Blogging Tip #11 – Do You Have What it Takes to be a Blogger?

Article first published as Five Ways to Tell if You Are Ready to Be a Blogger on Blogcritics.

Blogging Ain’t Easy! If you ask any blogger out there they will tell you the same thing I am about to tell you, this blogging thing ain’t as easy as we make it out to be. Oh trust me it’s not. One thing that it is, is fun! As much work as I put into my blog and my blogging lifestyle, I enjoy every minute of it. Today, I am going to share five ways to tell if you are ready for the blogging world.

1) You have a passion for something.
In order to be a great blogger you have to have a passion for something. This “something” can be a niche a specific topic that you know very well and don’t mind sharing it with others. My passion, although is a bit different from a specific niche or topic is that I love to share useful information. Sharing is my passion.

2) Have the time.
Blogging takes time, and you need to have the time in your day to blog, attend events, and share information. Just because you have a weekend off doesn’t mean that you have “the time.” When I say time, I mean being able to put aside 2-3 hours per day to sit and not only draft a blog post, but brainstorm for future blog post topics, work on your site design, promote your blog, engage with your readers, etc…

3) Be willing to invest money.
If you are new to blogging and you’re not sure which direction you want your blog to go and you are testing the waters out a bit, you might want to start with a basic blog or microblog. When I say basic blog, I mean a Blogger or a Tumblr account, where there’s less formatting to do, easier to use and post blogs. If you are looking for something more long term and blogging is your passion I would suggest investing in purchasing your domain name, a hosting site and moving or opening a blog account with WordPress.org. This is definitively something to do more research on if you’re truly interested in blogging.

4) Blog because you love it, not because you want to make money off of it.
This one is so important. Yes, we all want to make money blogging, and when we see successful bloggers making six figure incomes and having thousands of readers, you quickly assume that you’ll be making six figure income by posting a few posts. Ha! Making money from blogging takes time, and not everyone becomes successful from blogging, that’s why it’s important to do it for the passion not the money.

5) Stay focused.
If you’ve done steps 1-4 and you are still determine to blog, this last step is about staying focus. There will be days when you’ll draw a blank, where you won’t know what to blog about, and where you’ll get disappointed about the direction your blog is taking. Stay focused. Never lose sight of what you really want and why you started blogging in the first place.

These 5 steps are five of the many things that can help you determine if you are ready to be a blogger.
So ask yourself this question Do I have what it takes to be a blogger?!