Can anyone earn a living from writing websites? As a person who earns a living from writing websites, I am often asked that question by people who also want to do the same thing. My advice is, "Yes, anyone can earn from their websites, but not everyone can earn a living from it."
The majority of people who earn from their websites barely make enough to support themselves. Only a small percentage actually make enough to live off it. Sure, you often hear of people who claim to make thousands of dollars per day from writing websites. But I can assure you that they are in the absolute minority. And in many cases, it's all hype.
What does it take to earn a living from writing websites? I may not have all the answers, but I will share with you what I do know, based on my own experience.
Determination
If you want to earn from your websites, you need determination. And persistence. You need to realise that money is not going to roll in overnight. There is a lot of hardwork ahead. I have been earning from writing websites for years (my oldest income-generating website, AsiaExplorers, was started way back on 8 February 2003). I have gone through numerous trials and errors, and I can safely say that, no matter how you plan, no matter how much you read, no matter how much you learn, you will not improve your earnings from the web without making some errors along the way.
Confidence
I think a certain degree of confidence in yourself is important for earning from the web. When you start a website, you must know to a certain extend how it is going to look like, when "completed". Of course, no website is ever fully completed, but you need to at least have an idea how that website will appear. It may require a gargantuan amount of work to take it to that stage, and you need the confidence that you can get there.
Choice of Niche
Having written over thirty different websites, I can say that choice of niche matters greatly. If you look at what I write about, you will find that I have websites on a variety of niches. I write them because I am passionate about them. If you throw a niche at me, and ask me to write a website on that niche, I don't think I can do that. Not unless it happens to be a niche I am passionate about. Similarly, if you aim at earning money from your website, you must tackle a niche that you are passionate about. Do you have to be an expert in that niche? In my opinion, not entirely. Passion, to me, is more important than expertise. If you have the fire in you to cover a given niche, you will not mind doing the home to learn about it. Therefore, even if you started off with only basic knowledge of that niche, your passion will drive you to learn all about it, read all about it, so that you can then share what you learn with others through your website. I do not pretend to be an expert in a particular subject, but that doesn't mean I would not write about it. For example, The Flowering Garden was started by my wife and me, because we both love plants, flowers and gardening. But we are not expert gardeners, and we make it clear on the homepage of that website. We are making good money from that website, even though it is on a subject that we have basic knowledge. However, we are passionate enough to read and research and share what we learn.
Monetization Value
Some niches monetize better than others. Of my thirty over websites, some make more money than others. Some get only a fraction of the traffic, but make as much as my other websites that get twice or three times the traffic. Do I concentrate more on them? I should. But in reality, I concentrate on writing the websites that I am most passionate about. What about you? Perhaps you will have the discipline and focus to concentrate on those niches and websites that make the most money, but as for me, I will always write what I am most passionate about, even if it is not the most lucrative site.
Micro Niche or Macro Niche?
One important consideration for every new web author, is the size of your niche. How specialized should it be, or how general? As an example, should your website be about (a) head covering in general, (b) hats of all types, or (c) baseball caps and nothing else? There are Internet marketing gurus that advocate you should be as specialized as ever, that is to say, drill down to the micro niche. The rational is that if you go deep, you will be able to satisfy the search needs that has not been well-covered. However, before you determine the micro niche you wish to cover, it is a good idea to do a bit of homework. There is no point in writing on a super micro niche if the traffic volume for it is going to be minute. But how do you find out how many people are going to be interested in that niche before you build a website on it? A very useful tool is WordTracker. For a more comprehensive tool, you can also use SBI, whose Action Guide includes the WordTracker functionality, giving you the necessary tools to conduct a survey of a given niche before you spend any more time working it.
Competition
Expect the competition to earn an income from the web to get more intense over time. In this race, I have to admit that the websites that were started in the earlier years have a headstart over those that are just to be built today. It takes time to get your website found and listed by the search engine, and you have to prove that your website is superior to whatever is already out there. If you want a good listing in the search engine, nothing beats providing the best content. In this aspect, everything matters, from the depth of your research to your writing style to how well your website navigates. Be mindful that even if you can fool machines, it is ultimately humans who read your website and make a decision whether or not to click on your advertisement. If you want people to bookmark your site and to return to it time and again, you have to make sure it has the best information covering its niche. A second rate website will only get second rate attention.
So, can anyone earn a living from writing websites? Someone somewhere definitely can, and if you can excel at what I have mentioned above, it could well be you.
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