If only there were a keyboard shortcut that would make it rain.
There’s no get-rich-quick scheme when it comes to blogging. Creating a website, building an audience and eventually garnering revenue is an exhausting process — which is why most successful blogs are labors of love. A good blog stems from an unwavering desire to do the thing you most enjoy and share it with the world.
Lauren Lilling had a degree in finance, but Wall Street just wasn’t cutting it for her. A year after starting her blog, Keep It Sweet Desserts, Lilling left the world of finance and devoted her time to a new business: a blog and “e-bakery” where users can order treats like her seasonally appropriate “Matzo-crack” salted chocolate matzo.
Like any savvy business owner, Lilling drew on what she knew. “As someone who worked in finance prior to starting a business, I was able to use skills from my previous career, leverage the social media buildup I had from blogging and build on the relationships in both places,” she says.
Babette Pepaj runs TECHmunch, a conference for food bloggers to help them do what Lilling has done. Pepaj travels around the U.S. to help food bloggers make their work more financially rewarding, she says.
“The unsuccessful bloggers I’ve seen are the ones who are short-term planners,” says Pepaj. Most important, she says, is keeping the blog active to attract interest from advertisers: “You can’t expect a brand to look at your blog that hasn’t been updated in four weeks and think your community is engaged,” she says.
Tips for making a blog into a career:
• Have a clear focus. In this case, casting a wider net will not necessarily get you a wider audience.
• Be patient, but be persistent. The money isn’t going to come rolling in, but regular posting and diligence will certainly help.
• Use social media. Utilize different platforms in order to promote your brand and drive traffic to your site.
