So, blogging, eh?
Heard that you have considering this option – you want to make blogging your career?
Of course, why wouldn’t you? It’s one of the most admired and sought out career options today – after all, who wouldn’t want to live a free life without depending on the daily grind of 9 to 5 job?
But the main question is –
How should you achieve this goal?
Well, it’s certainly not an easy task – making the change from your daily job to you being a professional blogger, that is, and no matter what niche you specialize in, you have to make it to the top; and face it, you may have even come across multiple bloggers who claim that they are living the life by blogging, but it’s not that easy.
But!!
Wait. That’s only the first part – if you are serious about taking blogging to the next level and want to become a professional blogger, then, know this, that blogging will work wonder for you. While it’s true that there are many people who are having a hard time blogging, and that is simply due to the reason that they don’t have a specific plan in their mind and are just blogging for the cause of it.
If, you, are planning to make a career in blogging, then, you will need to have a specific plan in mind, like, certain plan of action that you need to make and follow.
What’s the key to blogging?
Many people start blogging, and even though they blog because they plan to make a career out of it, it doesn’t happen, and they get fizzled out
And you know why?
They are looking for the most definitive ways of blogging, and let us tell you – yes, there are many articles floating around the internet on how can you become a successful blogger, they are not the means for your success.
To become a successful blogger, you have to put in a lot of hard work – and sadly, there is no hard and fast rule in exchange for that.
The real key to blogging is to be you – find your own voice and your own unique identity, and you know what?
It’s not hard to find your own voice – and since, you are planning to make blogging your full-time career, you will need a plan of action as it will help you in creating a clear-cut road to success, provided that you follow it to a tee without missing anything.
Creating a plan
So, you must be wondering as to what should you plan about?
And the answer will be in your questions – you must have had a few questions running in your mind when you thought about making blogging as your career, so, it’s recommended that you start with them.
Questions such as below can be your starting point –
– How to make money by blogging?
– Will you need any investment to become a full-time blogger?
– How do you plan on growing your blog?
– If you already have a full-time job, then, how do you plan to dedicate your time to blogging?
– Do you need to take a course on blogging to make it your career?
Pay attention to every question that comes to your mind, and have them written out – basing the questions, consider creating out a plan for yourselves.
What should you blog about?
Don’t simply try to blog on a niche – the niche that you see someone succeeding in it. remember, don’t blog on a niche just because someone else is succeeding at that niche – always opt for such a niche that interests you and are an expert in that field. Choosing a niche that interest you will help to make your blogging journey a fun one, and not a chore that will tire you out in the long run.
As for the niche, consider choosing a niche that’s broad, so that you don’t have to rack your brains thinking of topics if your niche is too narrow – say, for instance, you are thinking of the niche ‘interior design’ and based on the niche, there are multiple topics under that umbrella term such as minimalism, vintage, modern and so on.
No matter what niche you choose, choose one that interests you and one that you can never tire of – follow your heart, and not the herd.
Launching the blog
Only after choosing the niche, should you think about launching the blog – there are many platforms worth choosing such as WordPress, Squarespace, Wix, Joomla, to name a few – do the necessary research and opt for the one that suits your needs.
Oh, of course, you will also need to think about the domain – choose such a name that will capture the essence of your blog and will let the readers know what your blog is all about simply by looking at the domain name.
Your next step should be to set up your blog – have all the settings taken care of by personalizing it to your liking, after all, that’s your space.
Maintaining the blog’s quality
Now that, you have your blog ready, and you are all set to publish your first post – don’t simply wait for the right time to publish your post, simply do it, but know one thing, the quality of the content on your blog is what will define the future of your blog.
A blog is nothing without its readers, so, if you want your readers to come back to your blog for more content, you will have to feed them with high-quality content in the first place. So, that means, you will need to follow some of the best good content practices, with some of them listed below –
– Don’t imitate any blogger, always try to write in your own voice, or else, it will downgrade the quality of your content.
– If you want your readers to get the very best content from your blog, then, it’s a must that you will have to be well informed, and that means, you will have to keep up with your research – and consider this a must to be done every day, day in and day out.
– Don’t simply write an article and publish it on your blog – try to make it engaging for your readers by asking them for their valuable input at the end, say, in the comments section.
– Blogging always works best with the storytelling technique, so, consider writing your articles in that way – after all, nothing is good as the flow that a story offers.
Nothing can beat that.
– Before you decide to hit the publish button, always go through your whole piece once, and if needed, make edits, no matter how many times it needs.
You don’t want to publish a piece that is full of errors and grammatical mistakes, do you?
– Even though it’s not a high priority at the beginning, but it’s good practice to follow it from the first article that you post on your blog – always write your articles keeping in mind the ‘SEO practices’.
Doing so will help you to build a strong reader base plus it will also help your blog to bag a good position in SERP.
– You are planning to make blogging your full-time career, right? So, that means you will need to know how to make your blog the source of income, and as such, you will need to focus on conversion optimization.
Should you consider networking?
Of course, you should – know this that networking works wonders. When it comes to networking, you should make good ones, as doing so will help in building your brand plus, it will also come in handy when doing future collaborations.
It also helps that when your network with your fellow peer blogger, you also get to know on what’s happening in your industry – that’s not all, networking also helps you to meet and connect with different kinds of people, and who knows, you may even get new opportunities.
So, when networking, always make sure that you are on good terms with others.
Monetizing the blog
If you are thinking of making blogging your career, so, of course, you will need to think of how you can monetize your blog – and the best part is that there are many ways to go about it.
Affiliate marketing
– You can refer a product on your blog and add a link in your blog post – and when your reader will click on the link and buys the product, then, it will help you to earn a percentage of that product.
Advertising
– You can also place an advertisement banner on your blog, and getting the word out – the advertising agencies can then, promote their product on your blog’s page.
Writing an eBook
– You will come upon many bloggers who have built quite a reputation in the industry by writing eBooks – you can also do the same and have them published at Amazon.
Creating a product
– If you have the knack for it, you can also create a product by yourself and have it promoted on your blog – it can either be a digital product or an online course, practically anything that’s related to your niche and one which will bring value to your readers.
Paid sponsorship
– You can also do a sponsored review by adding either a banner or multiple banners on your blog; there’s also the options of guest posts or full-feature articles.
Paid sponsors usually pay the price in advance to have their product promoted on a blog – it’s basically a type of marketing that is done in exchange for a predetermined price; and the best part is that once a blog becomes popular, they start getting these types of paid sponsorships.
Improving the page views of your blog
When you are blogging, the people who read your content are the ones who will define your career – and for that, you will need to have some great content on your blog, but sadly, sometimes, content alone can’t take care of the page views of your blog.
But fret not, there are a few tips that can help you to get the page views that you want –
– You will need to have an active presence on the social media platforms that you are on – doing so will help you to be engaged with your readers, and which, will, in turn, will bring in more traffic to your blog.
– Consider writing on other blogs as well in the niche that you are well versed in – that way, people will get to know you plus, you can also funnel in the traffic from the other blogs to your own.
– Of course, this is a no-brainer – to rack up the page views of your blog, you will need to post daily, and while you are at it, also consider learning about the SEO techniques.
They will surely be helpful in your blogging journey.
– Last, but not the least, always post content on your blog that is of high quality. Well researched and of course, which will bring value to your readers.
Having said all that, having a blog and creating a career may don’t happen overnight – you will need to focus on your content along with many other things that you help you to make your blog work and yield your money.
And, since, you will just be starting out, it will take a while, so, sit down and take a breather, have patience, publish your article, and enjoy the blogging journey.
The numbers will surely start following you soon!