We have previously mentioned that we have over 20 blogs and some make money for us and others don’t. Actually to be fair they all make money but some only make a few dollars a month whilst others make thousands.

So it stands to reason that over time we have learned a thing or two about owning and running a blog but it took a lot of work and we made quite a few mistakes before we got to where we are today.

Out of all of those mistakes, there was one really big one that affected our online business for many years…and it was unfortunate that it took us so long to realise what we were doing wrong as it really affected our income potential and kept us in our day jobs for a lot longer than we really wanted. Once we caught on however our income started to grow significantly and we knew then that we were well on our way.

So What Were We Doing Wrong?

It’s simple really…we weren’t providing value to our readers. Now, I can just hear you all groaning right now thinking that you already know this. However, I can guarantee that if you have been online for a while and you aren’t succeeding, it’s more than likely that you aren’t providing your readers with enough valuable information to keep them coming back for more.

Don’t get me wrong, a bit of promotion helps but all the promotion in the world won’t do any good unless you have something worth promoting.

What Does ‘Providing Value’ Actually Mean?

This is not an easy one to answer because one person’s definition of ‘value’ will be different from the next. It’s a bit like saying ‘how long is a piece of string’.  So all I can do is give you my definition of ‘value’ – this is what has worked for us.

Value means:

  • giving away your secrets
  • going the extra mile to help others
  • writing honest and unbiased reviews
  • providing way more than your readers expect
  • focusing on your reader first before focusing on the money
  • linking to other blogs if it helps your readers (even if they are in competition to you)

Show Me the Money…

We were definitely guilty, in the past, of not providing quality content and to be completely honest,  it was only because our primary focus was on making money. After all that’s what everyone involved in affiliate marketing aims to do. But once we turned our approach around, the money just started to flow.

I really love this blog post which sums it up beautifully using a real life example – Focus on Providing Value,  Not Making Money.

Are YOU providing value?

If money is your primary focus then step back and take a look at your blog posts. Are they short and lacking any real substance? Are you just churning out content just for the sake of creating as many pages as possible so you can get a few Adsense clicks? Are your reviews simply rehashed information listing the features copied over from the merchants website? Are you copying content from article directories or worse still, from other peoples blogs?

If you are doing any of these things, then you will never really make the big dollars online.

Change your approach to what you are doing and the money will follow.


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