Do You Have To Blog Full Time To Succeed?

Blog Tips Newsletter by Yaro Starak

You don’t need to spend full time hours on your blog in order to succeed.

Find out how I learned this lesson and how you can change how you go about building your blog too…

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Is your goal to become a full time blogger?

Do you like the sound of blogging for a living?

Yeah, me too. At least I did anyway. But then I learned the truth. I don’t like doing anything “full time”.

Even something as fun as blogging is not an activity I would want to do for the majority of my day. I like variety in my life and while I want blogging to be a part of it, I don’t want it to be the main labor. I want to do it because I like it, not because I need to do it to make a living.

I remember when I first decided to become a serious blogger. I monitored some of the other professional bloggers, the guys and girls making a living from blogging. Darren Rowse [www.problogger.net] was of particular influence on me because he was doing very well, had started off as a complete Internet beginner and was from Australia like me.

I tried to emulate Darren’s blogging style. I knew I had the skills to do it and in fact more experience than Darren in a lot of ways because I had been working online for over seven years while he started much later. I had plenty of material to blog about so I knuckled down and committed myself to posting multiple articles every day.

It didn’t last long.

Maybe I was lazy, maybe I was blindly following someone else’s lead without really thinking it through. Whatever the reason I wasn’t cut out for writing blog posts each and every day. My blogging strategy had to change…again.

Darren and many other bloggers are machine-like in how efficient and how frequently they can pump out good content for their blogs. These people work hard. They enjoy solid rewards for their labor, but my motto is not to work hard, but to work smart, so I needed another way to make blogging work for me.

Realign Your Goals

I’m going to assume you are like me. You blog, you want to blog, you enjoy blogging and you want to increase your blog traffic. Most importantly you want to do it quickly and efficiently and not waste time putting energy into activities that don’t produce fantastic results.

The first thing you have to do, and this is what I did when I decided full time blogging wasn’t for me, is to decide what your blog is for – what you want to get out of it and consequently what your audience should get out of it as a result?

I decided that I would use my blog for two main activities –

To dump all my knowledge built up from years of working online into article and audio format. I wanted a repository of my skills and experience.
To increase my exposure and enhance my credibility – to improve the “Yaro” brand.

With these two goals in mind I went to work producing some big meaty solid how-to articles, stuff you would read in books and manuals on Internet marketing.

I didn’t bother blogging too much about news or linking to other blogs in my industry at this point because those activities were not aligned with my goals. I wanted my best stuff out there so other people could learn from me and I could demonstrate that I was an expert in my field.

In your case your goals should dictate what you want to achieve with your blog.

If your blog is designed to help you get freelance writing gigs, then publish lots of original creative articles.

If you are interested in selling your consulting services then go to work putting out articles and case studies on the work you have done.

If you want your blog to become the news source for everything related to Michael Jackson celebrity gossip then aim to post multiple news-bite sized articles per day.

The point is to define your objectives and work to your goals. Don’t follow someone else’s goals just because they appear to be doing well.

The Lazy But Smart Blogger

I want to be clear about one point – you *don’t* have to work hard to be a successful blogger.

You don’t have to post an article each and every day. You don’t have to create something of ‘genius level’ creativity each time you blog.

Ahh, see, now you can relax.

Of course if you don’t write articles you won’t get traffic but as long as you post something interesting, creative, practical or valuable every once and a while your blog readership will increase. People that like your work will look forward to it regardless of how frequently you post. A little anticipation is a good thing.

When you start to post regularly, not hourly or daily but at least weekly, people adjust their expectations accordingly. Remember you don’t owe anyone anything when you blog. Blogging is only about putting in as much effort as is required to meet YOUR goals.

If you post new articles six times a day people will start to expect it from you. You will start to expect it from yourself and blogging will feel like a job because of pressures to publish a certain amount of new content each day.

Now if that’s your goal, that’s fine, just remember you can change things if you find yourself suffering because you set unrealistic goals. Don’t ever feel obligated to do anything.

In my case I started to post between one and two big articles per week and about one or two podcasts per month. I’d also do a little news linking or track-backing of other articles I had a strong interest in during the “heat of the moment”. I could brain-dump my thoughts quickly and effortlessly into a blog post whenever the inspiration hit me.

I did most of my early foundation blogging while at work. I worked at a computer help desk with Internet access so I could blog in between helping people at my job.

I ended up blogging collectively for maybe 2 hours per day on average and I still managed to grow my blog traffic to 1000+ daily readers within a year and then 5,000 by the end of the second year, and I didn’t have to post each and every day to do it. There is a smarter and easier way to get blog traffic.

Here’s to your blogging success,

Yaro Starak
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

P.S. If you like the idea of working smarter but not harder on your blog and would like to learn how to get the most out of those two hours per day you spend on your blog, I invite you to join my coaching program.

Blog Mastermind is all about finding the highest points of leverage when you blog so you work less for more reward. It’s not a walk in the park, but it’s not about working 8 hour days on your blog either.

Find out more here –

http://www.blogmastermind.com/coaching/

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More Newsletters

How To Choose The Right Blog Topic

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How To Build A Popular Blog

Don’t Make This Mistake With Your Blog

The Secret Of My Blog’s Success – The Pillar Article

Is Blogging About Your Mistakes A Good Idea?

Do You Have To Blog Full Time To Succeed?

How One Technique Increased My Traffic By 25%

What Is A Trackback And How Can It Increase Your Blog Traffic?

How To Interlink Your Blog Articles To Increase Traffic

The following lessons are from my original “blog traffic king” email newsletter, my first ever email course with one lesson per week delivered for a year. There are some real gems in these articles too, so don’t skip them!