Dying Nigerian blogs and the blogging for money concept

Since I started my internet journey and began to make money online, one of the things that kept on bothering me was why on the other hand many Nigerian blogs have been dying. Yes, since I started my internet publishing business, I've known quite a number of promising blogs and websites which has been launched in the past but in the end, they didn't really last for up to 5 years.

Lots of indigenous Nigerian websites and blogs have been dying since I started blogging in 2005 and till date, many blogs are still springing up but I still somehow know that many of them would still not see the next 5 years.

The big question I then asked myself was on why such Nigerian blogs were dying. I mean, these blogs had a lot of useful content and then you'd wake up one day to see that they've just disappeared without a warning. At times you'd visit an old blog link from Google search results only to find out that the blog's hosting service has expired or the domain name has been acquired. Did those bloggers spend more than they earned? Did they run their domain on a free hosting service? Were they not making enough money to cover for their website maintenance fees? Did they just lose the passion for blogging or did they find bigger things to do?

There are actually a lot of possible answers I've gotten after researching for the reasons why many Nigerian blogs and websites have died over the past few years and why many of them could still die in the short future and I think one of the major reason is lack of profitability - i.e. Not making enough money from their blogs.

This issue brings us to another issue that is being talked about in the Nigerian blog world and this is about the blogging for money concept. Some bloggers believe long term bloggers shouldn't blog for money while some disagree to that.

What I have to say is that if a Nigerian blogger doesn't make money with his blog, why would he continue blogging? I mean, for sure you need to have a passion for blogging but if that blogging doesn't bring any financial incentive, will it still make sense to keep blogging?

I agree to the school of thought that supports blogging for money since this is what professional blogging really is and it can help keep a website in existence for the longer term. You know it's better for a blog to keep remaining relevant and available even if the blogger was doing it for the money. Most blogs I've seen that died out actually did so because they hardly made any profit and this killed their motivation.

I just think if most Nigerian bloggers were really making some good money from blogging, they are more likely to keep blogging for the long term rather than shutting down after just 5 years.

So for the second that asks If it is ok to blog for money, I'd say, Yes and why not? As long as the blog keeps rolling out new content from time to time.

I think there are 2 things that can help a blog become a success and these are Profitability and Passion for blogging. Some people naturally love to blog while others get passionate when the money keeps rolling in. Either way, it's a win win for the online community.