Stop blogging.

I’m actually being serious.

If you want to actually make money and have a real business and use the Internet to make real sales, then stop blogging.

And I’ll tell you why…

Because thinking of this whole thing like a blogger just isn’t the way to go.

A person who self-identifies as a blogger is going to think their end product is blog posts. You have to write alot. If a few days goes by and you haven’t posted something, you feel like you’re failing. When you think of how to get more traffic, you start thinking the answer is to write yet MORE blog posts!

That’s blogging. You’re just writing for the sake of writing. You’re happy when you get things like comments, retweets and shares. You start getting tunnel vision on vanity metrics like those.

But, then you think “I want to monetize this!“.

Monetize“. The language of a blogger.

And you then start chasing the usual suspects… like banner ads and affiliate links all over the place. Banner ads because it seems easy and obvious…. affiliate links because the “blog monetization” gurus you keep reading are obviously making big bucks with their own affiliate links, right?

But, that whole model needs a lot of traffic to fuel it. Like, a helluva lot of traffic.

And, how do you get that traffic? Well, a helluva lot of content, of course!

Back to blogging you go until you get too tired of it to go any further.

Full Stop. Let’s Get Real.

Unfortunately, many of the gurus of online business out there don’t have much experience outside of talking about online business. So, they’ll talk about the things which worked for them… and talk about “blogging your passion”…. and all this cutesy stuff that a majority of people just have a hard time realizing for themselves.

Truth is…

Blogging can make money. But, it is hard. And it doesn’t work out for most people.

And it is because their focus is all wrong.

BLOGGING is just a thing you do. It is NOT a thing you can sell. And for that reason, it isn’t much of a revenue generator.

Blogging is not a business model. It just isn’t.

The only way to make standard blogging pay well is if you are successful in building a large audience and get a lot of traffic. Surely, it’s doable. But, don’t ever think it is easy and something that can be done quickly.

It is no wonder that those with real businesses are often doubtful about whether blogging is the right platform for them. They have a business and they hear blogging can help them grow it. But, then they’ll end up in this sea of crap advice about blog posting frequencies and viral posts and all this stuff. For a regular business owner, blogging seems… inapplicable and time consuming.

And it is. At least in the sense of how it is usually thought about.

Stop Blogging. Work On Your Foundation, First.

I’m certainly not saying that you won’t be blogging here. However, there is an order of progression to things. There’s a sequence.

If revenue is a goal, then starting off with a bunch of blogging when you don’t have your business foundation in place yet just makes no sense.

So, we put the blogging on hold. And we spend our available time squarely on the basic pieces of our foundation. That foundation is your business.

You need two basic pieces to prove your business here:

  1. A lead magnet that puts people onto your email list fairly reliably.
  2. An offer to those people that has proven itself because people have actually purchased it.

That’s it. Certainly, it can be bigger than that, but to start off all we need are these two pieces. And your full focus should be on making that happen. Not blogging. Not yet.

So, your basic order of actions here will be:

  1. Nail down the niche you would like to test (keeping in mind what a niche really is)
  2. Create a lead magnet which you believe will be very compelling to the type of person you’re looking to attract.
  3. Create a landing page for this lead magnet.
  4. Come up with an offer which you think will be compelling to the people opting in for that lead magnet. Note that we’re NOT creating a product here (yet). Just an offer.
  5. Create a landing page for that offer.
  6. Set it up so that you have a 2-step funnel where the lead magnet comes first and the offer comes afterward.
  7. Run traffic to this funnel. Paid traffic is certainly recommended, although if you go the free route at least your efforts will be more targeted.
  8. Watch conversion numbers and tweak until the numbers are satisfactory.
  9. Pat yourself on the back. 🙂

Why This Makes All The Difference For You

This basic process gives you focus. It frees you from overwhelm. And that’s because we’ve peeled back all the noise and demands of “blogging” away and we’re solely focused on two things:

  1. A lead magnet.
  2. An offer.

And, at this stage, all we really need here are landing pages. Not a bunch of blog posts.

We only have to pay attention to two things.

Confused about creating landing pages? Trust me, it’s super easy… especially if you use Thrive Themes (highly recommended. Click here to read my review.). You’ll get their content builder and you can make landing pages easily with no coding.

Concerned about your lead magnet? Don’t be. The lead magnets which work best are usually super short. 1 or 2 pages. DO NOT jump into the deep end that so many bloggers do right away, thinking you need to create a “challenge” or some bog honker ebook. You don’t. In fact, it works against you at this stage.

Concerned about not having anything to sell? Don’t be. You’re going to create an OFFER, not a product. The offer will be for something that you can deliver on, but that you have not created yet. Yes, you will be creating an offer “out of thin air”. And, it does not have to be an online course. It can be a service. The point is to solve a problem for your people, however you can do it.

This Is What It Will Mean For Your Blog…

By the time you start tackling the world of blogging itself, you will have a proven foundation from which to grow.

You KNOW you can put people on your email list. And you KNOW you have an offer people will buy. In fact, you will have already made your first sales even before doing a bunch of blogging!

All doubts about whether you can monetize are gone.

You won’t be stressed out about whether this will work. You won’t be stressed out about your next blog post. And further… when you do start blogging, it will be much more controlled because now you know exactly what people want.

You’ve got a foundation. Other bloggers don’t.

Which Are You Going To Be?

So, you’ve got a choice to make, my friend.

If you go the route most other bloggers are going, then you’re going to be doing a lot of writing. You’ll struggle with what to write about. You’ll probably never feel like you have enough traffic. Your revenue will seem low, if it ever gets off the ground. If you really work your butt off and stand out in your niche, you can develop a following and do pretty well. But, most don’t get to that point.

Or… you focus on the foundation first.

If you go the route I’m talking about, then your time and effort will be spent in a much more focused fashion. We’ll be less overwhelmed. Sure, there will be some new things to learn, since “blogging” is something that is usually more familiar than this world of landing pages and offers. But, you’ll get there. And… everything is SO much easier when you are actually making money doing it!

If you decide to go this route with me, then I think your next logical step should be to grab your copy of the Niche Profits Finder.

Use the Niche Profits Finder to walk you through a
specific process for identifying profitable niche markets.

  • The exact components to what makes a niche profitable
  • The 5 Lists For Profits to identify potential niches which are the right fit FOR YOU
  • The 2-step Audience “Drill Down” to ensure you don’t go too broad
  • 5 Specific Niche Tests to run your ideas through to see if they can be profitable (each test takes less than 3 minutes to do)
OPTIN – Niche Profits Finder – INLINE

Even if you have a niche and you’ve been blogging for a little while, this worksheet will help focus in on the REAL niche and run it through a few tests. Because… a niche isn’t just a topic for your content. It should me a market. Ultimately, it is a VERB (action), not a noun (your topic).


Got A Question? Need Some Assistance?

Have a question about this article? Need some help with this topic (or anything else)? Send it in and I’ll get back to you personally. If you’re OK with it, I might even use it as the basis of future content so I can make this site most useful.

Question – Lead Form