How to Turn Blogging into a Fulfilling Career?

Many writers begin a blog as a hobby to fill up their extra time, with the hopes of being able to acquire enough of a following to be able to quit their jobs one day and turn blogging into a fulfilling career. This is certainly possible to do, but it takes a lot of dedication and motivation. It’s not always easy to use your blog for monetary gain, especially if you’re just starting out.

Knowing how to write well and grab the attention of your readers can go a long way, but you’ll also need to learn about marketing if you haven’t already. Understanding how to promote your blog successfully and anything you might decide to sell on your site is also very important, as is creating a plan.

To give you a jumpstart, we’ve put together some tips that will help you understand how you can turn blogging into a fulfilling career.

Set Goals:

Setting goals is essential for bloggers and even more so for those who want to use their blog to earn a living. Take some time to write down what you want to accomplish and assign timelines to each goal.

Some examples of goals you might want to set include the amount of money you’d like to earn from your blog, the number of followers you’d like to acquire and how often you’d like to post. Don’t worry if you are unable to meet all of your goals within the timeframes you’ve set. It’s more important that you have goals written down that you can look over on a regular basis.

Taking notes of goals you’ve set can help you stay motivated in the long run and potentially ensure success. It’s also crucial you create a plan for your blog so it doesn’t become unorganized with topics that aren’t relevant to your niche. Having a few different topics on your blog is fine, but tech posts would seem out of the ordinary on a cooking blog, wouldn’t they?

Creating a plan should be the first thing you do before you begin blogging. Decide what exactly you’d like to write about, who your target audience might be and what you will have to offer them. Consider what methods you’d like to use to earn money on your blog and how you’re planning on promoting it.

Post Persistently:

To run a successful blog, you must post on a regular basis. There are some disagreements between bloggers as to whether that means once a day or once a week, so it will be up to you to determine what you think works best for your blog. What’s most important is that you are posting relevant content regularly and have a lot of posts on your blog overall, so visitors won’t think you’ve quit updating it and will hopefully revisit later on.

Posting persistently isn’t always easy to do, as there are bound to be times when you might feel uninspired or are just too busy with your personal life to log on and begin writing. If you’re worried that might happen, consider writing some of your posts ahead of time so all you’ll have to do is transfer them to your blog. Some blogging platforms will allow you to save drafts too, which you can then post at a later date.

Using WordPress can come in handy in situations where you are unable to post because plug-ins are available that will update your blog automatically. If you use WP Robot, for example, you won’t even have to write a thing. Unique content related to the niches or keywords of your choosing will be automatically posted for you, even if you’re offline.

It’s unwise to rely on WP Robot or any other auto blogging plug-in to do all of the work for you, but they sure can be a big help for those times when you really need it! You should also consider setting reminders for yourself to post at specific times so you won’t forget to do so and can set notifications days in advance.

Safeguard Data:

Protecting your blog and the visitors on it, as well as the devices you use to connect to the internet, should be one of your top priorities as a blogger. Not only will it save you a lot of hassles because you’ll be less likely to have all of your efforts wasted (a hacker can wipe your files or entire blog if you’re not careful), but it’ll also help you maintain a good reputation online.

When a security breach happens, it can take a big toll on a company, and it’s no different for bloggers. If your fans’ information gets leaked or your site becomes a host for malware that then infects your visitors’ computers, your blog will quickly lose its appeal. The last thing you need is for your fans to think you’re some sort of scammer with an unsafe website!

Practicing basic internet security habits is easy enough to do to avoid hackers and using a plug-in that filters out spam on the comments section of your blog can be helpful in protecting visitors to your blog. On your end, it would be wise to use security software such as an anti-virus and a Virtual Private Network (VPN). An anti-virus will scan your device for malware, and a VPN will secure your internet connection with encryption so hackers can’t use it to access your data.

A VPN service is especially important to have if you use public WiFi since hackers can be nearby and use the unsecured internet connection as an opportunity to spy on your online activities, acquire login details, obtain or alter your files and even inject malware on your device. If you’d like to learn more about VPN service and why the use of public WiFi can be risky, take a look at Secure Thoughts’ guide on the best VPNs for WiFi hotspots.

Promote Your Blog:

Advertising your blog is crucial if you want to be able to make money from it one day. When you’re first starting out, it can be especially difficult to draw attention to your page, so promoting it any way you can is a good idea. Be sure your blog has a variety of posts on it before you begin advertising, though. You must first have something to offer readers so you aren’t directing them to a nearly bare site they’re unlikely to revisit in the future.

Once you have enough content on your blog, advertising can be done a few different ways. You can choose to pay for advertisements on social media sites or other blogs, or you can try to ask other bloggers if they would be willing to let you contribute to their page by writing a guest post. Some bloggers will allow you to include a link back to your blog in your guest post or in a short author bio that accompanies it.

Other ways you can promote your blog—and some you definitely should do—is to create social media pages for it and run giveaways when you acquire enough followers. The best way to run a giveaway is often on social media because you can offer entries in exchange for shares and also require people to tag their friends or family members in the comments. Asking for comments on your blog posts is another idea that will quickly help your blog gain attention.

After enough advertising and when you acquire a large fan base for your blog, you could eventually have people contacting you with opportunities that can earn you some money or score you some free goods (many companies are looking for bloggers who can review their products and pass on the good word about their products). That is one way, out of several, many successful bloggers are able to benefit from all of their hard work and make a fulfilling career out of blogging.

There’s no doubt that creating and maintaining a blog successful enough to allow you to quit your day job can be difficult, but do you think it’s worth all the hard work? Do you have any additional tips that can help other bloggers turn their love of blogging into a fulfilling career? Share your thoughts with us in the comments section below.

About the Author: 

Faith has been a blogger for several years and has acquired a great deal of experience. She now enjoys passing on useful tips she has learned during her time blogging so others can benefit from them as much as she has.