Blogging refers to writing, photography, and other self-published online creative works. Blogging originally served as a platform for people to keep diaries in the form of posts, but it has subsequently been incorporated into the websites of several businesses. Businesses actively blog almost daily to keep their user up to date with the latest trends or information in the genre. This will be a weekly series on my blogging journey to share the journey with the rest. To start this blog, I will be writing on things to know when starting a blogging business in Singapore.
My Business in Blogging
I have been blogging for over 10 years now. During my early days, I took blogging as a hobby because I viewed it as a hobby and didn’t look into making it into a business to grow a side income. The content I posted was on fishing, I shared my tips and tricks in fishing in different places in Singapore. The early blogs that I posted back when I was 15 years old ended up blowing up providing me steady traffic of 200 page views on just 1 blog. In totality, I was getting a consistent 5,000 monthly viewed traffic to my blog. Yes even though Google Adsense would only give around $70 to $100 per month. It was an interesting side hustle income for a kid!
Looking at my Blogger Stats, it showed a large growth in my blog only after 3 years into it. The stat brought in consistent traffic for up to 4 years before slowing down. This was due to my loss of interest and commitment to fishing. Therefore, I wasn’t posting content anymore. Looking back, I never regretted trying out blogging and learning all about it.
What my Blogging Business has Grown
Moving forward to 10 years later, using my skills as a blogger, I created HustleVentureSG. At an early age, I learned the importance of money and decided that I wanted to create a finance channel dedicated to sharing personal finance tips and helping others grow awareness of the importance of having multiple sources of income. Working hard, I build multiple sources of income such as Investment, options trading, and property management. With my determination to retire early, I was able to make over $100,000 at 24 years old.
What I would like to Provide to the Table
Even though I may have stopped blogging for a period of time. I had witnessed the change that has happened during the time blogging has changed. In the past, blogging was not viewed as a way to make a high income. However right now, bloggers these days are able to make full-time income thanks to blogging. That is because bloggers have multiple sources of income, which mostly consist of ad revenue, affiliate link product, or endorsement.
Working through all that, I will be giving a step-by-step monthly content update on the side hustle’s blogging category. As of July 2022, HustleVentureSG is 4 months old and has over 50 content with an average word count of over 1,200 words. I hope that by sharing my content weekly on the blog, you are able to see the growth of the business and how you can get started in it as well.
How to Start a Blogging Business
Before you start blogging, think about what kind of niche are you looking for before starting. A niche is a specialty for your business to focus on so that other businesses will know what kind of business your company is able to provide.
Step 1: Creating a Blogging Site
Starting a blogging business is relatively easy in the 21st century. To start off with, you will need a web domain, the most recommended place to get a domain name is from BlueHost. Once you have purchased your domain name to be able to use it, it is time to download a website builder to blog. There are multiple platforms for you to start your blogging website. However, most of them require a lot of upfront work or are not compatible with a number of program tools. Therefore, I highly recommend WordPress to help you build a beautiful and clean website to start blogging.
Step 2: Create Content
Now that you have created a website for yourself to blog, the next step is creating interactive content. At this stage of blogging, do not be worried about bad grammar or phrasing as not much viewership will be shown. The important part of this stage is the aim to provide top-quality content to individuals who may be interested in your niche. Aim to be consistent and post frequently (the best case scenario is posting daily), this will show Google Analytics that your website is active and Google will be more willing to share your content.
An important note is to never use content or pictures from another creator’s work. This might result in a pointless lawsuit. Therefore, it is crucial that you, as a blogger, deliver fresh, high-quality material.
As shown in the charts above, the content will take 8 to 12 months before being reviewed by Google. So take the time to let your content age until another year before deciding to revise it.
Step 3: Constantly Revise the Website to make it look Neat
Once you have created at least 5 content for the website, it is time to install a theme for the website. As mentioned, having WordPress saves you the trouble of designing one yourself. Choose a theme that suits your niche, whether it is about lifestyle, finance, or entertainment.
Stay Consistent
Google takes website pages update as an important metric to rank. To grow large traffic to your blog, staying consistent with your blogging post is crucial for your website. During this stage, being burnt out from blogging is real. That is why starting a business in Singapore is tough. With almost 90% of businesses fail within the first 5 years. Therefore, you will need to learn to set realistic goals and take your time to build organic traffic to the website.
Now that you know how to start, what’s next?
If you have read all the way to the bottom, great! In our next blog, I will be sharing Why Bloggers need to be a Master of Multiple Traits.
