Blogging as a career in 2020 pros and cons
Blogging has been a widely known concept for quite some time.
While they may not know the technical ins and outs of how it works, most people have heard of blogging in pop culture.
Julie and Julia is a good example of this. It is a film that originated from a real-life story of Julie Powell, who began blogging about her experiences cooking each of Julia Child's 524 recipes from her book Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in just 365 days.
His blog became so popular that he was offered a book and a movie contract for his efforts, and he also published his second book.
His success is rare, but not everyone needs a book and movie deal to make a substantial profit from his blog!
Where most people go wrong
Searching for "blog jobs" online is something that many people do these days. They know they love posting to Facebook and they hate their current 9-5 job, so they think they'd love to be hired as official bloggers for a company.
It is true that more and more companies are incorporating themselves as blog entities because they understand the value of having a presence in online social networks, part of which is the audience of their blog (in addition to Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus, for example).
But you must understand that when a company sets out to attract a blogger to represent its online business, it doesn't want an amateur blogger.
They want someone who understands the business side of blogging, because when you're a blogger, you're building a brand (or destroying it, in some unfortunate cases).
When you start looking for professional blogger jobs to hire, you'll see that they want you to fully understand online marketing, they want you to post a certain number of blog posts per week (usually five), and sometimes they want you to. Go out and find guest blogging opportunities where you can blog elsewhere and go back to your main blog.
Not a good career for someone who is new to blogging and thinks "it could be fun." This is for experienced professionals, and sometimes the company will even want to do some research to see what kind of current reach it has with its own content. The world of social networks.
If you are already in a company that does not have an online presence, then perhaps you can suggest that they allow you to direct that operation. This would give you a little experience so you can then go out and brag about launching and creating quite a stir for your current company.
Choose a more rewarding blogging career
The DIY route is much more rewarding when it comes to blogging. It's something you can do anytime - the morning before work, at lunch, after work, and on weekends.
Then when it's profitable, you can use it to replace your current income and start blogging full time. When you choose this path, you have much more personal satisfaction in your blogging career.
Blogging is real business when you start looking for it for financial reasons. It gives you a lot in terms of happiness, but when you make money doing something you love, it's very rewarding.
You have to treat this as a business from the beginning.
If you start blogging randomly, your readers will recognize that it is an amateur site. Some will become fans anyway, but others want to know that they are following a leader in whatever niche you choose to blog about.
How do you choose a niche for your blog?
Some blogs have a multitude of topics, from entertainment to fashion, business and health. You can do it, but unless you have a team of contributors, it's hard to keep up the momentum for a comprehensive blog like this.
A better option might be to narrow your focus to something you really love. It can still be broad, like the women's health blog, for example. But it is not as limited as "everything" or "general health".
You can even dig deeper and go with a form of women's health, such as menopause or pregnancy. You don't even need to be an expert at it - it's about sharing information, and as you learn, you can share.
One important thing is that you make sure that you love whatever you are blogging about.
You must wake up every day, eager to get to your computer.
If you fear it because it bores you or depresses you, you will not help your readers and the blog will not be profitable for you.
In addition to the general bias, you can choose what each individual blog post is about. If you were blogging for another company, they could tell you what to blog about every day, even if you find it mundane.
You can set up a complete editorial calendar for your blog where you choose the topics that will be presented to your readers. You can also choose the tone for the blog pieces.
For example, let's take the diet niche. You could be a trendy and trending diet blogger who emphasizes rapid weight loss, or someone who insists on the fact that weight loss should be just adopting better nutrition and exercise, and the pounds should drop slowly.
Developing a relationship with your readers
Having a relationship with your readers means that they value your blog and share the link with other people.
You want that kind of connection because, as a professional, the traffic and brand you get will be priceless.
When blogs have loyal readers, they enjoy a fantastic flow of word-of-mouth traffic. While many bloggers are buying links back to your site and paying people to help them get traffic, you can do it for free.
Choose the topics you want to know. Part of your job in relationship building is listening to your audience and meeting their needs. There are many ways to do this.
Do preliminary keyword research to discover what people want to know in your niche. Using the menopause example, you can go to UberSuggest.org and write about what menopause is.
This is known as a sentence initiator, and it gives you an idea of what type of blog post you want to include, such as:
What are hot flashes like during menopause?
What are the symptoms of menopause caused by?
What are the best vitamins for menopause?
A good keyword tool helps you on what to blog about. But there is more you can do to find topics. You can look in the forum threads and see what people are asking.
You can also simply invite your readers to send you questions. You can do this in your email autoresponder subscription form, or have a special contact form on your blog where people can interact with you that way.
Every time someone sends you an email with a question, you can assume that there are more people out there wondering about the same thing. Use those questions as fodder for your blog topics.
When you start blogging about all these things, it makes the audience feel like you really have your finger on the pulse of the market, like you have great instincts.
Then write in a highly conversational style and end each blog with an invitation to connect. People need to feel like you are talking only to them, even if you don't.
If you write, make sure it's conversational and not written the way you would write for a professional publication.
When a blog post ends, you can ask a question or invite people to share their own $ 0.02 on the subject in the comments. Make sure whatever the commenting system you are using is easy to find because some are almost hidden.
Join the conversation that continues in your blog comments.
If people are kind enough to accept your invitation, make an effort to dialogue with them.
Thank them for their comment, call them by name and open a discussion about what they had to say. You can use a plugin to help comments get "threaded", helping all your readers see who was replying to whom.
Support yourself financially with blogs
When you start blogging for profit, you must be consistent with your efforts. You should blog regularly, daily if possible, but at least several times a week.
There are a few ways to earn money as a blogger.
Create a list from your blog so that whenever you have a new blog post, you can notify people about it. Also have an RSS system set up for people who use RSS feed readers to receive notifications of their new content.
Every time you have a list, it gives you a certain amount of power: the power to instantly communicate with your target audience when you sell or promote products.
Because of this, you need to make sure you don't abuse that power by spamming your email with useless or irrelevant offers. If you do this, you build a reputation as a spammer.
Sell advertising space for a certain amount of profit. You can organize a specific area of your blog for the ad space that people rent on a monthly basis, paying you ad revenue directly.
If you follow this path, make sure you have specific information to control what kind of ads can be placed on your blog, even colours and animation if you want.
Sign up for AdSense too. This can help you earn clicks and revenue. You can place different sized banner ads on your blog, from buttons to skyscraper ads. It can include images or go only with text.
One thing to remember every time you place ads on your blog is that it does give you some money when people leave your site to go somewhere else, but when you leave it also means that someone else is capturing your name and address. email and selling something for them, not for you.
Promote tangible products as an affiliate. You can sign up as an Amazon Associate and promote anything they sell there for which they offer a commission. With our menopause example, if you promoted a cold pillow, you could earn a percentage from each sale of your blog post.
Promote digital products as an affiliate. Digital products can be found on sites like ClickBank.com. You can sign up for free and get a hotlink where you earn around 50% for each sale.
Why not create your own products and sell them from your blog? You don't have to promote other people's things. Why not create an information product (ebook, video, or audio course) and teach something you blog about in more depth or in a more comprehensive way?
Offer services from your blog. Freelance services like writing, graphics or other services can be offered directly from your blog. Coaching is something you can also offer. Many people pay the best price for personalized training sessions via Skype or even email.
Blogging can be a very fun and profitable adventure if you approach it correctly.
Don't make the mistake of flying through the seat of your pants. If you do this, your blog will be scattered with themes, you won't have an established monetization plan, and you will end up unhappy with the effort you've put in.
With the right planning and enthusiasm, you'll never have to search for "blogging jobs" again.
In fact, you could be the one to provide the signals for a professional blogger to join you and help you with your content needs!
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