Blogging can be very lucrative. There’s a lot of money in it, but the harsh truth is that it’s not for everybody.
Most people who start blogs fail because it’s not for every body, even though it has made many people millionaires.
Blogging changed my life. But before it changed my life I quitted several times. But I came back to it, and I finally got it to work.
I finally understood what it is and how it works. With this knowledge, I realize why I quitted several times, and why being a blogger might not be what you think it is.
I’m not writing this to discourage anybody from starting a blog, or making money as a blogger or writer. But I’m writing this to help you understand exactly what you’re getting into when you become a blogger, so that you have accurate expectations of what it’s all about, and hopefully, you can succeed with this knowledge.
So, here in this article are my 8 honest reasons why you shouldn’t be a blogger.
There’s very little incentive to work hard when you get started
In contrast with most other jobs, like your day job where you already know how much you’ll be paid at the end of the week, or at the end of the month, when you get started as a blogger, you don’t even know whether you’ll make any money.
You can work for 6 months straight without making a dime. And that will discourage a lot of people.
That gives you very little incentive to work hard. You go the first week no money, second week no money, first month no money earned, second month no money earned, third and fourth month, you’ll get discouraged. And you’ll have very little incentive to work harder.
With your 9-5 job on the other hand, you get paid at the end of the week, or at the end of the month, and that payment gives you a lot of reasons to come back.
With a blog, you’re not getting that. You’ll have to wait a while. 3 months, 6 months. Sometimes a year.
That’s why it may not be something you want to get into. If you’re not willing to work for free for some months, before you start earning, it’s not for you.
It’s a lot of work
You know as a blogger, you can work from just about anywhere. You can work from home. And that makes some people feel it’s an easy job.
The truth is, it’s not. Blogging is not an easy job. Being a blogger is not all about sitting down all day doing nothing but staring at a computer.
Being a blogger is hard work. You do a lot of research, you write a bunch of articles, you learn new skills that you have no idea about before, you design hundreds of graphics that you have to post on social media, you sleep late, you wake up tired, especially when you’re just starting out.
And on top of all that, if you’re a new blogger, you make no money when you get started. You work for free your first few months.
So, it’s a lot of work, and no pay, when you get started.
It can be boring
Being a blogger can be a very boring job. Especially when you live alone or single. It’s mostly an indoor job.
You’re just there in your room, typing away on your laptop. You get up, look around, go to the kitchen get something to eat, maybe go out, come back, and go at it again.
It can be boring. It’s not a job that involves a lot of talking with people. Even if you live with other people, if you want to write a very good article, if you want to reach the minds of your audience, you have to find a quiet place in your home, and really right something meaningful.
You’ll look weird to friends and family
It’s true. You’ll look weird to friends and family at first. You’ll find it difficult explaining what you’re doing to them.
Some may even think you’re wasting your life sitting down everyday and writing some weird stuff online.
They may not even believe in what you’re doing. You may have to grow a thick skin to weather their jokes of you doing nothing with your life.
But it’s all fine. If you’re weather the storm, stick to what you’re doing, and stick to it to the end, you’ll hopefully be able to win them over to your side in the end.
When they see that, you’re making all this money, and realize you were not wasting your life after, it will be fun.
And you’ll feel a great sense of achievement, knowing you were able to weather the storm, you were able to stay disciplined, and you were able to achieve your aim.
You’ll have to learn new skills
If you want to become a blogger, there are many new skills you have to learn, if you haven’t learned them before.
I remember the first article, I wrote. It was horrific. I’m still not the best writer in the world right now, but the way I write now is worlds ahead of how I used to write.
So, you have to learn to write better. You have to learn graphics design, you have to learn how to build your own website, and how to manage it.
You can’t call yourself a blogger if you don’t know the infrastructure behind how a website operates. You have to be able to manage your own websites.
You don’t have to learn how to code or anything, but you have to learn the basics. There tools out there right now that makes website creation a matter of dragging and dropping elements. At least that’s WordPress operates with Gutenberg right now.
There are many other skills you have to learn. Email marketing, social media marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), and a few more.
Blogging is a job. And if you want to become a very good blogger, and really make a shxt load of money as a blogger, you’ve got to skill-up.
It takes time
I know I’ve talked about this, but let me just reiterate it again. Making money as a blogger takes time. You’re not going to make money the first or second week, or the first or second month.
It may take 3 months, 6 months and even up to a year. If you don’t have the patience and discipline to put in the work for this long, I’m sorry, it’s not for you.
Blogging is a sedentary job
As lucrative as it is, blogging is a sedentary job. It involves a lot of sitting and a lot of staying in one place for long periods of time, which is not really good for your health.
No matter how much money you make, if you’re a blogger, you want to make sure you workout as much as possible to make up for all the sitting down that you do.
Whether you like it or not, you need to invest money to see good results
I like the way some people paint blogging, as if it’s a business you can start without investing a penny.
I see it all the time online. People paint it as the business you can start with zero (0) dollars.
In some way they’re right though. It’s true you can start blogging with 0 dollars. You really don’t have to spend any dime to start a blog.
There are lots of free tools out there you can use to start a blog for free. Like, zero dollars. You don’t have to spend a penny.
But the fact is that, and not investing any money in it comes at a very huge cost. Trust me.
You may not be spending money, but you’ll be spending something much more important than money. You’ll be spending a lot of time, and energy.
And the quality of the work and business that you’re able to build as a result of this will suffer. Your blog won’t look professional.
You yourself will know it when you look at your blog, and those of other bloggers you may be striving to be like.
To start a blog, you need to invest in a good web hosting platform. That’s where you will store your blog online.
You need to start it on a good platform like WordPress. The platform itself, WordPress is totally free, but you need to invest in a good WordPress theme like the Kadence WordPress theme which I’m currently using on this blog.
You need to invest in tools like Canva to design good web graphics. Canva does has a free plan you can use, and it’s great. But for you to really design great graphics you can use on your blog, and on social media platforms like Pinterest to drive traffic as fast as possible to your blog, you need a Pro account, which is what I’m using.
Moreover, you need other tools like a scheduling tool, to help schedule your social media content. I use Publer. There’s Tailwind and many more.
You have to invest in all of these tools to really build a good business for yourself. These tools will pay you off 10 million times over time.
A good web hosting platform will cost you from 5 to 30 dollars per month depending on your budget. Some costs much more. But since you’re just starting out, you don’t need to get a premium web host.
Canva costs just over 11 dollars per month.
A good WordPress theme costs about $50 dollars per year. And all this is nothing compared to how much you can make as a blogger.
I have one blog that earns me over $10,000 per month, and I spend not more than $200 on the blog per month.
See the difference? See how much you get by just investing in your blogging business?
Rounding Up
Being a blogger changed my life. I love it. There’s a lot of money in it, but it’s not a job for everybody.
I’ve given you 8 honest reasons above why you shouldn’t be a blogger.
Note that, I’m not discouraging you from becoming a blogger. But if you have any issue with any of the sacrifices you have to make, as I’ve listed above, then you’re better off finding something else to do with your time.
On the other hand, if you can put in the work, if you can make the sacrifices, if you can put in the time, if you can wait for the reward, even though you’re not making money at first, if you can stay disciplined, learn the skills required, invest your time and money, then you definitely should be a blogger.
Then you have all it takes to become a successful blogger.