Passive income from blogging: truth vs hype

Passive income from blogging

Note: It is a fact that blogging is a way of generating passive income. But can it replace a full time job? or is the income blogging produce really as huge as protrayed by numerous articles on internet? How much of it are truth? lets find it here. You will get all your doubts about “passive income from blogging” cleared… go on reading.

Passive income from blogging: How much exactly?

Let me start with a simple statistics from Glassdoor.co.in. In its one survey conducted during November 2016, it estimated an average income of Indian bloggers, which was 392,590 INR!

Passive income by blogging

If this figure of earning by an Indian blogger surprize you then wait, a blogger from any corner of the world earns on an average$19,000 to $24,000 per year. Which if converted to Indian rupee then comes around 1,330,000 to Rs 1,680,000.

There are fulltime bloggers who are even earning even $200,000/year working 10-30 hours/week. So there are examples of persons who have made blogging an industry.

These are very reliable estimates calculated by some reputed bodies and we can rely on them. These earnings from a blog can be considered as passive income to some extent, as once blog posts are written, the earning from it is almost on autopilot mode.

So, Passive income! it was a very strange term for me when I first time heard it. To me, income was always something we get in turn of doing something, be it a job or a business of selling something.

So how come income can be passive anyway? I got curious, scour the internet and fascinated by the idea. It is all over the internet, hundreds of sites selling the dream of “get rich quick ” by blogging.

They sell the image of a blogger with his laptop beside a swimming pool enjoying his work or life, whatever you say. A life free from the 9 to 5 slavery and without any boss. Living life on your own term. Spending time with families without the tension of meeting deadlines.

Seriously, this was why started my blog almost one year back. No doubt the passive income factor worked as a strong motivation.

Truth vs Hype

But can blogging become such a source of income! This a very common question and very natural too. I was also full of doubt when I first heard about it. 

Although the prospect of earning from a blog is very thrilling and also very genuine, it is not that easy and not 100% passive as the dream sellers sell to you. This was what I learned during my first year of blogging.

Living such a dream life and still, money keeps coming at the month-end. Who does not want such a life? This dream can only become a reality when you have a steady source of passive income.

Marketing tactics

If you search on the internet with this search phrase “how to earn from blogging” you will get tons of article reading which you will develop the idea that blogging is very easy, needs no hard work at all. Money starts to flow automatically as soon as you start a blog.

Don’t get misguided by these articles because they are also selling something and facing fierce competition. Each year millions of new blogs are started with the same purpose, to sell blogging related tools.

There are bloggers who have become multi-millionaire, but their proportion is very less. There are billions of blogs on the internet, but only a small fraction of them are successful.

Here is another statistics that will show you another side of the coin

Passive income by blogging

So, now it is clear to you that not all who start their blog ultimately able to earn a lot. A significant portion of them manages to earn a very meager amount or even fail to earn.

So it’s a marketing strategy to beat the other rival marketers, they are in a competition to present earning from blogging as a cakewalk.

Take inspiration from them but also prepare your mind for a long battle and limit your expectations otherwise, you will get depressed when you will not get success as quickly as they portray. 

Why blogging for passive income?

There are a lot of passive income ideas that are well known and may go down well for many people. Passive income from renting a house, investing money in saving schemes and mutual funds, peer to peer lending, real estate investment, income from dividends, etc

These traditional income sources are called passive as they do not require your active involvement. These are such income sources well known and generally do not raise any question in peoples’ minds if they are really capable of generating passive income.

But when it comes to blogging, this idea still makes many people skeptical even in this 2020. And it is almost an impossible thought to take it up as a fool time career. 

Other benefits of blogging

Passive income is the most attractive side of blogging, there is no denial. But there are other benefits of blogging that improve you as a person and brings paradigm shift in your life.

The changes blogging brings in your life are

  • It helps to improve your writing skills. Though good writing skill is not a prerequisite for a successful blog. But as you advance in your blogging career automatically your writing skill gets sharpen.
  • There is no better platform to share your knowledge and skill than blogging.
  • If you were looking for some platform to express yourself then blogging is your best friend
  • As you go on providing useful content through your blog post gradually you develop a network of your followers and fellow bloggers. This is itself an achievement and brings a lot of recognition.
  • Blogging brings to you a lot of exposures
  • The niche you are blogging is your domain. The knowledge you share here is unique as it contains your insights. Thus it establishes you as an authority of that niche. People start to directly link that niche to you.

Creating a blog can really replace a full-time job?

Most of the people need an assured monthly income, which a 9 to 5 job only can give. Its good and I also agree with them. It gives mental peace. 

But is not a fixed time job limiting your potential? Can you expect to raise your salary beyond a fixed structure? Can you fulfill all your dreams with a job?

Ask these questions to yourself. A job is necessary to start a career but getting stuck whole life and waiting for a raise all the time to fulfill small wishes of your life, is a kind of slavery.

Everyone on this earth has some unique quality. And most of the times people live their whole life without recognizing them. Most of the people spent their whole life being mediocre working for someone else. Just to get a regular monthly income.

If you are also doing the same, you are not doing justice to yourself. Think beyond a job and express yourself to the world. It’s your right. And a blog is a very simple yet very powerful platform that can change your life. 

You can get details about blog writing here.

Read this article by famous blogger David Schneider where he reviews and summarizes blog writing tips from the world’s six topmost bloggers. Robbie Richard, Lena Gott of What Mommy Does, Ramit Sethi of I will teach you to be rich, Matthew Woodward, Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income and Neil Patel are those few names in the blogging world who have establishes there credibility beyond any question.

Read this article and note down the points as I also have done, it will help to save a lot of your time that otherwise be wasted finding the right strategy to write a blog.

Is it really a passive income?

Not many of us think of blogging as a business. To them, writing content is just a passion. So I have seen people with extraordinary writing talent and often they even have no clue that they can earn by writing.

But the thing is earning from blogging is not new. Bloggers are earning from their blogs for quite some time. Blogging has established itself as a multi-million dollar industry and growing further rapidly. 

There are many ways to earn from a blog. I have discussed in detail about the ways to earn from blogging here

This 2020 is going to see a boom in online marketing or digital marketing and blogging will have a fair share of it. 

If you are yet to start a blog, then there is no better time to start it than now. 

Read this article on How to write a blog post (actionable tips ANYONE can follow) to jump-start your blogging venture.

You can also watch this video of famous digital marketer Neil Patel on passive income from blogging. 

It’s a very informative video with important facts and advice. He is a master of online marketing with huge experience and also now guides new bloggers to be successful in their blogging business.

Is it possible to create passive income from blogging with no money?

Yes absolutely, you can open a free account at WordPress, Blogger or Medium to start blogging and gradually as you grow traffic, you can monetize it and start earning. 

If you want to start a real business then it is better to go for a paid WordPress blog setup. Compare to a free blog account, a paid WordPress account gives you much more liberty to customize it. 

To start with a WordPress account, it requires a little amount to invest, but the features you get with this account, worth the money. Your blog has a professional look that every prospective customer looks for.

The best thing, you get your personal domain instead of a subdomain. This helps you a lot when you are quite established in your business and needs a brand identity. With a subdomain that is tough if not impossible though.

For a paid WordPress account you can go for the personal account at the starting phase.

So as you can see here, even you go for a paid account it will cost you below $50/year (for the subscription of more than a year). It is a very little amount when we are talking about starting a business here. Is there any other business in the earth that you can start with such a meager investment. 

Patience is the key to success 

Blogging is an amalgamation of lots of skills and subjects at one platform. You may get overwhelmed to tackle all of them at a time. But this your hard work and consistent effort which pays in the long run. 

Especially if you are just starting as a blogger, during the initial stage, it is only learning, learning and learning. Invest your time and energy to learn writing skills, copywriting, SEO and get familiar with different blogging related tools.

Don’t expect any earning at this initial stage. Don’t get mad at me. I know this is what made you read this post to this point. What I mean to say that blogging is not some “get rich quick” strategy. It is a time taking process and needs patience. 

Being too focused towards earning money at a very early stage of blogging will also deviate you from creating good content, learning different skills and ultimately create frustration when things will not happen as you expected.

I have already said that blogging is also a business and like every successful business it also requires an establishment phase. As you can not expect a long queue of customers in front of your store just the next day of opening it, likewise you can not start earning when you have just started writing.

Create content worth reading

It is also true that the field of blogging has already become quite competitive. Each day millions of new blogs are getting published of which almost 90% remains unnoticed, no one ever visits them.

Most of these blogs don’t even continue after six months they are created. The owners of these blogs abandoned them as either they found it boring or gets frustrated being not able to earn from it.

The main reason behind this is that the content they publish, do not worth reading. And this happens when someone publishes something only to make money. Without any passion or knowledge on the topic.

Gone are the days when any kind of content created has a chance to generate income. In 2020 you have to create something which really stands out from the crowd. 

The content must be original, unique, engaging and very useful. If the content is useful, people will like it, there will be more traffic and the possibility of making more money.

Conclusion

So, hope that I am able to convince you why you should start a blog in 2020.

Start writing on topics you really love. Pour your heart into it. Share your real-life experiences however insignificant it may appear to you. There are always people out there who are experiencing the same as you and you can help them out with your blog.

Make it passion and then feel the magic. Slowly you will have your own audience. They will wait for your new blog post. And this the main reward of blogging. The recognition a quality blog brings to you is priceless. 

Blogging helps you to discover a new form of yourself. A far more improved version of yourself. 

At this stage when your blog already has a large target audience, you can apply a number of ways to monetize it. You can experiment with it as you wish. The game of earning money from blogging is in your control now.

But until you reach this stage, you have to show your patience and continue the hard work.

And when passive income starts flowing from your blog… this is the best thing you have ever done in your life.