No matter how old you are, you already know about something. You are already interested in something. You are drawn to something. It could be gaming, biking, cooking, fashion, design, travel….the list is endless. But you are already finding your tribe, your niche, your thing. And once you have found your thing, as well as physically doing it, there is a side hustle that you can, in the long term, take advantage of, to enhance your earning power, and that hustle is blogging.
Basically, if you know about it, then blog about it. Help ease someone else’s pain, be the expert, answer their questions, and become their tribesman.
From my own experience, that old adage, ‘if I knew then, what I know now’, fits perfectly with my feelings about my own blogging journey so far, and after almost 10 years, I’m still learning.
My blogging journey began in 2013. At the time I just wanted to write about ‘stuff’ that happened to me. As if I was simply telling a story. I didn’t really think anyone would actually read my ramblings, but everything I wrote really did happen, and I wrote, in my voice, as if I was speaking. Pretty much as I’m doing now.
My friends and people who read my ramblings seemed to be amused, I got comments, and feedback from them, especially if I wrote about something that was happening in real time, they would ask, ‘what happened next?’.
After quite a few years of simply writing for pleasure and to get things off my chest, I began to take things a bit more seriously. I read that there were opportunities to earn money, and people would actually pay to add links to my posts.
And so my blogging side hustle began to gather pace.
I applied to a company called Fat Joe, which pays bloggers to add especially written content to their sites, which contain links to certain products and companies. I was accepted and was soon earning money from my first blog.
The point I’m making here is that, back then, I didn’t even write about a specific interest, a thing, a niche. I wrote just about my life, and still earnt money. Then when I realised that the niche was the key to it all, things began to change. I created another blog with a specific niche, the same agency accepted that blog as well, and I began earning money from that blog too.
And since then it’s been pretty much rinse and repeat. More blogs equal more opportunities to earn money, whether it’s on a personal or business level, but the key to it is to identify your thing and nail it down as much as you can so that people will turn to you to find the answers to their problems.
Don’t let anyone tell you that there’s no point in blogging now as everyone is doing it. If you can make your blog niche unique, or very random, in a good way, you will succeed. However, a successful, money-generating blog does not happen overnight. You have to put in the hours and learn all the secrets of successful blogging. There are loads and loads of courses, some free, some not, to help you, and the information is all online.
And what do I wish I had known then?
I wish I’d identified my ‘thing’ much earlier and nailed it down sooner. I wish I’d taken it all more seriously and realised that with the right contacts, there is money to be made from simply writing about what you know.
So grab a coffee, notepad, and pen, find a comfy spot, and identify your thing. What are you good at? What problems do people turn to you to solve? When are you happiest? What do you find most rewarding? Answer those questions, then join up the dots. Some ‘thing’ will begin to emerge and whatever it is, could be the start of your own side hustle blogging income!