problem as I can just walk to the library and use the wonderful free internet there, but on some days the library is closed or has odd hours that limit the time I can spend working.
Of course I don’t NEED internet to do a lot of things I could be doing. But as I mentioned yesterday I am in a research stage right now, learning more about this whole business, or how to make blogging a business. And to be honest I can’t do that without access to the internet. I can write blog posts to save and post later, and I can write articles for article marketing, but as much as these things need and will have to be done, I still need to get online to do the things I want to do now. It doesn’t make a difference to me if the internet is a little bit slower than I would like, I would just like the connection to exist.
Pretty hard to make money online if you can’t get online, wouldn’t you say? Yes, yes.
This morning I spent some time once again reading ProBlogger’s blog and thinking about the best path to making money online through blogging. He ranks number one for this and anytime professional blogging or blogging for profit comes about, Darren is mentioned. But he teaches people to be like him. Build up a readerships with great content and then make money through ads and selling products. But how many can replicate his success? Really?
Darren got into the blogging game YEARS ago and has been building his income and blogging empire that entire time. He had much less competition than people starting out now do. It’s almost impossible to imagine recreating his success. It is possible, but the fact that he teaches people to be like him to make money through blogging seems crazy.
And there is the fact that most of his content these days is fluff crap posted by guest bloggers. I’m not saying guest bloggers are a bad thing – getting someone else to write content that you make money on is a great idea! But most of the guest posters are one step up from being newbs and a lot of the “tips” they offer are just pathetic. I’m glad they get a backlink from Darren and hope they get some traffic too. They might need it.
The one thing I like about reading Problogger is that it makes me feel better about my reader engagement on my blogs. I can get the same number of comments on my posts as Darren does on his. Oh, and he has exponentially more readers than I do. I guess that means I am in some way successful. I’m not making millions of dollars, but I’ve got a good readership that interacts with me on my blog. I’d say I’ve already reached the basic level of success taught on Problogger. Because once you reach this stage you realize the advice on that blog really doesn’t help you get any further. I suppose it would have been helpful if i started reading the blog when I first started, but unfortunately I didn’t start reading about being a professional blogger until I was already making some money. And that is when I realized the advice wouldn’t get me much further. It really is a basic level of information offered.
Problogger teaches blogging to gain fame and readership, not really money. So once you reach a point where you have one or both of these to some extent you have to go elsewhere to realize how to make money for real. At least this is my experience and thoughts on the matter. So now that I have a readership and have fame, at least within my niche, I’ve got to figure out how to continue growing that and making money at the same time.
Which is why I’m researching and learning. But to do that I need access to the internet. Which is apparently hard to come by in my life right now. What a shame.
