In the past decades, the last two decades more precisely, lots of tech-related jobs started popping up. It’s very easy to start grinding, as long you have a PC and a steady internet connection.
Blogging is one of these jobs. Basically, if you are a native wordsmith and you feel like sharing anything with those around you, blogging is the career of your choice.
There are lots of examples of bloggers who turned their hobby into a full-time job. Pete Cashmore’s blog called Mashable, a technology-focused blog makes a decent $2 million a month and he’s not the top earner. This being said, we can clearly see that the blogging industry is a profitable one.
George Newman, a marketing specialist at EduGeeksClub gives a few tips for you to start that blogging career you’ve been planning to.
1. Self Assessment & Commitment
If you want to turn your blog into a full-time job you need to be very firm about your decision. You can’t take it as a part-time job, it needs your entire attention. Have a break from work, take two days off and think about your next move.
It’s very difficult to go from a full-time job, with a steady income, to a job that, at first, might generate none to little income. At the same time, it’s very easy and delightful going from a regular job to being your own boss and doing what you like.
So, starting a blogging career is the difference between staying in your comfort zone or taking some risks, doing what you love and taking your career to the next level.
- Blog Topic
You’ve decided to follow your dream, now, you need to clearly define your blog’s topic. Whether it is fashion, automotive or tech, it doesn’t really matter. The best way to find this topic is to answer two very important questions:
What do I like? What am I passionate about?
If you are not passionate about your work, the quality of your results will be disappointing, at most.
How many blogs are occupying that niche?
Take it as a real business. Before jumping into the lake, you need to check its depth.
2. Get Some Article Ideas
Once you find the blog idea, you need to find some content ideas. Let’s pretend you’ve decided upon an automotive blog. Do some digging, what cars does your audience like? Surf the forums, find the ones with the most threads, replies, and activity.
For an exhaustive report on the automotive industry or any idea you’ve decided upon, you can use Forum Research. They are great at doing researches.
3. Publishing Calendar
Right, you’ve decided upon the main ideas, you’ve got a handful of articles. Now, you need to decide on their order. It needs to be a logical one in order to have a coherent flow of information.
The best way to create that publishing career is to use tools such as Coschedule. It has many useful features, such as an ability to combine social media and content marketing schedule, an ability to share tasks with your team, and many others.
4. Investment – Time & Money
In terms of time, we’ve already talked about that. Take it as a full-time job or even more. When you are your own boss, you won’t be able to draw a line between personal and professional life. They will blend in and your blog might occupy more than 40 hours per week.
- Tools
In terms of money, you will need a decent budget to get going. First, you will need the tools, an above the average laptop it’s a must. This will quite a big dent in your budget if you don’t have it already. Another thing you should consider buying it’s a decent camera. Readers want visual content, photos, videos and you need to deliver them at the best possible quality.
These are the basic tools you need, but depending on your blog’s topic, you might need some extra tools. For example, if you offer audio content, such as podcasts, you should consider buying a professional headset and microphone.
- Software and Development
In the first part, we’ve been talking about the hardware part of the business, now we’ll talk about the software and development.
Here are the things you should take into consideration:
Domain
Hosting
Development (If you do this all by yourself, it’ll save you lots of money. If you contract someone to do it for you, brace yourself!)
Another thing that will consume a lot of your budget is the paid advertising. At first, your blog will have little to none readers. You need to create some traffic for it and, for this, you need to invest in paid advertising. Advertising will consume a great percent of your blog’s monthly budget, around 65-70 percent.
5. Consistency in Blogging
The numbers started growing. You’ve started having 4, 5 figures, you are turning into a real star. Now, you need to make the snowball keep on growing. Disrupting the constant flow of posts and information will make your readers act the same way.
They Won’t Visit You as Often as You’d Like
They Won’t Engage with Your Blog
They Will Treat You the Same Way You Treat Them
Consistent doesn’t mean you should have a blog post per day. Your blog might cover very complex matters, which need lots of research, and you are able to deliver only two or three posts a week. That’s totally fine, but you need to keep on that schedule. If at first, you post 4 articles a week, then you go down to one or two, your readers will see the difference. They will look to other blogs for interesting information.
6. Emotional Attachment to Your Blog
Right now, you are doing something you love. You keep those ideas flowing, those keys moving, and the posts are published regularly. You’ve started getting attached to your baby, but you need to keep in mind that it’s a business.
You need to make rational and objective decisions, don’t let your feeling overwhelm you. It’s more like 70 percent business and 30 percent pleasure. You are doing what you love, but you need money to keep on doing this and the rent won’t pay all by itself.
Sometimes, you might have to choose between sticking to your principles and earning those extra bucks that will keep you afloat. I’d suggest you take this decision considering the economic effects of your decision.
7. Generating Revenues
Your blog started generating some buzz around it but, we both know that, for it to survive, you need some cash. The easiest way to do so is by joining an affiliate network.
Basically, what you are going to do is sell the space on your website for a certain amount of money. You will promote other people’s products and you will get paid according to the traffic you generate.
Depending on the method you consider most appropriate you can choose:
Pay-per-Click
Pay-per-Impression
Pay-per-Action
Pay-per-Lead
But, this is up to you and the person you rent your space to. You will decide upon the method you consider the most relevant for both of you.
8. Product Reviews
Once you get some traction, companies will start coming up to you. One of the most frequent methods of advertising their products on blogs is by having them reviewed. Long story short, you’ll get fancy cars to drive around and crash them into bananas just to make them more visible to your audience.
Getting paid to drive fancy cars around town? I guess it’s everyone’s dream.
Conclusion
The technology has created, transformed, and turned blogging into an industry. There are people out there making 7-figures a year and you still don’t feel comfortable creating those blog posts?
When you want to start that blogging career you’ve always thought about, keep in mind these 7 tips and you will have a firm starting point.
Think about your blog’s main theme and brainstorm to find some article ideas. Once you’ve posted them, use social media and analytics to increase the reach and optimize your content according to your audience.
Last, but not least, find innovative ways of increasing your revenues through your blog. After all, it needs lots of money to make it float.
