How Much do Bloggers really make ?

Hello there !

Blogging is a passion for some, it's fun for others, it's a way of expressing and letting out the innermost thoughts in written form for most and of course its bread and butter for those who live by blogging. I was wondering about how much do bloggers really make ? After a bit of looking in the obvious places, I decided to make a proper list and see whether all this trouble of learning new things, Blogger, Wordpress, and No press! etc was really worth it or not .

As per a blog called lifehacker.com, there are two ways of professional blogging, either be a freelance blogger or work as a blogger for some established companies who have made their mark. It seems it's easier to work for a company than to start your own blog from scratch, and those working with established companies earn a good income. Making money from your blog is really hard work it's just like starting your own business, there is no clear trajectory about where you will end up , some people hit pay dirt, and for some, the shit hits the fan !! It seems some have made hundreds of thousands writing their blogs and others have also sold their blog for millions. Here is an infographic as per a blog called problogger.net.

 

The info clearly shows only about 4 percent of the slogging bloggers really earn high figure income for the rest it's just hot peanuts! 

  

The major part of the bloggers just eke out a living and if the big guys in online blog advertisement market like Adsense, Infolinks etc, reject your blog for some reason or the other than you are just blogging for the heck of it baby!!. I am a newbie in the blogging world, just started on 23 oct 2016 and I did slog and post around 17 posts in this blog calledbut it's really hard going, you will start wondering and doubting the veracity of all the claims made online, like the millions some make by blogging or selling their sites. For me, it's a million agonies waiting for someone to read the posts !!  

The Lifehacker.com blog goes on to state that as per a study conducted by Glassdoor income ranges from $19K to $79K a year for the title "blogger," while others say the 14% of bloggers who earn a salary make, on average, $24K a year (or $33K for corporate bloggers). Likewise, freelance bloggers can make anything from under $10 a post to $100 or more for a relatively short post.

The lifehacker.com blog goes on to state that a survey of 1000 bloggers by Blogging.com in 2012 found that 17% are able to sustain their lifestyle or support their family with their blogs, while 81% never make even $100 from blogging. The other 2% spend less than 2 hours a day blogging but make more than $150K .

Moreover, a blog itself isn't really a business—it's more of a platform for other income streams. Your content alone won't likely make you money. Instead, you'll have to get advertisers, sell services like consulting or speaking, use affiliate marketing to get a percentage of sales from links people click on your blog, or maybe offer products like ebooks or premium content to actually generate income.

An interesting article by a blog at https://www.ventureharbour.com states that mashable.com made a big hit by writing one article which clicked so much with the readers that it surpassed 87 posts written since 2013 !! The article was titled " Twitter Testing Major Profile Redesign That Looks a Lot Like Facebook" Lucky guys. But Mashable, ProBlogger, and KISSmetrics didn’t reach millions of people by accident most probably their founders were smart, or more importantly, had smart strategies and used the goods on their top floor that God gave them !!

Moreover, Pete Cashmore the founder of mashable.com timed it right, if he had launched his blog now it would probably not been as successful as in 2005 . Those were the times when the blogging world was just starting and people were hitting away at their keypads like crazy and a huge following was born.  

Darren Rowse who founded Problogger in 2004 also made it big just by hammering away at his keyboards, in the  early years the guy used to post 5 to 10 posts a day , today he runs about 20 blogs and has around ten thousand posts to get him going for a looong time!  

According to a blog called http://www.beamillionaireclub.com/ the ten top earning bloggers are as follows:

Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
Owner: Arianna Huffington
Monthly Income: $2,500,000
Method of Earnings: Pay Per Click

Website: https://techcrunch.com/
Owner: Michael Arrington
Monthly Income: $800,000
Method of Earnings: Banner Ads

Website: http://mashable.com/
Owner: Pete Cashmore
Monthly Income: $600,000
Method of Earnings: Banner Ads

Website: http://perezhilton.com/
Owner: Mario Lavanderia
Monthly Income: $450,000
Method of Earnings: Banner Ads

Website: https://www.engadget.com/
Owner: Peter Rojas
Monthly Income: $300,000
Method of Earnings: Banner Ads

Website: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/
Owner: Vitaly Friedman
Monthly Income: $190,000
Method of Earnings: Banner Ads

Website: https://tutsplus.com/
Owner: Collis Taeed
Monthly Income: $150,000
Method of Earnings: Memberships

Website: http://lifehacker.com/
Owner: Nick Denton
Monthly Income: $150,000
Method of Earnings: Banner Ads

Website: http://gizmodo.com/
Owner: Attila Talos
Monthly Income: $120,000
Method of Earning: Advertising Banners

Website:  http://www.problogger.net/
Owner: Darren Rowse
Monthly Income: $120,000
Method of Earning: Advertising Banners

As per another blog called bloggerpassion.com the top bloggers making in thousands are:

Pat Flynn: Smartpassiveincome.com.

Matthew Woodward: MatthewWoodWard.co.uk.

Harsh Agrawal: Shoutmeloud.com.

Johnny from JohnnyFd.com.

Michelle from MakingSenseOfCents.com.

Alexa at SingleMomsIncome.com.

Anil Agarwal: Bloggerspassion.com.

For Guys like me who have just entered the blogging world this is just the tip of the iceberg. And for guys out there who are just testing the waters, its worth a try .

Also read one of my variety of  blogs one is about Gods own country-Kerala 

Best of luck!