How Many ‘Make Money Blogging’ Jigsaws Have You Got?

The Make Money Blogging Puzzle

Puzzled—brad montgomery (Flickr.com)

My husband has a thing about jigsaw puzzles – he just can’t resist them. Consequently, we have an entire wardrobe full of the things in our loft, most of which we’ve yet to complete.

And that got me thinking about the number of blogging jigsaws I’ve accumulated over the past year or so. Once you start trying to make money blogging, before you know it, you’re drowning in a deluge of blueprints, models, strategies, roadmaps, training courses and guides, all promising to turn your blog into gold. Some you’ll get for free, others might cost you a bob or two.

But how many of them do you complete?

Like the puzzles cluttering up our loft, these blogging jigsaws all look great on the outside. They’ll always present you with an attractive image of the finished product – like thousands of dollars pouring into your paypal account, the glorious freedom of the internet lifestyle, a sensationally popular and profitable blog or just lots of lovely jubbly ‘passive income’.

No wonder we gobble them up.

But when you open up the box and try putting the pieces together, how often do you manage to reproduce that promised image of success?

The ‘mistake’ in the title of this post is the way we often indiscriminately collect these puzzles, without due diligence. Because even the ‘free’ ones might end up costing more than you’d think, in terms of wasted time and effort.

Don’t get me wrong – there are some great blogging jigsaw puzzles out there, which will deliver what they promise, if you manage to fit all the pieces together. But you have to choose wisely in the first place – and then take the right steps to complete the jigsaw. Otherwise, you risk squandering precious time and resources; on top of which, the greatest cost can be the demoralizing frustration that results when things don’t work out.

So how can you avoid falling into this trap?

The Make Money Blogging Jigsaw: How to Complete the Picture

  • Decide what kind of picture you want to make. There are lots of different ways to make money blogging and as many different ‘jigsaw puzzles’ out there to help you get results. Depending on your skills and interests, some approaches may suit you better than others. Do you want to go in for affiliate marketing, email marketing, e-commerce sites, an authority site or video blogging? The possibilities are endless and you can’t do it all. If you don’t make some decisions to narrow down your options, you risk getting nowhere. Your hard drive will groan under the weight of all those partially completed, abandoned programs – and maybe, like me, some you never even get out of the box.
  • Choose the right level of difficulty. You wouldn’t give a small child a 2,000 piece puzzle as their first jigsaw – there’d be no better way to put the kid off jigsaw puzzles for life. So be realistic about your own abilities. For example, if you’re just starting out you’ll need something simple that covers the basics, whereas if you’re more advanced, a ‘blogging for beginners’ jigsaw probably won’t float your boat. If you already have some basic skills under your belt, you’ll want a puzzle that stretches you a bit more. One of my worst purchases, when I was trying to get to grips with Search Engine Optimization (SEO), was an eBook that involved such a complicated system of keyword research you virtually needed a PhD to make sense of it. Think Goldilocks and porridge – you need a puzzle that’s ‘just right’ – it should be challenging, but not so difficult you won’t stand a chance of success.
  • Make sure it’s a good quality puzzle. Do your research and make sure you check out reviews by previous customers. One pretty expensive training course I embarked on, which made some grandiose claims, turned out to be a puzzle with some crucial pieces missing. Amongst other things, it covered absolutely nothing about SEO and, although I learnt some useful stuff, I came away frustrated, knowing there were huge gaps in my knowledge. I spent the next few months searching for the ‘missing pieces’. The best blogging jigsaw I’ve bought so far was Brian G Johnson’s 300 Internet Marketers training program – it included the promise that students would learn how to set up an authority website, and that’s how Write Clever came into being. I had fun putting the pieces together and came away feeling I’d created a picture that at least resembled the promised image on the box.
  • Don’t try doing too many puzzles at once. If you do, there’s a risk you’ll get confused and perhaps not finish any of them. My husband took a few jigsaws out of the cupboard this Christmas, but we’ve only got one on the go. Imagine the muddle and mess if we tipped out the pieces for two or three at once. On reflection, that might be an interesting challenge – but I don’t think we’ve got a big enough table! Seriously, though, I’m not saying you can’t have more than one project on the go at a time. It’s just that when you’re learning the ropes, you risk getting in a right pickle and scuppering your chance of success if you start trying to bake too many pies at once. If you do decide to take on more than one at a time, make sure they’re compatible and that you have time to commit to them all.
  • Follow the experts. Make a point of following bloggers who have a track record in completing the blogging jigsaw – check out sites like Problogger, Copyblogger and Famous Bloggers, which all have great tips about how to make money blogging.

So – over to you. How many blogging jigsaws have you got stashed in your virtual cupboards? Do you have any partially completed puzzles, or maybe some you haven’t taken out of the box yet? Which ones have you successfully completed? Are there any you’d recommend?

As ever, I’d love to hear from you – please leave a comment below, and I’ll be sure to respond. And don’t forget – if you’ve enjoyed this post, please share it with your friends!

Happy blogging!

Sue Neal

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