Earning money from one’s blog is a cool way to start an income and support your family. Lately, we have seen a steep increase in the number of blogs launching every year. I am quite happy to watch people, especially youths, trying to earn an online income. However, I am quite disappointed with their lack of knowledge on ways to earn money.

They think earning directly is the only option

It’s true that earning an income directly from your blog is a source of income. However, it’s not the only one and I can say, it’s the most unreliable one. A direct income is earned by selling ads, affiliate marketing, and having sponsored posts. There are many other ways to earn directly, but these are the common ones.

So what’s the problem with such income and why is it unreliable?

You can generate a recurring income form such sources and it definitely involves less hard-work to sustain. However, bloggers need to understand that it’s quite difficult to earn a huge amount from this recurring income.

There are various constraints that keeps you from earning big. However, the most significant one is TIME.

The amount of income you earn from your blog depends on traffic and traffic is attracted by writing excellent-quality articles which requires time, lots of time. Huge traffic is directed on your blog regularly only if you keep posting amazing articles frequently. Some bloggers do have a lot of time to write, but most of us don’t. Hence we opt for a quicker, erroneous method: The direct method. It is a good source of income, but it becomes erroneous when you start depending only on this method.

Professional Options for Professional Bloggers

I am not suggesting you to avoid direct income. I am asking you to complement it with some professional, indirect sources, which will develop you as a professional blogger. I am revealing some of the ways through which I make money.

1. Provide Service:
   They are numerous people seeking a service provider in the niche that you specialize in. Trust me, each niche has a market. You just need to search it. If you don’t have any niche, create one or come up with a new one. You can initiate any kind of niche. Just make sure you have some relevant knowledge about it.A very ordinary type of service is freelancing. You can start a freelance business for almost anything from web designing, content writing, cooking, lawn sevices, and what not. If you don’t like freelancing, there a various other options you can look at. Just remember to be creative. Think of how you can use your knowledge and provide service to other people. Done! You will soon start earning  good income from providing such service.
2. Selling products:
   Not everyone can sell quality products along with proving value to their readers. If you can use some great promotion techniques to endorse the product, I am sure you will earn much more than you expect. This is a very good source of recurring income because it once it has been set up, it takes little to keep it going.While launching your own product, remember that it should be useful to many of your readers and should be in demand.
3. Membership Websites:
   If you think you have the power to develop extremely awesome content, start a membership website. This site is an area accessible only to those who pay to read your content. There are many such sites that are generating millions of dollars. Some of these sites earn money by teaching to lunch a membership sites. So, their members have also started earning good income.This type of income has enormous potential and the market is yet not saturated. However, it involves continuous and serious effort to maintain and keep it going successfully.

Tell me your choice, or at least opinions

Now, this post definitely has something new, at least for beginners if not for everyone. However, which according to you is the best one among these three professional methods? Or, which method is currently working for you?

And I don’t intend to discourage those who are using ads as their only income. It’s just that I want them to do some thing quickly, before they quit.

For those who don’t know what a ‘blogger’s block’ is, it is something that causes you mind to go blank and keeps you away from writing. That’s what I am going through right now. Every blogger, or broadly, any kind of writer must have gone through or will go through such a block in his/her life time. Don’t worry it isn’t some deficiency syndrome, it’s just a temporary mental blockage and it’s quite common among writers.

However, the duration of this block can keep extending if you aren’t able to take necessary measures. It’s quite imperative to avoid this at any cost because this can hinder one’s work and ultimately income. Since past many days, I have been trying to develop a way that can eradicate blogger’s block and I am quite glad to inform you that I have developed a successful one. Hee is it.

• Finding the key nuisance

  

  It requires efforts and thorough self-analysis to spot the reason that bothering you and distracting you from writing. In my case, it was quite simple. I was just exhausted with loads of work. And this has turned out to be the most common reason for blogger’s block.However, there are numerous other reasons that can avoid you from writing. Some are depressed due to lesser traffic or fewer comments on their latest blog, while the mind of other bloggers may be occupied with personal fretfulness caused by family, friends, or colleagues.

  The genuine reason would be known only if you are sincere and honest in finding the actual reason of botheration.

  Warning:
  Moving on to step two without diagnose the real cause may lead to another block.

• Examine how it is affecting your work

  After you know the core reason of the block, focus your attention of the harmful effects of the problem. Try to comprehend why it is not allowing you to work. This step might need more concentration and discipline than the previous one but do it because you are facing the block.By doing this, you could either try to solve the problem or try to work around it. I realized that I had laden myself with much work other than blogging that kept me from finishing any of my work. I listed down all the tasks that I have to do with priority. Now that I have all the problems on paper, I can move on to the next step. Make sure you do the same as well.

• Sketch a plan

  Problems can be dealt with easily if you derive a plan to solve it. You have listed dow your problems and know how is it affecting your work. Now is the best time to derive a strategy to attack the problem. Here are few steps that can be helpful.

  • Prioritizing:

    

    If you are overworked like me, and that’s what has caused the blogger’s block, an easy way to initiate the attack on your problem is prioritizing. There are numerous things that I have to due during weekdays which I cannot avoid and most of the blogging is done during weekends. That was I always used to do. However, I realized that there are several other stuffs that I do during the weekends, most of which are not as important as blogging.So, I started prioritizing my work. I started ranking the tasks according to the importance. This helps you to know what needs to be done first and what are the activities that you can avoid or procrastinate. Then, it’s quite simple, set a schedule.

  • Set targets:

    Where will you go until you know where you want to go? This isn’t only for blogging but for all the scheduled tasks. Set a target every week and strive to achieve them. Don’t be depressed, if you fail to achieve otherwise it may lead to another blogger’s block. These targets are just to make sure you know what you have to achieve.

  • Continuous motivation:

    You could achieve anything if you have enormous motivation to do it and it’s true. However, you cannot be equally motivated to do all the tasks. To be motivated to blog, keep reminding yourself about the targets, benefits, usefulness, etc. If that doesn’t work there are numerous motivational resources on the web. Don’t be reticent, collect your resources and be motivated, always.You are done with your strategy. Now let’s move on with step 4.

• Sit back and watch

  We have heard thousands of lectures on “do now”, “the time is now”, and blah, blah, blah. However, if you are going through a blogger’s block, it’s time to relax. Accept that you are going through some mental stress which needs to be sorted out first before getting back to work.

  Last weekend, I decided not to work at all. My mind needed some rest, some refreshment. So, I disconnected my notebook, switched off my mobile phone, and listened to some soft music watching the sun rise with a hot cup of coffee. It was a pleasant start that refreshed my mind but not fully. So I spent the rest of the day doing lots of leisure activities without thinking a bit about my work.

  Next morning I was totally relaxed and was ready to write. I also realized that my blog wouldn’t suffer much if I

  

  don’t write for a day. Please note that this point alone is sufficient to get out of the blogger’s block. However, the above mentioned three steps make sure that it doesn’t happen over and over again.

Conclusion

With such a rigorous plan that I have developed recently, I don’t think so I will allow myself to go through such a block again. However, I sometimes hope that it appears again. The day, last Saturday, I took an off from work was just awesome. It was like a mini vacation for me. We all need a bit of refreshment from work occasionally. I don’t know about others, but even after helluva prioritizing I won’t be able to spare a day off in coming months. Hence, my experience of blogger’s block was a blessing in disguise.