Maybe it’s been a dream of yours since you were younger:

• Perhaps you’ve been writing for a while and just recently you’ve realized that you really can leverage your online content into a business.
• It’s possible you’re unbelievably tired of the rigmarole of your 9–5 (like I was) and you want the freedom of a life you engineer.

No matter what the reason, so many people are looking to take their talents to the web and leverage whatever content they are producing into a money-making, independence-engine.

Let’s take a look at the truths and facts that are present to starting and actualizing a successful, money-making blog…

The Statistics of Online Business, Blogging, and Content Writing

Now, more than ever, the barriers to entry to successful monetization of your online voice are lower than ever. In 2018, you don’t even necessarily need to purchase a domain name and hosting platform to get your ideas out there (cough, cough… Medium).

Let’s take a look at some statistics with online content generation:

Statistics about Blogs:

1. According to Statista, there were 173 million bloggers worldwide in 2011 alone.

• This number continues to grow into 2018 and beyond.

Statistics about Bloggers’ income:

Not all blogging is created equal. Statistics from Blogging.org the variance of earning power within this industry is vast…

2. 2% of bloggers spend less than 2 hours a day blogging and make more than $150K (like Tim Ferriss).

3. 17% are able to sustain their lifestyle or support their family with their blogs.

4. 81% never make $100 from blogging.

5. Furthermore, the Top 5 earning blogs are as follows:

Statistics of your potential audience:

6. 3.2 billion people — 40% of the world’s population — are internet users: 8 out of 10 people from developed countries are using the internet and 21 out of 61 people from developing countries are using the internet. (Source: ICT Facts & Figures, 2015)

7. Each month, 329 million people read blogs. (Source: NewsCred)

8. 47% of people go online to learn to improve themselves and nearly one-third 31% to find self-help experts or books. (Source: The Intent Index)

9. 44% of people go online to create or update blogs and 42% of people go online to read other people’s blogs. (Source: PR Newswire)

10. 90% of consumers find customer content useful. (Source: Demand Metric, 2014)

11. 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations from real people. (Search Engine Land, 2014)

12. 81% of U.S. online consumers trust information and advice from blogs. (Source: BlogHer)

13. 61% of US consumers have made a purchase based on a blog post. (Source: BlogHer, 2012)

14. 34% of people go online to purchase an item. (Source: PR Newswire)

Statistics on what it takes to build a successful blog

15. If a blog is more than 1,500 words, on average it receives 68.1% more tweets and 22.6% more Facebook likes. (Source: Quick Sprout)

16. Businesses that blog ≥ 20 times/month get 5x more traffic than those who blog ≤ 4 times/month. (Source: Hubspot)

17. 82% of marketers who blog daily acquired a customer using their blog, as opposed to 57% of marketers who blog monthly. (Source: HubSpot State of Inbound, 2013)

18. Once you write 21–54 blog posts, blog traffic generation increases by up to 30%. (Source: Traffic Generation Cafe)

19. Profitable blogs leverage from more than 10 income streams per month from advertising, affiliate marketing and selling product(s). (Source: BloggersPassion)

Now for your moment of truth…

There are over a hundred million blog readers, more than half of internet users search the web before coming to a buying decision. There are profits to be made.

But it doesn’t happen overnight and less than 5% of bloggers earn more than $10,000 per month.

As Darren Rowse puts it:

“99.9% of great bloggers are not awesome on day 1. Their awesomeness is the accumulation of the value they create over time.”

On the other hand, some managed to make a full-time living from the comfort of their couch.

While there is no “magic sauce”, being consistent is what really matters in this game. You are going to need to show up everyday — even when you don’t want to.

A great blogger is someone who can keep their blog updated on a regular basis with hot and steamy content while simultaneously being an expert marketer as well.

Now, more than ever, the world needs your incredible content — and you need to put it into the world for the people to find.

And with these information in mind, please ask yourself:

Can you build a profitable blog?

… or simply will you be committed enough to succeed?

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