10 Things You Need To Know Before Starting Your Blogging Career
Yes, blogging is a real career. Many people who are interested in blogging don’t have a real understanding of how blogging works. In this blog post, I’m going to break down how you can make money with blogging and turn it into a full-time career.
If you think blogging is a get rich quick scheme, you should probably stop reading now. Blogging is a real business and it takes work, just like any business. As a new blogger myself, I have a unique perspective on what it really takes before you start seeing any success. Here’s what I wish I knew (both pros and cons) before starting to pursue blogging as a career.
These may sound generic, but it’s seriously the best advice in order for you to succeed. I’ll show examples in each recommendation.
1. You will have to work hard for a lot of months without pay
If you wrote a blog post today, it will likely take 9 months before it gets its maximum views on Google. This means you won’t really get any clicks or revenue from a blog for a while. As a blogger, this forces you to have a long-term approach to success.
This is actually my 49th blog post and I have been blogging for nearly 4 months. I’m averaging close to 2,000 words per article, so that’s nearly 100,000 words I’ve written for my blog so far.
Guess how much I made? $0.
Is this discouraging? No, because I understand the timeline of how long it takes for a blog to succeed. If I keep publishing at my rate, I can easily be earning $1,500-$2,500 per month when my blog turns a year old. The next year, I will likely double or triple my revenue per month.
If I didn’t have this understanding, I would’ve quit within weeks. It takes time for Google to rank your site as a legit site and even longer for your content to rank without promoting it.
If you can take anything from this blog, remember that it will take a year before you see any real results.
2. Your blog is a business, not a hobby
I want you to succeed with your blog. To do this, you have to be honest with yourself. No one is inherently interested about reading about your life or mine. You need to bring value to your audience in order to make money blogging.
You should have a core audience you are trying to serve with your content. In my case that’s people like me (bloggers, freelance writers, etc).
I publish content regularly, whether I feel like it or not. I have a work schedule for my blog and I stick to it for the most part.
Every day, I wake up and the first thing I do is write my blog post for the day. It takes roughly 2 hours and I can go about my day and do other stuff for my 9-5.
If you don’t prioritize your blog, how can you expect results? I know my blog will be my main source of income for many years into the future. This is why I prioritize it and make it the first thing I do.
If there’s one thing I will do in a given day, it will be to write my blog for the day.
3. The time will never be right
You might be a super distracted perfectionist like myself. I always felt like if my site didn’t look pretty or if my blog wasn’t perfect, I can’t publish it.
This is the single worst thing you can do as a blogger.
Perfectionism is a blogger’s #1 enemy. This is because it will make you stand still and not make any progress.
You have to realize the time will never be perfect and you need to publish your blog post today. Looking back at my first few blog posts, I cringe. This is a good sign because it shows I’m getting better.
One year from today, you would wish you started today. The time will never be right, the perfect time is now.
4. Your income is based on how quickly you can learn and get better
I came across blogging in December of 2020. I binge watched a lot of YouTube videos on bloggers who make full-time incomes with their blog.
It’s been roughly 5 months since I got introduced to blogging and I know a lot already. My goal is to get to $1 million in revenue from this blog.
In order to get there, I will have to be a master at the few things that are important to blogging. This includes writing blog posts, SEO, monetizing my content and more.
Each blog post, you should be getting better. I’m way better today than what I was on my first blog.
You should start today and within 6 months you will already know most things you need to know about blogging.
5. Focus is the most important element of success
Focus is literally the most important part of success in life, not just blogging. You’re probably juggling a lot of responsibilities and it’s hard to focus on one task.
Here’s the truth: You only need to be good at one thing to be wealthy.
If you are one of the top 5% of bloggers in the world, you are already making a ton of money. What you need to do is focus on the one thing that’s important to your blogging success: publishing content
If you live a full day without publishing content, you’re doing something wrong. Every day you should be publishing high quality content for your audience. You only need 1-2 hours per day to really succeed with blogging.
Narrow down your focus and focus solely on publishing good content.
6. Check out other bloggers’ income reports
This is a very fun and bad habit I have. Every single month I search up blog income reports for other bloggers.
This is both motivating and educational. Blogging is a great niche because many bloggers are very transparent.
They share their traffic data, income and what worked for them each month. You should take some time occasionally to check these out because it will motivate you to keep blogging. That’s what actually got me into blogging originally.
One thing you will notice about all the blog income reports is that many bloggers don’t reach good revenue numbers until their second or third year. This helps remind you that your work is not meaningless and it will pay off.
Some of my favorite income reports to read include:
- Adamenfroy.com
- Ryrob.com
- Prosmartrepreneur.com
7. Invest in your blog
If you have not started a business before, you need to understanding the importance of reinvesting back into your business.
I’ve been a freelance writer for 3 years. The success of my business was directly tied to how much clients I can email in order to get them to work with me. This meant I had to buy email software to get the best clients.
It’s the same thing when it comes to blogging. You will need domain hosting, any extra plugins, etc to run your blog.
As your blog grows, you will need to invest in both education and tools.
Since I’ve started this blog, I’ve purchased a $450 course from Income School that teaches the fundamentals around blogging. To be honest, I wouldn’t have the knowledge or mindset I needed without taking that course.
Now, I’m interested in Pinterest for blogging. I’m looking for courses that can help with promoting my blog.
Courses don’t guarantee you success, but I’m trying to show you how focused you should be on gaining the knowledge you need to succeed in your blog.
My mindset from the beginning of my blog was I’m willing to make any sacrifice I need to make to succeed with blogging. When I make 6 or 7 figures from my blog, the time and money I spent in my blog will be well worth it.
8. Most bloggers will quit, that makes it easier for you to succeed
If you can rank with Google overnight, you can also lose your ranking with Google overnight.
It’s a well known stat that most blogs fail. There’s only a select few number of bloggers who tend to succeed. They succeed mainly because of their consistency.
Imagine you start a blog today and it’s trash. Like really bad.
You keep publishing blog posts for a year and you starting to get some traffic and a little money.
If you keep on doing this for another few years, you will almost be guaranteed to make good money. This is because you will have hundreds if not thousands of articles published.
The amount of articles you wrote alone will get you enough traffic to make a good side income or a full-time income.
I know it sounds cliché, but the amount of blogs you publish will likely be the main factor for your success.
9. You can make a full-time income in 2-3 years
Yes, you can really make a full-time income ($5,000 or more per month) in 2-3 years. Obviously the time it takes for you to really make that income will depend on how hard you work (number of blogs published, how quickly you can learn, etc.)
This is probably the most motivating aspect of blogging. The writing I do today will pay me for years to come.
Since there are so many ways to make money with blogging, you only need to focus on a few to make that kind of money. Some of the ways you can make money with blogging include:
- Ads: Ads are one of the primary ways bloggers make money. Ad networks like Google AdSense or Mediavine will pay you money each month depending on the amount of visitors you get. If your blog gets over 50,000 visitors each month, you can make thousands of dollars just off of ads alone.
- Affiliate links: Affiliate links are another great way to make money with blogging. You can put links into your blogs and companies will pay you for directing customers to their business. Affiliate marketing is very lucrative and can pay thousands of dollars each month.
- Info products: Info products can be the most lucrative way to make money with blogging. Once you’ve built an audience, you can launch a course, ebook, etc and make passive income for a long time. These can take a while to make, but they are extremely profitable.
- Professional services: Offering professional services can be a great way to earn a few thousand dollars each month. Since you have a blog in a certain niche, you position yourself as an expert. Your readers can consult with you for a fee and that’s a great way to make more money with your blog.
10. Learn SEO
One of the most important aspects of blogging is learning Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO is basically how you can rank your blogs well on Google.
If you search up SEO on Google, you will be overwhelmed with information. Let me break it down in a few steps:
- Finding keywords that you can rank for: You can use SEO tools to find keywords that are relevant to your niche that can bring views to your blog.
- Incorporating keywords into your blog: Once you have found the right keyword for a blog, make sure to include it in your blog title, meta description and in the text of your blog
That’s a very broad summary of SEO. You need to get a basic understanding of SEO, so your blogs can get views. When you start off as a new blogger, you likely won’t see any real traffic until 6 months after. Learning SEO will prevent you from having articles with 0 views.
SEO will help you write about what people are actually searching for on Google instead of writing about what you think is popular.
For this blog post, I used Ubersuggest to help me find the keywords “blogging career”.
You can learn how to use Ubersuggest here, there’s a free trial for 7 days.