It may sound like a stupid question, but anyone who runs a profitable blog will tell you it’s worth a moment of consideration. Many writers already manage a personal blog because blogging is, for lack of a better word, fun. You can blog at home, on a beach, at night, in your pajamas, you’re your own boss, and for writers, you get to do what you love. Blogging allows you to interact with readers from around the world and serves as a great hobby after a long day of work. So why wouldn’t all bloggers want to make blogging their career?
The truth is, blogging as a career and blogging as a hobby are two entirely different animals. For some this works great, but the changes that often occur during the process catch others by surprise. The question should not be can you make money off of your blog; it should be do you want to make money.
5 Questions to Ask Before Making Your Blog Your Career
Before quitting your day job, it’s important to question everything that will change when blogging turns from hobby to career. In many instances, it will not only involve altering your blog for your audience, but even more so spending time on SEO and optimizing your blog for maximum exposure and visibility. Below are a few different questions to consider:
If necessary, are you willing to change the focus of your blog to meet the needs of others?
When you’re blogging as a hobby, you have the luxury of saying whatever you want. You can be as opinionated or as creative as you wish and there is no skin off your back. However, if you’re blogging for a living you will need to make sure that the focus of your blog is one that a lot of people can enjoy and understand. For some, this is simple. If you already have a large following, then you won’t need to change your focus too drastically (if at all). However, not all personal blogs have the type of content that drives a lot of traffic. If this describes you, then you will surely be tempted to create a more focused, more relevant blog. Is this something you’re willing to compromise for the sake of making money or creating a business?
Do you feel comfortable contributing content to other websites?
You want to have a large number of loyal readers so that advertisers will want to partner up with your blog. In order to increase your reader base, it’s important that you are ranked highly on a Google search engine page. This means you will need to focus on search engine optimization (SEO), and one of the easiest ways to do this is by contributing guest articles to other websites and then linking back to your own blog. This means less time writing for your own website and more time writing for another website.
You will need to make connections with other blogs, read their guidelines, and write articles based on what they want to publish. For some writers this is simple, but for those who are used to writing whatever they want, this can be difficult. SEO is also a very slow process, so you will need to keep this up for a good amount of time before you see your site gain popularity.
Are you willing to edit and publish guest articles on your blog?
It’s a great idea to accept articles from guests for a few reasons. First, those who contribute will bring with them their entire audience. Second, they will want to promote the article through all of their social networking accounts; thus helping your blog gain publicity. Finally, it will help give you more time to write for other sites. This can be a big change for someone who is used to running a blog with no outside help. You can visit this article to learn more about guest blogging challenges for SEO.
Are you ready to talk with potential advertisers about the success of your blog?
You will need to have all the analytics and numbers ready to go if you’re hoping to nab any advertisers for your blog. This is the primary way you will make money, so you need to be able to show that your blog has a large number of readers. This means that you will need to work long hours for a long period of time before you have a product that interests advertisers. This can be frustrating, so it’s important to consider whether or not the wait is worth it.
Do you want to spend your time mastering social media?
Most bloggers, even if they blog as a hobby, understand the major social media networks. However, when you’re trying to make a profit it’s important that you have social media accounts for your blog as well as for your personal use. While some bloggers can get away with having only a personal account, most find that things are better organized if they can keep the business separate. It’s important that you know enough about social media to be able to manage so many different accounts and connect with powerful bloggers. If social media was never really your thing, you might be better off keeping your blog the way it is.
Making the Decision to Flip Your Blog for Profit
There are plenty of very profitable blogs out there that have a very distinct voice, virtually no guest bloggers, and don’t spend too much time with social media. However, it’s important to consider these things before quitting your job and going for it with blogging. Everyone wants a piece of the blogging phenomenon because it seems easy, but blogging as a career is anything but easy. It can be very carefree to blog for fun, but it’s absolutely a full-time job to blog for a living.
Some find that they do not want to change their personal blog, but they do think they’re up for creating an entirely new blog. This can also work, but it takes a great deal of time to create a blog from scratch and bring it to a profitable level. In other words, it’s a good idea to keep your full-time job while trying to create your new blog. Once you think you have a blog that’s ready to make money, it’s worth it to ask yourself if that is what you really want. If blogging is what you do to get away from work, you may want to think twice before making it your work.
Do you have any thoughts about altering a blog for profit with SEO considerations in mind? Let us know in the comment section below.