Running your own blogging business is not all sunshine and rainbows. If you run a blogging business you know it takes a lot of hard work and dedication, but it can be incredibly rewarding.
Having your own blogging business is not anything you can do in just a few hours a week. The only way to accomplish that in such a small period of time, is to hire others to do most of the work for you. Lets face it, the only way you’re doing that is if you already know exactly how to be successful at blogging so you probably already have what it takes.
Many “How to Start Your Blog” courses, posts, tutorials get you up and running with your blog. But there is one part that is skipped over many times. That part is how to treat your blog as a business, and not just a source of a passive income or a hobby.
There is a commitment needed for a business blog that is above and beyond a normal blogging commitment.
What is a Blogging Business?
To start out seeing if you have what it takes to run a blogging business, we need to establish what exactly a “blogging business” is.
When you have your own blogging business, you have your own monetized brand. With this you are creating valuable content that helps and inspires your blog’s audience. You also have products that you are selling that your audience finds value in.
You Can’t Just Blog About Anything
If you want to run a blogging business, you can’t just create a blog that does not have a niche. Or even a niche that really doesn’t have much of an audience.
You have to have something that you can create your brand around and be able to monetize that brand, and people need to be interested in your niche and product.
The topic and niche that you choose for your blog is as important as every other aspect of your business.
You can’t just have a topic that no one cares about. Sure you might like the topic and niche, but that doesn’t mean you are going to have enough of an audience to create an actual business from your blog.
How to Choose Your Blogging Niche
Make sure there is a demand for the topic and niche that you choose for your blogging business.
A Blogging Business is Going to Take Up Your Time.
You cannot build a blogging business by putting in little effort and time.
You are building a brand, a product, and trying to gain a dedicated audience. These are not things that you can bring in thousands of dollars each month with in just 2 to 5 hours a week.
You must understand that a blogging business is more than just your blog as a sidehustle. This is a full time job, it is your business.
Minimum for a blogging business should be 20 hours a week dedicated to your business when you are not outsourcing work to others.
This 20 hours is more than just creating the content for your blog and for your brand. You have to do social media and answering emails and inquiries. You are a CEO now, a content creator, a social media manager, a public relations manager, and much more.
Remember you are creating more than just a passive income when you are committing to having a blogging business. You now have to treat your blog as an actual business and not a hobby.
Your Workload Will Get Bigger
As you grow your blog, the workload you are taking on is going to grow.
A growing business blog just like any other business will have the workload grow as the business grows.
You will have more emails to answer, growing social media to keep up with, more content to keep updated, and so on.
The good news is there is help for your workload. Once you start being successful with your business you can outsource writing blog content, social media management, graphics design for each blog post, even get a virtual assistant.
Some good options for outsourcing your writing or graphics for your blog are:
How to Write Blog Posts When You Hate Writing
You Must Treat Your Blog as a Business
Many bloggers don’t treat their blogs as a business, and that’s ok. Personal blogs are just that, personal. And hobby blogs are someone’s hobby. It’s an outlet for many to just talk about their life, or the things they love.
BUT. If you are planning to have a blogging business, then you must treat your blog as just that, a business.
You are now the CEO of a brand, your brand, your income, your livelihood. And on top of being the CEO you are every other role as well. You are in-charge of creating the content, managing the social media, responding to readers and potential business clients, the graphic designer, SEO specialist, and many other roles.
Everywhere you present your blog, you must present this as your business and carry yourself as the CEO when you are on social media or responding to emails. It is very important to maintain a professional appearance and have good customer service and positive customer interactions.
You Can’t Procrastinate
As the CEO of your business blog, you cannot put off that next post, or put off responding to emails, along with any other task that your business requires.
CEOs of companies do not procrastinate and put off the business needs. If they did their business would not be very successful.
Keeping a planner and a schedule is a good idea when you are running any business. This way you know when you need to work, and you can make sure you are not delaying anything that is required for your blog.
You Need a Business Plan for Your Blogging Business
Any business has a business plan. Most businesses aren’t just randomly trying things out and hoping that they catch on and work. If they are, they aren’t going to be very successful.
You Must Be Willing to Evolve and Adapt
If you have a business blog you are on the internet. And lets face it, things change at the speed of light on the internet. Technology is always improving and new fads for social media come out along with new search algorithms.
You need to be able to adapt to changes that can affect your incoming traffic and your bottom line. Also you need to be able to evolve with new technology and applications that can improve your blogs exposure to new readers.
You also need to go back and reevaluate and update content that you have put out. This is a never ending cycle when you have a blog.
You Need Multiple Streams of Income
If you are going to run a business blog, you need to make sure you are not just relying only on selling other people’s products. Affiliate income can be very lucrative, but you are still relying on other people to put forth worthy products so you can keep the cash flow coming in.
It is important to have your own products that you are selling, along with the affiliate income. You can also throw in ads on your site if you choose to add even another stream of income.
You Need to Pay Attention to Your Finances
Remember all the job titles you were taking on? Accountant/Bookeeper is there too, along with CFO and the entire finance portion of your business.
You need to pay attention to the money from your blogging business going out and money coming in. Be thrifty as much as you can. Going into debt just to get your blogging business going is not a good thing.
But remember as your business grows, investing back into your business wisely is always a good idea.
Perhaps your blog has grown and you are bringing in a steady stream of income. This might be a good time to find a freelance writer who can take some of the workload of content creating off your hands. This way you will be able to dedicate more time to all the other roles you have taken on with your business.
Maybe you feel like you could use more knowledge about the niche or blogging in general, this could be a good time to invest in a course that you have been looking at about blogging or improving a skill needed for your business.
Remember to invest only when you can afford to, and invest in what helps your run your blogging business.
What Does it Take to Run Your Blogging Business?
- You need a niche that is able to bring in a dedicated audience and customer base.
- You will need to dedicate more than a few hours per week to your blog.
- You will have to be able to take on a ever growing workload.
- You have to treat your blog a an actual business.
- You can’t procrastinate and need to stick to a schedule.
- You need to have a business plan.
- You need to be able to evolve and adapt to changes.
- You need to diversify your income streams.
- You have to pay attention to your business finances.
Pin it For Later:
This is a great article and a reminder to all everyone that blogging is serious work 🙂
Thank you for sharing the realities of what it takes to blog. Most post only tell readers how much money they can earn but neglect to tell readers how much work it takes.
Soem great points in this post there is so much to think about when developing the business side of blogs.
That was very interesting, I learnt alot from that post. I never knew how much it takes to run a blogging business
Very informative post. CONSISTENCY IS KEY! I must admit that I haven’t consistently treated my blog as a business, which is only prolonging the process. Part of the reason is that with all it the roles and responsibilities, I get overwhelmed. Gonna save up some money & start outsourcing some things!
Thanks for sharing 😊
It is very easy to get overwhelmed. There is so much that goes into blogging and running a business that you have to take on all at once.