Pursuing Blogging as a Career Made Easy!

Do you have a particular area of interest or love to share your recommendations? Perhaps you’re a natural-born writer who enjoys putting your thoughts on the page. Many people who possess these qualities go on to pursue blogging as a career, and for good reason.

Here, we’ll take a look at what being a professional blogger entails. We’ll also touch on how to become a blogger. Yes, you can actually make money doing so. Take a look at how this fun profession can work in your favor!

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What’s a Professional Blogger?

You can break down bloggers into two categories: hobby bloggers and professional bloggers. It’s easiest to distinguish the two based on whether or not they use blogging as their main source of income. Both types of bloggers can generate an income from their work, but professional bloggers are primarily focused on doing so.

Bloggers publish content on blogs. This can include recipes, photos, how-to guides, videos, or any type of information. Bloggers may work for companies or as freelancers. Most blogs have an intended audience for which the blogger will focus their content on serving.

As a professional blogger, some of your typical day-to-day activities will include:

• Creating and publishing fresh content as frequently as you wish
• Including images that complement the copy
• Keeping up with social media accounts
• Sharing and promoting content across platforms
• Managing comments and connecting with readers
• Updating the back-end of the blog to keep it in good standing
• Researching opportunities for partnerships
• Building a community
• Part taking in interviews or interviewing others
• Attending conferences
• Tracking readership, engagement, and analytics
• Collaborating on projects
• Developing branded products

The Pros of Being a Professional Blogger

If you’ve kept up with any blogger or frequent a blogger’s social media, it will likely look very exciting and fun. Of course, working as a blogger is made to look a lot easier than it actually is. Truth be told, it does require a lot of hard work.

That being said, there are so many upsides that come along with this creative profession. Some of the benefits of being a professional blogger can span include:

Being your own boss

If you run your own blog as a freelancer, you are your own boss! The perk here is that you can set your own schedule, execute your own branding strategy, and take part in whatever opportunities you see fit. You also maintain total creative freedom and flexibility.

Always learning

A natural upside of blogging means that you get to always be learning. You can learn about new products and services, try new marketing tactics, connect with fellow bloggers in your niche market or another, and more. The list of things you can learn about is endless when you’re in the field of content creation.

Location agnostic

Bloggers rely on internet connections to publish their work. Given that you have access to the internet, you can theoretically blog from anywhere. In fact, many bloggers do so, especially travel bloggers. And, you’ll be killing two birds with one stone because your travel content tends to be highly engaging for your audience.

Build connections

Bloggers exist in their own community of bloggers. You get to connect with like-minded people who share your interests. Bloggers also have the opportunity to form partnerships with fellow bloggers.

Flexible schedule

As your own boss with the chance to work from anywhere, you can set up your schedule however you see fit. This means that you can set up your work/life balance in whatever way works for your unique needs.

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How to Become a Blogger

There’s no single road for how to become a blogger. This path to success looks a bit different for everyone, as does the definition of success. However, if you want some steps to help you set up your own blog and best practices, here they are.

1. Choose a blog name

First things first, you’ll need a blog name. You’ll have to make sure it isn’t already taken because you’ll have to buy the domain and matching social media platform handles for it. This way, you can set yourself up to build your brand as a professional blogger. Consider picking a name that is easy to remember, pronounce, and related to your core values, vision, or content. Alternatively, you can use your actual name as your blog name if you’re going to build your own personal brand up.

2. Buy a domain and host your site

Once you have a name that’s available, be sure to purchase the domain using a site like GoDaddy or Namecheap.com. Then, you can set up hosting so that your site will be able to go live on a secure server.

3. Design your blog

Design your blog according to your own aesthetic choices, or hire a web designer to do so for you. You’ll want to create a logo, pick a color palette, and select typography (fonts) that you can use throughout your blog and marketing materials to develop a cohesive brand.

4. Publish frequently and strategically

Create a content calendar, which is an outline of what you want to write about or share and when. This can help you remain organized and dedicated to consistent publishing.

Along with publishing, you’ll need to consider how you’ll keep users engaged. You can include giveaways, contests, or even highlight user-generated content, as a few examples for keeping your readers coming back for more.

At the end of the day, the most successful and highly engaging professional bloggers all have one thing in common — they remain authentic (and express their own writing style).

5. Grow email subscriber list

It’s a best practice to have an email subscriber list that you can grow as you continue to publish on your blog. This is as simple as including an email subscriber form on your blog/website. This way, when you have new content to share, you can also broadcast it across email marketing to drive more traffic to your blog.

Many advertisers who pay for ad space on bloggers’ sites will do so according to how many users visit the site. This is just one of the reasons why it’s so important to continue to grow and retain your readership.

With an email subscriber list, you are also creating another potential revenue stream for your blogging business, as you can include paid-for ads in your email newsletters.

6. Research and SEO

When it comes to blogs, you’re probably aware of how much competition there is on the internet. That’s why it’s of great value to perform niche research about whatever topic you’ll be publishing about. This way, you can get a feel for what people are writing about and looking for answers on. During this process, consider implementing the use of SEO, or search engine optimization. There’s a whole field dedicated to SEO, so to get started learning more about how to use keywords to your advantage, check out this resource. 

7. Promote your blog

Use marketing tactics, like email marketing and social media marketing, to boost your readership. You can have the best blog, but if no one knows where to find it, then what purpose will it serve?

8. Monitor metrics

To ensure that your blog is attracting readers and retaining their attention, be sure to monitor your metrics. There are simple ways to do so using tools like Google Analytics. Google Analytics can provide you with dashboards of top-level information, such as current users on your blog or where they are coming from. Then, you can drill down even further into the average duration people spend on your site, or which pages have gotten the most views, for example.

How Much Can Bloggers Earn?

According to Indeed.com, bloggers earn an average of $37,072 per year. That being said, the range you can make as a blogger is incredibly variable and dependent on changing factors. Some factors that affect your income potential include your experience blogging, your audience size, your location, your partnerships, your advertising clients, etc.

Some bloggers even earn over 6 figures! That’s another upside of professional blogging. Your success is quite literally in your own hands. Depending on your dedication, quality of your content, and a little bit of luck, you have the potential to strike it big as a professional blogger.

To Blog or Not to Blog: That is the Question

Whether you’re pursuing blogging as a career or just because you are passionate about sharing your content, you have immense freedom in how you run your own blog. The beauty of blogging is that it looks different for everyone. However, when you do it well and authentically, you can grow an audience that can become as passionate as you are about what you publish.