You may have been blogging for a while and have decided that you want to now turn your hobby into a full-time job. Or perhaps you are new to this whole blogging world but are determined that it is for you and want to make a go of it professionally. Whatever your current situation and stage of your journey, we are going to share with you 4 tips for working as a full-time blogger.
Be professional at all times
If this is going to now be your full-time job, you will need to treat it as such.
Always be friendly and professional both online and in real life. Ensure that when you are working with brands and businesses that you communicate clearly and effectively and always meet agreed deadlines.
If you are working on a project with a brand, ensure that you thoroughly read through any contracts, terms and briefs before agreeing to collaborate, and then make sure that you do deliver on all counts for them.
Keep on top of the admin side
There is quite a lot of administrative tasks that come with being a blogger, which might well take you by surprise.
You will need to be precise in your bookkeeping and you will need to submit your own tax returns. You might like to work with an accountant and over time you might want to invest in some digital VAT software and accounting programs.
There will also be plenty of emails. This is, of course, a good thing and you will want a busy inbox, but keeping on top of all of them can be time-consuming. It is worth filtering out the opportunities that you wish to reply to and taking your time over those, and then sending polite messages to those that are not suitable for you.
Learn some of the technical aspects
If you are not that tech-savvy, it is worth investing some time into learning a few blogging basics.
You might want to improve your blog’s SEO and work on your Google rankings, or you might want to dabble in the design and features of your blog. Think about the areas that you most often run into difficulties and focus on those as your priorities to learn.
Make connections
You will want to make connections within your industry. This could mean other bloggers in your area or in your niche, so take the time to interact with their blogs and their social media accounts. This might mean people who work in the industries that your blog focuses on, for example, publishers and authors for book bloggers. And then there are the PR companies and brands that you might want to work with. Work on curating long-term relationships with all of these people as they will be key to your success and longevity.
Social media is an entire area that you will need to focus on, and you will need to master several platforms. Many brands will want their content featured on certain social media sites so take a look at the ones that most bloggers seem to spend most of their time. Work on building up your genuine following on all of these and share updates and content regularly, whilst interacting and engaging with others.
This is a contributed post.