How To Blog And Keep Your Job
Most people start out their affiliate journey with a "normal" 9-5 job. With training here at Wealthy Affiliate AND trying to get a consistent publishing schedule on your blog, it can seem like an impossible task to make any progress on your business.
Personally, I think it's possible to earn a full time income from your blog relatively easily within two years, even if you are working a full time job and I wanted to share my game plan with you.
Of course, nothing is guaranteed. Starting a business is risky. Even so, I think with consistent action over a multi-year period practially gurantees some sort of success along the way. At the very least, you'll have a few more doors open to you. You'll just have to keep your foot on the gas to find out exactly how things will turn out.
The ONLY TWO THINGS You Need To Be Successful At Blogging
There's a lot to learn about the world of affiliate marketing and blogging, especially if you start out with zero prior experience. Things like WordPress, SEO, and Google Analytics. However, in my mind, those are little technical details to help you boost your results. Actually, having built many successful blogs over the past decade, I see my success is mostly stemming from masterting two main things.
1. Keyword Research
Finding "good" keywords means finding things that people are searching for. I always try to thing about if an actual person would search for this topic and what would be their mindset when searching.
Related:
- Everything Gets Searched. (Almost Everything)
- Check Your Internet Browsing History For Keyword Insights
2. Consistent Publishing
I get asked all the time "how many" blog posts are required to start making money. Some people throw numbers around like 50, 100, or 200 posts. While those are good goals, there really is no specific number.
I can tell you though that it's more than 1!
More content means more chances to rank. It means more practice writing. It means more related topics to interlink and signal to search engines what your site is about.
In my experience it's much better to have an easy schedule you can keep long term than an unsustainable shedule that causes burnout down the road.
Related:
The Two-Year Gameplan For A Successful Blog
Considering that you only need these two elements for success, here's what I'd do to create a highly successful blog in the next two years.
- Monday: Topic research, article outline, 500 words introduction & conclusion
- Tuesday: 1000 words, edit, upload images, format text, & publish
- Wednesday: Repeat Monday
- Thursday: Repeat Tuesday
- Friday: Tie up loose ends, catch up on work, Wealthy Affiliate training
- Saturday: Analyze traffic, keyword research, Wealthy Affiliate training
- Sunday: Keyword Research & Wealthy Affiliate Training
This gives you two articles per week for two years. That's 208 articles at the end of those years, plus it allows for time to complete your WA training, analyze your traffic, and take "high level" actions like fixing your site navigation, putting out fires, and doing additional research.
Two articles per week is definitely a sustainable schedule I think, even with a job and a family.
Can you find 2 hours per day to dedicate to your online business? I don't think it's too much to ask. What other business in the world can you run on 2 hours a day, with zero previous experience? I would imagine that affiliate blogging is unique in this aspect.
This is just a hypothetical schedule. Maybe you have just 1 hour per day M-F, then you can do 8 hours per day on Sat/Sun. That's fine. Maybe you want weekends completely free, and can dedicate 6PM to 12PM every day, for a 36-hour total time dedicated M-F which is awesome. You can tweak this schedule as you need.
An even cushier schedule could be 1 article per week. Of course, fewer articles published usually means less progress in your business, but that may be all you can do. That's fine. Maybe your time horizing is 4 years or 10 years. Don't be ashamed of that.
There's a lot of pressure on people in this business to be successful in a short period of time. Sometimes it can feel like if your blog is not succesful in one year that you're doing something wrong.
Everyone's journey is different. I like to imagine myself 10 years in the future. Are the action I'm taking now going to get me closer to that goal? If it took you 10 years to build a six figure business online and then you could enjoy that business for 20 or 30 years more after that, would you be happy? Most people would.
Then again, you could also speed this up. Write like a maniac for a year and you might have a six figure business by the end of 12 months. It happens all the time.
Rethinking "Free Time" & Relaxation
One recommendation I have is to rethink what you consider to be "free time". A long time ago I decided that my hobby would be making money online. It was a consious decision. Rather than Netflix or playing guitar or playing video games, I wanted to research and become an expert at making money.
What things are you doing now that you could replace with a profitable hobby like hanging out inside Wealthy Affiliate? Instead of watching Season 3 of Kobra Kai or watching Bachelor Nation eat itself over controversy every week, what if you watched Jay for an hour with a beer?
These types of habits make a different and you'll often discover that you have a lot more free time than you think.
What habits & hobbies could you cut to dedicate more time to Wealthy Affiliate training, keyword research, and article publishing?
Recent Comments
91
Nathaniel:
Lots of structuring you have provided for your readers. I welcome your style and am bounding myself to get into the habit of following through.
I am transitioning from my job, which I held for several years, and have decided to make a clean break. One thing I am beginning to learn is that having degrees can make or break you. When you have to carry out your job functions under an existing political environment in your employment place, it makes it quite difficult to cope.
A few years ago, I was tempted to join WA, but I focused my attention on those degrees but now is my turn to do what I long wanted.
That was such a refreshing read Nathaniel!, thank you for sharing your experience. Once we sit down it can be amazing how much time we have that we can reinvest into something we can use to advance our online endeavors.
Awesome tip, about watching Jays weekly with a nice coldie. A pale ale me thinks.
Nathaniell do not forget the yearly plan :D
That has been helping a LOT, especially with a full-time job. To know that, at any point, you will always have an idea of what you are doing next is great, gives you a sense of direction, focus and less worry and stress. And improves your efficiency immensely. It also decreases the probability of "being stuck".
You do need to invest 5 to 10 days to do that, but it's PER YEAR and it pays off greatly afterwards :) it's the best way to keep your "foot in the gas" easily.
And don't get me wrong, my list is not frozen. I keep adding ideas or changing some of them. But that's exactly how a plan works: like a map.
Make your yearly plan, everyone! :) And even if you have a deficit of posts (the goal is to have 105 posts planned of various types, to write 2 posts/week) do not let that stop you from doing it! Start with your 70 or 80 posts list, the rest will come up with time.
You know what? With my yearly plan I did have time to watch Cobra Kai xD
Cheers and stay safe!
Sofia
Nicely put.
We are lucky with the both of us working on the business full time. We manage to write at least 5 articles a week between us so are managing to grow at a steady pace. After just 5 weeks into the new project, Google Search Console (and Bing Webmaster Tools) is starting to show shoots of growth, our Pinterest and Instagram accounts are growing exponentially and all is well. Twitter is a much slower level of growth and Facebook seems to be next to useless!
For anyone new to it, just keep motoring along and it will happen for you.
All the best
Jon and Debbie
That's great Jonathan. Sounds like you and your wife are working on this project together. Having a support network like family, even if it's only the "WA family" is very important to being consistent and working through hurdles as you build your business. It's not always easy, but it does pay off! The 3 Biggest Mindset Hurdles For New Bloggers
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Cheers, Nathaniel! I get up early to manage the inbox and spend time with my planner. It's important to stay on top of your blogging tasks daily so you'll see growth. After work, the research gets done and the body of work is written. While I haven't quit my day job yet, my blog has surprised me. Thanks for the inspiration today.
And... There are zero activities that I could cut from my schedule to allow more time for Wealthy Affiliate Training. The answer is less, sleep, less television, less talk time[cellphones], less commuting [work from home]. 🎀🐾😀 See Ya next time!
Your friend,
Jacquelyn