I suspect many of us have heard at least some of these blogging myths that get trotted out on a regular basis, especially to those of us that blog.
I have heard a few myths just lately so I thought I would do some research and was actually surprised by how many there are rolling around. So this post wasn’t too lengthy, I decided to write 2 posts on the subject. This one is Debunking Blogging Myths Part 1.
Following this one is Debunking Blogging Myths Part 2. I admit the second title is not very original but it serves its purpose.
Table of Contents
BLOGGING:
Isn’t A Real Job
So compared to a 9-5 job working for someone else, I suppose it doesn’t seem that way. 
You don’t clock on and off but that’s because you set your own hours. I think it may be the fact that you set your own hours that makes people think that way.
If you’re working hard and getting paid for it, it’s a job. And that’s what blogging is, hard work!
Nevertheless, this is often a blogging myth, one to be ignored. Blogging is a real job.
Doesn’t make M0ney
It’s not a regular wage until you have become well established, even then its not a certain income. Things like the pandemic took away many a blogger’s lifestyle and earnings. Yet before many travel bloggers were big earners, it just took a virus becoming a Pandemic very quickly to destroy that income. However, there were many who’s blogs really took off BECAUSE of the pandemic.
It does & doesn’t
Cycling, home gyms, exercise for all ages, healthy lifestyles etc. These and many more became very popular as traffic increased dramatically and sales followed.
There are also many aspiring bloggers who don’t make any money at all yet for a variety of reasons. There are also bloggers who only make small amounts of money. Earnings depend upon effort put in, consistency with posting, interesting topics and of course time to get established
If you don’t believe me, you only got to read some income reports from bloggers. Some of them make $50,000. Per month.
Only does well in popular niches
Some niches or topics have a lot of well established websites and well known bloggers that already have built up trust, so people go back. Plus some are in a niche where people want to buy.
For example, people that read beauty blogs are literally looking to shop for products. And people who read recipes need the ingredients to form the recipe. So it’s easy to link to these products and make money when people use the link to buy it.
But you could be in either of those and not make any money at all.
The pandemic has shown that being popular one minute doesn’t mean you will stay that way without effort.
A less well known niche can make money because they don’t have the same competition but again it takes work.
needs Page Views to make Money
Just because you’ve got people reading your blog doesn’t mean it’ll be profitable. There are bloggers with 100,000+ views a month that don’t make anything. Because they haven’t monetised it! I know this for a fact as 1o years ago I had a blog but knew nothing about monetising it. It was very popular and I blogged daily, eventually I let it lapse. If only I had known then what I know now.
More page views can mean you make money from adverts and affiliate links. So in that case more traffic/page views can mean more money.
You can still make money with hardly any page views, and have many page views and make nothing.
Is Free
Yes it can be free if you start a blog on a free platform like blogger. You can still monetise the blog but you don’t have the freedom to alter it the way you can a wordpress website/blog.
If you go for a wordpress website there are some platforms that still have a free basic site. If you want to be serious about blogging, make money and eventually live off it, then you may want to get more freedom to arrange your blog the way you want it to be.
That introduces costs with a domain name and website hosting. Some products you review you will buy first. You need a decent camera for photos. If you wanted to know more you could do a blogging course to get you up and running faster. That may entail cost too, although there are free courses if you go looking.
Is Easy
This blogging myth is quite common for those who know nothing about it. From an outsiders point of view just sitting on your computer looks easy. They don’t see the research, the time spent building social media or the constnt teaking to improve the blog. Then of course there is so much to learn about SEO and keywords to optimise your blog. It is a constant learning curve.
You need to blog regularly to keep the content fresh and keep your readers coming back. For some the words flow freely but others struggle with ideas for new posts or just with putting their thoughts in to words.
Is Just Writing
Once I got the hang of it, I loved writing my first blog but it was time consuming. I wrote about my own crafts and would showcase other crafts by having a different theme each day. Searching for different crafts, checking with each person that it was okay, writing it, adding pictures and then of course adding it to all the social media platforms so people would know there was a new post available. In retrospect, the writing was the easy part, it was everything else that took up much of the time.
Bloggers need to be photographers, graphic designers, web designers, social media managers, and a heck of tons more. So blogging myth number 2 debunked- bloggers don’t just blog.
Conclusion
Blogging is not an easy option at all. When you work for yourself you tend to put in many more hours than you ever did working for someone else.
It’s not easy at all but it is very satisfying when people come to read your post and they find it useful. Perhps they learn something or maybe it makes them want to try whatever you just wrote about. We are here to help people to find answers.
To what? Anything really. Problems, curiosity, the need to learn more, perhaps something obscure they are looking for. When people go looking on Google, they type in their queries. Then Google brings up the variety of sites that have a matching keyword to what they want to know.
Then we regularly check the numbers and if they rise, however slowly, it is gratifying and exciting.
I LOVE it!
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Good day, I’m pleased to meet you. I have gone through the post you shared; it is well presented and organized. Well, I agree with you a hundred percent about these being myths and that when working for yourself you tend to put more hours than when working for someone else. I have been on Wealthy Affiliate for 9 months now and I hope this will help me achieve my dreams, through hard-work of course.
Thank you for commenting. It certainly is hard work but very worthwhile, plus exciting, enjoyable and fun. When you take the time to build the foundations properly it creates a business that will last. Good luck with your business.
Wow, thank you so much for debunking so many myths about blogging. I have definitely come across some of these before. In fact, as a blogger, I still get asked by some people if “I’m working.” It’s a frustrating thing to come up against, but articles like these can only help. I may point the next person who asks if I’m working to this very article and let them know how life really is!
It is frustrating when people think we aren’t working Aly, just ‘playing around’ on the computer is one I had quite a lot. Funny though that they no longer think that way once you are earning a good ‘wage’.
Thank you for commenting.
Great information here regarding the blogging myths. I am fairly new to the blogging world and I am now getting some traffic to my site, it is exciting to see that people are actually reading my writing. Thanks for the information you shared. This gives me motivation to keep on going, and keep writing.
Glad you enjoyed it and it helped. There will always be those that pass derogatory comments but we are the winners in the end.
Thank you for commenting.
Very interesting article. I started my own blog few months ago and for sure I can say its not easy. Amount of knowledge you have to learn and task to do is very overwhelming at the beginning. I can’t imagine to do it all by myself and wealthy affiliate was a great help. With tons of structured, transparent trainings it is a great starting point for all beginners. Lot to learn ahead of me, but with good basis life is much easier.
It does get easier Cogito. I think everyone hits a point of overwhelm and then it suddenly all starts coming together. Plus the more you write, the easier it gets.
Thank you for your comments.