Blogging is one of the most popular activities in today’s digital marketplace, as more and more people begin to realize the benefits involved. Blogging is presented as being “everyone’s dream” because it involves independence, flexibility, and the promise of juicy financial rewards. Nevertheless, people tend to focus on the pros, which is not necessarily a bad thing. It becomes bad when the disadvantages of blogging are neglected until they make their way into our journeys. Starting a blog without considering all the consequences involved is risky, and it could sabotage your plans for the future. Why do people become bloggers? That’s exactly what we’re discussing today. In today’s post, I’m presenting the PROs and CONs of professional blogging.

PROs

1. Starting a Blog is Easy and Quick

Nowadays, there are so many content management platforms (Wordpress, Joomla, Blogger) that turn the job of making a blog into an effortless and interactive activity. There are just a few things you need to know and have before starting a blog: domain, hosting, a niche, an internet connection, and that’s it! You can start a blog in ten minutes after studying the beginning steps, so that’s a great pro considering that most side hustles require a bigger investment in terms of time, energy, and money.

2. A Blog Can Turn into a Prosperous Business

Depending on your professional standards and goals, you can turn your blog into a prosperous business. A blog is a place that allows you to share important information with the world. You’re able to give value and receive value in exchange. If you’re blogging about a topic that you’re passionate about, work will turn into a play, and you’ll be able to sustain yourself financially by doing something that helps both you and your customers.

3. Blogging Helps You Attract More Traffic and Sales

If you already own a website for your business and you’re considering starting a blog now, you should go ahead because the benefits are clearly outweighing the disadvantages. A blog is a common ground between you and your customers. It is the spot where you are able to create and nurture their trust, the place where you’re able to share educational information, and the place that allows you to shape your brand’s personality. Besides, it’s going to help you gain better rankings in the search engines, and it’ll drive a lot of social media engagement! So, blogging brings additional traffic, an aspect that ultimately leads to more conversions and sales. Why do you think all the professional websites are blogging right now? The answer is quite obvious!

4. You Are Able to Share Your Knowledge with the World

Being able to share your unique perspective with the world is one of the benefits that’ll lead to many other advantages. Confidence, a sense of purpose, and true fulfillment are just some of the pros of being able to freely express yourself, your knowledge, and values. Sooner or later, you’ll realize that you’ve become a teacher that helps a lot of people evolve, satisfy needs, or solve problems.

5. Professional Blogging Allows for a Flexible Schedule

A flexible schedule is every 9 to 5 worker’s dream. Being able to wake up whenever you want, working on your own terms, and not being physically dependent on a place are some great benefits that make people seriously consider a blogging career. Indeed, working for nobody else but yourself is a satisfying job that can keep you self-motivated, productive, and fulfilled. However, the downsides are that nothing is certain in terms of time spent working or money earned, and that you’re responsible for your entire organization and work productivity.

6. Blogging Helps You Measure Your Performance and Productivity

As a professional blogger, you’ll be surrounded by competition. The first competition you have is with yourself. As you keep tracking your progress and measuring your performance, you’ll soon realize that you’re better than you’ve thought. By taking consistent action, you’re gaining momentum and you’re able to create even more results with lesser effort. Observing how you grow each day is an empowering activity that should keep you growing as an individual and as a professional.

7. A Blog Can Help You Win Your Financial Freedom

Let’s not forget about the main reason why so many individuals consider professional blogging: financial freedom, or financial independence. That is indeed the most common goal that all people seek, especially bloggers. Your blog can generate a lot of revenues. However, before it does, you’ll need to understand how the marketplace works, gather a lot of intelligence about your target audience, develop an irresistible offer, and create an effective sales funnel. That is not something you do overnight. Financial freedom is not easy to attain, so start working harder and smarter until you’re satisfied with your results! Suggested: What are the benefits of blogging?

CONs

1. Turning a Blog into a Massive Success Demands True Effort

While starting a blog is an effortless task, turning that blog into a massive success is harder than it looks like. Most bloggers struggle with their promotion techniques, hoping for more traffic and improved conversions. Unfortunately, many bloggers have false expectations about their blog’s success. They’re after the benefits, though they’re not willing to pay the price. Effective blogging requires knowledge, skills, commitment, and a lot of consistency. Simply put, it demands true effort.

2. A Blog Must Be Updated Consistently

A blog that doesn’t update its pages frequently is a dead blog. As you grow your audience of followers, people will start having expectations that need to be met. It’s not just your followers who require your consistency. If you want to rank in Google or in any other search engine, you must create and deliver unique content on a consistent basis.

3. Running a Blog is Not Always Cheap

If you’re not a professional writer, you should expect your blogging expenses to be quite significant. If you possess great writing skills, you’re able to “pay” with your time. If you don’t, outsourcing is the most reliable option of getting your blog started. “When it comes to hiring other services, you should pay close attention to their reputation. Check for external reviews and seek writers that truly know what they’re doing. There’s nothing worse than allocating an outsourcing budget (regardless of its size) only to receive average or mediocre results.” – Mark Fox, CEO at BestEssayTips. The consequences of distributing poor quality content are almost destructive. As your blog readers have expectations and request real value for their attention, you’re likely to disappoint them and drive them away from your business.

4. Unexpected Problems Will Come

Life is unpredictable. There are a lot of unwanted situations that might suddenly come into your path, so you’ll lose time, money, and energy trying to solve those problems. When it comes to blogging, things work exactly the same. Even though you might have planned your to-do lists and visualized the accomplishment of certain objectives, issues that you have never ever considered might just pop up. For example, technical difficulties are some of the most common problems that new bloggers face. Another problem would be the low conversion rate (realizing that your traffic doesn’t turn into subscribers or buyers). And another issue would be irresponsible employees or freelancers – you might be counting on something and they let you down. When faced with these issues, it’s best to assume full responsibility. Did the freelancer fail? It was your mistake hiring him in the first place. Did something go wrong with your website? You surely made a small mistake that happened to degenerate. Take responsibility and take quick action to remediate things!

5. You’ll Need to Be Organized and Self-Disciplined

The promise of freedom and true flexibility is almost a dream for some people. They start to blog because the benefits are great, and everything goes well for a few days, weeks, or months. However, since bloggers don’t answer to anyone, the consistency of the work and time management might suffer. For example, waking up at 10 AM every morning for one week is just enough for you to develop a habit. If the workflow gets bigger, you’ll need to wake up earlier and that might represent a problem. The frustration of not being able to wake up earlier (just like you used to) will lead to negative thoughts, which in turn will lead to procrastination, laziness, or frustration. As a blogger, it is extremely easy to get caught in negative cycles comprised of negative habits and disempowering thinking. When you get stuck as a single professional, you’ll have to put up a lot of effort to get back in shape!

6. You’ll Spend a Lot of Time Alone

There’s a difference between loneliness and solitude. Loneliness has more of a negative connotation and involves generally negative feelings. Solitude, on the other hand, is the state or situation of being alone and in peace. If you can make the difference and focus on solitude instead of loneliness, you’ll improve your work and life. However, if you can’t accept silence, you’re likely to have a rough time dealing with both your blog and your emotions.

7. Blogging Involves a Lot of Skills

Blogging involves a lot of skills that you might not have. That’s not necessarily a problem, though it is a disadvantage. To be successful in your niche, you’ll need to be better than your competitors. That means…more knowledge, skills, and action. Besides, your experience and work ethics also matter. Simply put, if you want to succeed in this extremely competitive environment, you need to step up your game!

Takeaways

If you’re serious about blogging, you need to ensure that the PROs outweigh the CONs. This is the only way to start your journey on the right foot, and the only way to be certain that what you’ll be doing will satisfy you completely. Of course, you never know until you start, so if you’re in for good, start testing the waters immediately!