This post is a collaboration from Navid Moazzez and Jan Koch. We're both passionate entrepreneurs and bloggers, we run several blogs and we want to share benefits of blogging and reasons why to start a blog.
Have you ever wondered why there are so many blogs out there? Is it overhyped, is it a great way to earn money, or are people blogging just for fun? Does it make sense to start a blog when you're completely new and don't know what to say?
If you can find yourself in those questions, this article is for exactly for you!
Navid and I will go through the reasons why we started our blogs. At the moment we're running five blogs in total and we're totally happy with this decision. Basically, the blogs did nothing less but to change our lives. And it all started with one question.
The question was as simple as this. Why should we start a blog? Every topic seems to be covered, we didn't see any chance to make ourselves stand out. But nevertheless we knew that there must be some reason why to start a blog. Why should those millions of blogs exist when there is no reason for this?
Nowadays it is incredibly easy and cheap to start a blog. So instead of asking Why to start a blog we decided to ask Why not?
It has never been easier to start a blog and that's especially true if you don't have any technical knowledge! Navid had no experience with coding, installing WordPress, or web development and now he installs a blog in less then 10 minutes. And you can do this too, because your webhost takes all the work from you. Jan hosts his blogs on his own server, because he has a background in software development.
You can start a blog for free on WordPress.com, Blogger, or TypePad.com. Those platforms are free to use and allow you to start blogging within minutes. Though they limit your freedom in customizing your blog the way you want it to look and to function, those are great ways to start blogging quickly.
If you want to host your own blog, Navid and me both recommend BlueHost as a webhost when you have no experience with setting up WordPress. The reason why to start a blog on BlueHost is simple. They have a one-click installation routine for WordPress, are cheap, and reliable.
BlueHost is one of the biggest webhosting companies in the world and they are recommended by well-known experts like Pat Flynn. Their customer service is excellent and helpful. And especially their one-click installation routine for WordPress lets you start your blog in a few minutes without any technical knowledge.
When you start a blog you'll need a website address, a domain. Though you can buy domains on Bluehost, we recommend using Namecheap. It's good to split domain and webhost, because when you have problems with your domain you can still access the webhost and vice versa.
Either Navid or Jan will install a WordPress site for you, if you decide to buy your BlueHost account through our affiliate link for BlueHost and your domain via Namecheap - at no extra cost for you.
Also you'll get a copy of the Genesis Framework for WordPress for FREE. This is one of the most used frameworks for WordPress in the world.
We can offer this, because BlueHost and Namecheap pay us comission if you use our affiliate links. So you'll pay us nothing!
Starting a blog is a great way to share your knowledge with the others. Everybody has passions that he or she likes to talk about and thus everybody has knowledge in a certain field. What if you could spread your knowledge all over the world and discuss it with others?
There is no reason why you shouldn't start start a blog, because it can be very rewarding experience over time to be a blogger. Nobody will hold you back and blame you for sharing expertise! Instead you'll most likely get feedback from people and start wonderful conversations with them and create long lasting relationships with like-minded people in your specific niche.
Though sharing knowledge is not the only reason why to start a blog. You're repeating your knowledge while you're posting it on your blog and thus you're consolidating your knowledge. Explaining things to others allows humans to deeply understand processes and thus starting a blog will help you to refine your expertise over and over again.
What if you don't have any special knowledge to share in your blog?
Trust us, you have knowledge. If you ask yourself Why to start a blog with no special knowledge? you're underestimating your abilities. You could write about a learning process. That's exactly how Jan started this blog and Navid started his personal blog. We were both new to building a business that supports our lifestyle, so the only thing we could blog about was our process in learning.
And now we are making a part of our money online and that part is constantly growing. We're building networks all around the world and we won't stop until our businesses support our lifestyle and allow us to quit our jobs. By blogging about our progress, we're holding ourselves accountable, because the readers of our blogs want to see progress. That's why we never lack motivation or procrastinate - well ok, somethings we do but that's human 😉
When you know that you have knowledge in a field that is important for others, you shouldn't even ask yourself why to start a blog, but do it!
There is one little but powerful rule in the blogosphere: When a blog impacts the life of others, it will become successful and earn serious money!
It's as simple as that. When you have knowledge that helps others to solve their daily problems, they will be happy to visit your blog. Regardless whether you use Google Adsense (like this blog), offer your own services, or sell affiliate products - people will gladly exchange their money for your knowledge.
A lot of people answer the question Why to start a blog? with the ability to brand yourself.
You know, a blog is somewhat like your gate to the world. You can share all your thoughts, knowledge, and opinions with others - and that makes you stand out of the masses.
When you take a look at all successful bloggers you'll see, that they've got something in common: they blog with personality.
Bloggers like Pat Flynn, Corbett Barr, Leo Babauta, or even Navid and me are using personality to make theirselves accessible as a person. We give our readers the feeling that they know us personally.
And that feeling is what creates the connection between us and our audience. We deeply care about our audience and you should care about your audience as well.
Dean Holland, creator of the Quick Start Challenge, also strongly recommends that you bring your own personality into play when you start a blog. I joined the QSC to learn how to make an income online with my blogs.
When you share your own experiences on your blog it's easy for people to trust you. And trust is the foundation to make money with a blog. There's no need to beat around the bush. Most people will try to make money with their blog and that's totally ok. It's a business after all, though a business that focusses on helping the audience.
Introducing patterns is also a good way to make yourself recognizable. If you take a look at the sites of Jan, you'll see that he has the same picture of himself on all sites and as his Gravatar image. This way people will easily recognize his face.
Another pattern while starting a blog could be a specific habit in your posts. Maybe you like to use some comics or funny images in your posts, that make reading for people enjoyable? Or you start and end with the same sentences over and over again. It's up to you and your creativity!
Though be aware that branding doesn't need to mean "likeable". It's totally ok if people don't like you, you can't please everyone - nor should you try! Haters hate, that's the way it is. Don't let them prevent you from starting a blog, there will be people who like you - we promise.
So the next time you ask yourself Why to start a blog? you'll know that you can use a blog for personal branding.
Make yourself stand out of the masses by being accessible as a person, make it easy for people to trust you, introduce patterns so that people recognize you, use photos and audio, so that people recognize your voice, be different and not likeable by all means.
Why to start a blog? Because you can enrich lives and solve peoples everyday problems. And this can be a very rewarding feeling!
We've talked about sharing your knowledge before, this is a real life example on how a blog can solve people's problems.
Everybody has situations in his or her everyday life, that can be treated as unpleasant and as problems. Whether it's being stuck in a difficult situation, don't knowing what to do next, how do clean the oil out of your laundry or whatever.
Did you ever use Google to find a solution to a problem? We bet you did!
Imagine what it would feel like if your blog is used by other people to solve problems. Imagine how you recieve an email of a stranger telling you, that your blog helped him to overcome a daily obstacle. That must be a damn awesome feeling, right?
So stop asking yourself why to start a blog. Instead think of problems in your daily routines that you have solved and blog about them. People like it when others talk about their problems, because then they know that they're not alone with their problems.
Nobody likes to talk about problems, but everybody is happy when a problem is solved. Use your blog to discuss difficult situations with your audience, we bet that you'll come up with a solution together.
And again, most likely you'll consider starting a blog because you hope to make money online. Solving problems is the absolute best way to sell products.
Getting to know other people was a huge reason for Navid and me why to start a blog.
We both are lifestyle entrepreneurs and want to generate passive income, so that we can spend our time with activities we love. Therefore we needed to get to know people who already live this lifestyle and of course we want to build a relationship with our audience and target market. Offering affiliate products or your own products only works, when you successfully built a relationship the ones who recieve the offer.
So it's incredibly useful that a blog is accessible all over the world. You can get in touch with new people on other continents while sitting on your couch - isn't that enough to say why to start a blog?
Though building relationships is a hard and long process. You don't get trusted over night, especially not in the online world.
Unfortunately there are lots of scammers and crooks out there, trying to make money quickly and ripping of others. You have to ensure the audience of your blog, that you deeply care about them.
Navid and me do this with sharing our most personal experiences in our personal blogs and telling not only our success stories but also failures. Also we make sure, that we act exactly like we praise. If we say we're doing something, we're doing it. Regardless what efforts it takes. Our readers know, that they can rely on us.
Think about the process that makes you trust other people. What do they have to tell you and how do they need to act, so that you can start trusting them?
When you try to incorporate that process you'll make sure, that other people will start trusting you very quickly. After starting your blog you need to see the blog through the eyes of your first visitor, who doesn't know you.
Does he find every information he needs to trust you? Do you tell him who you are and what motivates you? Do you ensure him that you care about him as a person?
To understand why to start a blog isn't nearly as hard as to build a relationship to your audience. But both are definitely worth it!
Having a loyal audience is like having your own army. They will tell others in their networks about your blog and will help you to quickly spread the world.
Another reason why to start a blog is to learn and improve yourself constantly.
Blogging lets you stay active and engaged in your fields of interests, since you are passionate about the topic you're blogging.
Jan is writing this part of the article at 10pm after a 10h work day. And he enjoys it. It's not that he's crazy or a workaholic, but he is passionate about internet business and about helping others becoming successful. And so is Navid. That's why we both work until late at night and sometimes even forget to sleep. Our blogs motivate us, because we know that we can really change things.
And we know that our blogs hold us accountable. When you ask yourself why to start a blog and the previous reasons didn't convince you, here comes another one: use your blog as a tool to hold yourself accountable. When you start getting comments on your blog and you see that people are expecting results from you, you'll better work to deliver those results and to keep your audience satisfied.
Though sometimes this becomes really stressful, most of the times you will enjoy collaborating with others and sharing your knowledge and thoughts.
Do you want us to share an example?
We both blog about becoming successful entrepreneurs and we both do interviews with entrepreneurs who already reached the goals we've set for ourselves.
What would happen if we wouldn't use the publicity to hold us accountable? We wouldn't work as hard on our progress as we do now. Thus we wouldn't meet these great entrepreneurs, we wouldn't benefit from their expertise and what's most important, it would take us reasonably longer to make money online.
Isn't this a good reason why to start a blog?
Only few things are more powerful that being hold accountable by the publicity. It doesn't mean that you need to share anything. But the things you're sharing, the challenges you start, and the problems you try to solve will generate public awareness and thus people will hold you accountable for reaching your goals.
And more importantly, they'll help you when you're stuck! As said before, successfully starting a blog means building relationships. Those relationships come into play when you're stuck and will help you to overcome your obstacles.
One more reason why to start a blog is, that you can use it to show your expertise. What's a better support for your next job application than a successful blog showing all your expertise, case studies, and work examples?
You might say that this is not for you, since your abilities are not in webdesign, coding, or any other tech-related nerdy things. You're so damn wrong. And that's why starting a blog will give you a huge advantage to your competitors for your next job application.
Your dream job requires a certain skill set. Every job does.
We already said that starting a blog will bring you in touch with lots of new people from all over the world, hold yourself accountable while learning and will help you to share your knowledge.
Imagine the reaction of the HR manager reading your job application which says, that you run a successful blog covering the exact skillset that's needed for the job you're just applying.
They will be really surprised and they will gladly invite you to accept their offer! And you can earn more money in that job, since your blog is the undeniable proof for your expertise.
And why do you think businesses use blogs? Because they know that blogs are awesome to present case studies and work examples to acquire new customers.
That's true for webdesign business, coders and marketing agencies - but also for production companies, consultancies and other enterprises with focus on offline services.
The reason why to start a blog and to share expertise is obvious: you convince people from your abilities and benefit from the new situation.
Obviously one of the most important reasons why to start a blog is to make money from it.
I've explained some ways how websites make money, but I want to go through them quickly again.
Google Adsense is a way to get paid for clicks on ads. I'm using this method on this site, I'm sure you've noticed the ads. Everytime a visitor clicks on an ad, I get paid a small amount of money. Those amounts are currently really small (2€ or less), but the amount of visitors increases steadily and I'm also targeting keywords with higher revenue.
Another method to start a blog and to make money from it is affiliate marketing. Navid is a real pro in this. He recommends affiliate products to his audience and he get's a comission everytime a product is bought via his affiliate link. Because he only recommends products which really help his audience and because he shares his own experiences with those products, people tend to trust him and buy products via his affiliate links.
Why to start a blog is mostly answered with these two methods to make money, but there are some more ways to monetize a blog.
You can create your own products and sell them on your blog. There's no reason why not to start a blog and sell your own products. If you can show your expertise, build relationships with your audience and solve everyday problems, it's most likely to happen that people will buy your products.
Maybe you're more the guy that likes direct interacting with your audience? Then you should start a private membership. Again, people will pay you the fees when they're not too high and when they find real value within the member area. The value could be anything from videos with interviews over blogposts to direct chat with you as the expert running the membership program.
You see that money is a good reason why to start a blog - there are many ways you can go. In fact I'm sure that this list isn't complete at all, you'll find other ways to monetize your blog in the internet.
Ok, we've given you so many reasons why to start a blog, now it's time to come up with some active help.
There is one training program, that really does an awesome job on teaching you how to start a blog successfully.
This program is called Start A Blog That Matters, it is created by Corbett Barr and included in the Fizzle mentoring program.
Corbett Barr is the genius behind ThinkTraffic.net and has also created some other great online courses about internet business.
He teaches you everything you need to know, to start a blog that matters. Over time Corbett created a repeatable formula you can use to grow your visitors and the success of your blog.
In the beginning he managed to run 2 blogs simultaneously and make over $100.000 within 18 months. Some blogs where he used his formula to grow visitors from 10.000 per month to over 100.000 are Man vs. Debt and Live your Legend. Maybe you've heard of them before, those are two of the most popular blogs that exist.
But Navid and I think that the real strength of this training program comes into play for beginners. Corbett is an awesome teacher and he succeeds with explaining complex structures in a simple and step by step approach.
Most training programs we've seen so far are not really step by step. You need to hop around to find the next most important thing and it's easy to get confused.
When you ask yourself why to start a blog, you'll want a training program that's simple, step by step, affordable and success proven.
And that's Start A Blog That Matters.
We don't want to overhype it and of course we want you to leave a comment if you have a question. Please note, that this is an affiliate link, so Navid and I will make a small comission on the sale. But it doesn't cost you any extra fee and we're sure that it will help you to get your blog started.
All the best,
Navid and Jan
