Why Start A Blog As A Passive Income Business?

Let's get the first thing out of the way.

Blogging can make lots of money, but you have to do it the right way, do it consistently, and it takes 1 or 2 or even 3 years growing it to a chunky size of revenue per month (I am talking about $50,000/month or $100,000/month).

The nay sayers will tell you that you can only make $500-$2,000 per month, most of the time. Well, they are right too. Let me explain.

If you do it the "wrong way", you won't be able to grow your blog to $50,000 or more per month. So what is the right way vs. the wrong way?

Anaxstar.com has done more than 300+ blogs since 2004, and having worked on many of those myself, here's what I have seeen with regards to blogs being done the "wrong way" or the "right way" below.

But before I discuss the the "wrong way" or the "right way" of doing a blog business, let's take a look at some successful blogs and their current monthly income:

Some successful blogs ... remember this is monthly income, not annual!

• 1)HuffPost (AKA Huffington Post) – Monthly income: $3.3 million.
• 2)Engadget – Monthly income: $5.5 million (6 international blogs).
• 3)Moz Blog – Monthly income: $4.5 million.
• 3)TechCrunch – Monthly income: $2.5 million.
• 4)Mashable – Monthly income: $2 million.
• 5)MoneySavingExpert – Monthly income: $1.3 million.
• 6)Timothy Sykes – Monthly income: $1.25 million.
• 7)CopyBlogger – Monthly income: $1 million.
• 8)Perez Hilton – Monthly income: $575,000.
• 9)Gizmodo – Monthly income: $325,000.
• 10)Entrepreneurs on FIRE – Monthly income: $300,000.
• 11)Smashing Magazine – Monthly income: $215,000.
• 12)Tuts+ – Monthly income: $175,000.
• 13)The Blonde Salad – Monthly income: $170,000.
• 14)Smart Passive Income – Monthly income: $148,000.
• 15)Making Sense of Cents – Monthly income: $140,000.
• 16)Melyssa Griffin – Monthly income: $280,000.
• 17)A Beautiful Mess – Monthly income: $125,000.
• 18)Car Advice – Monthly income: $125,000.
• 19)Lifehacker – Monthly income: $110,000.
• 20)Gothamist – Monthly income: $110,000.
• 21)SmartBlogger – Monthly income: $100,000.
• 22)Steve Pavlina – Monthly income: $100,000.
• 23)VentureBeat – Monthly income: $100,000.
• 24)Pinch of Yum – Monthly income: $100,000.
• 25)The Busy Budgeter – Monthly income: $90,000.
• 26)Car Throttle – Monthly income: $80,000+.
• 27)SlashGear – Monthly income: $80,000+.
• 28)My Wife Quit Her Job – Monthly income: $80,000+.
• 29)Zoella – Monthly income: $60,000+.
• 30)Obstable – Monthly income: $75,000+.
• 31)Just a Girl and Her Blog – Monthly income: $50,000+.
• 32)Entrepreneurs-Journey –Monthly income: $50,000.
• 33)Sooverthis – Monthly income: $50,000.
• 34)Show Me The Yummy – Monthly income: $50,000.
• 35)Lady16makeup – Monthly income: $40,000+.
• 36)ProBlogger – Monthly income: $40,000+.
• 37)JohnnyFD – Monthly income: $40,000+.
• 38)It’s a Lovely Life – Monthly income: $38,000.
• 39)Laura in the Kitchen – Monthly income: $35,000.
• 40)ShoutMeLoud – Monthly income: $34,000.
• 41)Grav3yard Girl – Monthly income: $32,000.
• 42)ShoeMoney – Monthly income: $40,000.
• 43)Your Modern Family – Monthly income: $30,000.
• 44)Avocadu – Monthly income: $28,000.
• 45)ClubThrifty – Monthly income: $25,000.
• 46)Matthew Woodward – Monthly income: $25,000.
• 47)TrafficMeansBusiness – Monthly income: $25,000.
• 48)Marketing Creativity – Monthly income: $23,000.
• 49)Millennial Money – Monthly income: $23,000.
• 50)Sarah Titus – Monthly income: $23,000.
• 51)By Regina – Monthly income: $20,000.
• 52)Millennial Money Man – Monthly income: $15,000.

The wrong way ...

• 1)Choosing a blog subject that has very low Google ad placement PPC cost, hence low income potential (more details below).
• 2)Choosing a subject that has very little public interest. If not a lot people are interested in it, you will not earn much.
• 3)Don't go for a cheap ugly blog design. If it is cheap looking then it will be interpreted as low value content or information.
• 4)Don't go for a cheap blogging system (blog system or content management system), it will come back to bite you later.
• 5)You don't have to be a writer. Writers are cheap these days. Can get a nice article for as little as $6. Average articles are about $2-$3. Also, don't write articles that don't help anyone. It won't generate much income.
• 6)If you are impatient, your blog will not succeed. Blogs are businesses that the longer you have it the more you love it.
• 7)Don't make it difficult for yourself. If you make it too complicated then you will most certainly quit and would have wasted your time and money.
• 8)Don't think that you build a blog and they will come. You have to build a traffic "system" to your blog. Ignoring it, will cost you a lot.

The right way ...

• 1)Choose a great blog subject (see the list of some of the good subjects below). What a great subject? One that has high PPC cost for the ads that Google places on your blog for your audience, hence high income potential. For instance, take a look at the top 10 blogging subjects for home-based blogger, shown below. This will give you lots of ideas. These blogs have advertisers paying lots of money to reach your blog audience because they make good money from every sale, hence high PPC cost. If they make good money from a sale, they pay high PPC to Google, and Google gives you up to 68% of that click. That is how you make lots of money.
• 2)Choose a subject that is popular as well as (1 above) has high PPC cost. If you choose a subject that has 300,000 searches per month at a PPC cost of $5, you will earn a lot more that if you choose a subject that has 1000 searches per month at a PPC cost of $500. Yes, there are PPCs that cost $500 per click (some examples below).
• 3)Get a professional looking blog designed by a company that knows what they are doing. If you get a $100 blog, then it probably looks it. A good professionally designed blog at Anaxstar.com is about $500 and it is professionally designed, it includes SEO, logo design, page layout design, a few article pages (usually 4-5 articles are done for you to get you started), sitemap page for Google, and search engine optimized system. If you want marketing then we can also do social media setup and marketing (Facebook, Twitter, and Google+), training on how to run your blog and add articles, and full technical support through a dedicated telephone support representative. Basically everything you need to get started and grow your blog business.
• 4)The only blogging system that we recommend for a home-based or a new small business passive income blog is WordPress. We like a lot of the other ones but they are not ideal for new start ups and smaller blogs.
• 5)It is cheap to have professional writers write for you these days. 15 years ago a well written article would cost $200. 10 years ago it would cost $100 or if you were lucky as little as $50 for large quantity discount. Today you can have a nicely written article for $6 at quite a few online marketplaces.
• 6)You must be patient. Your blog will not make money in the first 2 or 3 months. Give yourself time. Make sure you have some money put aside to help grow your blog business. If you don't then you will quit and your blog will not succeed. It is just like any other business. You have to build it up. The only major difference is that with other businesses you don't get Google send you a check every month once your blog is up and running and has traffic and is popular.
• 7)Easy does it. Take baby steps. Start with the blog set up. Then get approved (it takes about few days) with Google. We will install all your Google codes and we also install your ad placement codes. So you don't have to worry about it.
• 8)When the blog design and initial set up is done, and you got some articles in your blog, then we can submit your application for Google advertising, and once you are approved and all the codes are installed on your blog, then you are good to go. AND then you need to do marketing, promotion, traffic to the blog, and more marketing. You need to grow the blog until it is big enough that it has traction on its own.

If you need help with setting up a blog for yourself or a loved one, let me know. I may be able to help.

Good luck.