Yes, in theory, there are very successful bloggers out there. I am not one of them. What successful bloggers, and by successful I mean those making income, have is the time and the capital to start blogging in the first place. You can’t be Joe Sixpack and just sit down and start ranting about beer and pretzels and make shirtloads of money.
Either you work a part-time job, and on those sleepless days off you tickle those keys, or you are sitting on money already in your pocket, or you’re a bum like me without a job. How and why is that? Because blogging takes up a lot of time. Writing, of course, doesn’t. Any monkey can be trained to write. But putting together a blog, a product, will make you break a sweat, especially when you’re first starting out.
Like any hobby, it should start out as something you enjoy to write about. And if you can draw traffic and fans in, then that’s a plus.
Things you need to know to start blogging:
- Basic HTML – Unless you can hire someone to do it for you, especially when you have no budget, I’d suggest reading all the free HTML tutorials online. You need to know how to layout your pretty words, because Internet users are superficial and don’t like reading walls of text. It’s a product and needs to be marketed as one.
- Know your audience – If you’re like me, you’ll write about anything and everything because you don’t really give a rat’s arse what people think. But you might seek those who want to pay you, so you might have to brown nose them.
- Motivate yourself every time you sit down to work – Just because you don’t have some asshole shouting at you over your cubicle or assembly line doesn’t mean you shouldn’t focus on getting the work out. I would want to work hard on a blog if I am drawing in huge traffic and readers, which means big money.
- New content – People want to read new stuff, even if it might be old. You need to present it in a way that it seems new, or has a new twist to it. People might have forgotten what a library card catalog was and researching the old-fashion way, but the Internet is about instant gratification and getting new content without earning it. Constantly feed new content for spoiled babies.
That’s it for now. All of this works, in theory. If not for the money, then do it for fun. Do it so one day, some sucker comes aimlessly to your site and reads how you were just another average schmuck struggling for a moldy piece of green cheese in the bloody rat race. And he’ll have an epiphany, “Hey, this guy seems real. That ain’t bad at all.”
How does the expression go? Don’t quit your day job.
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