I often see this question about blogging: How long should you invest in your blog to make a living from it and thus become a professional blogger?
Making a living from a blog is a dream that many bloggers would like to realize, but unfortunately, are not ready to devote the necessary time to it. Blogging becomes interesting when your blog gains authority and some of your content begins to rank on search engines. It is a parameter to consider when you want to drill.
If the question involves many aspects and collateral elements, we will mention 5 of them to save you time.
Professional blogger, what does that mean exactly?
As a general rule, a professional blogger is a person who lives from his work. He or she, therefore, exercises in a professional capacity and draws a more or less substantial income from it.
The most important element to consider with a blogger, as with an influencer, is that you don’t really become a professional overnight, as if you took your job in a company. You may not start earning income from your blog overnight! You have to produce content, share it, work on levers like SEO that will allow you to make yourself visible, and often go through months, even years, before earning an interesting income.
Professional blogging is also a vocation that one does not necessarily choose, insofar as it is often from a passion that it starts and which subsequently turns into a professional activity. So wanting to become a pro blogger, commits to knowing the advantages and disadvantages and the time to devote to it to emerge. You must have clear objectives as soon as professionalization in blogging arrives.
The 5 Ingredients for Blogging Success
First of all! We consider that you know how to write and that you have created your blog, or that you are in the creation phase. The goal here is not to learn how to blog but to earn an income from it to become more professional. So there are, in my opinion, 5 major points to consider in blogging when you start.
If any of these are not on your list, you could quickly give up or not earn enough income to live on. Note that there are certainly others, but not necessarily limiting. Here are the 5 ingredients needed for blogging success:
1. Passion
Passion is the central point in blogging. It is the engine that pushes you to move forward, to share your universe with other people or to pass it on. Without this passion, you can very quickly run out of steam and not find the necessary motivation to continue your blogging adventure. Passion often reflects the energy that you will put into your project and it will be palpable by others.
A blogger who is disinterested in the universe he is trying to transcribe will quickly fall into profitability, more than quality. That is to say, how to become profitable at all costs without considering what you can bring to your audience. Passion is a driving force that transpires in language and content writing. This is something that can be felt among content creators, influencers in particular, and therefore bloggers.
2. The right blogging niche
Then it is a question of theme if you want to emerge and earn an income from your blog. It is not a question of shifting one’s passion or interest to another field but of knowing if yours can be profitable. There are areas that are profitable but very competitive. Others will be less so but will require a certain angle, a certain approach or a technicality to have.
Finally, some niches will not interest the greatest number. But if the passion is behind, it can sometimes result in interesting projects or partnerships. However, that might not be enough to make a living from it unless you move on to other earning levers or work on your blog part-time.
A niche that is highly represented on the Internet does not mean that it is clogged or saturated. You must also think about the angle taken, the possible niche within the niche and thus build an editorial line that will be different from the competition.
One of the fundamentals to breaking into blogging, which we will see below, is SEO. You will have to learn to write for the web and, more particularly, for Google. You will need to know how to optimize your content and search for the first Google position on your keywords. It’s a lot of work, but it pays off! This is undoubtedly the key that will lead you to become a professional.
A good niche is a subject that interests, on which Internet users learn a lot and which therefore potentially generates traffic. Not everyone does SEO, and the places won are never acquired in this area.
3. Blogging Time
Time should be your best friend, not your worst enemy. A blog does not become a referent overnight and to feed it as well as to optimize it, constantly asks to create content, to refine, to be on the watch for news, the rules enacted by Google, etc.
You will need to assess your writing frequency and know how much time you can and should allocate to your blog. One article a day when you’re alone is almost a ceiling when you want to stick to it. Writing is not the only factor to consider; the optimization, the search for information, visuals, the necessary monitoring, etc., are part of the job.
Afterwards, it is a question of subject to approach and of angle. You can opt for short or long articles, which will impact the frequency and the time to devote to the content. In addition, you have to be constantly inspired, and it is not automatic.
Time is also a question of patience when considering natural referencing and, therefore, content positioning on search engines. It will be a question of mastering the sources of web traffic and learning to take advantage of organic traffic in particular.
8, 10, 12, or 16 hours are the working times mentioned! But don’t think about it if you are passionate while balancing your private life and your passion as a blogger.
4. SEO
SEO will also be an essential element to integrate into blogging. If you don’t know the mechanics, you could be missing out on significant traffic and, therefore, a way to encourage you to continue. Thanks to SEO, you can better position your content, but this requires technical knowledge and writing with balance considering your audience and Google.
SEO will above all require training and relearning writing by integrating the notions of lexical and semantic fields and all content optimization techniques by integrating the WordPress CMS and various points such as hN tags, internal linking, backlinks etc.
SEO will also allow you to monetize your blog, mainly through netlinking, which consists of selling links within your pages. You can deliver content with one or more optimized links. You can also write this content yourself and, finally, sell links within your existing articles.
The more your blog has authority and qualified traffic, the more this leverage will be profitable for you. This is where you can sign up for the long term to live from your blog. You can add advertising, contracts with brands or companies to promote content to them directly from your blog, etc.
5. Perseverance: Being part of the long journey to progress
When all these points are fulfilled, all that is missing is perseverance and thus being part of the long term. Patience is a point that involves the time factor, but perseverance must make you active and therefore produce content, initiate actions, find the right recipes, share your content on social networks and therefore manage them in parallel, etc.
All work well done and carried by passion will bear fruit in the long term. When financial independence is reached, then you will become interesting.
Conclusion
5 points for success in blogging and becoming a professional blogger will not be the only criteria to consider. All the upstream part will have to be clarified; including the creation and structure of your blog, the budget you will have to devote to it, the most favorable period (often unemployment) and all the ingredients to achieve the most important; the writing part which will be the one to hold over time.
You need the right theme, the right timing, the right content, and let the magic happen if you keep pace with relevant content that meets demand or a need.
There is no question of discussing how much one earns by being a professional blogger because it can vary according to one’s own needs, the niche, the ability to produce content and to integrate a team etc… The income can be very substantial in some cases but never aim above your own needs initially. 1 to 2 years can be enough to earn you a decent salary and beyond that very comfortable.
Afterwards, it will also be a question of adopting the right structure, the right status, but it also depends on what you want to earn or do with your blog.
