6 Tips to Help You Survive Your First 3 Months of Pro Blogging

This guest post is by Glee of Creative Fashion.

I was a high-school Maths teacher for eight years and for all those years, my life evolved in writing lesson plans, producing teaching materials and worksheets, dealing with parents, teaching some well-behaved and some rude students, and pleasing demanding bosses. When an opportunity came for me to finally be a full-time blogger, which allows me to be my own boss and set my own schedule and calendar, it was a dream come true.

Yet, as it turn out, building a website and establishing myself as an authority isn´t all fairy tales.

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I was a part-time blogger for two years, juggling my full-time day job, after-school tutorials, and blogging until late midnight every day. My first blogs were built through a free blog platform, on which I learned HTML, SEO techniques, and a little online marketing. I had enough experience and I was quite ready to do blogging full-time before I decided to quit my job.

I built my professional blogs and now I’m working toward my dream of making them big: I’m officially a full-time blogger. But there are stumbling blocks that I had to deal with more than once in those first few months of pro blogging; here are the techniques I used to beat them.

The good thing about full-time blogging is you don’t have a boss. And the bad thing about full-time blogging is you don’t have a boss.

The freedom that full-time blogging offers is what makes people want to become full-time bloggers. However, it’s the same freedom that sends them to failure fast if they aren’t careful.

I’m a stay-at-home wife and a self-confessed online entrepreneur (a fancy name for a blogger), and when my husband kisses me good-bye in the morning, I’m still in bed … and so tempted to go back to sleep.

It takes discipline to beat this behavior. I soon realized that if I go to work late, I can’t keep working until late. When my husband comes home, I have to start preparing dinner—plus there’s a couple of hours for our bonding time which include going to the gym. I clean the kitchen after dinner, and then it’s already very late at night. So basically my job ends at 5p.m. I can only do a little work on my blog late at night.

This urged me to create a schedule and to stick to it. When hubby goes to work at 7:45 in the morning, I’ve got to be fixing the bed, then have breakfast, shower, do a little housework, and be at my desk by 9a.m. I get a break for lunch around 1p.m. and the hard work ends at 5p.m. If I’m really good, I can do a little more work after dinner.

The bottom line: create a daily schedule and stick to it. Treat blogging as a real business.

When I see my traffic numbers start to rise, I feel so happy. It gives me energy to work harder. This is especially true when I see my Alexa rank increase.

However, there are times when the scenario is reversed. I get up in the morning excited to see how my site is doing, thinking, “Did it increase from last night’s Alexa rank?” But I’m disappointed if it didn’t. In fact, if the rank has decreased, I’ll feel sad and my energy levels will drop.

Another discouraging experience is seeing my subscribers leave. It´s fun to see them increase, but it´s never fun to see them decrease. If I’m not careful, I am really emotionally affected by these events. I keep asking myself, “What made them leave?”

What to do? I figure that it’s best to apply sportsmanship in this business, and not to take it too personally. Some people are happy to join your list but sometimes, for some reasons, they no longer need your service, so they have to go. It’s not always all about you so there’s no need to mourn for it.

However, if the percentage of decline is quite big, it makes me re-evaluate my site. Am I posting enough quality content in a day? Which content items are sending me most of the traffic and why do they perform better? What do my readers want to learn from me? And so on.

The bottom line: Don’t take discouragement too personally, and don’t let it affect you negatively. Use it to re-evaluate and improve your site.

Burnout is one of the most common enemies of full-time bloggers. There’s just too much to do! You become overwhelmed if you try to do everything at once. Not good! When you suffer from burnout, you no longer feel happy doing what you love. How can you avoid it?

I created a “To-do” list for my website and I order the items according to priorities and timeframes. I learned to set a target each day, each week, and each month. For example, guest posting here at ProBlogger is my “To-do” task this week, and I had to set time to write this post, inserting it in my everyday schedule. The “must-do” tasks are done right away, while those in the long-term list are done little by little each day.

If I don’t escape burnout and it strikes me, I find ways to unwind. For example, I focus my energy right now on my fashion blog. At times when sitting at my desk and seeing HTML makes me feel ill, I grab my camera, dress up, leave the house and do outfit pictorials. This allows me to take some fresh air and re-charge my energy. If I’m not into dressing up, I take my fashion magazines and do some reading instead.

The bottom line: create a “To-do“ list and learn to prioritize your tasks. If burnout strikes, find ways to refresh your mind. Do something that makes you happy other than blogging.

I have twice survived the horror of hacking and viruses—and I didn’t escape without trauma. There was one day when my then-fianc? (now husband) made a long-distance call from Germany to infrom me that something was wrong with my site. It didn’t display properly on his monitor, everything was in disarray, and there were some scripts that would flash on the screen before my messy website loaded. To my horror, my friends confirmed via Facebook that, indeed, they couldn’t access my website. But it was displaying all right in my monitor. No matter how I tried, it really worked just fine in my computer. I’d been hacked!

I immediately did a complete malware scan and started to troubleshoot. I got plenty of “Cannot modify header information” messages, which I was completely unprepared for. I was crying my eyes out because the solutions that I googled didn´t work. I spent two days hunting down the illegal scripts before I finally found their file location.

The next attack was through my Feedburner service, which was corrupted by a virus so that nobody could access it. This time, I spent a day troubleshooting before I was able to again locate and remove the illegal scripts.

Then one morning I received an email from my webserver host informing me that they did a cleanup of my FileZilla because they found some suspicious activities. They also informed me that they’re available 24 hours if I need help and that I could access them via chat.

How come I didn´t know that? Those days of troubleshooting could have been reduced to hours if I only used some help! Now I know better.

The bottom line: Full-time blogging isn’t just about writing, publishing, promoting and designing layouts; it’s also about troubleshooting. Therefore, be prepared to roll up your sleeves when virus attacks or other technical errors arise, but be certain to make use of the tools and help that are at your disposal.

Commenting and visiting other blogs in your niche is one way of getting social and promoting your site. As you do it, you encounter blogs that are already big, with a wide following. It’s easy to get inspired and jealous at the same time. You tend to compare yourself and your site to theirs. However, remember that even big brands took time to bring their website to where it is now. Tell yourself that you, too, someday will become as big as them. Think big, get inspired, and work hard.

The bottom line: Learn from the leaders in your niche, and be inspired, but never compare yourself to them. Take your time.

Sitting in your own home office, alone, for the whole day is never easy. Much harder is to stay focused and committed to blogging all the time. It’s easy to miss the work community that you once had—the lunches with your office mates and the after-work shopping at the end of the month. You turned your back to those parts of life because you opted to carve your own territory on the Internet. That, by itself, is an achievement. Not everyone can do it, so reward yourself for that.

Also, before you close your laptop each day, think of both the little and big accomplishments you’ve made for the day and be thankful. Congratulate yourself. It helps in maintaining your faith.

The bottom line: It’s difficult to quantify how much you’ve done for the day. But your mind and self-esteem need to be fed every day. By appreciating yourself for all the little achievements you’ve made on your site, you are helping to maintain your drive.

Once you’ve survived the first three months, you have a better grip of full-time blogging and you know better how to set and follow a schedule. You’re more equipped to overcome discouragements as you blog your way to success.

How did you survive the first three months of full-time blogging? What stumbling blocks did you meet and how did you overcome them? What are your techniques for staying focused on achieving your goals?

Glee Josko teaches women how to be creative and joyful fashionistas through her blog, Creative Fashion. She also explores the ways to achieve happiness in extra-challenging marriages such as intercultural marriage at Offbeat Marriage.

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Six things I learned in my first six months as a Problogger

This is a Guest Post by John Saddington of TentBlogger.

Like many professional bloggers, my journey started years ago, as I dabbled in blogging for myself and for my friends. I’m not exactly sure when it happened, but it did—the date doesn’t matter much here. And, to be completely honest, I had really no idea of what I was doing at the time.

Nearly a decade later, I jumped into the deep end, going pro as a full time blogger. I decided that I’d try my hand as a professional blogger, “blogging for fun and for profit,” and seeing where it would take me.

So far it’s been everything that I had expected, but even moreso, it’s been extremely eye-opening, humbling, and down-right scary at times. I finally had the time to actually review that first half-year and here’s what I came up with. My hope is that I can pass these learnings on to you so that you can jump to that stage in your blogging (if you wish). Hopefully, you’ll be even more prepared for what lies ahead!

Making the jump from a full-time job into professional blogging took a lot of patience, calculation, and financial management. Heck, I had mouths to feed (I already had one daughter, and a second on the way!) and I couldn’t afford to make a serious capital error on my finances. In other words, it just had to work and I had to stay ‘in the black’ as best as I could.

I was diligent, I was safe, and I was conservative as much as the next fiscally responsible person—and although I’d never call myself a professional financial accountant, I was confident in my ability to make the ends meet. But the importance of being on top of my finances kicked up a serious notch the moment my blogs became the number one source of income.

What I wish I’d done was to take into account every single penny that was going in and going out from the blog; yes, to that degree—pennies.

You see, I had general (and accurate) estimations of my earnings but without the exact penny figures I couldn’t completely optimize my earnings in the specific areas that needed to be optimized (like affiliate marketing, direct sales, etc).

I encourage you to start counting those pennies today, even if it is just pennies—you’ll be even more ready to make the jump when you do.

Make a list of your current costs, both from a week and month-to-month perspective. Start documenting today so that you’re aware of what’s coming in and what’s coming out.Share your list of expenses with those that know you best. Having accountability is one of your greatest weapons against over-spending.Always wait before purchasing—make a mental note and goal to never spend any money the same day that you feel like you need something.Share your list publicly! Your blog readers might actually enjoy walking with you through this neat part of your blogging journey.Set times for your to conduct monthly and quarterly reviews. You’ll find these times and activities very fascinating as you dive deep into your fiscal planning for your blog. You might even come away having learned some significant new lessons.

I love the applications that I use for my work, and most of them have been paid applications. The challenge of being in the freelance world—and especially the problogging world—is that there are always newer and shinier programs out there that are constantly enticing me. Heck, some claim to make me money instantly so why not, right?

Wrong. My approach quickly changed to finding open-source or free alternatives to paid apps. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with paying for your apps, but every single dollar counts—especially in the beginning, as you work your way to a profitable blog. You need to save where you can save, and do it over and over again.

Take the time to find the right free apps. Develop a thick skin for those moments when you see advertisements for apps that say they’ll help your blogging more if you just buy them today (especially if it’s a “limited time only” offer). You can go pro without paying a dime—in fact, why not challenge yourself to do just that?

Always do you your research. Find the best sites and blogs that cover open source apps and freeware. You can’t go wrong with being thoroughly equipped to make the right spending choices.Ask your network for solutions. Facebook and Twitter can provide valuable information and resources that may just end up saving you significant time and money.Blog about your apps and the way that you use them! I’ve found this to be not only a neat exercise, but also a great time for the commenters and community to share their thoughts on both use and other perhaps better alternatives.Think beyond apps: consider all the things you need to function properly as a blogger. For example, what about free wifi at your local hotspot and coffee shop? I know of many bloggers who go to the extreme in their attempts at saving, and they did it. Sure, they can afford wifi at home, but they still jump over to the free wireless often!This goes with the previous section on counting pennies but it’s worth mentioning again: never purchase on emotion or gut reaction to a felt need. Wait a few hours (days perhaps), ask a few people, and make the wisest decision you can. Copyright AVAVA - Fotolia.com

The first six months have been riddled with fear, anxiety, doubt, and depression—pretty sweet, right? It’s exactly what you want to hear from a professional blogger! One can get seriously beat up on that emotional rollercoaster ride!

The thing is that these are normal emotions for anyone who has experienced a job change. I just didn’t expect that they’d come on as strong in a job that I had been wanting to dive into for so long. It’s like getting to your dream job and realizing that it’s not like your dream at all—well, it’s still a “dream” job but it’s different, right?

There is no perfect job, and if you’re looking for it, then don’t be surprised when the kryptonite called reality arrives and you realize that you must still manage the stress and pressure of providing for yourself and your family. But it’s still worth it.

There’s no coaching or preparation that I can give you for making a jump into professional blogging but I can tell you that it will be emotional and that’s okay.

Prepare today for the ups and downs of changing your job, and adopting a lifestyle that’s entirely different than the one that you had previously. Simply being aware of this transition can make you all the more prepared.Get your personal network in order so as to provide support during the transition. Broadcast and share where you’re headed and get people involved. It’s much more fun that way too!Don’t be afraid to ask for help. This is one of the healthiest emotional places to be: where you’re confident of your continued path, but humble enough to know that you’re not the first (nor the last) to travel that road and you might need some help here and there.Be completely okay with the expression of that emotion. I didn’t learn until much later in life that it was better to be completely honest with my emotions than to hide them, especially during tough life changes.Set up a schedule and a time to rejoice. Your career choices are exciting, but often we forget to simply celebrate and enjoy the ride, so to speak.

Since I started my blogging as a hobby I didn’t really care about where I was when I wrote anything—the fact that I managed to get in front of the computer at all seemed like a feat, and there was no rhyme nor reason to my work environment or circumstance. This worked just fine.

As I moved closer to writing seriously, I still didn’t have the full appreciation for my environment: I was writing during my lunch breaks, at the kitchen table after a late-night meal, or early in the morning before the coffee finished brewing. I blogged where I was because that’s where I was when I had the free time to do so. Sure, I tried to find those “optimal” writing environments that I felt helped me stay productive effectively, but it was more of luxury than a necessity. I just wanted to write and I’d write anywhere.

Now, as a professional blogger, this is what I do and my environment is under my control—and it’s never been more important that I craft the right environment for optimal thinking, drafting, and publishing. I’m even sharing this experience publicly as I craft the perfect professional blogging office with my community.

The challenge, though, is that I wasn’t taking notes for all those years as I spent time in the many different places where I wrote. I wish that I’d been more aware of the places, circumstances, environments, and all of the related paraphernalia that came with those environments, so that I could more easily create that perfect problogging office today.

I’d encourage you to start taking notes today if you’re planning to head in the direction of professional blogging. Then, when you do get there, you’ll know exactly what you need to create that perfect writing environment.

Obviously you’ll want to start documenting all that appears to help you be your most productive. Include the elements of the space, the artifacts, the tools, and anything else that just seems to “work.”Pay particularly close attention not only to the “where,” but also to the “who” in your environment—does a bunch of strangers help you feel motivated to write? Or are you always with people that you know intimately? This could be a critical part of your environment!Don’t just make a list of elements—begin to categorize and price them. This is exciting because it can give you an opportunity to set goals for yourself around when you’ll purchase them, and when you’ll get to use them.Share your ideas about your ideal work environment with your blog community and ask for their feedback, as well as their thoughts on particular environments and tools within those environments. They might even show you alternatives that can save you money. That’s a win-win in my book!Allow yourself to dream a little. There’s no perfect place for you to write until you get there and so a lot of the environment creation process will take place in your head. Just don’t let your head stay too close to the ground. without imagination, you won’t be able to craft the optimal environment.

The well-known adage we hear from many gurus is that you should seek to work smarter, not harder. And I believe that is generally true … except that it’s often not, especially in the space of the professional blogger.

I’ve learned that I must do both, at the exact same time, at about the same pace, and with extreme prejudice. There are elements of writing full-time that require you to work a lot harder than you’ve ever worked previously when you were blogging as a side project or hobby. And you need to blog at the exact same time you’re developing new processes and workflows that allow you to work smarter as well.

For example, I’m not working fewer hours than I did before. I work about the same (if not more). But I’m also working smarter during those times, churning out blog posts while developing strategy for marketing, awareness, and social engagements that’ll increase traffic. I’m also bucketing time for building a business around the blog as well as doing the administrative tasks that are required of any small business owner.

If you make the jump to being a problogger don’t expect to sip pina coladas on a beach in Tahiti working two hours a day with your remote 4G external wifi connection. No, your head is down (in your awesome work environment) making as much progress as you possibly can. After all, there’s no guarantee that your community is coming back to your blog tomorrow.

Start documenting your workflows so you can get to a place of good writing rhythm. Catalog them and spend time refining them.Invest in your existing toolkit, and master those tools. Even if you know certain applications well, I bet you could know them better if you spent the time learning such things as shortcut keys and optimal work patterns, for example.Act like you’re a problogger today, creating the exceptional content that your community deserves, and you’ll find the change of pace less disruptive.Become better at scheduling your time and batching your efforts. This is one of the most critical skills that I’ve learned: I had to become even better at time management and waste as little of it on things that wouldn’t bring value to my work.Remember that rest is a vital part of working “smarter,” and that you’ll need this every single day. Rest well and your work will be the best that it can be! Learn to do this today so that when you get to be a problogger, you’ll find rest just as natural as, well, sleeping!

As I ramped up into full-time blogging as a career, I day-dreamed about what it would look like, what it would feel like, and how I’d wake up every morning with a feeling of intense personal satisfaction knowing that I’ve “done it.” It was all about me. What I quickly realized is that professional blogging is less about myself and more about the community that helped you get to this point.

And yes, we all know that already but it becomes even more apparent when you realize that your financial stability and generation depends on those that believe in what you write and what you have to say as important (or more important) than the many other voices out there. This truth brings humility and grace at the right time and reminds you that your blog is nothing more than a collection of passionate people that are headed in the same direction.

Learn to appreciate your community even more today than you did yesterday. What this means is going to be different for each blogger!Dedicate time to engaging with your community. Most people don’t have a schedule around their community engagement and they end up doing it throughout the entire day. That ends up wasting a lot of time when you can learn to use a workflow and batch your efforts.Look into other ways to engage with your community, such as Facebook and Twitter. Even starting an email newsletter might be one way to reach a particular part of your community that you don’t typically engage with.Be explicit and thank them continually. Do this today and they’ll be with you tomorrow.Have fun with them—life’s better that way, and your blog will be better for it as well.

Whether you’re a problogger, a blogging stalwart, a hobby blogger, or a newbie, you’ve probably learned a few lessons of your own. Share them with us in the comments.

Written exclusive for ProBlogger.net by John Saddington. He is a Professional Blogger who loves sharing his blogging tips, tricks, tools, and practical teaching covering SEO, WordPress and making money through your blog! You can follow him on Twitter too: @TentBlogger.

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