When I was a kid, a popular celebrity interview question was always, “So, what’s your secret to success?” Everyone wanted to know what the secret sauce was to make it big.
Not much has changed since then.
A lot of people today want to know what the “secret” to a six-figure blog is.
The truth is there is no one secret. It’s a combination of a few things.
In theory, here is the formula for blogging success:
- Optimize your time
- Analyze what works
- Consistently repeat it
In practice, that means:
Focus
Time is the most valuable thing that any of us have. It is more precious than gold, more precious than money. Control your time like your life depends on it. Stop doing things for your blog that don’t have a monetary return on the time investment.
Here are some examples:
Responding to blog comments, private emails, and other forms of “audience engagement” doesn’t have as big of a return as you might think. Spend this time producing more content.
Writing a post has a quantifiable return on the time investment. You could make up to $500/year writing a new post.
Posting photos on Instagram does give you more “Brand awareness” but does that really translate into dollars? Probably not.
Get off social media. These platforms prefer their users stay on the platform, not leave and go to your site. Why do you think Instagram limits links so much?
Followers don’t translate into page views in my experience so it’s best to just ignore networks like Instagram and TikTok completely if you’re a blogger.
Instead, spend that time updating a high-traffic post with more affiliate links. If done strategically, you could bring in an extra $1,000/year!
Analyze
Look at what brings you the most money on your blog. Ask yourself why this article resonated, and why so many people clicked that link and bought something.
Produce more of that content and watch your blog grow.
Scale
Rinse and repeat. You don’t need to outsource content at the beginning, but if you want to truly scale a business, it’s something you might need to do long-term.
Learn how to delegate tasks to others. Focus on the jobs that only you can do. Outsource the rest.
That’s it!