If you told me ten years ago that I would be making a full time income as a self employed blogger I wouldn't have believed you. In fact I probably barely knew what blogs were - just thinking that they are online diaries! Well, today they are so much more than that and it is very possible to make a significant six figure income as a "self-employed" blogger. If you want to know how, here are some tips and things that you will need to know.
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Find your niche
The most important thing is to write about something that you are knowledgeable about and that you enjoy. As they say, choose something that you enjoy and you will never have to work a day in your life.
Choose a great name
The name of your blog will stick with you and it can be a real hassle if you want to change it so make it something good! Try not to niche down too much in your title in case during the course if your blogging career you might want to change paths. You want something catchy, unique to you, and you want to register the name on social media too.
Invest time and money
If you want to make your blog a business then you need to treat it like one. Invest time in learning about professional blogging and how to monetise. Invest in a good theme and plugins and make sure that you have a team of tech support if you aren't savvy in that area. It's also really important to have liability insurance. Bloggers are mainly self employed so you will also need to register as self employed and submit a tax return every year as well as pay National Insurance if applicable. It is best to contract an accountant who specialises in accounting for sole trader businesses. Generally the money you save using their expert knowledge outweighs the cost, even for sole traders and a "self employed" blogger.
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Write a business plan
How exactly are you planning on making money? Working with brands on sponsored posts or increasing traffic and making money from advertising. There will need to be slightly different ways of working and earning money depending upon which type of blog you are planning on running. Make sure that you are keeping track of the finances as well as thinking about how things can be constantly improved, just as any business owner would do.
Be consistent
If you want to make money from your blog it is important to treat it like a job. Set up a content schedule, decide how many posts you are going to publish each week and stick to it. Get ahead of yourself if you can so that you have some posts scheduled in case life gets busy or you become ill. As time goes on and you start to make a profit, you can reinvest that money into creating more content and outsourcing some of the tasks that you are least interested or less skilled at.
Engage
Blogging is really a wonderful thing - there is a great community online and it is wonderful to be able to engage and chat online with your followers and readers, both on your blog and social media. I have made some great online friendships over the years and met many other bloggers in real life who I consider friends. Generally it is considered that although the blogging market is quite saturated compared to a few years ago there is still plenty of room for everyone and I have found that everyone is very willing to help each other out.
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