Blogging As A Side Hustle (Can You Get Rich!)

Blogging is a popular way to make money on the side. Blogging as a side hustle has benefits like flexibility, but it also comes with some disadvantages that you should be aware of before deciding if this is really for you.

If you’ve been thinking about blogging as a side hustle or maybe want to start your blog, then keep reading! Blogging can be an excellent way to make extra income and grow your brand. But there are downsides too (like not making much money).

Can you get rich with blogging as a side hustle?

The answer is yes and no.

I know it’s not what you want to hear.

Let’s start with the downsides first…

Downsides to blogging as a side hustle

Here are my reasons why blogging as a side hustle can be a bad idea for some.

Your chance of succeeding is small

The internet is a place where people leave old blogs. It is hard to make a blog popular. Some people give up and stop blogging—some people blog and never finish what they started.

Here’s the thing, though: Blogging is different. It takes a different kind of persistence to do it well. You didn’t learn this in school or at any point in your life. But you can learn it now by reading what I say below!

Many people try to succeed. But, out of 100 who start with you, only one will succeed. And, I’m being generous. It’s probably more like 1,000.

It takes a looooong time

Blogging is like planting a seed. And, it takes a long damn time for that seed to grow into a full-blown General Sherman Tree (The biggest tree in the world).

Take my health blog, for example. It took 6 months to get 100 visitors a month. And 2 years to gain 10,000 visitors a month.

Blogging is competitive

Do you think you have the best blogging idea? Wrong!

Every topic, every sub-niche of a niche, and sub-niches of sub-niches have been done before.

It’s easy to get started with blogging. The entry cost is minuscule. Hence, there are about 70 million blog posts being published each month on WordPress alone. That is roughly 2 million blog posts a day!

And that’s only coming from WordPress. How about the other CMS like Wix, Blogger, and many others.

The good of blogging as a side hustle

Okay, now that you saw the grim reality of blogging as a side hustle, here’s why blogging a side hustle is a great idea.

The money-making potential is exponential

I make money by selling ads, selling things to other people, writing for the site, and doing digital marketing work. Sometimes I get paid for sponsorship.

Now, I didn’t start with 5 income streams. As my blog grew, there were many ways I could make more money.

This may not be the case when you don’t have complete control of your website. That’s why I don’t recommend blogging on Blogger, Tumblr, or Medium.

If you have complete control of your website, you can monetize your blog with the following:

• Ads – Most common monetization for bloggers is to partner with ad management platforms such as Mediavine or Google Adsense. The latter is the most accessible as it doesn’t have pre-requisites to start serving ads compared to Mediavines’ 50000 sessions per month requirement.
• Affiliate marketing – A better way to make money with blogging is through affiliate marketing. You sell other people’s products and get a commission for qualified sales.
• Freelancing – Once you’ve established an online presence, many businesses would love you to do to their brand what you did to yours. You can charge a pretty penny for writing content for them.
• Guest posts – I don’t accept guest posts as they are a no-no to Google. A guest post is a better way of asking for a backlink. But if you’re keen on easy money, guest posts can be a great monetization option. They write the content, and you get paid.
• Start your own brand – This is probably the hardest but the most rewarding. Having your brand is better than building someone else’s,

Great for introverts

I’m somewhat introverted. I can write better than speak.

That’s why I quit my vlogging biz. Instead, I partnered with someone to be in front of the camera so I could be behind.

It’s just me and my PC or laptop. Writing, pondering, editing, polishing, and all the things that bore extroverts.

Scalable business

I was a factory worker, and I quit my job to run this site. 3-4 months after I left, I made $500 a week selling other people’s products.

Of course, it wasn’t all roses. There were days when I didn’t get any sales which is essential when you have bills to pay. Hence, I don’t recommend quitting your job after making a small amount of money from blogging.

Once you have income coming in, you can hire content writers to do the work for you. And, as your ROI improves in time, you can hire another content writer or help build your brand on social media by hiring a social media manager.

As time flies, you’ll gain credibility and awareness through your blog. And this is when opportunities arise.

You may get offered a writing gig. A sponsorship deal or ad placement. Whatever it may be, you can scale your blogging side hustle quickly.

Bloggers network

Do you know how important it is to have friends who share the same mentality as you? It’s even more crucial when your real-life friends and family laugh at making money online.

If all you hear is negativity around you, there is a high probability that you’ll fail. They’ll put you down, laugh at you, and get angry because you spend so much time on the computer being unproductive.

Having friends that support you when times get tough is priceless.

Conclusion

There you have it. Blogging is not easy.

It can be challenging, and your chances of failing are high.

But like most things worth having, it takes arduous work.

You should look at blogging as a side hustle as just that, a side hustle.

Don’t do what I did and quit your 9 to 5 job when you start making money with your blogging side hustle.