Problems I Have Faced On My Blogging Journey

No I am not joking. I have had to wade through a lot of problems in blogging career. Here is my list and what I did to overcome them.

1. The Money Motive. I had done my research and found out that you can actually make money through blogging. There are actually people who are full-time professional bloggers and make thousands of money while at it. I will give you just three names: Darren Rowse, Joel Comm and John Chow. So, having recently left the organization I had worked with for 8 years, with a wife and two kids at the time, the money motive was very tempting. Fast forward three years later and I realized that all three (plus countless others) made money blogging because they first and foremost loved what they were blogging about. Joel Comm puts it this way "Do what you love and the money will follow". So, blog about what you love, monetize your blog, and the money (and readers) will follow. It is also difficult to run out of what to blog about. I have a friend who is an avid Liverpool FC supporter and he does not run out of what to say. All I do is push the button and off he goes. Get my drift? So what's your passion?
   
2. Too Many Voices. I have just mentioned three bloggers I read from but there are thousands of others who say they know what they are doing. I know better now, some will take your money and run. They have taken mine(but that's another story). You have to learn from those that have been there before and have walked the path. Stay focused. And when you have learnt all you need, unsubscribe and work on it! Let me start by recommending Joel Comm's Adsense Secrets. It's where I started out.
   
3. Costs. It costs to blog. You pay for internet access, time, a computer, domain name, hosting, templates, outsource the technical stuff. If you do not have the money, start with the free options to everything. So, because I did not have the money for a domain, hosting and all, I went and signed up for Google's Blogger . It's Google's free hosting platform and you get a domain name like http://sunganani.blogspot.com (not really professional). I had picked out my topic and off I went. Once I made enough money, I bought my $12 domain name www.sunganani.com (now you're talking). I don't have to pay for hosting. I chose Blogger for a whole host of reasons; with my gmail comes my Google Account (free) with free useful stuff I can run ads from for $$$.
   
4. Who Knew About My Blog? When you have a blog set up, that is one problem solved. But who is going to read it? I did my research and realized that I needed tell others about it, those whom we shared the same interests. So I have had to learn about marketing. If you don't tell, you don't sell. That's just it. You have to learn to market.
   
5. Content is King. John Reese says "Content is Kong". Blog readers come for what you write, not adverts, pictures and so on. You focus on generating useful, unique content and you are well on your way toward building yourself a big following.
   
6. Time. It takes time to build a good blog. If you are still blogging after one year, chances are, you will still be at it for a whole lot longer. There was a time I gave up blogging because I did not see any results, especially the financial results.
   
7. Location, location, location.
   I live in Malawi, Southern Africa, no, not South Africa (that's 2 hours south by plane). Credit/debit cards are accessible to a few, It is a nightmare to have $200 to pay for anything online, a paypal account does allow you to withdraw money into your bank account (what's the point I wonder) and on and on and on. The location I am in affected my output until I read Robert Kiyosaki's wisdom "You either say 'I cannot afford it' or you say 'how can I afford it'" To make a long story short, what you see on this blog has a lot to do with me asking the second question. It's a great motto to have. Location has also affected who I write for. Who my audience is.
   
8. Measuring Progress. You measure what you value. If you have a bathroom scale you stand on every morning, I know what you value. If you keep on getting your bank balance now and then, I know what you value. Most bloggers do not know who reads their blog, where they come from, what they read on their blog. Those kinds of stats helps me to refine my findings.
   
9. Work is not welcome. With the myriad of sales letter of people on the beach claiming that their passive, online businesses pays the bills, I was out to find the perfect program where I would just set up within 2 hours and cha-ching, the money starts rolling in. That's more like a wish. There is always work to be done. You learn, you implement (work), track progress, tweak, rinse and repeat. At some point, when you break through, there is less work because you can pay for the work that you used to do on your own. That's where you meet the sales letters talking about passive income.
   

So, if you are not going to take blogging for the long haul, then it is best you search for another type of online business but I must wan you that you will find just about the same things waiting!

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