“How I Quit My Job for Blogging” plus 1 more

Posted: 12 Jun 2011 01:05 PM PDT

This guest post is by Joshu Thomas of NapIncome.com.

Blogging is no more a mere hobby; it has become a full-time profession for many bloggers, including myself. Today I will share my journey as a blogger and how it helps me to earn a full-time income blissfully working from anywhere I like.

How it started

I had been working on diverse flavors of the Internet right from my college days. I used to earn a part-time income as a student by designing websites, and later I joined a multinational company as Information security engineer.
Corporate Work life is demanding and it never gave me any space to continue with my regular design and development hobby vocation. I was earning a decent income from my day job, but I failed to enjoy the work due to towering work pressure and deadlines.

I had a website that I registered early in the year of 2002 and used to receive web designing gigs from it. I don't exactly remember when, but I transformed the website into a blog mainly to save the tutorials and code snippets as it could serve as a reference on the web for me to access from anywhere. This is how my blog was born.

The power of a web log

It began to become a routine that I stored all my new learning from the few web-based projects that I used to do on to the blog as a reference. Gradually I started observing that there were others who were interested in what I was writing as well.

Over time, I was overwhelmed by the response I was receiving from what I built for my personal use. This is when I thought, “Why not transform the blog into a webmaster community?”

I increased the frequency of updating quality unique tutorials and tips that I learned the hard way. Within a period of six months of an organized blogging approach, my traffic ranks were soaring. This was the power of the SEO-friendly advantage the WordPress system.

Taking it seriously

Within nine or ten months of blogging, I had already begun researching and learning a lot on the WordPress system, SEO, and internet marketing for improving my blog, and simultaneously shared that information on my blog as well.

The response I was receiving from my blog visitors, their comments, and traffic was the biggest source of enthusiasm and encouragement. I have developed many websites for myself and my clients, but never received this much consistent traffic ever! I had to take this seriously—and I did.

The flow of dollars

Now it was already a year and a half when I seriously started learning and implementing monetization of my blog traffic. I was under an impression that Google Adsense was the only method to monetize my blog content and traffic.

By that time, I was earning five or six dollars a day from the blog traffic, and that looked good for me. Approximately US$200 of additional income was great for me at that time. Gradually I started to explore and read more about monetization strategies, and I found affiliate marketing!

An earnings increase

Even though it is true that passion for blogging is the primary requirement for successful blogging, your earning from a blog will be a substantial fuel to your blogging journey.

Soon, along with my regular blogging efforts, I started to promote and review the best products on the Web. It is very critical that you only recommend what you have tried and tested: an honest review will certainly get your more fans and followers.

Gradually, I started to discover the power of affiliate marketing. And eventually, a single sale was fetching me more money I used to earn from half a month's AdSense income. So gradually I started to write more quality articles and was doing in-post product recommendations.

Balancing job and blogging

It was already more than a year through my serious blogging effort. I used to return from my office each day and write one article for my blog. I’d also dedicate one hour to SEO and SMO tasks. On the weekends, I used to work four or five hours a day on content and keyword research.

By now, both my blog's income and traffic were steadily growing, and when I started to earn around 70% of my regular job's income, I started to think about blogging full-time.

The big decision

I was really enjoying the fact that my blog was becoming popular—the strongest proof of that was the fact that lots of people started involving themselves in discussions on my blog, and posting comments. I hate spam comments, so it was a pleasure to answer real people—and this was another form of encouragement.

After almost one and a half years of dedicated blogging, I was now earning more income than my day job and I started seriously thinking of making the leap to full-time blogging. At that point of time in India, US$1000 was my salary from my day job, and it used to be a pretty good income. But I was earning around US$1500 from blogging, and that played on my mind.

I didn’t want to make a foolish decision in hurry, so I thought I’d continue the same way and observe my income for three months. If it was consistent, I’d quit my job.

The next three months was a bit like a case study, and my blog came out victorious. I was consistently earning more than US$2000 for all the three months. So I took the decision and gave up my job to become a pro blogger.

Should you quit?

My story might inspire you, but I personally don't want to encourage you to quit your hard-earned job unless you test yourself to earn at least double your day-job income. Becoming a pro blogger is a big decision and you might not want to be proved wrong.

The first month working full-time as a pro blogger was very exciting. I had all the freedom to do all that I wanted to, go anywhere, and—the best part—blog from any location.

I made sure that my work hours, earnings, plans, and strategies were accountable. I noted down every activity and progressed in a very systematic manner without losing sight of my goals.

The earnings steadily increased, and the first month after I quit my job, I analyzed my performance. Here are few findings:

I almost worked the double amount of hours on my blog than I did before.
My earnings from writing, blogging, and reviews touched US$3000 per month.
I was enjoying traveling and spending time with my family.
I had loads of plans for the next month.

If you don't have a blog, or you have a low-traffic blog, don't even think of quitting your job. It's a huge risk. Be practical and put in lot of hard work on your blog to craft unique content that provides high value to your users.

Evaluate, measure your success, and prove yourself. When you are sure you’re ready to jump, make the big decision to become a full-time blogger … and you might just enjoy your work like never before!

Joshu Thomas is a full-time blogger writing on how to make money online blogging and runs a successful webmaster community.

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

How I Quit My Job for Blogging

Why Honesty Matters … for Blogs and Brands

Posted: 12 Jun 2011 07:03 AM PDT

This guest post is by Enzo F. Cesario of Brandsplat.

Will someone please tell me what “hip” means? Does it mean “popular?” Is it what the kids are doing today? Well, just who are the kids? Do you mean teenagers? Early 20s? Hipsters? No, not hipsters … we’ve heard enough from them.

The same goes for words like edgy, trendy, hot, clever—managers seem to use these words all the time, and yet when pressed for an answer can’t seem to provide any input for what they’re going on about. It’s about as helpful as saying, “Make this product a bestseller,” but answering “How?” with an, “Oh, you know…”

Ccopyright James Steidl - Fotolia.com

A lot of people wanting to make a good blog ask these kinds of questions, though. “How do I make it hip? How do I make it really pop?”

Far from being a problem merely of unimaginative employees, vague guidelines do represent an obvious problem in the greater blogging world. The problem comes up from two separate directions: The first is not knowing how things work, and the second is not being willing to admit you don’t know how things work.

The first problem lies in the nature of modern branding and advertising itself. A blog is very much about creating a brand image—specifically, branding yourself and the way you have with words.

The sad, cold, utterly frightening fact of the matter is that there is no formula. There is no silver bullet, no magical way to do things that will result in viral success, online or off. This is because people are inconsistent, confusing, unusual creatures with the ability to change their minds about things. Sometimes people will respond to a well-done light show, other times they want to see an angry rant, and still other times they grow inordinately fond of a man in a towel parading through a Magic Realism sequence of events.

The second matter is a bit of necessary misdirection: there are things people can do to make branding work. There are rules for how pictures should be composed, the ratio of text to images and other sorts of guidelines that can make something work and another something not. But none of this is that fabled silver bullet that will guarantee branding success—everything that’s done in the field of branding is an attempt.

Take two examples from the same company, Apple. The first is the company’s classic, “I use a Mac” series, and the second is its “I’m a Mac, and I’m a PC” promotion.

The “I use a Mac” series didn’t take off quite as well as the Mac/PC series, and there’s no hard and fast reason why. Some opined that the ads were just too bland, others thought they represented a kind of snobby elitisim.

On the other hand, the fame of the Mac/PC ads is very well-established. They connected with people for some reason. Opinions, again, vary as to why—some thought it was the clever banter, others point to the fact that making the machines into people allowed viewers to connect more. Whatever the reason, the “I use a Mac” ads are forgotten, while the Mac/PC format is still being copied by such luminaries as Sprint.

Yet when examined visually, the two ads are almost indistinguishable. Both show people against white backgrounds, talking. What the heck made one work, and one not—especially given that no one can seem to agree as to the reasons why folks seemed to go for one or the other?

There are answers, but there is no one answer.

Here’s my personal take on these two ads: I think it was because Apple embraced its market more in producing the latter format. With the “I use a Mac” format, they were trying to target a new market—people who use Macs were talking to people who don’t. It’s hard to bring in new clients; most business comes from repeat customers. Further, it’s word of mouth from existing clients that tends to bring in new people rather than advertising.

So with the second set of ads, Apple targeted its own audience with arguments that were familiar to them: Macs work, PCs don’t. This made them more satisfied with their purchases and more likely to use their purchasing power, as well as trying to bring their friends and families into the fold. Again, this isn’t the definitive answer, but it is one that makes as much sense as any of the others.

So, how exactly does this translate to you? How do you make something hip and edgy and all those other fun, potentially meaningless words?

First, know your product. When you’re writing a blog, you are selling yourself and your writing. Before you do anything else, you need to know what niche you and your blog fill. Mac hit on this with the “Macs just work” argument that served the company so well. Be familiar with what you want to discuss and the way you intend to discuss it before you get started.

Second, know your market. You can have the best hair restoration product in the world, but marketing it to the Hair Metal glam rock set is probably not going to work out so well. Figure out who your audience is and what they like.

This is where the social side of blogging comes in. Take a few minutes and actually talk to people, socialize, discuss, laugh, tell jokes, be the butt of a joke. Do something to connect with people and have a discussion. Demographic research is great—but someone else can do that part. You should go talk to someone and get a feel for what their mood is.

Between these two elements, you will be able to come to a more honest vision of what they want, put out a blog that’s both entertaining and genuine, and “hip” can remain a description of a body part, rather than a meaningless adjective.

Enzo F. Cesario is an expert on blogs and social media for business and co-founder of Brandsplat, a digital content agency. Brandsplat creates blogs, videos and social media in the “voice” of our client’s brand. For the free Brandsplat Report go to Brandsplat.com or visit our blog at http://www.ibrandcasting.com

Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger

Why Honesty Matters … for Blogs and Brands