Is full-time blogging worth it? While it takes time to make a full-time income from blogging, it can be rewarding once you hit certain milestones. If you’re not sure if you should take the plunge, you’ll find the pros and cons of blogging here.
In the past, I wrote a list of great reasons to start a blog, but I’m aware blogging is not for everyone and it’s not all easy and fun. After all, it’s still a job.
Before we dive deeper into the advantages and disadvantages of blogging, let’s take a look at what it’s like to blog full-time.
Blogging As A Profession
Becoming a professional blogger means that you’ll be able to make enough income to support yourself only with the blog.
You may not be blogging full-time at the very beginning, but once you hit certain milestones, you’ll see your audience and income grow.
Most people think that bloggers only write and that in order to be good at blogging, you must be a good writer – but that’s not so true.
As part of my blogging work routine, I do several tasks, and writing is just one amongst others.
A professional blogger may hire a virtual assistant eventually to take the load off their shoulders, but until then, here are some of the tasks a professional blogger does:
- Writing blog posts
- Creating a content strategy
- Researching keywords
- Conducting competition analysis
- Promoting blog posts
- Writing social media captions
- Scheduling posts on social media
- Updating and optimizing content
- Optimizing site speed
- Designing website
- And more…
As you can see these tasks go far beyond blogging. It will require you to learn new skills and to deal with the technical side of things too.
A good blogger will have the dedication required to search and fix most of the things themselves – until they can hire professional help.
Now that you know what to expect from a full-time blogging career, let’s take a look at the pros and cons of having a blog.
Advantages Of Blogging
Let’s start with the pros of having a blog. I’ve been blogging since 2015, and I still love it.
I love the freedom and flexibility that comes with blogging as well as helping people (while making money). Let’s take a look at the advantages of blogging.
Flexibility
The biggest advantage of blogging is that you get to decide your work routine. This is great if you have no trouble with self-accountability.
Because of flexibility, I can decide when I want to work or take a morning off if I want to go ski. Flexibility gives me more freedom and it’s definitely something to consider when starting a blog.
You can create a work routine that suits your needs and your lifestyle. For example, I’m more productive in the morning, so I do most of the writing in the morning. Then, I focus on other tasks when my concentration is going down.
Affordable Starting Costs
Starting a blog is not so expensive. You can read our post about the costs of starting a blog if you want to know more about the costs involved.
When you’re starting out, you can do all the tasks yourself. Then, when you start making money, you can start outsourcing some of the tasks to ghostwriters, virtual assistants, or web development.
The goal is to focus on the tasks you love the most, so you can get rid of the tasks you don’t enjoy doing.
Helping People
Helping people should be one of the core missions of your blog. After all, everyone cares about themselves and their needs, they don’t care so much about you. So, a blog should be about the audience, not about the blogger.
When you’re writing content to help people, you’re giving them answers and the help they need. You can help people in different ways. It could be with tutorials, recipes, or tips.
Making Money
You can build multiple income streams with a blog. You can learn more about how to monetize a blog for beginners here.
In short, you can expect to make money with…
- Ads
- Affiliate marketing
- Brand partnerships
- Sponsors
- Digital products
After a while, your blog will be able to generate an income passively if your traffic comes from search engines or Pinterest. Once your blog posts are out there, you’ll get traffic without having to do much.
Of course, if you wish to grow, you’ll need to work more, but you could take holidays and still make money.
Every Day Can Be Different
You can’t get bored if you’re doing different tasks every day. I love how every day is different with blogging. With a bunch of different tasks to do, I get to learn and develop new skills regularly.
Forget about a boring work routine that repeats itself – blogging is a stimulating job.
Disadvantages Of Blogging
Obviously, there are also blogging disadvantages, and blogging is simply not for everyone.
I already mentioned that in order to be successful at blogging, you need to be able to hold yourself accountable, but you also need to be curious and keen to learn new skills.
Routine Requires Self-Discipline
Self-discipline doesn’t come naturally for everyone. Some people need someone to tell them what to do – that’s just how it is. This is why some people can’t manage to work for themselves and prefer the stability of a job.
If you struggle with self-accountability, it’s going to be hard to create your own work routine.
Loneliness
Blogging can get lonely, especially if you’re working from home. While you can connect with fellow bloggers online in Facebook groups or Instagram, you may not know a lot of bloggers.
Working from home is not for everyone. Some people prefer to work in an office or from a coworking space. That said, if you get lonely, you may need to find ways to get the social vibes required outside of work.
Blogging Requires Time (And Patience)
Making money from a blog takes time and it won’t happen instantly. You’ll need to put a lot of effort and work upfront before you start seeing the results. Many people quit blogging because they can’t make enough income to support themselves.
Some bloggers decide to freelance until their blog takes off and this is a great solution too. Although, it may take longer to grow your blog if you need to split your focus on different jobs.
Blogging Requires Lots Of Skills
As I mentioned above, you’ll need to be curious and keen to learn new things if you want to run your blog all by yourself.
Fortunately, you can find plenty of tutorials and resources online to help you.
It can get overwhelming for some people – but if you have the financial resources, you can always outsource some of the things you don’t want to learn/do yourself.
Income Is Hard To Predict
Ad and affiliate payments are usually paid later. So, the money you’re making this month will be paid out in three months. While this is frustrating, you’ll simply need to get used to it.
It can be hard to predict how much money you’ll make because every month can be different. You won’t get the stability of a job where you know exactly what to expect each month.
That said, if you have mortgage payments or any kind of regular payments, make sure to have enough savings.
The same goes regarding your pension or sick leaves. Being your own boss means you’ll have to put money asides for emergencies and your future.
Final Thoughts On Pros And Cons Of Blogging
I’ve said it and I’ll say it again, blogging is not for everyone. While some people want to work for themselves and have full control of their work routine, some people prefer to have stability.
If you think blogging is the right fit for you, go ahead and learn how to start your blog today.
Want to learn more about blogging? Read one of the following guides:
