Okay so learning about blogs and blogging finally got you interested to know if you can pursue blogging as a full-time job and if you can really make money out of it.
Blogging has existed since the internet era began. But what people didn’t know including me until way later is that it is a great way to make money WHILE pursuing your passion and it is possible to make a full-time career out of it.
You can make your blogging hobby a full-time job and make money. And no, it’s never too late to start.
So, without wasting time, let’s began!
Blogging As A Full-time Job
Now why most bloggers fail is that they completely mess up the REAL reason for blogging. So firstly, I want to clarify what it REALLY means:
A blog by generic definition means:
“A regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style”
Taken from the Oxford Dictionary
Okay, so what does blogging ACTUALLY mean?
It means to write and express your ideas, thoughts, knowledge, experiences, and share things that you love, and HELP people in any way you are interested in.
The tone of expression could be funny and humorous, deadly serious, exceptionally scientific, weird and creepy, cute and bubbly, or maybe all of the above. (or maybe that’s too much?)
Anyway, you mean YOU while being true to yourself write about things that you love and would like to share about and HELP people that are struggling just like you were, or maybe you just want to write and promote things that you enjoy using while earning an income.
It could be anything.
By doing so, you add images, and videos to make your content look more appealing. You also personalize your blog (theme) so that it suits your personality. It can be chic and classy, colorful and cheerful, calm and serene, etc. Just like how you personalize your phone.
Blogging comes in all shapes and forms. You can literally blog about anything.
Anything means anything.
Your blog, your wish…. Now whether you can make serious money with it or not is a different topic I’ll dive into later.
Is blogging still relevant in 2022?
According to Statista Research Department, the number of bloggers in the United States is set to reach 31.7 million users in 2020. The number keeps getting higher and higher. Not to mention that around 77% of Internet users read blog posts regularly (Impact).
Most of the content we consume throughout the day is mostly blogs. If you watch YouTube videos then it is video blogging and if you use Twitter then micro-blogging and if Google, then written blogs.
We all like to read something that gives us a human connection.
According to research, 79% of the shoppers spend close to 50% of their shopping time researching products online (Hubspot).
That’s the reason that if we like a product on a company’s website, we search for informal sources ( like Reddit, Quora, YouTube, and blog reviews) to see if it’s actually worth it or not.
How do bloggers earn?
Bloggers earn in many different ways. It depends upon how much their blog has grown.
There are hundreds of ways to monetize your blog.
But these are the ways most bloggers earn regardless of how old or new their blog is.
Affiliate marketing: It means that you market someone else’s products on your site and when people make a purchase you earn a commission.
Ads: Advertising networks like Google Adsense, Adthrive, and Mediavine pay you to display ads to your visitors. The more clicks you earn, the more you’re paid. (don’t you ever click on your own ads!)
Amazon products: Yup! You can also recommend products from amazon and gain commission. The costlier the product, the more the commission.
There are also other popular ways like selling courses, services, paid memberships, physical & digital products, etc.
Also read: How To Monetize Your Blog From Day One
Do all niches earn the same amount of money?
No, of course not.
There is no denying that some niches earn are more profitable than the others. But that shouldn’t stop you if you are serious about blogging. Because any niche will pay you better than your daytime job if you are dedicated to it. Not immediately but with consistent effort, it’s possible.
Most popular niches in blogging (in no particular order):
- Lifestyle blogs
- Finance & Investing blogs
- Travel blogs
- Health, Fitness & Wellness blogs
- Parenting blogs
- Food blogs
- Fashion blogs
- Gaming blogs
- Sports blogs
These are honestly very broad terms. People, who are interested in any of the above-mentioned niches, niche down even further to build a loyal audience.
For instance, if you are keen on gaming blogs, you can blog about Minecraft and everything related to it. Or if you are a frequent traveler, you can create a blog that tells your audience about the most underrated places you visited in each country, etc.
Don’t restrict yourself to these niches, as I said there are hundreds of niches you can pick from and blog about.
Of course, unless you are creating a site about something that nobody cares about any longer like fidget spinners (I hope not), you don’t have anything to worry about. Research well and you will find that there is a market for everything.
I too thought way too much than I should’ve about which niche is more profitable. But in the end, I decided on something I genuinely enjoyed reading and writing about and something that aligned with my long-term vision.
Why You Should Pursue Blogging As A Full-time Job
Here are a few of the many reasons why you should consider blogging as a side or even a full-time job.
You Gain Tons Of Skills
Blogging can be very demanding and challenging. You are the only person running your business. So you are the investor, writer, editor, SEO expert, marketer, financer, accountant, graphic designer, and researcher of your blog.
There is no time to whine or throw a tantrum. You have to roll your sleeves and get to work.
This way, you gain tons of skills that help you in so many areas in your life. Even if your blog doesn’t make it on the first try, you have gained enough skills to show off on your resume and to your employers.
Before I used to think about what skill I should try to learn but now, I have gained so many skills that I could easily get employed as a Pinterest manager, SEO expert, WordPress expert, Graphic designer, Proofreader, and Editor.
I can easily create beautiful graphics on Canva without needing to use complex software like Adobe Suite or Adobe Photoshop. I always use it to design my pins, photos for blogs, and a lot of other stuff.
And like me, you can also easily build your website or blog without knowing about coding or technical stuff.
You Are Your Own Boss
This is probably the best thing about blogging. You get to be your boss and you are not answerable to anyone about how you spend your time.
Blogging can be demanding but the freedom it gives you is worth it.
Yes, it takes some time to learn the ins and outs of the business but once it takes off, you can easily make it your full-time job without worrying if you’re going to get fired because you took a sick leave this week.
You Can Work Remotely
No need to commute and get stuck in traffic for hours on end. Instead, you can be in your PJs and work your fingers off for 12 hours minimum.
Hey, but at least, you get to be in your PJs.
Blogging takes time to take off but if you have a strategy in mind, it WILL pay off. Working in a day job wouldn’t be so bad when you know that you are working on your blogging business and know sooner or later, it will pay results.
Not to mention, remote working is the best thing that happened during the pandemic and many people have realized that it’s not all that necessary for everyone to work on-site.
No Cap On Earnings
The best thing about pursuing blogging as a full-time job is that there is no cap to how much you can earn through blogging.
If you know the ins and outs of it, you WILL make money through it. The more you know about it, the more you earn from it.
Simple.
You don’t have to ask for a salary raise or have to prove your hard work to get qualified for additional benefits or bonuses.
It’s possible to replace your salary and earn even higher with your blogging business if you give enough time and dedication to it. But this is not the case with your day job.
No matter how much effort you pour in, you will only get what you agreed for in the beginning.
Challenges You Need to Overcome In Blogging
Here are the three most prominent challenges most if not all bloggers face when starting out. If you can overcome these problems then you can easily earn money through blogging.
Blog Traffic
You need traffic to monetize your blog but traffic doesn’t come immediately when you hit publish on your blog post. You need a marketing strategy and a deep understanding of your audience. You need to know how SEO work and you can’t expect to make any money in the first year of your blog.
There is just so much that goes on in blogging that a beginner blogger simply can’t grasp everything. You have to juggle a lot of balls at once and you can’t afford to drop any.
This is where most bloggers feel overwhelmed and choose to completely abandon their blogs.
Blogging demands a great deal of patience and vision. It’s far from a get-rich-quick scheme. And it’s certainly not very passive either.
Starting out you need to trade in your time to build an audience and create a brand. Marketing and driving traffic to your blog takes a huge chunk of your time. And marketing in this highly saturated online world is certainly not a piece of cake.
You need to know who is reading your blog, why are they reading it, how can you help them, who is your target audience, etc.
And you can’t assume that what you think is really what they ACTUALLY need help with.
Dive into your target readers’ groups and forums and see what they are struggling with. Observe your competitor’s blogs and see their most popular posts and comments. You will get tons of insight into your target audience.
Monetizing Strategy
Before you start a blog and make blogging your full-time job, you need to have a monetizing strategy in mind and need to be realistic about it. Many people jump right into blogging without even knowing how they are going to monetize their blogs.
Some bloggers make money through affiliate marketing and ads; others need to sell lots of courses and products to earn the same level of income.
Also Read: How to Monetize Your Blog From Day One
Joining Amazon associates and promoting only books on your blog won’t make you a lot of money since amazon literally pays peanuts on such products.
On the other hand, if you have a tech blog, then you can easily earn thousands from each sale by selling laptops and phones from Amazon associates.
Earnings from Adsense alone will not be enough to replace your full-time job and more profitable Ad networks like Mediavine and Adthrive require you to have at 25k-100k monthly sessions to join their networks.
Now, if you do have that kind of traffic, you will already be earning enough from affiliate links to replace your day job and will probably not be sweating about how much you are earning from Ads on your site.
You can visit your competitor’s blogs and see how they are monetizing their blogs and why are they monetizing this way.
SEO
It’s a whole beast on its own.
You can never know enough SEO. From conducting keyword research to focusing on off-page SEO, there is a lot to learn. And for your blog to make it among hundreds of others, you need to have a solid grasp of SEO.
Google favors quality over quantity. But you also need enough quantity for Google to take you seriously.
When starting, you need at least 10 quality posts that are fully optimized for SEO. Finding the right keywords to target and then using them to rank higher in SERPs and ideally the first page of Google is quite a challenge.
Learning the best SEO practices takes a while and there is a lot of trial and error that goes on during the learning process. You are required to keep refining your SEO strategy and you really can’t expect to nail it on the first try after reading a guide or taking a course on it.
SEO is all about the user’s Search Intent. Your target keywords are literal phrases that people are typing to get to know something.
That is why it’s so much important that you know your target audience. Google favors articles that satisfy users’ search intent.
That is the only thing they care about.
And at the start, this is also probably the only thing you need to care about too.
But most bloggers that are too passionate about blogging tend to forget that blogging is LESS about YOU and MORE about THEM (your readers). And writing only what people want to know can feel restricting at times, I do admit but, it is what it is.
When you have a certain number of loyal readers, you can then choose to expand your topics in your niche.
Bottom Line….
Pursuing blogging as a full-time job can be a very lucrative career with tons of growth potential. But you also need to be realistic in your expectations to achieve something worthwhile with it.
Many new bloggers think that after writing 20 posts, dollars will start to pour in but when they hear crickets, they get demotivated and abandon their site.
You need to stick with it and think of it as your child.
Constantly revise your strategy and observe what is working and what isn’t.
I was one of those naïve people who thought blogging is a get-rich-quick scheme and when I failed badly, I thought I just wasn’t cut out for it, but in reality, I just had a very shallow understanding of how much dedication is required.
But now I often find myself asking this question when I am losing patience,
“If we can find the patience for a four-year degree program while taking tons of student loans with no guarantee of a well-paying job, why can’t we have the same kind of resilience for our business?”
THANK YOU FOR COMING TO MY TED TALK.
So, there you have it. Share this post with someone who plans to pursue blogging as a full-time job!
*there are some affiliate links in the post. That means if you click through them and purchase something, I will receive a commission at no extra cost to you. Happy blogging!
