NJ USA
(Updated 1-10-2023)
Blogging for a living is fun, freeing, fulfilling and rewarding.
Do you want to blog full time from home?
I blogged professionally for over a decade now, having circled the globe as a traveling pro blogger. Living in places like Bali, Thailand and Fiji for months at a time inspired me to teach aspiring pros how to begin blogging for a living.
I decided to update this post in April of 2021 because being nimble, flexible and open to honoring the times seems to be one key quality of going pro. Change with favorable change. Let all else go.
Blogging for a Living
Know this; the blogging journey is fun but challenging and scary, sometimes. Bloggers who claim the entire journey feels easy do not tell you the truth. But following the below tips smooths out your blogging ride and gives you clarity and confidence in your journey. You can do it. I believe in you. Success is yours. Be generous, genuine, persistent, patient and trust in yourself while trusting in the blogging process.
A1: Time and Energy
Every blogger walks a different path but blogging for a living usually requires thousands of hours of work to become skilled, credible and connected enough to go the pro blogger route. No human being skips the thousands of hours of work and succeeds because you need to practice for years to get really good at blogging.
Invest most of your time and energy into blogging. Blogging will be very good to you.
Consider the analogy of opening a corner store. Imagine the time and energy commitment of building the corner store not only into a profitable venture but a thriving business. Expect to work 8-10 hour days for 6-7 days weekly to turn a profit. Working for months or even years before hitting it big does not seem to be uncommon. Ditto for your blogging career.
Blogging for a living demands you to make a full commitment to blogging. Making a full commitment feels challenging sometimes as you wade into discomfort. Wading into discomfort forces you to face fears for quite a while. Facing fears for quite a while feels taxing as you put in 5, 7 or 10 hour days of generous service. Bloggers tend to avoid fear, struggle and fail. Future pros put in the time and energy no matter whatever fears arise in their minds.
Get hyper committed to blogging. Blog for fun and freedom. Picking a fun, freeing driver nudges you forward to blog when you do not feel like blogging. I feel a bit tired now. Yet I blog. Blogging for fun and freedom goads me to put in the blogging time and energy, no matter what.
1: Invest in Your Blogging Education
Invest money to get the best, proven, success-promoting blogging tips from the best bloggers. Cut your learning and success curves by years.
Start doing what works from day 1 to position yourself to go pro. Learn in the proper formatting from successful bloggers who inspire you to succeed.
Investing in your blogging education seems similar to paying your blogging tuition. Learning blogging through free content reveals ample yet incomplete information for becoming a professional blogger. Bloggers only get so much knowledge through free:
- blog posts
- guest posts
- videos
- eBooks
- courses
However, investing money in premium:
- courses
- eBooks
- audio books
- coaching
- consulting
gives you robust resources for learning how to blog the right way. See premium resources as complete guides for solving blogging problems. Investing money in these premium resources lets you skip struggles suffered by bloggers who try to piece together due diligence solely through free content.
Pay up to play up. Invest money in the best counsel from the best bloggers to get all you need to know in one spot. Refer to your course, eBook or coaching notes to accelerate your blogging success versus trying to link 5, 10 or 50 pieces of free blog content. Tap into convenience. Buy premium resources to learn how to blog the right way from a more seamless, clear, intelligent, effective energy.
2: Pick One Niche
Pick one niche. Successful entrepreneurs give all professional attention and energy to one thing; resulting in doing that one thing well, to the point of going full time. Spreading energies among 2 or 3 or 5 niches dissipates your power because where your energy goes, grows. Be a specialist, not a generalist, to blog for a living.
Choosing a single niche feels uncomfortable to most new bloggers. Ample opportunities to explore feels enticing. But the world loves specialists and distrusts generalists. Would you trust a lawyer who sells pizzas and delivers mail on the side? Observing offline analogies of generalists run amok sounds silly but seeing online examples in the blogging world sounds just as silly.
Imagine a blogger who blogs about:
- blogging tips
- personal development
- internet marketing
How can he master blogging tips like Darren Rowse if he gives 1/3rd of his attention and energy to blogging while Darren gives most of his attention and energy to blogging? Darren became a pro by specializing. Bloggers attempting to cover 3 or more topic usually fade into oblivion because the world loves specialists but gives little attention and energy to specialists.
Blogging for a living requires you to become a specialist. Pick one niche. Learn that niche inside-out. Master that niche. Go pro by being a specialist.
3: Cultivate an Abundance Consciousness
This is the critical step for most bloggers because society clings to a poverty consciousness. Humans tend to believe deeply in scarcity, lack, limitation and poverty. Feel money fears. Release money fears. Cultivate your abundance consciousness to blog for a living. Feel appreciative of each cent you earn online. Help people generously for 4 to 8 to 12 hours daily. Feel free. Feel grateful. Observe how you feel loved and cared for. Feel calm, confident, serene and abundant.
Consider:
- meditating
- doing Kriya yoga
- doing yin yoga
- exercising
to exude a calm, confident, abundant vibe in your being. Engage in one, or all, if it tickles your pickle. I spend roughly 3 hours daily engaging in each.
Blogging abundantly feels alien to most new bloggers because we typically grow up being imprinted with a poverty consciousness. Humans teach fellow humans to think through prisms of lack, limitation and loss. However, facing, feeling and releasing fear shifts your mindset from poverty to abundance. Make this uncomfortable decision because pros need to blog abundantly for a bit before becoming a professional blogger.
4: Create Helpful Content
Solve reader problems. Earn trust. Position yourself to blog full time. Creating helpful content earns credibility you need to become a professional blogger. Publish 1-2 helpful posts weekly for newbies. Consider increasing frequency with experience. Publish content clear and to the point. Content makes you credible. Creating content persistently increases your exposure. Be creative to prosper.
Listen closely to your readers. Ask them to share their problems. Pay attention to their feedback. Helpful content appears to be helpful in the eyes of the beholder; your readers. The way to be helpful is to listen to how your readers want you to help them.
Observe your reader’s comments. Note their emails. People often bring you blog post ideas through their problems. Be helpful by offering solutions to these problems.
Publish in-depth content to make the greatest impact. Never attach to specific word counts but understand how 2000 plus word posts dripping with details and teeming with value:
- rank best on Google
- earn credibility
- pop up on the radar screen of influential bloggers in your niche
Be thorough. Take your time to ensure you publish in-depth content. Being generous positions you to establish a well-known blog and brand in your niche. Being seen as credible becomes easier if you impress readers with your thorough content that solves their problems.
Ideas:
- listen closely to readers to identify their problems
- solve their problems through your blog posts
- publish 2000 plus word posts to make the greatest impact
Publish helpful content. Position yourself to go pro.
5: Bond with Bloggers through Service
Be generous. Comment on blogs. Promote blogger in your niche through social media and your blog. Make blogging buddies. Blogging buddies help you go full time by:
- endorsing you
- promoting you
- hiring you
- buying your stuff
Build connections generously to get connected. My network expands my blogging business around the clock because I help these folks and ask for nothing in return. Being generous, genuine and relaxed makes for an attractive blogger.
The trick is giving without asking. Do not expect anything from your fellow blogger. Earn trust by helping bloggers without trying to squeeze anything out of these folks. Point blank; few bloggers master this skill. Naturally, few bloggers move higher in circles during their blogging career.
Powerful Example of Networking
I vividly recall a top blogger explain how he patiently built a friendship with individuals who handled syndication at large publications. He bought lunch for these people, offered gifts and asked for nothing in return for quite a long time. He earned their trust because the top blogger generously served these power brokers without one ask.
After patiently befriending the heads of syndication he received an invite to have his blog posts broadcast across a few channels consistent with global brands. He and his blog gained massive exposure because his quality content drew the eyes of millions, courtesy of blasts published by the heads of syndication. Generous, patient and persistent networking laid the framework for him gaining worldwide exposure and immense worldly success.
Think long and hard about networking before you quit your blogger outreach campaign. Bloggers bail on outreach before giving themselves a chance to befriend blogging power brokers. 99.99% of my 40,000 plus backlinks pointing to Blogging From Paradise are purely organic because my blogger buddy network links to me based on my credibility and the power of our bonds. I only asked 2 bloggers for guest posting opportunities since 2013. Every other backlink flowed to me organically.
Be generous, patient and persistent to make a powerful impact on fellow bloggers. Help bloggers freely. Ask for nothing in return. Earn their trust and friendship as you move toward blogging for a living.
6: Open Multiple Income Streams
Open multiple streams of income. Make a living by receiving money through 3, 5, 10 or more income streams. Visualize having 10 fishing poles in the water. Some fish bites, eventually. Multiple fish bite over time. People buy your eBooks, or purchase your audio books, or buy a sponsored post, or hire you. Blog abundantly. Cash in by monetizing aggressively.
Opening multiple income streams boosts your blogging income to the point where you can go pro. Few if any top bloggers profit through a single channel. Virtually all professional bloggers profit through multiple income streams to maximize their earnings.
Income stream ideas:
- write and self-publish eBooks
- convert the eBooks to paperback
- convert the eBooks to audio books
- offer coaching
- offer consulting
- place ads on your blog
- offered sponsored posts
Profit ideas seem to be unlimited. Make sure to pick income streams resonant with your blogging niche.
Do not by shy. Bloggers often fear making money because bloggers do not want to annoy readers with various income channels. How can you profit if you fear receiving money? Do you fear annoying your employer each Thursday when you receive a paycheck? Do you fear receiving the paycheck because you fear annoying your employer?
Be clear. Think, feel and act like someone who blogs for a living. Open multiple channels of blogging income to prosper accordingly.
Consider picking income streams resonant with your passions but ensure readers want what you monetize. I enjoy writing. I wrote and self-published eBooks. But my readers wanted:
- eBooks
- topics I present through my eBooks
I found resonance between my passion and solving pressing reader problems. Finding this harmony allowed me to monetize my blog confidently. But I did not stop with eBooks. I converted eBooks to audio books and paperbacks. Some readers told me that they preferred listening to my books. Other readers prefer owning a Blogging From Paradise paperback. Listening closely to readers alerts you to how you should monetize your blog.
Pay close attention top topics resonant with readers. Serve premium solutions based on these problems.
7: Revisit Your Reason Why Often
Blogging feels tough sometimes. Revisit why you blog to pull yourself through rough spots. Dwell on fun. Dwell on freedom. Focus on these emotions. See the journey through. Most never enjoy the perks of blogging for a living because they have no reason why or a weak reason why. Blog for freedom. Win.
Even though following practical blogging tips to succeed seems important the critical step involves picking a fun, freeing reason why you blog. Bloggers usually quit because few blog mainly for fun and freedom. Lacking these overpowering drivers causes you to quit quickly.
Imagine sitting around the house on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Your family wants to eat out. Ball games beckon on TV. After working a 40 hour week at your full time job you simply want to kick your feet up, relax, nap and maybe enjoy dinner with the fam later on. But you have not written and published a blog post in 6 months. What should you do?
If you blog for anything other than fun and freedom you take a nap, go out to eat, return home and go to bed. Weak drivers influence you to choose comfort over freedom. But if you blog for fun and freedom you make the uncomfortable but freeing decision to skip the nap and dinner out, write and publish your next blog post.
Part time bloggers go full time if they blog mainly for fun and freedom because both emotional statues compel you to do uncomfortable, scary and freeing things habitually.
Everyone frames fun and freedom differently. What feels fun to me may not feel fun to you. What feels freeing to you may not feel freeing to me. Listen to your intuition. Trust your gut. Your inner world dictates what fun and freedom looks like for you.
Find your fun, freeing intent. Hold it near and dear. Blog generously, patiently and persistently for years to become a professional blogger.
Conclusion
Blogging for a living is possible, probable then a certainty if you blog mainly for fun and freedom over the long haul.
Follow these tips. Be patient.
Go pro by sticking to the fundamentals.
Your Turn
What tips can you add to this list?
Do you want to blog for a living?
Or have you blogged for a living for a while now?
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