How would you feel if you ran a 5K every day and earned a living doing so, and then came home one day to see some guy on TV ranting about how someone can’t run a 5K, so you should just do a few laps as a hobby and find something better to do with your life? That’s exactly how I felt when I came across this so-called reality check for people who want to blog full-time. Thankfully, there are more positive takes on the subject.
Let’s get one thing out of the way: I’m a full-time Internet marketer. I pay my bills from the money that my sites make. I don’t have a part-time job nor do I moonlight. THIS IS IT: if my sites make no money, I make no money! So when I see someone talking about it not being possible, it really gets to me. That being said, becoming a full-time blogger is no walk in the park. I’ll go out on a limb and say that you will probably have to make twice as much money as you think you do.
Pick A Profitable Topic
I could go on and on about this, but I’ll make it short. The topic you choose has to have ancillary products/services. Period. Otherwise you won’t make (much) money. I’m building this site around the following topics: money, technology, books/movies/video games, and entrepreneurship. Lots of possibilities. If you’re building your site around, say, how to help people get free stuff, you already have to get a little creative in order to make money.
Evaluate The Money Making Potential
There are two schools of thought when it comes to this. One says “aim for the stars”, and the other one says “go for the low-hanging fruit”. As in many areas, the right answer is probably some combination of the two. I personally started off with the first one, failed miserably, tried the second one, didn’t make enough money, and now I’m comfortably in the middle. I go for areas with some competition, and every now and then I try my hand at something really hard (the more money there is to be made, the more intense the competition). I usually get a feel for a topic by doing a search for it. If I don’t see plenty of ads, I move on.
Make Money On The Front End…
This is mostly done with search engine traffic: you present your visitor with a solution to their problem/question and send them on their way. You don’t try and hold on to them. This is just a numbers game: a percentage of them will click an ad or buy something. How do you make the money? Adsense, affiliate marketing, direct advertising, selling your own products. This is an excellent (short term) way to get your feet wet and make some money to at least cover your costs. You can scale that and make lots and lots of money but your business will be vulnerable to the whims of the search engines.
… Or On The Back End
This is where you diversify. You should try and brand your blog and build an audience and of course now we’re talking long term. You can then market different products and services to them (including your own). You could write a book, start a podcast, do joint ventures, find services you’re good at and leverage the blog to make money from them, and so on. For example, I could decide to also be a copywriter and market my services using various Former Banker articles as samples of my writing style. Or I could decide to become a coach for aspiring entrepreneurs and use the site to spearhead my marketing strategy. The back end is where the big money is. It’s also where you no longer depend on any single source of income.
Structure Your Business
This is crucial. I opted for an LLC because it was the best choice for me, both for legal and tax purposes. I use a payroll service to pay myself a salary. This is the best way to handle filing quarterly taxes and keeping track of withholdings. You will be able to figure out your net pay, and will avoid a huge tax bill at the end of the year.
Contribute To Your Retirement Accounts
I opened a 401K and opted to contribute 10% of my salary, with a 3% company match. My personal opinion: if you’re going to blog full-time, then your blog should make enough money for you to fund your retirement!
How Much Will You Take Home?
This is the most sobering part. On a month that I pay myself $3,000 (gross), the cash requirement on my business account is roughly $3,600. And from that gross salary, my net pay is about $2,100. Want a monthly take-home pay of $3,000? Your business needs to make a PROFIT of over $5,000 for that to happen.
So, You Want To Be A Full-Time Blogger?
I said it at the beginning, this is no walk in the park. Then again, I have yet to find an “easy” business venture. Becoming a full-time blogger is no different than becoming a successful real estate investor or building a successful brick-and-mortar business. It takes time, money, dedication, and most people who try will fail. What I’ve tried here is give you an honest account of what it takes to live off of blogging. You’d be stupid to think it’s easy, but you’d be an idiot to think it’s impossible.
Thanks for linking to my site! I truly believe that you can make money with any passion!
I agree. Some passions are more financially rewarding than others but really your only limit is your imagination!
Hey man thanks for linking to my post. I appreciate your side of things. I wrote my original post when I was in a foul mood and you definitely proved with your piece that one can make money online.
I would love to have you guest post on my site one day.
Btw, my fave line in here has to be: “It takes time, money, dedication, and most people who try will fail”
Hi there and thanks for stopping by!
Oh that line? It sums up what I went through before I found a winning formula, lol.
I would love to do a guest post on your site. I will shoot you an email to work out the details.
Have a great day!
I’d also like to pay myself a salary (W2 income) through my LLC, but I’ve been told on legal forums that the “managing partner” of a single-member LLC isn’t allowed to pay herself with W2 income. Have you heard differently? Do you know of any resources for this?
I honestly don’t know. I can look into the matter. I use Paychex so I can talk to my account rep and get some clarification.
Have you discovered anything about this? …. After I read your post (and left my previous comment), I spoke with a tax advisor who gave me the same advice: she said that an LLC owner (known as a “member-manager”) cannot pay themselves W2 income. To do that, you must legally be organized as an S-Corp or C-Corp.
My Paychex specialist has referred me to my CPA. She confirmed that what I receive from the IS W2 income but that she can’t advise me on the matter. Now I need to sit down with my CPA and figure this whole thing out.
That’s awesome that you didn’t listen to others’ so called warnings and instead listened to advice. I’m still amazed at how many people have been able to turn blogging into full time incomes.
I’m stubborn by nature! LOL
Bravo. This is a very well done post and very encouraging. I love the line “(y)ou’d be stupid to think it’s easy, but you’d be an idiot to think it’s impossible.”
I appreciate hearing your seasoned perspective. Cheers!!!
I usually have some trouble concluding my posts. This one came out quite easily!
I definitely want to make a full-time living location-free, so not just through online properties like my blogs, but also real estate investments and absentee ownership businesses. Are you doing anything right now besides your blog? I’m just curious, because I absolutely love your style of writing, and think you’re going to have a lot of fans quickly!
Thanks for the compliment! I have some other things, but Internet marketing is where I make the bulk of my income.
I do wonder about blogging for income, as a sole provider to replace my FT job.
We also think about whether Mrs. SPF goes back to work, now that we have our first wonderful child in our lives.
It wouldn’t take much for me to pass along the knowledge re: advertising for our site.
Things to think about. Great post, read it top to bottom. RSS fan as of tonight.
Thanks man! It means a lot to me.
Earning a full-time income from blogging is challenging but very rewarding. I’ve been doing the niche blog thing for a few years now but I wanted a flagship site that I could put on a business card, hence Former Banker. Enjoying the experience a lot so far!
Think you have explained it very well and would recommend anyone thinking of starting a blog to read this article. I often get asked by people about alternative income streams and a blog can be a great source of extra income for those who have a passion for a subject but as you point out making money on the internet is no walk in the park and to make money at it requires a lot of time and effort. But on the plus side it is one of the few jobs where you really can say that you make money while you are sleeping due to the 24 hour nature of the internet and the various world time differences.
I absolutely love to blog. I always wanted to be a writer. I quit my job a few months ago due to some really bad treatment I received. I was disgusted humiliated and had terrible anxiety so I quit and cashed in 401 K. Started blogging and love it. now I am broke and trusting that there is something out there that is right for me. I am nervous about what it is I am supposed to do, but also excited that doors will open up that were closed when I was in the prison at my old company. Thanks for a great blog, no idea how I got here but I am diggin it. I love your honesty and your optimism.
Hi Lesa,
Glad I could help. You did take a big leap of faith and I hope everything works out for you. Drop by again soon, as I’m planning quite a few posts on how to make it in this blogging business.
Great post! It highlights of doing the one thing that so many business owners in general, and online business owners in particular, fail to do; plan. Sure, there is the old adage, those who fail to plan in business, plan to fail in business.
There is more than a grain of truth in that statement, but too many who blog for profit enter in to the whole endeavor as more of a hobby that makes a few bucks on the side. That will restrict progress in two ways:
1) You’ll not have the structure in place which facilitates your growth into a profitable business.
and…..
2) When the money does start rolling in, you’ll want to use it to grow your business, and without a plan, you’ll not have mapped out the best way to make that happen. Running by the seat of your pants rarely makes for the best long term outcome.
Two other things of paramount importance:
1) Back up everything regularly, including your MySQL database. I lost a huge blog I loved posting on, that was well on its way to making me a ful time income because, while I backed up the blog, I wasn’t aware that you had to back up the MySQL database separately.
2) Plan your exit strategy from the beginning. What are you going to do if you really hit the big time? (You are planning for that, no?) This goes not simply for blogging, but for any business, online or off. That is a key reason to blog on your own domain, and to keep your blog separate from any other online activity.
You want to build a valuable asset you can do with what you please in the future. That may be keeping it forever and hammering out posts to your heart’s content, or it may be selling ti to a big company for $20 million (Don’t discount that possibility, it’s happened more than you’d think). You can’t do that very well if you aren’t on your own domain because you built your business on leased ground over which you have no control..
By not tying your personal business to your blog, I mean things such as, don”t use your blog’s domain email as your primary email. Get a Gmail or yahoo mail account for that.
Don’t see how living on $3,000 gross is all that great, if that’s all that you do or earn, no offense? What is your living situation and where do you live?
Thx,
Sam
I never said that was what I was making! I chose that number because it’s a modest one that most people can relate to. Had I said $6,000 gross, that would have pushed my cash requirements to something closer to $7,500 and then my business needs to generate about $10,000 in profit for me to comfortably pull that out on a monthly basis.
How many of you guys would be quick to shut me down and point out that it’s not realistic for most people to aim for that number?
Either way, I lose, lol
With all the avenues that are available for someone to make money from with a website, I don’t quite understand the pessimism!
As for my personal situation, let’s just say that it helps that I have no debt, am single, and have no kids to support. Of course, someone with a family will have to crunch their own numbers, but to me saying that you can’t blog or freelance full-time is akin to saying you can’t be a full-time consultant or lawyer or accountant.
Just my $0.02
Awesome post and well thought out! Wherever the eyeballs are, the money will follow. In this age of social media, if you’re able to build an audience and manage them responsibly then youre golden.
Thank you! There are so many ways to make money from a website, and legit ones at that! Your only limit is your creativity. You don’t have to be scamming people…
Yep! I totally agree!