How to Be A Successful Full-Time Blogger - Nia M Wardani | A Logbook of Life Discoveries

For many people, working a 9-to-5 job gives them security—a monthly salary, health benefits, insurance, performance bonuses, or social status (I know people who work solely for recognition from people around them by wearing their suits or uniforms). But for some others, they prefer flexibility in work. They want to work at the time and place they want. Being a full-time blogger is one of the career options they can choose.

What is A Blogger? How Bloggers Earn Money?

A blog is a personal website. A blogger will create the blog and maintain it. This job includes writing the content regularly, setting an appealing blog template or layout, promoting the blog, and soon. Initially, blogs are started to share ideas on the internet. But then you can also earn money for writing sponsored content, putting ads or affiliate links, etc. Being a full-time blogger means you make this a full-time job and earn mainly from it.

Benefits of Being A Full-Time Blogger

1. Flexibility to Work Anytime

Being a content writer or blogger, you can decide the work time on your own. If early morning works best for you, you can decide to work in early morning. If midnight suits you better, you can choose to work at midnight. As long as you can adhere to the deadline, anytime is fine.

2. Work from Anywhere

After I experienced working from home during the pandemic, I realized there is work you can do while you are not at the office. Whether at home or traveling to a different side of the world, you can still work, as long as the internet connection is available.

3. Earn Even When You Take Day Offs

Not everybody is fully fit every day. Sometimes you have a sick day, or sometimes, a family member gets sick and you need to take care of them. Sometimes you must attend a parents' meeting or watch your children's show at school. There are days you must take the day off.
Blogs can help you earn even when you are away. How to do this? Many bloggers put ads on their blogs. As long as people read your blog, you can still have income coming.
Of course, a very long absence will affect your traffic, but taking a day or two off will not affect much of your income.

4. It Is A Job You Cannot Retire From

The statement above might sound intriguing. You might not want to work after reaching 60 years of age. But after reading about Ikigai, I would prefer choosing a work I can do happily until the day I die than doing a stressful 7-to-5 job until I retire at sixty, and after that, doing I don’t know.
I have seen many people, who are retired from their office jobs and didn’t know what they would do with their lives. They are too old to start a fresh new job (who would want to hire them if the much younger and more energetic applicants are available?). Their retirement fund might not be enough for them if they want to start a business. Never think about traveling around the world enjoying life especially if you have health issues.
Being a writer, you can do this for your entire life. I wrote about Threes Emir, who spent the rest of her life publishing books.

Are these benefits too good to be true? Not everyone is successful in this career, though.
If you are considering blogging as a full-time job, there are several points you need to know to be successful.

How to Be A Successful Blogger

1. First Must: Know Your Target Audience

What is the first thing you must know when you start a blog? A good knowledge of website building? A good skill to write something beautifully? No. First thing, you must know your target audience. Else, how would you attract readers to your blog?
There is something called niche. Niche is a big topic that you cover in the blog. For example, traveling, cooking, finance, etc. Your niche must match your target audience. For example, your blog’s niche is finance, and your target readers are young couples aged 20-40 who want to reach financial independence as soon as possible. Then you can break the topic down into categories that you think will be interesting for your target readers. For example, you can write about savings, investment, etc.

2. Don’t Work Alone, Join Communities.

You will need support and feedback. Particularly if the people around you are not familiar with remote working. Don’t blame your family if they think you are not working. Before you can prove that you earn good money from blogging, the only thing they know is that you are staying in front of the computer the whole day.
Joining communities can give you people who encourage you to keep going. Also, people who warn you if you missed the track.
If you are a first-time blogger residing in Indonesia, I suggest joining Blogspedia. You will find people like you who have just started and progress with you. Registration for a new batch is open only once a year. Make sure to check their social media regularly.

3. Learn to Optimize Search Engine

Many bloggers worry about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The goal is to be at the top of a search page so that more readers will find their blog.
In October 2023, I attended a webinar about SEO by Ilman Akbar, an SEO expert in Indonesia. What he explained at that time relieved my anxiety about SEO. Yes of course there are tools and plug-ins to make Google favor you. But SEO is very much connected to how the readers behave. So, as long as you understand what your readers want, it is not a big problem.
To learn more about SEO, I would suggest you take some courses about SEO. There will always be discussion about SEO in the blogging communities, don’t hesitate to ask. As Randy Pausch said,” Sometimes we just need to ask.”

4. Attract Readers

Blogging doesn’t stop after you publish your post. Promote your content! You need to attract as many readers as possible. Use social media, build an email list, and offer a newsletter.
The first time I made a blog, I was very shy I didn’t tell anyone. It was after joining Blogspedia Coaching that I was forced to spread the news to everyone, to attract as many readers as possible. The response was unexpectedly good. One of my friends commented, “You are sooo talkative here 😂”. Sometimes the best readers come from your closest network, like close friends and family.
You can also create a community of readers that has the same interests as you. You can do meet-ups, and making activities that you can do together. This community is what is called “audience on demand” by Maikel Michiels. They will be willing to receive your newsletters and read your content without being asked.

5. Handling Obstacles

Don’t think that this very flexible work will come without obstacles. Writer’s block is not uncommon. Dealing with a lot of deadlines can also cause burnout. Waiting for the blog to make enough money to support your life needs a lot of patience. It will not come months after you start. Sometimes it takes years.
To avoid writer’s block, you must get ready to write down any ideas at any time. Take a mini notebook and a pen with you everywhere because you never know when an inspiration will come. You can use these notes when you have difficulty finding a topic to write.
Bloggers would usually have a content plan. It is like a schedule or a calendar of what you want to write throughout the month (or the year). This will help you to gain consistency in publishing time.
If you are stuck, take a moment to rest from writing. Take a book you like and start reading. It doesn’t have to be a book of your blog niche. Just take whatever your heart wants. I don’t know how, but after some reading, I usually started to have ideas about what to write. The more I read, the more I can write. I hope this also works for you.
Blogwalking also helps. Visit a blog post. Leave a comment, a nice one. Sometimes conversation happens. Sometimes you will be inspired by what others write about. Bloggers appreciate it when another blogger visits their blog. Trust me.

6. Keep On Learning

Many things we can learn about blogging. Increasing our skills in writing, SEO that keeps changing, photography, videography, and more opportunities are open in the future. There are many resources available around you, free and paid. To be successful, take your time to learn new things. The best investment is for the brain.

Taking blogging as a full-time career requires patience. Patience to learn, patience to work on details, patience to understand people. May your patience pay you off one day. 

This is what I learned from some time of my blogging. I haven't reached the level of success that I targeted yet, but hopefully, I will get there soon. I would love to read your comment about this topic. What are your takeaways? What tips you can suggest for first-time bloggers? How is your experience in blogging so far? Feel free to leave a comment. See you in the next post.

Reference

Carolina Ratri. (2020). Sukses Menjadi Full Time Blogger. Surabaya: CV Garuda Mas Sejahtera
Ilman Akbar. (28 October 2023) Daily SEO x ISB “Helpful Content in SEO” [Webinar]