Who can be a blogger in Ghana, Nigeria, Kenya or Africa? What qualifications do you need to become a blogger in Papua New Guinea and Christmas Island? Or better still, who qualifies to start and run a successful blog anywhere in the world? I believe anybody can be a blogger in Ghana, Nigeria, Africa or in the whole wide world. Yes!
So does that mean I too can be a blogger?
Of course. You see, what stops most wannabe bloggers from realizing their dream of becoming a successful online writer or blogger is fear.
To be a blogger, you need to stop paying too much attention to the falsehood people spread about blogging. Then begin to cultivate a positive mindset.
You can be a blogger even today
If you want to be a blogger you can be. Whether you’re in Ghana, Nigeria or any country in the world, you too can make a name for yourself in the blogosphere.
This is why I have chosen to help you become a blogger. I will give you reasons you too can start your blog even today. And in no time, you will start earning money with your blog. Yes!
Online writing or digital publishing has become an exciting and liberating career for millions of introverts, including me. But be sure to find thousands of extroverts also doing great things with their blogs.
In fact, there is a lot to benefit from becoming a blogger. Your passion for your online writing business should be strong enough in order for you to achieve success as a digital writer and publisher.
To be a blogger, you need to ignore the below myths or misconceptions about blogging that people spread around. These wrong assumptions and half-truths about blogging should never stop you from starting your own blog.
Because, the simple truth is virtually anyone can be a blogger if they so desire and are willing to put in what it takes to be a successful blogger.
Here are the misconceptions about blogging to ignore.
1. Blogs make money
Well, that’s a big lie. In the real sense, a blog won’t make you a penny if all you do is produce tons of content.
See what Neil Patel says about using a blog as a tool for making money online.
The harsh truth is this: As a practical matter, you can’t make money blogging. But you can make money by using your blog to promote a product or service.
NEIL PATEL
So, yes, content may be king but you need something more than content to make money as a blogger.
Here is another truth: blogs only help businesses make money.
Today, blogs have become one of the most effective means of marketing and selling products and services. This is why more and more businesses are in a hurry to own a blog, so they can use content marketing to promote and increase the revenue base of their operations.
Here is what Yaro Starak has to say about how a blog can HELP you market and sell your products or services in order to generate revenue for your business.
The blogger works to attract attention and then sells that attention to advertisers for a fee or uses the attention to profit from their own product and/or service sales.
YARO STARAK (BLOG PROFITS BLUEPRINT)
As a beginner blogger, therefore, you need to first come up with a product or service that will form the foundation of your online or offline business. The blog monetization methods vary as they must.
You might decide on selling ad space, promoting products from other businesses for a commission (aka affiliate marketing) or selling your own digital or information products like software or apps, e-books and e-courses.
START MONETIZING YOUR BLOG TRAFFIC
Here is another way to be a blogger and make money in the process. Simply set up an e-commerce shop where you market physical products and services.
2. Most bloggers are English teachers
I can only guess that this misconception about blogging stems from the fact that the majority of successful blogs on the internet are written in English.
Therefore, a good knowledge of English must be a prerequisite for becoming a good online writer or blogger.
LEARN TO WRITE A BLOG POST THAT ROCKS
And, since English teachers may naturally have an edge over the rest of us in this area, it is fair to conclude that most bloggers are English teachers, right? WRONG.
Although I don’t have any empirical data nor evidence to back my rejection of this false belief about blogging, I can tell you with a good measure of certainty that many teachers (English teachers included) are only now coming to terms with the need for them to develop the habit of blogging.
So, English teachers are not anywhere close to being in the majority of bloggers.
Then what kind of people form the bulk of people who are busy producing online content and making money blogging at the moment?
Regular folk like you and me. Mostly non-English teachers. Simple answer. This is why you too can be a blogger.
What distinguishes this group of super-successful bloggers is not a professional degree in the teaching of English or anything close to that.
It is the love for adventure, creativity and continuous learning of the skills that matter in the art or science of blogging.
3. Only journalists can be considered as serious bloggers
Well, this false belief about blogging may turn out to be partly true with reference to places like Ghana and Africa in general.
But it is completely false when you move beyond the shores of Ghana. All these super successful bloggers as well as many others from Europe to North America, from Asia to Australia and New Zealand never trained as journalists.
Regina Anaejiounu
It is only true that the blogging fever is yet to catch up with most people here in Ghana, for example.
So when you ask Google questions about bloggers in Ghana, you get search results that focus too much on journalist bloggers.
Some of these Ghanaian bloggers got to learn about blogging while pursuing their journalism courses in places like the Ghana Institute of Journalism.
Other professionals and the proverbial man-in-the-street in Ghana, in particular, are still unaware of the joys and benefits of blogging.
Personally, I’ve had several occasions trying unsuccessfully to explain to my Ghanaian friends and relatives, let alone convince them, about what blogging is all about and how one can benefit from it.
4. Blogging is for the youth only
11 PROFITABLE BLOG TOPICS FOR AFRICAN BLOGGERS
Nope. I’m way past my youth, right in my middle age, and I’m blogging like nobody’s business. Can’t you feel the vibe even right now?
In fact, many successful professional bloggers you might have already heard about are not high-spirited, fire-spitting youth.
There are many who never settled down to start a blog until they got way past their forties, fifties and even sixties.
Again, let me remind you that there are even octogenarian and nonagenarian bloggers gunning for their centenary birthday anniversaries. And, trust me, they are doing well as professional bloggers. As you can see, you have no reason to abandon your dream. Be a blogger today.
Granted, most bloggers may belong to the youthful group of millennials. Great are the numbers for the Generation Y and Generation Z arrivals.
But, hey, this doesn’t in any way mean that one needs to be in one’s teens or twenties in order to be a blogger.
5. A blog is an easy way to make plenty money
You will believe this dangerous propaganda at your own peril.
Like I said early on, a blog can help you to promote and sell your products and services. But it does not come easily.
The truth about blogging is that you will need to work for a long period of time without earning an income.
This is why honest, successful bloggers admonish us not to leave our day jobs as soon as we start a blog. Your blogger’s check will delay in arriving. And the work is not easy at all.
One thing that quickly scares many beginner bloggers is the steep learning curve.
Yes, you will quickly learn that making money blogging is never as smooth-sailing as some would want you believe. Do not fall for the tricks from some deceitful bloggers. I mean those who use “sweet words” to sell affiliate products on their blogs.
But I’m not here to discourage you. The fact that others have succeeded in their dream to make a living from a blogging career means the opportunities to make money blogging are real.
Just that you need to be patient and consistent. Persist in your efforts to become a professional blogger in Ghana, Nigeria or elsewhere in the world.
6. Coding knowledge is required of every blogger
The arrival of WordPress and other content management systems has made this belief about blogging very much outmoded.
Today, all the coding work is taken care of by the creators of the WordPress software. Big thanks to the inventors of thousands of very useful plugins in the WordPress repository.
If you can learn how to access and install software, there is no limit to what you can do with your blog. You really can be a blogger today even without learning a single line of code.
Most bloggers you may be admiring right now know next to nothing about coding.
Personally, I have never been to a programming school or taken a coding course. Yes, I keep encountering such terms as HTML, PHP, CSS, JAVASCRIPT, PYTHON and so on and so forth. But I’m able to do so much without bothering my head over them.
I can do the needed maintenance work on my sites, create and maintain backups and also design or customize my themes as I deem fit.
So, all you need is the desire to keep learning how to use software and plugins. And you can do this without touching code or programming.
These happen to be the two terms most career bloggers still dread like the C-virus.
7. Without long form content your blog won’t rank high on Google
Who said so? I’ve personally seen extremely short-form content come up high on SERPs. So, this is among the most dangerous false beliefs about blogging. Do not allow it to make you run for cover, especially if you don’t like writing plenty.
Look, I’m by no means saying that long-form content hasn’t got its merits. It certainly has.
But it’s also a fact that one can focus on short-form content or even micro-blogging and still come up high on Google. It’s all about strategy, niche and many other factors.
8. You must be an excellent writer to succeed in blogging
When it comes to blogging, there isn’t much you can do if you don’t possess good writing skills. This is particularly so where all you want to publish is written content.
But again, being a reasonably good writer is enough to produce online content in text format. Great for you if you are an excellent writer. There are huge advantages to that, surely.
However, many successful professional bloggers do not boast of this so-called excellent writing skill.
They simply do their own thing in as good English as they possibly can conjure. And, pronto! There they are enjoying the meal at the table of the high and mighty in the blogging world.
Do not also forget about the fact that blogging is not all about writing text. All that some successful professional bloggers do is produce and publish super awesome videos and podcasts.
9. Blogging is no longer profitable
The last time I checked, this and the other false beliefs about blogging were still refusing to hold water. So drop it and move ahead with your blogging plans with all the confidence you can muster.
You can be a blogger and make it profitable.
Begin right now to believe in your ability to scale your blog into an online money cow. Because that is exactly the potential of every online property called a blog.
With the right approach to blogging and a good doze of determination, you too will begin making passive income from your blog.
And, remember, so long as content marketing remains the most effective marketing tool for today’s businesses, blogs will continue to be profitable.
10. Blogging is all about writing
A moment ago, you read in this article that apart from text, it is possible to be a successful professional blogger just by producing video and/or audio content.
Furthermore, to say blogging is all about writing is like saying driving is all about sitting in one place. Thus, this is yet another perfect example of the many false beliefs about blogging you must ignore.
Blogging has got more to it than writing.
As a professional blogger, you will quickly learn to wear many hats at the same time.
Marketing your content and products come at the top. Then you will be updating your plugins, and customizing your theme.
In fact, you will have to create products first before thinking about marketing or selling them. Email marketing is a skill you will need to acquire.
For most bloggers, active participation on social media platforms and forums matters a lot. Money management and other tasks related to finance are there waiting for you.
So also are personnel management and basic computer maintenance or repair work.
Much as you are at liberty to employ freelancers to do much of the work for you, there are certain blogging skills that you had better learn to use yourself.
You don’t want to overspend your budget. Neither should you unnecessarily open up your online business to strangers.
Trust me, the internet is capable of turning into a dog-eat-dog environment on any day.
11. You won’t make money blogging on free WordPress.com
It is entirely possible to make some money even with a blog on FREE WordPress.com.
So this is one more of those false beliefs about blogging you will need to drop. That is, if, like me, you decided to begin your blogging career on FREE WordPress.com.
This is why the folks at WordPress.com find it useful to provide that SIMPLE PAYMENT BUTTON for example.
Just that there are too many restrictions to live with on FREE WordPress.com. This is what makes life on that platform too difficult for anyone who is serious about becoming a full-time professional blogger.
Remember, we said somewhere that a blog does not make money on its own. You can use the content to attract traffic and customers to your products.
Now, if that is the case, then it is possible for you to have a small business that offers a certain product or service. Next, go blogging extensively on FREE WordPress.com to get attention and sales for the product.
Do not let anybody deceive you. I have personally seen FREE WordPress.com sites rank very high on Google, sometimes beating well-established self-hosted blogs at their own game.
12. Training is required before you can start blogging
He … ll … ooo!. Drop this and similar false beliefs about blogging now. You do not want to wait till eternity to get money to pay for an expensive blogging course before you become a blogger.
Did you know there are people who paid thousands of dollars for courses that taught them fabulous blogging theories only to fail miserably when they started the actual blogging thing?
On the other side are people who never took any blogging course but are doing just fine.
It is an open secret that many successful bloggers who are now in the business of selling online courses never took a single blogging course before they became what they are today.
The majority of today’s ultra-successful bloggers started by doing the trial and error thing we’re all doing right now.
They never studied any of the magic formulas they are selling and people are buying like hot cake right now.
Now, the lessons they learnt have been turned to courses being sold to you.
Why don’t you learn from that instead?
The truth is as simple as ABC, if you ask me. It is always good to learn something about what you don’t know much about before delving into it. But you don’t want to spend all your time running after this or that blogging course at the time you should be putting your dream into action.
Just take action while you keep learning on the job, so to speak.
Believe you me, there are many free resources for you to access online if you cannot immediately afford the courses.
So, do not wait to afford a blogging course before you begin your journey to become a professional blogger.
13. Only bloggers in the developed world are making it
These African bloggers are believed to be making loads of money from their blogging activities. You may also love to check out these ultra-successful bloggers from Asia.
As you can see, you can be a blogger in Nigeria, Nepal or my home country Ghana and still earn a lot of money from your blog.
Are you an aspiring blogger from Nigeria, Gambia, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Kenya, Uganda, Zimbabwe or South Africa?
Whichever part of Africa or even Asia you may be living now should not kill your desire to be a blogger. I therefore urge you to drop this last one of the false beliefs about blogging and start a profitable blog today.
Let’s wrap this up…
Congratulations if you’ve made it to this point.
I’ve exposed and debunked all these false beliefs about blogging with one goal in mind. To encourage you to start a blog and become a successful professional blogger in the near future.
You need the right level of self-confidence, the willingness to keep learning as you progress. Additionally, exercise moderation in your expectations of profit to make it as a professional blogger in Ghana or elsewhere on the world map. One last word. Anyone can be a blogger. Period.
Over to you.
