Problogger Diary

Unbelievable as it may sound, there are many people making a full time living and income from blogging. The road to financial independence through blogging however is not easy. The primary requirement is a change in mindset. You have to stop thinking like an employee and start thinking like an entrepreneur. To rely on your blog as your sole source of income will require to you to focus all your efforts in this direction. Of course since blogging involves the written word you will need to practice writing. And there is no better way to do that than by—what else—maintaining a blog. Inculcating the habit of writing will help you cross the first major milestone on your road to blogging success. It is a good idea to write down a formal set of objectives on what you want to do with your blog and where you want it to go.

Goal setting will help clarify and remove doubts about what the blog is supposed to do. Start with a plan and be ready to change it if things are not working out expected. This is the entrepreneurial mind set. The Web and blogging is a highly fluid and dynamic environment and you have to be on your toes to find out the latest opportunity that you can capitalize on.

To be a professional blogger the first requirement is to have tons of visitors. This can be achieved only one way. Have plenty of good original content that is readable again and again. When you start out blogging this is your primary goal. Attracting visitors will naturally mean deciding on your topic area or niche. To decide on your niche is no small task. As a gen- eral rule of thumb, chose a niche where you have some level of interest. This is a motivational factor that can make or break your blog. As long as you are able to consistently sustain a level of inter- est in a chosen subject area you will be able to blog on it.

The next step is to define your audience in as broad terms as possible. For example if you are a Photoshop fan and you want to blog on it—it might be a better choice to keep your blogging to the entire gam- bit of Graphic Designing. Thus you will not only be able to maintain the interest level you will also have a much wider range of topics to chose from. Additionally, your audience will not be just limited to Photoshop users. If you think that you are not up to the task of doing all required to make money from your blog there are plenty of companies, organizations and blogging networks that are looking for bloggers to hire. Of course, this does mean that you need to have some level of writing skills and ability to blog consistently. People who will want to hire you as a blogger will be looking for samples of your work. Ideally, this should be available on your blog itself. Not only will this be good practice for your writing skills, it will also provide you with a ready resume that you can point potential employers to.

Your blog can also serve as a ready reference for non- blogging jobs like copy writing or technical writing. One of the advantages (and possibly a disadvantage as well) is that most writing / blogging jobs do not require a formal college degree. The employer will be more interested in your creative ability and knowledge of the subject. Finally, do not give up your day job just yet. Success in blogging is not a short-term possibility. You will need to “nurture and water” your blog so that it grows both in content quality and readership. A formal written objective will help keep you focused on the task and enable you to benchmark yourself for success. Pay attention to what is happening and analyze the reasons for success so that you can build on it as well as the reasons for failure so that you can take corrective action.

The road to becoming a successful, financially independent blogger is long and hard but the rewards of reaching your goal can be very satisfying.

Posted by Problogger Diary at Wednesday, March 25, 2009