Find out my top 10 tips about how to write a blog while working, based on my own experience
Blogging is one of the things that I enjoy the most doing. As a travel & photography blogger, I get to mix my two passions here, creating travel guides and sharing photo tips online. However, there are only a few people in the world that can call blogging their full-time job. Others, instead, have a regular job that gives them a constant cash flow and after an exhausting day at work, they devote the last bits of energy to writing amazing content online.
I opened my first blog when I was 14. It was a poetry and short stories webpage, where I just wanted to share my thoughts. Let’s say it was more of a teenage de-stress form than a real blog. Now, with more things to share and way more knowledge, I devote all my energies to sharing photography and travel guides.
A blog can be about anything. Do you like knitting, surfing, watching TV series…? No matter what, creating and keeping a blog active is a titanic task. Here I share my top 10 tips about how to write a blog while working and not die in the attempt. All of them come from my own experience.
Define your mission
If you do some online search, there are plenty of pages that promise that in 6 months of blogging you can start making some money. Although it can be true, it is not realistic. 6 months of full-time blogging might be 2-3 years of after-work blogging. Unless you don’t have a job and you decide that it is time to try full-time blogging, this is highly unlikely to happen. Moreover, starting a blog is not only writing articles. There is a learning curve about SEO, social media, statistics… that takes time to learn (and a lot of trial and error).
Define what you would like to achieve as an individual through blogging. And be realistic. For example, help people get started with photography can be a realistic objective. Find what you want your blog to achieve, what extra value it will give to your readers. It will allow you to define your mission and direct your content towards a clear objective. Remember that this is not set in stone. Your mission will change as you evolve as a writer, blogger, and most importantly, a human being.
Set your goals and achieve them!
Discover a psychologist tips to set realistic and achievable goals. Get started here!
It is a long way
Believe me, success is not something immediate. Not only in blogging, anywhere. All those online ads promising you lots of money with a little bit of work are false. If you are getting into blogging to make money, you will struggle. Get in your head that it will take time to see results from blogging on your extra time.
See this as something positive. It is a way to make sure that you really like what you are blogging about. I will talk about it later, but if you spend hours working on something for no money in exchange and you like it, there is no doubt that this is your passion.
Be passionate about it
This is the most important thing. As I said before, it is a long way. Thus, unless you are truly passionate about what you are writing for, it is likely that you will burn-out, as keeping a blog active while working is not an easy task. Results are not immediate, and it requires a lot of intrinsic motivation to keep going. Basically, if you get your energy from what others say, from the numbers… it will be difficult to keep going because at the beginning there won’t be numbers or people commenting on your posts.
For the first 6 months I spent blogging, I made many mistakes, omitting SEO, learning how to write for an audience,… but I learned from them because I really liked what I was doing. I felt it was worth it. Passion will keep you going.
Organize your free time
Sit down and make a simple exercise: how many hours per week do I want (or can) devote to blogging? Once you have a clear and realistic answer to this question, define a schedule. It is possible that it requires a couple of iterations to optimize it. During my first months of blogging, I thought that with my free time I could only create one post per week. Later on, I realized that with a bit of extra effort, I was able to write two.
It is all about deciding the time that you can spend working on your blog. This is very important, because if the time you devote to blogging and the number of posts you want to publish don’t match it can lead to a sense of unfulfillment.
Do not overwork
A common mistake (one that I committed) while organizing my free time was planning to devote all my spare hours to blogging. This is a terrible idea. If you want to blog regularly and consistently while working, you will need to have time for yourself. Sports, Netflix, cooking, socializing… Don’t make writing your only priority.
If blogging was something short-term, then overworking is a better option. However, if you ever want to make some money out of your blog, it takes time, and the burn-out chances are high unless you keep time for yourself, your loved ones, and your other hobbies.
Keep a publishing schedule
Knowing how many hours you will devote to your blog; you can create your own publishing schedule. Having fixed publishing days helps planning your content in advance. There is not a fixed optimal day of the week for publishing, and it will depend on how you promote it and where you promote it.
Yet, some studies show how posts released on Saturdays tend to get more comments, while posts released on Mondays morning tend to get more traffic. It makes sense. More free time on Saturday, commute time on Monday. From my experience, the quality of the content makes the difference and not the publishing day. In fact, when you first start blogging, unless you have an online community, the publication date has almost no effect on the audience.
Writing is not everything
Unfortunately, blogs are not only about writing. There are lots of things that will take your time. Learning SEO, doing keyword research, taking or finding good photos for your articles… when planning how you spend your time blogging, make sure to consider these important elements and save some hours for them in your planner.
Disregarding these other blogging-related activities is not something that I would recommend. Even if you try, you will commit some errors, but it is way better than omitting the fact that SEO, photos, or keyword research are very important.
To blog while working can be also seen as a way to learn new skills or expand your expertise in a specific area. Even if it does not end up being a money source, you will learn about Google Analytics, programming, SEO, creative writing…
Share your content
Even if you are passionate about what you do, some external feedback and praising are always welcome. Get online, create your own Facebook, Instagram, Twitter… accounts, and share your content. This will help you get some traffic and discover likely-minded people! As an example check my Instagram account!
This will take quite some time, as social media is designed to keep you online for long periods of time. However, when used wisely, it can be an amazing tool to share your content and reach a wider audience.
Accept failure
I have mentioned a couple of times that I committed many mistakes in my first months of blogging. There are plenty of articles about how to blog and do everything right from the start. I read them all and still found myself committing them. Accept them as part of the learning curve.
For example, some of my first articles have terrible hyperlinks. This made its positioning very difficult, thus reaching a smaller audience. However, this made me learn how to write hyperlinks and now I have them optimized for every post. I won’t say embrace failure, because no one likes failing. However, accept them and don’t be too harsh with yourself when something does not work as expected. Rome wasn’t built in one day!
Explore different contents
Blogging is awesome, but if after 6 months of writing you see no results, it is likely that you will reduce your posting frequency or get demotivated. Something that made me keep going when my content wasn’t getting much traction was exploring other types of content within my niche.
Maybe you are posting cake recipes, and your posts are not doing very well. Try posting a compilation of your 10 best cakes, or a how-to get started into baking cakes guide! Not only your content will be more varied, but it may also help identify trends or posts that lead to better results in terms of views, leads,…
Conclusion
Keeping a blog active while working is very challenging. It means devoting the most important asset we have, time, to something that you are truly passionate about it. However, it can be a very rewarding activity. It is a way to share your passion, meet new people and develop skills and learn about a myriad of things.
Either if you start blogging or you have been doing it for years, I would love to get to know you and your project. Leave your blog link in the comments and I will come to say hi!
This post belongs to my lifestyle section. I mostly publish travel guides, photography tips, and other related material. If you are curious and want to see more of my content, check any of the suggested articles below, or even better, follow me on Instagram! Otherwise, you can contact me at hello@aniolvisuals.com
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