Advantages And Disadvantages Of Blogging As A Career

There is this common belief that blogging is easy and that successful bloggers never have to struggle. Nothing is further from the truth. And in this post, I will tell you all the advantages and disadvantages of blogging as a job.

Whether you are not into blogging and you are curious to know, or you want to pursue a blogging career, you may find this post useful.

If you think that blogging is all fun and joy, think again. There are many downsides to blogging that anyone who wants to become a professional blogger should know about.

I don’t want to discourage you from following your dream to become a successful blogger, by all means.

I just would like to warn you about the pros and cons of blogging so that if you go for it, you know what’s waiting ahead of you.

Once you know the real truth about blogging then you can decide whether you want to go for it or change your career path.

Don’t get me wrong I love blogging and the more complex it gets the more I get excited, but it brings a lot of frustration as well.

When I started blogging, I had no idea of whether I wanted to pursue blogging as a career or not. I just loved writing and sharing my experiences.

In fact, if I was more determined and had a clear mind on what I wanted to do with my life my path to blogging as a profession would have been much easier.

I talk about it in my article on the 8 blogging mistakes that you should avoid if you want to pursue blogging as a career.

In this post, I just stick to the advantages and disadvantages of blogging. So let’s start from the positive

The advantages of blogging

Obviously, since blogging has become my profession, I wouldn’t be very smart if the advantages were fewer than the disadvantages. I have always chosen jobs that I loved, and when the love ended, I moved on. The same is true for blogging. So let me tell you what I consider the blogging advantages.

Just a quick note. You will see that the blogging disadvantages list is longer than the advantages one, but it’s still a price that I am willing and happy to pay to enjoy all the positive aspects that are my life priorities.

You are your own boss

I would have never thought I could have ever reached this position in life, honestly. But now that I am here, I understand what it means to be your own boss and the responsibility you have towards yourself and your employees.

And I love it. It can be scary if you are not used to it. But it’s also rewarding and somewhat relieving.

First of all, because you don’t have to wait for anyone to give you a path on your shoulder if you are reaching a result, second of all because you get the anxiety to do things right out of the way and you work better. Or at least that’s how it is for me.

I don’t have to wait for somebody to tell me how good I am, or when I can go on a vacation, or if I can get a raise. It’s all on me. Sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn’t.

But it’s only my own responsibility and it’s a wonderful thrilling feeling.

And it is also when I can offer my freelance writers a raise because they did a great job, and because I can afford it. I get to be the cool boss now. 🙂

You learn a lot

If you want to succeed as a blogger you must constantly learn about many blogging-related topics, from SEO (most important) to backlinking, affiliate and content marketing, social media, and much more. It’s a never-ending process and it’s beautiful.

If you think that blogging is about writing alone, you are completely wrong.

It’s a whole world and it’s super interesting to learn and it’s never boring. It keeps you on your toes and keeps your mind in constant exercise.

This is one of my favorite parts of blogging.

You improve your writing skills

I am telling you a thing about me, now. I have always hated writing since I was in primary school. Writing essays was my nightmare. I never knew what to write and I felt miserable.

Also, my grades in English as a second language were not very good.

Well, now I am writing and editing for about 5 hours a day, in English, and I always have too much to say. And I love it. Besides, the more I write the more I feel I am improving my style and my grammar.

I know I am still a mediocre writer but good enough to share my thoughts and offer useful information to my readers which is what blogging is about.

Also, I love the fact that it’s an ongoing process and it can only get better.

You inspire people

Well, at least I hope I do. I write to help my readers find the answers they are looking for to plan their travels and inspire them to pursue their dream of nomadic life, and I sincerely hope I do. If I reach about 4000 readers per day, I guess I am doing something right.

You connect with your readers.

I love when my readers write to me either in the comments or via email to thank me for the useful information I shared, or to ask me questions. It’s a wonderful feeling to know that I am offering my help and it’s nice to stay in touch and exchange travel stories.

You can be anywhere you want

To work at your blogging business, you just need a laptop and a wifi connection. Therefore you can work from anywhere you want. It’s one of the jobs that allow you to become a digital nomad.

That’s why I discuss it in the digital nomad job options in my dedicated post.

Of course, not all bloggers are digital nomads, especially if you are a food blogger and you need good kitchen and photography equipment, for your recipes it may be inconvenient to be on the move all the time.

But generally speaking, if you take your laptop with you you can work from anywhere with blogging.

Flexibility

You can decide when to work and when to just relax or travel. The flexibility you have with a blogging business is priceless. You indeed have to work hard from the very beginning and be consistent if you want to make it work, just like any other business, online or offline.

But if you have an emergency, or if you decide that today you feel like going on a hike or you have a yoga class at 10 am, you can build your blogging schedule around it.

And that is for me the definition of freedom.

If you are committed to your success, it is not always possible, and you will see that you prefer to stay at your laptop rather than going to the yoga class. I do, at least.

But the idea that you can do it and it’s your own decision is what makes the difference.

The earning possibilities are limitless

This is really one of the best advantages of blogging or any business, actually. The sky is the limit and if you are good and you use your resources wisely, you can really earn A LOT of money. And that is motivating as well.

Want to become a blogger? check out the blogging courses I took and what I think about it. Here below is also my top blogging course!

The disadvantages of Blogging

Like any profession, it is not all rainbows and unicorns. There are also blogging disadvantages to consider. Here is what I think you may not like about blogging.

You have to be present and active on Social Media

I don’t like social media at all and if it was for me I would shut down all my accounts. And in fact, I am not very active.

But I still need to be visible. So yes, I cannot disappear if I want my blogs to reach out to as many people as possible.

You cannot write what you want

Unfortunately, this is a huge downside of Blogging, the one that I learned the hard way. I started to rank on google when I stopped writing what I wanted to and started writing what people want to read, according to Google.

That’s a fact. It may be annoying but you will learn. As Brandon Gaille mentioned in his great podcast, you can write what you want for 20% of your content. For the remaining 80%, write on a topic that you can rank for.

This is a compromise that I can accept. Especially now that I am seeing results and there are actually people reading posts that I didn’t really want to write about. It’s motivating.

Blogging as a profession is a long process and it never ends

Well, I talked about it the advantages of blogging as well, because learning is what keeps me motivated. However, sometimes it really gets overwhelming with so many things to do and new features to learn. You can never relax or let your guard down.

So much for passive income, right? You indeed make money while you sleep. I literally wake up in the morning and check what I have made the day before.

But you really need to work your butt off to get there and keep the level of earnings that you want or grow it.

It can get lonely

I have to be honest here, I was about to include it in the Advantages of blogging. Because I love to be alone and I never feel lonely. So the fact that I don’t have to report to people or having to get along with office colleagues, that I didn’t even choose, is a relief for me.

When I need to chat with my fellow bloggers and friends, there is always the internet. When I want to be around people, I look for a co-working space where I can work surrounded by like-minded people and, sometimes, even make new friends.

When I need a friend, I can always chat with my real friends wherever they are. So no, blogging is not lonely for me but I have included it in the blogging disadvantages because I know that it is for many bloggers.

It’s risky

Oh yes, just like any business, it can go bad. You can have a bad month in terms of earnings, technical issues with your site, or getting sick for a long time, and nobody is looking after your blog if you work alone like me.

But for that reason there is insurance, and there is always a solution to everything.

get a free quote here

You are not entirely in control of the results

Blogging strategies are no perfect science. I mentioned it when I talked about the best blogging courses. You have to do the work, but there is a lot of you and your way of learning and applying what you have learned at play. And so is for blogging results.

Even if you believe you are doing everything right, there is a chance you are missing something that will not help you succeed, or someone out there wrote a better piece than you with a bigger site and outranks you.

And your views and income suddenly face a free fall, and it’s hard to get back up.

The struggle is real. So as much as the sky is the limit and you can really earn a lot, you can also experience epic fails. It’s part of the game and nothing must be taken for granted.

You need to hustle

Oh well, ladies and gentlemen, you tell me which business doesn’t require hard work, commitment, and patience. Right? And so does blogging! That’s why as the old saying goes, find a job that you love and you will never have to work a day.

I love every bit of blogging, in case you haven’t noticed, yet, and whether I am hiking, laying on a beach, or working at my blog I feel the same happiness and excitement. Probably more when I work than ever.

I have taken many blogging courses to help me understand the things I didn’t understand and hired writers to help me produce content to get where I am now and where I want to be in the future. And that requires a lot of work, too. It’s part of the game. You just have to know it and decide if it is for you.

Coping with trolls

This is one of the most difficult parts of blogging for me. But also a good practice field. I have always been in constant need of external approval. I want to be liked by everybody I know. And that is practically impossible.

And if you are so exposed as you are as a blogger, with about 4000 people looking at your face and checking out what you are writing every day, it is normal to bump into somebody that doesn’t like you.

And unfortunately, some of them are rude and inconsiderate and they will offend you. That’s why they are called the “haters” in the internet space. They are people that have made their own goal in life to be nasty and bombard the web with negativity.

I haven’t seen many though, because I have antispam software that filters those comments out. But some of them manage to get to me. I learned how to ignore them and move on. Good school indeed.

What about impostor syndrome?

That was what was blocking me at the beginning of my blogging journey. I felt that I didn’t have the right to write and hit publish because of many different reasons. My English wasn’t good enough and so my writing skills or many others had already written plenty about the same topic.

And so forth. My inner voice was constantly saying ” who do you think you are?”

I eventually managed to let it go and realized that I was just sabotaging myself. Sometimes it’s coming back. And I have to deal with it again. It’s ok. It’s part of the process.

Not many people understand what you do?

It took me a while to accept that most of the people around me, even friends and ex-colleagues, but also family, don’t get what I am doing and don’t take me seriously. When I was talking to my family about my dreams and project to become a professional blogger, they thought that I was being delusional and set unachievable goals for myself.

It hurt, a lot. And the worse part was that it was getting in my way and made me doubt myself too.

That was the most difficult obstacle to overcome. Now that I am finally a full-time blogger, I’ve just stopped bothering and continue towards my goals because I realized that people will always be afraid of what they don’t know and try to let you down. Even friends and family.

It’s on you to stay positive and don’t let them get in your way towards your dream life. A very good lesson learned.

Some tasks are really boring

As I mentioned earlier there are many aspects of blogging and not all of them are exciting. Some of the tasks you must complete are extremely boring, so, until you can afford to pay somebody to help you do it, you’ve got to do it yourself.

Some of the boring tasks include resizing and uploading pictures, or read the same post multiple times and formatting it in WordPress, and researching a topic you don’t really care about, but your readers do…

Or when I had to change my builder and go through 250 posts to reformat them. That was devastating! But I don’t have any help yet, so I just have to brace myself and do it if I want to move forward.

That’s the blogging life!

Final thoughts on the advantages and disadvantages of blogging

The pros and cons of blogging are different for anyone. Before you decide that you want to become a blogger you really need to understand what you are signing up for.

But once you are in, you need to be 100% committed and work hard, just like for any other business. Be patient, and consistent, and keep a positive mindset and you’ll eventually get there. Check out more inspiration about solo traveling and nomadic living.