Blogging as a Career

If you’re anything like 99% of my family and friends, you’ve seen full-time blogger over and over and over again, and probably are curious if 1) it’s real and 2) what that even means. Are people really reading blogs these days? How are people making enough money to support themselves with blogs? Is this a long-lasting career option?

As someone that has worked as a Pinterest manager for bloggers for the last 7+ years… I can tell you blogging as a career is not just real, it’s profitable, sustainable and possible! Let’s diving into how to do it, and where Pinterest comes in for monetizing your blog.

What does it mean to be a full-time blogger?

Full-time bloggers are either media platforms or personal brands or some fun combo of both. They make their entire income by monetizing their content, selling their own products and/or partnering with brands who hire them to advertise their products. They can replace their entire income with these different revenue streams, and they have a website that likely gets 50K+ website visitors/month (this is not a hard and fast rule, just a common thing I have seen).

Differences between a blogger and a content creator

For some reason, the term “blogger” can get a bad wrap. People like to refer to themselves as “full-time content creators” instead, which can be confusing. In my opinion, all bloggers are content creators, but not all content creators are bloggers.

Bloggers always have a home base website that they create consistent blogs and content on. They prioritize long-form content and monetize their website (display ads, affiliate links, sponsored blog posts, digital products, etc.).

Content creators often prioritize social media and make more short-form content. While they also monetize with affiliate links, often sponsored social media posts (i.e. a brand paying them to make an Instagram reel) is how the majority of their income is made. They direct people to become social followers first and then send them to affiliate platforms, like LTK or their Amazon shop second.

Building and Growing Your Personal Brand

Nowadays, being a media site with even the highest quality content is not enough. People want to know, like and trust who they are buying from. That is why many bloggers are also personal brands. They showcase their personality, their interests, their aesthetic, their ethos in order to connect with their audience. The audience will follow on social, subscribe to their e-mail list and come back to each post because they’re genuinely interest in the person.

Importance of personal branding for bloggers

Building a personal brand is essential for most bloggers nowadays. This allows people to become much more invested in a blogger’s content and want to keep coming back for more. It also helps bloggers stand out in a sea of information.

How to Monetize Your Blog

There are various way to monetize your blog, but essentially you can either promote other people’s products, promote your own products or services OR do a combination of both. I have seen bloggers become the most successful when they diversify their revenue streams rather than rely on just one source of income. That helps bloggers stabilize their income rather than having huge feast or famine periods.

Income streams for bloggers

• display ads on their website (often through joining ad networks like Mediavine or Raptive)
• sponsored blog posts or social media (TikTok, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube) posts
• making commission from sharing affiliate links on their blog posts, social media posts or within affiliate platforms themselves (Amazon, ShopStyle, ShopMy, LTK are some of the bigger lifestyle affiliate platforms)
• selling your own digital or physical products (e-books, templates, guides, digital planners, etc.)
• selling your own services (virtual fashion styling, interior design recommendations, etc.)
• speaking engagements aka people are so interested in your unique take and expertise, they hire you to share more about it with your audience

Leveraging Pinterest to Boost Your Blogging Career

Because blogging as a career entails getting people to your long form content, it’s extremely important for bloggers to focus on how they get people to their content in the first place. You can have a stunning website with high-quality content and 0 people reading your content which will not help you go full-time.

When it comes to driving traffic to your blog, the main two traffic drivers for lifestyle bloggers are Google and Pinterest. Google is fairly obvious, we go to Google to get answers or read content about a topic we’re interested in and Google serves up the most relevant content to our query. Much of the content Google will show first are blog posts, because brands and bloggers are using SEO/ Search Engine Optimization to get their content to rank higher to be seen by more of their ideal readers.

Pinterest, on the other hand, is often misunderstood and underutilized. Bloggers can use Pinterest the same way these utilize Google for equal or even better results as a traffic driver.

Pinterest as a visual search engine

Pinterest is more akin to Google than Instagram. I say that at least 1 billion times a week, but it’s always important to revisit. Pinterest is top of funnel for bloggers meaning it’s the way people find their blogs. This trickles down to every other goal they have.

People go to Pinterest to search for ideas, tips, inspiration, things to buy, tutorials, etc. When they search your niche, you want your content to come up as the solution to that search. The higher your content ranks in Pinterest, the more likely people are to click through your Pin to your website. Then, you have these Pinners on your turf and can convert from there. They’ll see your valuable content and decide whether they want more from you. From there, they’d hop on your e-mail list, follow you on social, purchase a low ticket offer, etc.

Pinterest sends people searching for exactly what you already create content on from the platform to your site.

Start driving blog traffic using Pinterest early on

Once you understand how Pinterest can work as a traffic driver, it’s smart to get started utilizing it early. Like Google, Pinterest takes time to categorize and index your content. It needs to gauge what content you create and who it should put it in front of. The sooner you get started, even if it’s messy, the more traffic you will get from Pinterest later on. As you perfect your Pinterest strategy and grow your blogging business, your Pinterest results will grow with it.

I have beginner Pinterest tips for bloggers (including how to set up your profile) in my Bare Pinimum e-book. This weekly Pinterest checklist for bloggers is a great place to start too. Check it out as your get started!

Transitioning to a Full-Time Blogging Career

If you’re looking into getting started blogging, I would recommend you do a few things:

1. Dive into some of our great resources for bloggers (including blogging communities, educators and service providers)
2. Start using Pinterest to drive traffic to your blog as early as possible
3. Start learning how to SEO optimize your blog posts as early as possible
4. Start collecting e-mails on your blog as early as possible

People become bloggers every day and turn into full-time bloggers without huge social media followings. It’s SO possible if you’re just strategic and smart about diversifying your revenue streams and marketing platforms. You CAN do it, and I’m here to help… especially with the Pinterest marketing and Pinterest education side of things.