If you’ve spent any time blogging, you know that blogging is like a vortex of never-ending things you need to do in order to establish and maintain your brand online, and it takes YEARS to know just where you SHOULD spend your valuable blogging time and where you SHOULDN’T.
This post will show you very quickly where pro-bloggers making six figures or more aren’t found spending their time, which will help you know where YOU shouldn’t waste your time either.
This will free you up to do amazing things with your blog and not get side-tracked on the things that won’t grow your blog quickly or lead to a huge return on your time investment.
Here are 10 things bloggers who make six figures aren’t doing.
10 Things Bloggers Who Make Six Figures Aren’t Doing
This is going to sound super hypocritical, but…
1- Reading a bunch of posts on blogging
Here’s the thing, NOTHING….let me repeat NOTHING or no one knows your blog like you do. So, read all the stuff online all you want, most of the time, it’s not going to help enough to justify all the time you spent. Sure you’ll get tricks and tips to try, but if you’ve been blogging over a year, you need to be finding your OWN patterns, researching your OWN data and not at all worrying what others say is good or bad.
I stopped reading blogging posts a long time ago. Where the real value is, is in personalized coaching. Now I get that you have to be making money to spend money. So, it’s this huge catch 22. But if you’re out there reading about blogging instead of DOING it, you’re missing the point.
The best advice I ever got from a fellow blogger in my niche was to just put my head down and work! Do not look around. Just work. Figure out what works best for YOU and do that. It’s really that simple.
While blogging IS a team effort, don’t spend ALL your time trying to make friends and connect. Get in there, figure things out and do your best. Have a “no die” attitude and that will take you further. Because if you rely too much on what others have to say, you’ll end up just being a photocopy of them. Don’t do that. Be you. The world needs precious you!
2- Following a bunch of bloggers
You’re on 12 different email lists, spend much of your time looking around to see what others are doing. Again, this goes along with point #1, put your head down and work. Create your posts, work on building your newsletter list, get social on one platform at a time, create things your audience will love.
While it’s okay to follow 1-3 other bloggers you really connect with, never follow more than 3 at any given moment. You can’t possibly get to the meat of who they are and what makes them successful if you’re following too many at once. Pick a few and stick with that. Grow with them, learn all you can, figure out what makes them tick, why they are so successful, and move on.
3- Chasing money
This gets to the root of the issue. What is your focus? Is it money or helping people? While it’s a noble endeavor to want to help your family, you can’t SOLELY focus on money. The highest paid bloggers are all about HELPING PEOPLE…ever notice that? Because as readers, we can smell a rat a mile away. Simple…don’t be a rat! 🙂
So many bloggers out there are just chasing cheese, chasing shiny, like rats in a maze. Oh, I’m gonna get in so much trouble for saying that, but it’s true, isn’t it?! And we’re smart…we know which ones are rats.
Listen, your life is not about money. Your life is so much more, dear one. SOOOO much more. Serve others, help people, focus on THAT and you WILL make money, EASILY!
Oh the times I can count when my audience members say to me something like…”Whatever you sell, I’ll buy because I trust you.”
It makes me cry because I’m so honored that people can see through a computer screen to my heart. I want to help. It’s not about money. Yes, I have to eat, but God will provide my needs, how about I focus my life on meeting YOUR needs?!!!!!!
4- Comparing everything you do to other bloggers
Oh, the comparison trap. It is real, for SURE! We ALL get sucked into it from time to time and you just have to stop. You can’t compare yourself to other bloggers and if you do, do it by time of blogging, not stats.
Here’s what I mean.
I used to compare myself to other bloggers and say how great they are and how I suck! What I didn’t realize was that, I was comparing my beginning to their middle. If I’ve been blogging barely 3 years now and I compare myself to someone who has been blogging 5-6 years, of COURSE they will be more awesome than me. And when I’m 5-6 years blogging, I’ll be double as good of where I’m at now too!
You can’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle. You have to look up when they first started blogging and compare your number of months blogging to their number of months blogging. How much money did they make when they WERE at your point? Compare that! Go back in their old posts during that time frame on their blog and see what they were doing at that time. This will help you far more than trying to act 10 years old and feeling bad about it, when you’re 1 years old.
5- Being in a bunch of Facebook groups
Stop, okay, just like stop. This year, I got completely off Facebook and I’m telling you, I added 40+ hours to my schedule! I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t realize how much time I was spending “trying to connect with others.”
I had an audience member who barely started a blog email me randomly one day thanking me. We connected right away and a month later, seriously, she’s one of my best blogging friends! She has fire, tenacity, and passion!
If you’re worried about making blogging friends, don’t. They will come. You don’t need to spend 40+ hours on Facebook to do it. It’s such a time kill.
Now, that’s not to say you shouldn’t be on Facebook or in a few groups, but don’t go overboard. Pick a couple of the most meaningful and relevant groups to you and let the rest go.
6- Not making goals
Oh my GOSH, I’m obsessed with goals. I’m not even kidding you. Every month, I make a list of 3-5 goals and work on them. I also have yearly goals and 3 year goals for four main categories in my life: Family, Life, Blogging, and Finances.
You need to be looking at your goals DAILY, okay…DAYYYYY-LEEEE!
Every day, with those goals fresh in your mind, you can make decisions for the day based on where you want to be. Little by little, day by day, those goals WILL happen, so long as you keep them fresh in your mind.
In my blogging binder, I have some printables that are perfect to write down your 1 month, 3 month, 6 month, and 1 year goals. This is vital to any business you create.
7- Trying to be like everyone else
Have you ever looked at another site and said, “Wow, I wish my blog was like hers.”
Come on, you can admit it. We ALL do, right (myself included)?!
But we can’t BE like everyone else. No matter how hard we try. God has given us all a unique personality, unique experiences. We are not mindless robots. We are created differently. Your voice is important. The world needs YOUR voice, not a copy cat of someone else’s.
No matter if you think it loses you traffic or not, you have to be you. Those blogs that are genuinely DIFFERENT, those are the blogs that do well. Take a look around at the leaders in your niche….they have a very distinct personality and you can see it right away when visiting their blogs.
Me…I’m so different it’s not even funny. One of the main things is that there’s not really many single mom bloggers out there…if they are, seriously, would you leave me a comment and let me know so I can see you! But, it’s what makes me ME. I am a single mom. I’m slaying this all on one income, running my entire life without help of family, going from homeless to 6 figures, so if I can do it, surely, you, who most likely has someone to help you, you can SOOOOOOO do this! You’ve got this!!!!
8- Not investing enough time
I always say, if you want to earn full time income, you’ve got to put in full time hours. Especially in the beginning (if you want a super fast growing, money making blog). The amount of hours you put in is directly correlated with how fast you grow and how much you make (time frame wise). If you can only put in 20 hours a week, that’s totally okay, no problem, but you can’t compare yourself to someone who’s working 40+ hours or has a TEAM of people helping!
Your blog has to be your passion, your fire, or why do it at all?
If you think you can skate by, you can’t. There are a lot of blogs out there. This is NOT a get rich scheme. It’s hard work and there’s a ton of competition. You must be dedicated and you must be willing to see little income while you set up shop, so to speak. I do not personally believe anyone can have a successful blog, making 6 figures a year or more, unless they are putting in at LEAST 40 hours a week, either by themselves or a total amount of hours split between a team. Anyone who says they can, are most likely not counting their social media time or employees! Running a six-figure blog takes work.
Again, if you can only work the blog 20 hours a week, that’s just fine, but you can’t compare yourself to others who ARE working it.
One of the most popular bloggers in my niche, works 60 hours a week herself and has a team of 5 other people helping her on a regular basis, 2 of which are full time employees. People are like, WOW, look at her. She’s so awesome (and she is!) But it’s because she has at least 200 hours a WEEK of work getting done! Of COURSE, she’s gonna be awesome.
My point is this, do NOT feel bad because you’re not in the same spot as someone else. Not at least looking behind the scenes, deal?! 🙂
9- Posting fluffy posts
I am a girl who likes meat, okay. I like to learn. I’m obsessed with learning and growing and improving. You give me milk and I yawn and head for the exit. It’s not even worth my time. This is the whole reason I stopped reading a lot of other blogs. So many were all about fluff pieces that are sponsored or have a gazillion ads everywhere you look.
I wanted to be different. So, my posts, generally speaking, are longer. At this point, this post is 2117 words long!
Remember that Google likes longer posts. Longer posts get shared more. Longer posts give meat and people don’t want fluff.
How many times have you been on Pinterest, click over to something that sounded good and it was total junk? You’re thinking to yourself, “Wow, there’s a few minutes of my life I’ll never get back.” It’s frustrating, right?! Don’t BE one of those blogs. If someone clicks over to YOUR blog, make sure your article blows their mind. That it meets their needs. That it’s talking about what they want to know. Giving them GOOD meaty details.
YOU, my friend, are a wealth of knowledge, whether you realize it or not…share that wealth with others. Don’t hold back.
10- Commenting on other blogs as a traffic strategy
Okay, okay, this is going to hurt me a little bit, but I have to tell you the truth. Commenting on other blogs for traffic, in my opinion and personal testings, has never been worth the time invested. You may get a little bit of traffic flow when you first start, but your time can be better spent in other traffic-earning ways.
However, as a disclaimer, I don’t discourage anyone from commenting. It’s more a personal thing, than link building or traffic strategy. If you want to comment, then definitely do so and include your blog URL. Especially if you follow a blog and are reading the content. Show them you are there. Bloggers love that. Just know, it’s not very good at getting substantial traffic if that is the sole focus.
