So You Want To Be A Professional Blogger? Five Questions to Ask Yourself

Katheryn Rivas 1754 Views, , ,
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So you’re contemplating the idea of becoming a full-time professional blogger? You know there are some advantages and disadvantages. You like the idea of being able to write daily and have other people read what you write about. But, at the same time, you’re not quite sure if you can handle the leap from a hobby-blogger to a full-time professional blogger. Maybe you have other priorities or commitments that might keep you from devoting everything to building your blog?

professional bloggerIn any case, before you make the transition into full-time blogging, take a moment to consider some of the following questions. How you answer them will give you an idea as to whether or not full-time blogging is right for you.

Do you consider yourself to be a motivated person?

This is perhaps the most important question because blogging requires you to be very motivated. It’s a tough profession because the internet is so wide and varied, and it’s very easy for readers to skip from one thing to the next if they become bored. This means that it will be difficult in the beginning to build up a good amount of traffic. It will be hard at first and the rewards will be minor. But if you’re motivated enough, then you can focus on blogging through the tough half a year and then it will begin to pay off.

How organized are you?

Full-time bloggers have to be extremely organized bloggers, or else they would quickly fall behind in all of the things they have to do in order to maintain the reputations and health of their blogs. Being organized will help you do this as well. If you can keep all of your tasks in order and if you consider yourself very disciplined in your daily routine, then blogging full-time might be a great opportunity for you.

Are you personable and willing to talk to others?

Another big requirement of being a good full-time professional blogger is that you are personable and good at interacting with other people. Part of blogging is creating relationships with others. You will need to talk to other bloggers about guest posting. You will need to respond to people’s comments on your blog posts and on other blog posts. If you are great at making your readers feel comfortable and happy to know you, then you will be a successful blogger.

Are you passionate about the subject?

If you’re extremely passionate about the subject, then you’ll be able to take that passion and share it with others. That’s part of the joy of being a blogger: being able to share your passion with others so that they can learn something or engage in the conversation with you about the subject. If you have passion, then you’ll most likely enjoy nearly everything you do related to your blogging.

Do you consider yourself to be a good writer?

Finally, you have to have the confidence in your writing abilities. This is one of the most basic skills necessary; it is the foundational skill to nearly everything else here. If you’re not a good writer, then you will have trouble keeping up your momentum. You will have trouble communicating with others. You will have trouble clarifying your ideas about your subject matter. If you are a good writer and can combine your writing with the above skills, then you’ll be well on your way to being a successful professional blogger.

Katheryn Rivas

This guest post is contributed byKatheryn Rivas who particularly enjoys writing about online universities. Questions can be sent to: [email protected]

18 thoughts on “So You Want To Be A Professional Blogger? Five Questions to Ask Yourself”

  • Definitely agree with all of them. It definitely takes all of them. I believe if you’re missing one it will be difficult to keep up. Usually also it’s the excitement of getting started that runs out.

  • Yeah, all of these are important to become a professional bloggers. From my experience, there are many blogger lack of organized sense which is surely an important part to become professional bloggers.

  • Hi Katheryn,

    All great points you’ve mentioned. Being motivated is probably the toughest part. You have certain expectations of how things should be and when those expectations fall short, it can be a bit disconcerting.

    But you are right, if you hang in there you will soon see the benefits. A bit of patience goes a long way. 😉

    Thanks for sharing.

  • Hi Katheryn

    You bring up some salient points. The problem is many think blogging is a silver bullet to instant success! Instead of hard work, patience and perseverence.

    If I wasn’t truly committed to my blog and fledgling business I would have already given up lol So many bumps along the way.

    But having met some wonderful fellow-bloggers who are encouraging and helping me on the journey; I’ll be sticking around. Moving forward all the way to success 🙂

    Patricia Perth Australia

  • Good points you have raised, Katheryn. There is nothing else I would add to your list. I am a professional blogger but I believe those points still speak to me.

  • Do you consider yourself to be a good writer? I think too many do but they just can’t hold an audience, I you can write your in, being organized would not be that high on my list but I could see how it would help.

  • Before anyone embarks on their professional blogging career this is one more question I think that you must be able to answer:

    Are you already making a full time income from blogging part time?

    It would be a serious mistake for anyone to ‘take up’ blogging with a goal to do it professionally not to have already created a stable income stream. The learning curve, competition and risk is just too great and it’s hard for anyone to understand that before they’ve been at it a while.

    • Hey James,

      Thanks for this comment. It has a great nuance that I hadn’t thought of when I wrote this article. The learning curve is very very steep, indeed. It is so steep that it could really hurt one’s chances to make the income one needs to be self-sustaining. A good bit of time blogging part-time could help one see the dangers before launching in.

  • Hello Katheryn,

    Some compelling questions that all bloggers should ask themselves before crossing the boundary between hobby and full time blogging.

    But, I think that you don’t necessarily need to have a passion for that subject, but you need to have the knowledge. Of course, not having the passion might make blogging a little tiring and boring, thus making you not work at 100%.

    Also, like some comment already mentioned, you should make sure that you are earning an income that can support you before rushing and taking professional blogging on.

    • You know, Alex, in my head I was conflating ‘passion’ with ‘knowledge.’ I tend to think of them as very similar concepts; however, your comment points out the important difference. Thank you, thank you! If you’re knowledgeable, you have an endless supply of information about the issues. If you’re passionate, you have an endless supply of energy to discuss the issues. One can be passionate, but often incorrect about a topic! I think this is a good point you made, Alex.

  • Pro-blogging needs dedication and consistency without this no one sustain as a problogger.
    Good command on your subject + perfect business plan will work for you in long term

  • I consider myself passionate, a decent writer but my motivation waxes and wanes with my blogging as so much of my time is devoted to my primary job. Sometimes after working a 12 hour day, I just don’t have the oomph to do another 2 hours at night on the computer keeping up with the blogs.

    • Oh my goodness, Justin, that is so true for me too. It’s very hard to work at a computer for 8 hrs a day and then work for another few hours at night in order to get my other, more personal writing done. It’s certainly not the same situation, you know, but I can definitely empathize!

  • Hi Katheryn,
    I have started blogging as a hobby to write my opinions then after sometime I started earning some money from it and now I am motivated to become a professional Blogger.
    Cheers

    • Good luck! Thanks for reading.

  • Blogging is a good business but it wants maximum attention. You need to be very cautious about your posts as these should be motivated, informative and attracting enough to grab visitors. Not only you need visitors to come, but the real purpose is that they spend their time on your site, in reading your post and to add something by their comments.

  • Katheryn,
    Excellent points.
    I would say persistence cannot be over looked. Most writers are good through persistence not just raw talent. Very similar to life in general.

    Live it LOUD!

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