How Does it Feel to Earn a Living by Blogging?
Running a blog and getting it to the top of the SERPs is no easy task.
It involves huge amounts of writing, hundreds of e-mails and a lot of tinkering with your HTML and design. All of this you then also need to keep up for long periods of time, and it can take a long time before you see any reward for all that effort.
So what is it that keeps so many bloggers going? Well of course it’s the dream. The hope that some day they’ll have a blog that’s read by thousands of people every day and will be able to give up your day job and make a living doing something you love.
But as Oscar Wilde once said, there are two tragedies in life: not getting what you want, and getting it. Is the bloggers dream all it’s cracked up to be? Or is the reality a little harsher? Read on to learn what it really feels like to have a successful blog.
Rewarding
The good news is that having your own blog really is an incredibly rewarding feeling and one that’s sure to make you incredibly proud. Your friends and family will be amazed to learn that you’re managing to make a real profit from writing on the web, and you’ll get a great feeling of vindication when all your hard work finally starts paying for itself.
And this is even more satisfying when you’re earning real money from your site. When you get to cash in a huge check, or invest in a better computer/nicer clothes, you’ll feel like Tony Stark or Richard Branson.
Better yet is the moderate ‘internet fame’. Internet fame is perhaps the best kind of fame because you don’t have to worry about getting recognised in the street, but still get to enjoy the feeling of having people who know you and appreciate you for what you do. Just wait until you get your first piece of fan mail – it’s a brilliant experience being told that you’ve really helped someone across the globe, or that they find your writing style to be engaging and informative.
These moments are really enough to make the whole thing worthwhile…
The Downside
But there are downsides too, and one of them, surprisingly, is stress. When you have a highly successful blog you see, you’ll suddenly have something to lose and that makes every decision you make and every post you write a lot more serious. Now you’ll know that everything you write or design is going to be seen by thousands of people at least and that anything you do wrong could lose you thousands of visitors. That’s a lot of pressure…
Likewise you’ll find that you suddenly have a lot more work to do. You’ll get e-mailed by more advertisers and other business partners, you’ll get more complaints and criticisms from people who don’t like your site and you’ll have to deal with things like negative SEO attacks more frequently.
The more your site grows, the more responsibilities you’ll have and you’ll want to make sure that you meet these expectations as you’ll very quickly become dependent on your site and see it as a part of your identity.
How to Manage
Of course though, this all depends on the way you react to all these new stresses – and if you’re down to Earth and you remember the reasons you started blogging in the first place then you can enjoy the benefits without letting it all get to you.
The secret is to make sure you keep writing for yourself, and to think of your success as temporary. Let it be a fortunate side effect of doing what you love rather than the ‘why’ behind it. Stay focussed on writing articles that you enjoy and on creating a product that you can be proud of, and be philosophical if things should change.
Another great strategy is to create more blogs or websites as side projects. This way you can get back the focus and the enjoyment of building something new and for love, and at the same time you can ensure that you don’t have all your eggs in one basket as it were.
Finally, if things start getting stressful, you could always consider selling your website. This way you can then start again and go through the rewarding process of building a new site from the ground up, and you can use the money and the experience to make your next project even more of a success.
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License: Creative Commons image source
About the Author: Todd Ramos is the owner of Todd SEO Guy, which offers SEO and web design services. He is very hardworking and dedicated towards his work. He is also a huge movie buff and he enjoys watching them with his family.
