Professional Blogging or Part time Blogging : How To Choose?

A few years back, blogging was just one of the hobby, but in 2019 we have seen a growth in the terms of bloggers and people who started taking blogging as a career option.

With the evolution of entrepreneurship and solopreneurship, people these days are keen to start something of their own, and blogging is something which anyone can start from, and from anywhere.

Though one of the biggest dilemmas for people like you who are blogging part-time is:

Should you quit your job to become a professional blogger?

Is blogging the right career choice for you? Let’s try to find the answer to all these in this column.

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This is a part of readers question series and this question is asked by Sandeep. If you have blogging or WordPress related question, you can ask your question using contact form.

Question: Full-time Blogging Career option

Hello Harsh,
I want to take full-time blogging as my career option.  I am an engineering student, and I want to take up blogging full time after completing my engineering. My fear comes about my job experience and education. What about my future in Blogging. I mean blogging alone can’t help. Should I set up something else? I am confused. Need your advice.

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Here is my answer to Sandeep:

This is one of the most common question asked by most of the bloggers who have started blogging and are getting successful and earning passive income. Blogging as a career looks very lucrative, but it’s a risky option.

We have seen examples of many young people making a great living out of the blog, but we can’t ignore the risk associated with it, such as what if your blog stops getting traffic? What if your blog is hacked? These are some of the doubts you must be having in your mind and:

Here I’m sharing few tips which will help you to decide “Should you quit your job for blogging or should you continue the job and blogging together”. And before you implement my advice, I would add this disclaimer that this is based on my experience and it differs from person to person.

Your Attitude towards blogging:

Before you take my advice or anyone else’s advice, you need to ask yourself what do you think about blogging. Are you seriously considering blogging as a business? Indeed people who get success in blogging is due to passion, but at the same time, they treat this as a serious business. If you have that attitude, then you have already answered most of the little chicken (fear) of yours.

No business is 100% safe from any kind of hazard or disaster, and online business like blogging is no different. The important thing here is what measures you are taking to safeguard your present and future. I will talk about this more, but for now…

Being a professional blogger I have seen the pros and cons of professional blogging. I started my journey as a part-time blogger and took the risk of taking blogging as a career option. If you want to know how I started, you can read my complete blogging journey over here. Just to give you an idea of income I make from blogging, here are two of my income reports:

• My 5 year AdSense income report (2009-2014)
• My 5 year Affiliate marketing income report (2009-2014)

If you are someone who is passionate and dedicated about starting something of your own, you can definitely become your own boss. There are factors like money, the social factor which you need to consider before you take this decision; which I will discuss later in this article.

The very first thing which you need to know is having some skill sets before you start getting into the line of professional blogging. Some of the most have skill set is writing skills, social media marketing, search engine optimization, and zest to learn more.

I have blogged professionally, from the last 10 years and it’s a nice experience but certainly not the smoothest journey of my life. I faced lots of issues like hosting issues, site downtime, maintaining post frequency and so on. The point of writing these problems is to make you aware of the possible hurdles which you are going to face. However, there is nothing in life which sails smooth? Is int it?

3 Pointers before opting for Professional Blogging Career:

Here are a few points which might help you to decide

Parents and family:

In India, professional blogging or work from home is still not considered as a very reputable job as there is no standard term or designation coined for full-time bloggers. You should discuss with your parents and try to show them the real picture that how blogging and working online will be beneficial for your career and how you are going to be your own boss. Moreover, most of the parents are worried about job security and money. Show them your stats and educate them about the future of working from home.

• Read: Blogging in Indian society and how you can bring change

Income from the blog:

If you are making a good income from your blog which is the same or more than what your job offers, you should give an upper hand to online business. You should have an income coming from stable source like Adsense and other advertising network. Never consider affiliate income as a stable income because affiliate marketing is a gamble. Some time it increase your graph big time but at times it sinks your income graph.

Your goal and business plan:

Any business (Professional blogging is a business), need a business plan. You should have your goals clear and most important before you decide for professional blogging as full time career, I would suggest you to sit alone or with your team (if you have any), and decide what will be your short-term and long-term goals. Having a business plan at the initial days, will help you through out your life.

Blogging alone can’t help?

I will slightly disagree with this point. I started blogging in September 2008 and by the end of May 2010, I was making a decent income.  Later on, I added services which worked for me. Today after 10 years of blogging, I earn almost $40,000/month from my blog and online activities. You can check this post where I have revealed all the techniques I’m using to make money from my blog.

But it’s not the same for everyone. You have been blogging from long and now you know all the pros and cons of blogging, probably you can decide this of your own. You know How to make money blogging and you know how you can increase your online income. So I will leave this answer to you and other readers.

I would suggest you to join a job ( some big corporate) to understand how a company works. More over it will enhance your personality and you will learn many things like client interaction, official emails, presentations which you might not be able to learn while working alone. But at the same time, you should continue with your blog as a part-time. Always remember, your goal is to be your own boss and you don’t want to be like a million others who work day and night to make somebody else rich.

A 6 month job experience should be good and you will end up learning many new things. Check out this interesting video discussions where 3 professional bloggers talking about blogging as a career option:

I also suggest you should take your blogging very seriously. Set up a small office at home, try to build a team. More over register a company (it’s cheap) and work as a small company of your own. 

Above mentioned points are my opinion, I will appreciate if any reader would like to add more points here and help Sandeep decide.

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