Last Updated on June 7, 2020 by Nathaniel Tower
If you’re a blogger or an aspiring blogger, you’ve undoubtedly seen countless blog posts telling you how you can achieve amazing things as a blogger. Hell, I even wrote one myself, although it was a complete joke that shouldn’t have fooled anyone.
While my post was pretty obviously full of lies, most people who blog about blogging don’t make it so obvious. They give you these killer headlines about how they made $16,759.21 blogging last month and how they only spent a grand total of 17 minutes actually writing. Then you click into the post only to discover they made all this money because they spent 87 hours promoting their online course that promises you’ll make $16,759.21 per month as a blogger if you just sign up for the online course right now at a low rate of $599, but don’t worry it comes with $1200 worth of free bonuses, but hurry because this offer expires in seventeen seconds and won’t open again for three years.
Wow, I’m exhausted just from writing that last paragraph. Are you following along here? Let’s slow it down and walk through the biggest blogging tips and promises that are nothing but massive lies (or at least way too good to be true):
1. You can write an amazing, profitable blog post that will attract millions of visitors in under 30 minutes.
No, you can’t. Any good piece of writing takes a lot longer than this. Plus, it will take you a ton of time to promote your blog post if you want a million visitors. Unless you have millions of incredibly loyal blog followers who just come to your blog, read any old shit you post, and click on every damn affiliate link in sight. Then I suppose you can write a profitable blog post in under 30 minutes.
In reality, a blog post that’s going to attract a lot of readers will take several hours to research and write, and that doesn’t even scratch the surface of the total effort once you consider the promotional efforts necessary. But if you want to keep pumping out those 30-minute blog posts, then be my guest.
2. You can grow your traffic by 50x (or insert other ridiculous number) overnight with one simple trick.
Nope, can’t do this either. Not unless you currently only have two blog visitors and your one simple trick is to actually share your blog for the first time ever. Then you can probably grow your traffic by at least 50 times. Unless of course you don’t have any social media following at all.
Real growth doesn’t happen overnight, unless you get insanely lucky and someone with a shitload of followers happens to share something you wrote. If you want to grow your blog readership, you need to spend countless hours creating great content and building a real following. If you’re not willing to put in those extensive efforts, then you definitely aren’t going to become one of those millionaire bloggers. And even if you do, most bloggers still fail to make much money at all. After all, there are millions and millions of blogs out there. The competition is way too massive for every blogger to be successful. The truth sucks sometimes, doesn’t it?
3. You can make 6 figures as a side hustle.
Haha! This one is just too damn absurd. Unless you consider $1000.00 a 6-figure number, and even that’s a stretch if blogging isn’t your full-time gig. Or I guess if you consider 50 hours a week to be a side hustle. Then it might be possible.
Making six figures as a blogger is a full-time job. Period. And most full-time bloggers don’t make anywhere near six figures. If you want to get rich from blogging, you are going to have to work your ass off. It’s not a side hustle. Sure, maybe it can start off as a side hustle until you’ve built a big enough following where it’s somewhat feasible to quit your real full-time job and give it a go as a blogger. But you aren’t going to get rich from blogging if you aren’t spending at least 40 hours a week on your blog. That doesn’t mean you’ll be writing for 40 hours a week. This includes creating content, marketing your blog, developing a sellable product or course, and many other things required to be a successful blogger.
4. You can do anything easily.
Blogging itself is pretty damn easy. You write words and hit publish. That’s all blogging is. But being a successful blogger is incredibly hard. It’s not a get-rich-quick scheme. See the paragraph above. You will have to work your ass off to create great content, market your blog, develop a sellable product, and a bunch of other shit that goes into being a successful blogger. If an article is promising you can do something easily, then don’t bother reading it.
5. You need to use a certain program or tool to be a successful blogger.
There’s no single magic tool or platform to make you a successful blogger. You don’t have to have a WordPress blog hosted on BlueHost with 16 specific plugins and an email list through ConvertKit. It’s all just affiliate shit! This is the primary way many bloggers make money. They are just using you.
If you read a blog post about a must-have blogging tool that links to said tool, then the only reason the blogger is recommending it is to make money off you through affiliate sales. It’s not evil, and the tool may work, but don’t be fooled. It’s all self-serving. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use the tools they recommend, but you don’t have to. There are other tools out there that probably work just as well–or maybe even better.
Fun fact: you know why every blogger recommends something like ConvertKit over MailChimp? It’s because MailChimp doesn’t have an affiliate program. The bloggers don’t recommend MailChimp because there’s nothing in it for them. It’s too bad really because MailChimp is a great email marketing tool and would more than meet the needs of most bloggers. Oh well.
Conclusion
I could go on and on with blogging tips that are lies, but you’re probably either bored at this point or really mad at me because I’m exposing all the blogging snakeoil you’re selling. Besides, I’m way over my 30 minutes on this post. Whatever. Just share your thoughts in the comments and don’t forget to share the heck out of this post on every channel in the world so I can make $5.63 per day from those clicks on my ads!
What other blogging lies annoy the hell out of you? Share your thoughts in the comments. And don’t forget to share this post on all your favorite platforms.
So true. My traffic comes from seven searchable stories that I’ve written over the last three years. The reason why they get hits? Because 1) I am assuming people like reading them, and 2) The subject is specific and unique.
Example: The owners of a bowling alley being renovated for a 2020 reopening caught my blog post about the memories I had at their bowling alley before it closed. The post had a decent amount of views the first two years considering I don’t have much of a following (65 views for year one, 297 in year two), and an amazing 77 views for this January! And THEN, just yesterday, they posted a link to my story via their Facebook page.
In the last two days, the post has been viewed 163 times and counting. If your content is good—even if it’s just a few posts that are searchable, people will read them and tell their friends to check out your work.
I went from 303 views in all of 2016 to 1,592 last year. In 2019, I’m over 500 already without creating any new posts. It takes time.
Thank you for sharing your experience. That’s awesome to hear your numbers are growing. Keep it up!
Thanks, Nathaniel, I always doubt myself because others seem to be doing so well! I really just want to grow my readers at this point. I appreciate your information!
I read a book once about how to make money living in rural America and one of the suggestions was to write a book about how to make money living in rural America. I smelled a rat!
That’s a good idea, but I think it would be better if you wrote a book about how to write a book about how to make money living in rural America!
I know it’s meant to be humorous at points, but I truly do appreciate the raw honesty in this post. Recently I’ve been looking to take my writing more seriously, and one realm in the writing world I’ve considered trying to wiggle my way into is the blogging industry (if it can be called that). It has been unfortunate, however, that the more I’ve surveyed the blogging landscape, the more I’ve been disappointed by post after post of painfully obvious cash grabs. And a few times I only avoided buying into such well-meaning scams by the hair on my chinny chin chin. In all seriousness though, I’m sure these people are sincere. They just want to make some money with the craft or get exposure for their creative works. But, personally, I find this to be a deeply dishonest and deceptive way of “getting your name out there” or making money from the craft. Your blog has been one of the most honest, encouraging, and informative I’ve found. I know you probably hope your blog helps you build a larger audience, but it also seems like (1) you actually have experience that is worth learning from (like running a Lit Mag and writing tons of short stories), and (2) you aren’t just trying to get us to buy your work. I appreciate both of those things, and I hope you’ll continue producing the quality content that has become one of my most valued sources for widening my knowledge of the writing industry. Also, your short story about the man with the oaten hands was freaking awesome. Thank you for that.
Chris, thank you so much for reading and sharing your thoughts. I really appreciate your honesty and your feedback (especially the kind words about “The Oaten Hands”). I agree that most bloggers are probably sincere – especially in their desire to make money. I jest, but not really. But they are also trying to help. Unfortunately, that help often isn’t meaningful enough and just traps people into buying things they don’t need.
I will do my best to keep producing stuff people find worthwhile. If you have any topics you’d like me to cover, please let me know. And I do hope you at least clicked an ad so I could make a few cents off your visit. HA!
I am thinking there are more than 5 but is excellent what you have done
I love the raw honesty. I enjoy blogging but it’s not my full-time job. I have been blogging for years. I have seen so many posts and courses for earning X amount easily and quickly. Everybody wants to sell me their secrets. Years of building a following and practice at writing good posts can’t be done overnight. Thanks for sharing this post!