Blogging is one of the most impressive and online money generating careers.
Why is that?
That is because it is not a location-specific business. In other words, you can work from anywhere at your convenience.
Blogging is a lucrative career as you can earn up to 5 times more than your regular job.
Do you believe that? Yes, it’s possible.
Blogging possess huge potential to make you real money, I mean, you can drive in huge sums as profits into your bank account if you know your way around it – I’m not going to leave you without a reason;
The advantage blogging holds compared to other professions or careers is that it can be monetized in numerous ways.
Its monetization methods range from running ads, affiliate marketing to selling merchandise.
Don’t get too excited. As much as blogging can be a lucrative career, it requires going through certain processes. That’s why I have taken my time to come up with this article on how to start a blogging career.
I bet you are going to be shocked after reading through this.
Without much ado with words, let’s take a brief overview of what a blog is.
What Is A Blog?
Many people have their different definitions of what a blog is. But for a better understanding, let’s look at a blog from this aspect;
A blog is an online space dedicated to an individual. The online space dedicated to the store to an individual is to aid him or her in getting his/her works or other information published so as to reach out to a large audience.
That’s kind of a long definition there, but I’m sure it’s understandable.
A blog in a sense, is website-like. As you read further you will get to understand the concept.
What does a blog do?
Aside from making a lot of money as a blog owner, there are several advantages of a blog.
Here, let’s take a look at a few of them:
- A blog serves as a medium through which information is transferred. As the information is being transferred, the recipients of the information get educated. So, it isn’t out of place to say that a blog is a means of educating people.
- A blog is a medium that helps you to share your life experiences. You get to tell people of your day-to-day operations, and of course, on a friendly note.
- A blog aids advertisement. Precisely, it helps to create awareness. This is mostly best for someone who offers one or two services online, it increases your reach, thereby enhancing your visibility to drive in more customers for your business.
Who is A Blogger?
You might have heard a lot of people mention this on several occasions, and it sounded so new and strange to you. Before we delve into the main stuff, let me quickly tell you who a blogger is;
A blogger is someone who owns a blog. Like seriously, what type of explanation is this? It’s really simple.
The moment you get to own a blog of your own, you become a blogger. You can also see a blogger as someone who shares his/her life experiences with people, teaches, etcetera through the internet.
Things to Know When Starting a Blogging Career
Making money online has now become the order of the day. It’s not a bad thing though, that’s where the money is now, and believe me, there’s a lot of money to be made from blogging.
Like I mentioned earlier, don’t get too excited.
Blogging provides a lot of opportunities to make money online.
At some point you may even consider putting all your focus on it, and making it a full time thing.
It isn’t that part time blogging is a bad thing, it’s cool, that’s if you are doing something. And let me enlighten you, many people have quit their jobs just to explore blogging. Also a lot of people have made it big even as a part time blogger.
Before I tell you how to start a blogging career, there are things which are necessary, and you must know:
- Blogging demands patience
- Avoid shiny object syndrome (SOS)
- Consistency is required
- Ability to learn and adapt
- Make blogging a business
- Be ready to invest
- Blogging demands patience
When starting a career in blogging, you should have this consciousness that blogging is not a get rich quick scheme, it requires a lot of time to get the desired results.
No real Business in this world is a get rich quick thing – this is not a Ponzi Scheme. Thus, for you to have a successful blogging career you must be patient.
On your blogging journey, you are going to face numerous challenges, only with patience will you keep your head up and strong. If you can’t do this, don’t bother going into blogging – it’s not your thing.
- Avoid shiny object syndrome (SOS)
Shiny object syndrome (SOS) is one of the most common problems in blogging – a lot of bloggers have complicated their blogging career because of this, and a whole lot of them have failed.
What exactly do you call shiny object syndrome? I will tell you.
You say a blogger has a shiny object syndrome when she/he finds a new or perhaps an interesting niche and tends to move to that instead and sticking with whatever he had initially.
A good example is when you see a blogger making a huge profit from his fitness blog due to his high traffic in the fitness niche, and without even having another thought, you shift to that niche. Let’s say after sometime you realized blogging on fitness isn’t working for you, you jump into a different niche. On and on this continues.
This does not only distract you from achieving your blogging goals but jeopardizes your Blogging Career in the long run.
Any blogger doing this is a wanderer.
- Consistency Is Required
Finding a niche for blogging and expecting a good result after writing just a few articles is not enough to make a career in blogging.
To attain success in blogging, you need to maintain steady writing and publishing of good contents for your readers. This does not mean you write every day or post everyday, however it’s great if you can.
To solve the issue of inconsistency, you can make a schedule for publishing your contents, it could be publishing once in a week, or two contents per week, however, it has to be consistent so that your readers will Know when you are publishing and wait for your post.
Not publishing contents regularly can cause a great harm to your blog as it affects your content reach.
- Ability to Learn And Adapt
Blogging is all about learning new things, continuously improving yourself, and relearning whatever you have learnt.
So, If you are a kind of person that’s not willing to learn more things or develop more skills, you may find blogging difficult.
Should I still give you a reason?
This is because you need to learn writing skills, copywriting, SEO, marketing and many others. If you are not willing to learn these things and develop yourself, how are you going to go about it?
Aside from this, the world keeps evolving daily and you need to stay updated with the latest happenings in the blogging industry.
Many have failed due to their unwillingness to learn. In essence, a blogging career is for those that are open to learning new skills and adapting them.
- Make blogging A Business
You may have started blogging as a part time thing or just as a hobby to have a side income. Now you are choosing blogging as a career.
Do you understand what you are about to get yourself into?
This means that blogging will become the source of your bread and butter. You should not take it lightly – I’m sure a reasonable person wouldn’t take chances.
What am I trying to say?
Blogging is a business, it goes beyond just a hobby thing. You can call it a hobby, if you want to go into it part time – no qualms.
By doing this – that’s considering it to be a business – it will help you to stay focused, and determined about blogging.
This is why some bloggers fail because they see that there isn’t much attached to choosing blogging as a career.
- Be Ready To Invest
At the mention of this, you must have a rethink. Smiles!
Starting a blogging career just like every other business requires an initial investment to start. But this shouldn’t bother you.
Why should it? You are not going to be the first person starting a career in blogging, and you are not going to be the last.
If others can, then you can too. However, you should really put some thoughts into this, if you think you would not be able to handle it, back off.
You may think I am trying to discourage you, no, backing off would do you some good if you are sure you would not be able to handle it and frustration is one of them.
5 Simple Steps to Becoming a Blogger.
Since I mentioned that there are certain processes you have to follow, then there are. You can’t just jump into living your blogging career.
What do you do? I will help you, continue reading.
Now we will look at how to set-up a blog.
Here are the five main steps you need to follow to start a blog. If you follow it correctly you will have your own blog in less than an hour.
- Select a great blog platform.
- Choose a web host for your blog.
- Setting up the blog on your domain.
- Design the new blog.
- Make use of the useful resources for blogging.
Without further delay, I will give you a detailed explanation of these bullet points.
- Select A great platform for your blog
Choosing a blogging platform is pretty much the first thing to do.
Blogging platforms are numerous, they include Tumblr, WordPress, blogger, wix, and many more.
I will recommend you begin with WordPress.
Why?
It’s one of the biggest blogging platforms in the world. It’s really massive with countless plugins and add-ons with numerous ways to design the layout of your blog.
Putting aside its unnumbered features, WordPress is the easiest platform to use in setting up your blog.
It’s believed that there are over eighty two million users of WordPress alone, this is huge.
However, there are other alternatives to WordPress, check below:
- Blogger-The Best thing next to WordPress.
- Tumblr- Tumblr is a blogging & social media tool and it is very easy to use.
Aside from WordPress being the biggest of all the other platforms, there are other unique qualities of WordPress which are listed below.
- It’s absolutely easy to set up and free to use.
- It has numerous themes and layouts
- It provides a massive support forum
- Your blog will be extremely fast and form perfectly.
- It helps people to interact with you easily, share your content and even comment on your blog.
Awesome, right?
- Choose A web host For Your Blog
This is one of the biggest decisions you have to make. This is either to pay for your blog or grab a free one.
WordPress, Tumblr, blogger and other platforms offer free hosting and domain for blogs for anyone. That’s awesome right? But opting for a free hosting is only perfect for those that are not super serious about blogging.
Why do you say that? Won’t it save me some money?
I said that because free hosting and domain has several downsides to it.
Let me throw more light on this.
There will be limits to free blogs. You can’t totally monetize it and you won’t have the opportunity to upload all your desired videos and photos – This is irritating.
To make it worse, you won’t have access to free themes offered by WordPress.
If you are serious about how to start a blogging career, free hosting and domain are not what you should consider.
Let me tell you some other things that comes with a free hosting and domain, that can affect your blogging career:
- You Do Not Own the Blog if You Choose a Free Hosting
This may look strange, But Yes, You do not actually own the blog – on the surface, it may look like you are, but behind the scenes, you aren’t. This is because it’s hosted on another person’s web Property and it can be deleted anytime.
This is risky as you may lose your blog within seconds, after many years of investment.
On the other hand, self hosted with your own domain name, this allows you to become the real owner of your blog and give it whatever name you want, for example “YourName.com”.
You can add any web suffix such as .co.uk,.net, .org. You can also add numerous bandwidth for videos, content, and images plus the free themes you have a nice combo.
There are many web hosting companies which include hostinger, bluehost, dreamhost, Hostgator, etcetera.
Bluehost and hostinger remain the best hosts for beginners if you desire a paid host.
- Set Up The blog On your Domain
We are going to move further on the assumption that you have chosen WordPress. If you have not done that, you should, it’s absolutely the best.
Let’s check out this concepts before we proceed:
- Domain
This is the URL of your website, For example iamyours.com. URL is the abbreviation for Uniform Resource Locator.
- Hosting
Host or hosting provides you with space to put your website on the internet so everyone can see it. Everything will be saved there, It’s just like a hard drive on the internet that saves all the information.
Having gotten the basic knowledge on both terms, the next thing is to install WordPress on your website.
After doing that? Congratulations! You are now on the track to becoming a part time or full time blogger.
- Design Your WordPress Blog
Now that you own A Blog, it’s time you give it the exact look you admire.
How can you do this? You give your website a better look by using a theme.
There are several themes available on WordPress for you, you just have to choose one.
To choose a new theme you can head to appearance on your Wp-admin dashboard, click on select themes, and install a free WordPress theme. You can choose to purchase premium themes if you have the money – premium themes are the best in a sense.
Usually you are to choose something that is professional and easy to customize. It’s important your theme reflects your personality and what your blog is all about.
5.Make Use of Useful Resources
Bloggers have different views due to different experiences from social media.
To have a successful blogging career you have to avoid newbies mistakes, it may be changing of niche regularly.
So newbies are to engage in serious research about SEO tactics and promotional methods to enrich the blog and readers.
You can enrich your audience by publishing quality contents, photos, comments and establishing a social media presence.
Publishing of contents is the most important part of a blog because the audience will not be attracted to your blog if there are no enriched contents there.
Comment sections also allow you to get feedback from your audience, it’s one strategy for growth. Building an online presence gives you more audience, in recent times social media is now a Medium to attract viewers.
Putting all these together will allow you to become a successful blogger.
Conclusion
No longer searching for how to start a blogging career, it’s now on how to do well in your blogging career.
One tip for doing well is avoiding unnecessary mistakes. Also get to learn and learn.
I believe this article puts you on the right track, kindly drop a review. Enjoy!