A couple of years ago my life was pretty hectic. I found that I’d bounced about a few different jobs without really settling down. I’d worked as a journalist and copywriter before, but felt like the normal 9-5 didn’t really work for me. Having a young family to care for, the commuting to cities that had writing jobs wasn’t ideal, and stretched out my working day even longer.
I was actually teaching English (and quickly becoming fed up with it) when the pandemic hit. Whilst swathes of people were losing their jobs, I made the decision to quit mine. I was lucky enough to have a little money saved up to allow me to, but it still felt like an almighty risk.
Blogging
In truth, I don’t think I’d have been so bold if I hadn’t already seen my wife create a liveable income from her own blog. I’d toyed with my own blog sites before as a hobby, but had no idea how to properly go about creating a professional site, let alone making any money from it. I’d spent the last few years enviously watching my other half work out how to monetise her work, and inspired by this, wanted to do the same.
This is another factor in which I was incredibly lucky with. My wife soon became my business consultant, and guided me on the best way to set up my site, avoiding a lot of the trial and error travails that she’s had to work through herself. Within a few months, I’d started to see my first paid assignments trickle in. They weren’t for a great deal of money, but I was absolutely thrilled: I’d managed to create an income stream from scratch, and after a period of blind hope, started to see blogging as a viable way of living.
Finding work
I soon realised though, that sitting back and waiting for the work to come to me was a futile exercise. I had to put just as much time into looking for opportunities than I did writing itself. That’s where sites such as Intellifluence became an absolute godsend. Acting as an intermediary between brands and writers, they make it easy to search for good-quality assignments all in the one place. Intellifluence has become a mainstay of my work schedule now, being one of the first places I look when trying to source new opportunities. One of its main strengths for me, is that it treats bloggers as professionals, even interviewing the odd successful blogger for its ‘Influencer Spotlight’ feature.
One of the main things that I’ve noticed since blogging, is that growth encourages more work. This may sound obvious, but when it comes to running a blog, if you stay still, the work can soon dry up. Alongside the writing and prospecting then, you also need to pay attention to driving traffic to your site and keeping the site maintained. This can take up a lot more time than you’d think, with the utilisation of social media and SEO (search engine optimisation) practices taking some time.
Keeping your blog attractive to brands
Brands also like to see that your site is active. This is understandable given the sheer amount of sites that are abandoned within the first year. The last thing any company wants to do is invest in a long-forgotten website that is unlikely to attract any readers. In the past, some brands could be wary about working with bloggers. The low barriers to entry meant that dozens of low-quality sites would vie for work alongside other blogs, making it tricky to determine which were worth working with. Thankfully, companies are now more savvy when sourcing blogs to work with, with many reaping the benefits of a well-thought out influencer campaign. If you have a professional-looking site that shares a common demographic with certain brands, then you’re in a good position to offer advertising value to them.
Almost two years on now, and it finally feels like this is my occupation. There’s been wild variations in how much income each month brings in (with some being leaner than an ill whippet, if I’m being honest), but the work is starting to become more frequent now, which alleviates a lot of stress. For me though, it was never really about the money. As long as I’m able to generate enough income to live comfortably with, I’ll be happy. The main draw is of course, being able to spend far more time with my children, and working to my own schedule. In an ideal world, work should fit around your life, and I feel like I’m just about getting there.