Years ago, when blogging first started, blogs were just glorified journals, and the main goal wasn’t to make it a profession or make money. However, blogging has evolved to a completely new level over the years. Whether you chronicle your travels, report on the issues in your industry or share your latest fashion finds with the world, blogging can be a nice way to build your brand, or even just a line to add on your resume that can help you land a job.
But, when is the right time to start? Especially when starting university, it can be an amazing way to earn some extra cash, as well as improve your written communication, analysis and interpretation skills.
What can I do with blogging?
Running a blog gives you an amazing opportunity to help others by teaching them what you know or sharing your thoughts with the world. By helping others with your advice, you will gain a confidence boost, especially if you’ve just started college. You can pick a topic you want to be recognized as an expert in, and start doing your research! With consistency and effort, your knowledge will expand and it becomes an incredibly effective way for you to become credible and establish yourself as an expert. You can also learn a few more valuable things – blogging isn’t just about writing, it also includes content, layout, design, etc. Starting a blog is easy and doesn’t take much technical skill at all. However, if you’re dedicated, there is always room for improvement.
How do I start a blog?
While studying and working may be difficult and time-consuming, a great way to earn some money is with blogging. If you’re studying, that means there must be something you know a lot about. The best kind of blogs are the ones that reach out to people and teach them to explore new ideas. Here is a list of things you need to do if you want to start a blog:
- Pick a topic
Whether it be healthcare, travelling, food, or reviews – whatever topic that comes to mind that you can talk about day and night, that’s the subject for your blog. Be careful not to start a blog without a clear idea of what to write about, because you’ll bore yourself to death or run out of ideas quickly. - It’s not all about writing
There’s some designing, too. You can add visual and artistic elements to your blog that will make it look more appealing and interesting to your readers. Photography, photocopied notes, artwork, sketches and mind maps are all good ways of presenting your thoughts without having to write long paragraphs of text. - Consistency
If you want your blog to become successful, you have to be consistent. That means your content and style of writing should remain the same, as well as your publishing time. You can’t just write one post a month and expect people to read it over and over again. The more familiar and consistent your content is, the more likely will people return to your blog.
How do I make my blog popular?
Although there are many ways in which you can invest your time and effort into creating a good blog on a budget, you’ll have to consider investing in it as well, if you take blogging seriously. If this is something you really want to do, you should be prepared to treat it like your business and make financial investments in it.
The key to the success of your blog may also be search engine optimization – get to know this marketing strategy and try to understand how to be closer to your readers. Writing a blog also requires you to keep up with the trends: you can follow and read what SEO experts have to say on the matter, learn how to optimize your blog, how to use social networks in order to promote your content, and even cooperate with other more influential writers.
Last but not least, don’t forget to have fun while doing it. Blogging will never be honest if you’re doing it just because you want to make more money. After all, if you make it look like a “job” or a “chore”, you won’t enjoy it, and neither will your readers. Blogging can be great way to turn your hobby into an extra income to help you finance your degree!
This article was contributed by guest author Cate Palmer.