The Opportunity Cost Factor
[quote]Opportunity cost is the value of the next best alternative forgone.[/quote]In economics, opportunity cost is the expression of the relationship between scarcity and choice. For example, If you choose to spend a couple of hours in the evening watching Friends reruns or SportsCenter, the opportunity cost is not enjoying another activity; like working on your blog.
Why do I bring this up?
Well, if you are like many bloggers, you are embarking on a journey to make money blogging. Unfortunately, if you are… still like these same bloggers, you just don’t have a full 8 – 10 hours a day to devote to your financially-inspired trek. Whether you are juggling a job, family or school while finding time to grow your blog, there are choices that need to be made with respect to how you use your time. Time is a scarce resource and making the best use of it comes down to making good choices.
If you truly want to succeed with blogging, you need to make the best use of your time and resources. Not everyone has the financial means to buy all the latest softwares or hire a “crack” team to do the heavy lifting. However, there are tools and resources that are both free and fairly inexpensive that will allow you to make the best use of your time and accelerate the growth of your new blog business.
Could you scour Youtube and the myriad of sites that have videos on how to learn WordPress for example? Of course, but how much time will you spend sifting through thousands of amateur videos, watching some that don’t make sense, are poorly done, or are now outdated and obsolete?
This same line of thinking, of course, applies to any aspect of your blogging.
Areas that you may want to consider finding other resources for include:
[list style=”check”]- SEO – Link Building
- Content Creation
- Design Work
- Remedial tasks such as data entry.
I have wasted countless hours “Googling” and spending time trying to figure out and learn various aspects of WordPress and web site design. Had I paid a few bucks for an educational service or to have a professional perform some tasks for me, I would have saved a great deal of time and been able to spend that time being more productive.
Don’t get me wrong, you need to make a like a “sponge” and learn as much as possible. Just keep in mind, as you learn more and get a better grasp on how to make money with your blog or website, you will find that there are tools and resources available to you that you will want to take advantage of. Think like a business owner. Take advantage of technology and the right kind of resources in order to grow your business and take advantage of economies of scale.
One final note
I recommend that you take a look at Odesk. It is a marketplace for employers and contractors. There are literally tens of thousands of contractors from around the world whom you can hire (at a relatively low cost) to do such tasks as: writing content, graphic design work, marketing tasks (email, social media, link building, promotion, PR), website creation, PHP development, WordPress-specific tasks, bookkeeping, general management assistance, etc….the list goes on.
Again, you can only do so much with your time. You are only one person living in a 24 hour a day world. These are two limited resources that you need to overcome in order to find growth and success.
Finding specialized companies, resources or software that can perform marketing services and management tasks can help you leverage your efforts and overcome these two pesky little limitations.