There’s a very insightful article by Funny About Money that caught my eye, as it discussed the concept of a glass ceiling in the world of blogging. It makes mention of how there’s a dearth of female bloggers who are successful enough to make a living through blogging. No, let me rephrase that — there’s a scarcity of female PF (personal finance) bloggers who are able to make money online and earn a living off of their blogs. I can agree with that particular observation — there are very few female PF bloggers I know who are indeed making money off their sites. I feel very lucky to be one of those who have been able to wing it as a full time PF blogger whilst running two main sites (this one and TheDigeratiLife.com). But allow me to point out at least one other female PF blogger who’s been able to do this as well: Madison DuPaix of My Dollar Plan.
Here’s the thing though — there is some truth to the analysis made in the “glass ceiling” article, about how content drives success. There are also many things you need to do to a site in order to make it highly monetizable. The issue here is that it takes a humongous amount of time to make it all work. You’ll increase your chances of success if you decide to take the leap and put in the time and think up a strategy to run a site more as a business rather than just as a hobby. Of course, there’s always the risk that even with making such tradeoffs and sacrifices, one doesn’t end up with enough income to merit going into blogging full time. But you won’t know till you try. All I can say is that the work requires me to wear many hats, with the creative aspect being one of the smaller factors in the equation.
One more thing — the whole glass ceiling concept doesn’t necessarily apply to other blog niches. Take mommy bloggers for instance; a number of them are doing fairly well in that niche. The key is to drive traffic to your site and then find out the best way to monetize that traffic. And a lot of mommy bloggers (and other types of female bloggers) have been able to do just that.
Personal Financial Articles
Some good reads you may be interested in checking out:
- Wise Bread: 5 Strategies To Wipe Out Your Credit Card Balance
- Mint Blog: Survive the Choppy Market: Personal-Finance Blogger Picks
- The Casual Observer: Make Money Selling Photos
- Back Taxes Help: Ways To Maximize Your Tax Refund in 2011
- The Financial Student: Reflections on the Mortgage Crisis
- Money Hackers: A US Oil Spill Map and Analysis
It was nice to get mentioned in this article. As mentioned, I don’t believe there’s a glass ceiling. It just depends on how you run your blog.
Good information about blogs. I know that this ceiling you talk about is industry specific.