How to Start a Blog and Turn it Into a Successful Career

Blogging can be an exciting venture for many people. For some, it often starts out as a hobby. Something that you do because you’re interested in writing or you’re passionate about a set topic. But when you fall in love with it, it becomes something you can see yourself doing in the long term. For others, it can be the perfect side hustle to go alongside their career. Maybe you’re looking to advance your skills or build your portfolio, and blogging seems like the perfect way to do it. Either way, it can be something that you get started with before learning that you enjoy it. When this is the case, it then becomes something that you might want to turn into a career.

When it comes to blogging, it’s something that you can do out of fulfillment, but also an activity that can make you money. If you look to monetize your blog early on, it can start to build you an income that could then turn into your full-time salary in the future. You also have the potential to earn a lot of money. But in order to do that, you need to make sure that you’re approaching things in the right way.

In this blog post, we’re going to take a look at what you can do to get started with blogging in order to turn it into a successful career. So, if you’re keen to make a living out of it, you’ll find everything you need to know right here.

Why Blogging is a Good Career Choice

If you’re wondering whether blogging is the right career choice for you, it’s important to look at the positives that come along with it. While some people may question your career choices or think that blogging isn’t a real career choice, it most certainly can be a reliable source of income. There are many ways that you can look to earn money from blogging; you can work in your free time, and you can even look to build passive income from it.

How to Approach It

When you’re set on becoming a blogger and having your own blog, the next thing for you to focus on is approaching it in the right way. Most of the time, the way that you go into something will determine how it pans out for you. This is where the power of having a success mindset comes in. It’s all about you being able to 

10 Steps to Building Your Blogging Career

From here, you’re then going to want to get everything underway. But it’s not always as simple as just writing your first post and hoping for the best if you really want this to become your career. So here, we have outlined ten steps that you might want to focus on when you’re looking to make your blog a success. Let’s dive right into it.

1. Choose Your Niche

The very first thing you need to do here is to make sure that you’re choosing the blogging niche you want to be in. Depending on your interests and experience, you may already know. It could be something specific, such as food or business or cars. However, you may also find that you actually want to span a couple of different topics, and that’s okay. It’s all about talking about the things that interest you!

2. Get Your Domain and Hosting

When that’s all decided, the next thing you’re going to do here is grab your domain and get your hosting all sorted. Think about choosing a domain name that fits the kind of blog that you’re launching. The name could be related to your niche or even something close to your name. It’s important for you to choose something that feels like a great fit for you.

3. Choose Your Design and Go Live

With that in place, it’s now time to choose your design. You could look at getting a custom design made, but you really don’t have to. You can use a simple template for your blog and just start. Then, you can put the site live and begin your blogging journey!

4. Create a Content Calendar

When your blog is all set up and ready to go, you’ll need to think about getting ahead with your content. This is where the power of a content calendar comes in. Creating a calendar helps you to plan out and organize your upcoming blog posts and any corresponding social media posts. That way, you know what content you have coming up and can keep all of your ideas in one place. It’s a great way for you to start treating your blog like a business from the beginning.

5. Start Marketing

When your blog is finally live, you can then look at marketing it! This can be a lot of fun, but you need to make sure that you have a plan here. Choose the social media platforms you want to post on and start promoting your content. You will also want to make sure that you’re implementing a solid SEO strategy on your blog too. This will allow you to rank well on Google. For this, it’s handy to get backlinks to your blog as well as carrying out on-page SEO. As time goes by, you may even want to consider paid advertising methods to help you scoop up extra readers.

6. Build Your Readership

One of the biggest parts of being a blogger is having a readership. In order for your blog to be successful, you need people to be reading it. So here, make sure that you’re creating interesting content that your audience likes. You can track your analytics and see which posts tend to be the most popular. This can then give you an idea of what else to create that is closely related and may get the same kind of traction.

7. Bring in Monetization Options

As your readership and audience growth are starting to take off, it’s the perfect time to bring in your monetization options. If you leave it too late, you may find that your readers notice the change and start to get put off by the commercialism. But when you implement it all early from the start, it will be all they know. There are many ways that bloggers can make money. Whether it’s through sponsorships, advertising, affiliate marketing, or anything else, it’s all about you doing your research and working out which methods feel right for you.

8. Focus on Growth

In order to take your blog full-time, you need to make sure that it’s growing. This is where the idea of treating your blog like a business comes in. You need to make sure that you’re dedicating enough time to working on it and focusing on the growth that will get you to where you want to be. It’s all about being creative with your marketing ideas, trying new things, and looking to build up a loyal fan base of readers.

9. Set Goals for Yourself

In order to get to where you want to be with your blog, you really do need to know what that looks like! So here, you’ll find that it helps if you can set some goals for yourself too. As everything is getting underway, really start to drill down on what you want to achieve. Is it that you want to reach a certain number of views each month or followers? Maybe you want to replace your current salary? It’s important to know what you want to get out of this so you can start working towards it.

10. Have a Long-Term Mentality

Finally, you’re going to find that it really makes a world of difference when you have a long-term mentality with everything you do too. When you begin to think long-term about your blog as a business, you have a much better shot at it taking off and getting to where you want it to be. If you’re only focusing on where you are now, you may find that you’re making decisions that are too small. But when you focus on your goals, it’s much easier for you to get there quicker.

Final Thoughts: Building a Fulfilling Career with Blogging

When it comes to building a blogging career that lasts, it’s safe to say that you really need to approach things in the right way. In order to do this, you need to approach it like a career. It’s not enough to just be sporadic with your work and hope that things will take off. Instead, when you treat your blog like a business, be strategic, and look to monetize it early on, you should find that you see the success you’re looking for.

In order to make that happen, try out some of the tips we’ve covered in this post. That way, you should find that you’re not only working on an activity you enjoy, but you’ll be able to build a fulfilling career that enables you to earn as much as you want. Good luck!