Turning Your Blog Into More Than A Hobby – Top 3 Tips

To continue our quest to share knowledge on the how to start a blog topic, I am today sharing three tips on where to start – to take a blog, from a hobby project to a potential income source.

How exciting wouldn’t it be to end 2020 or start 2021 with a feeling of your decor blog actually being your full-time or even part-time job(!). (I am excited with you).

How can we make this happen?

You’ve probably heard about bloggers monetising their sites and heard how it’s possible to make a liveable income from a blog, but you might not be sure where to first focus, especially within the home decor and interior design niche.

The good news is that turning your blog into more than a hobby doesn’t have to be scary or daunting – it will take time, effort, and hard work but it is an achievable goal. 

To help you out, I have collected 3 basic tips on where to focus, to get your site monetised in 2020! 

1. Focus on growth

First and foremost, if you want to make a success out of your blog you need to focus on growth. In order to be successful, you don’t have to have millions of followers on social media, but you do need to have a following of some sort.

So growing your following and building a community around your blog is important. That being said, while having a good audience reach is important, it is also crucial to have good engagement.

A blog with a lower social following that gets better engagement than a site with a larger social following will be more appealing to PRs and outreach specialists, so make sure to build engagement. 

2. Create a media kit

When it comes to working with brands, most brands will request a media kit from you. A media kit is like a CV for your blog – it should have a brief bio, an about you section, and it should list your social media statistics, your blog’s domain authority, and anything else that is relevant.

—— Check out this free Canva template from The side blogger.

Once you start working with brands and PRs, you could opt to add the logos of the brands that you have worked with onto your blog’s media kit so that it’s clear who you have previously worked with. 

3. Connect with PRs

A great way to source opportunities for your blog is by connecting with PR specialists. If you want to have the opportunity to work with brands on sponsored posts and social media content, then you need to start connecting with PR specialists.

Go online and search for PR companies that have clients in your blog’s niche, such as beauty for instance, and then send out introductory emails to them, introducing yourself and your blog – don’t forget to attach a copy of your media kit.

A useful tip for when you’re working with brands and need to communicate is to invest in a business address instead of using your home address – this will make you and your site seem more established. 

There you have it – my top 3 tips on where you should focus your efforts when starting your blog within this niche.

Stay tuned for more in depth advice on this topic coming soon.