My little book and movie blog has turned into a real business.

I’ve written a little bit about my journey as a blogger before on my website, but for those of you who are new here, this is how I got started with slowly but surely becoming a full time blogger. I purchased this website at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic solely with the intent of using it as a platform for my work as an author and writer, showcasing the publications I’ve amassed throughout the years.

It was a year after buying the website subscription that I decided to convert the website into a blog—I’d just learned about SEO and wanted to delve deeper into this world, and I’d realized the potential of learning SEO, making a blog,a nd then channeling more energy into my website.

So I started the blog. It originally began as an online diary, then I added in the reviews of books and movies about two months into running the website as a whole. Now, after almost three years, this has grown into a website that was accepted by Mediavine, turned into multiple different subtopics, and I really now see it as a form of business.

It’s a modest income when I’m typing this, but with the growth I’ve been having, I expect it really to be a full-time income and my main hustle in about two years.

For those of you just getting started, here are some of my biggest tips throughout the process of working on this blog.

Find affordable resources to learn search engine optimization (SEO).

If you don’t already have a presence on social media, or a following in general, one of the biggest things you’re going to have to learn if you haven’t already is how to do Search Engine Optimization. It took me a while to realize the extent of how to get better at it, and one of the free courses I ended up signing up for was at General Assembly.

Not sponsored, but I really liked the free workshops that General Assembly would host over Zoom. During the pandemic, when everything was shut down, I’d take coding classes through them, too.

But honestly, one of the biggest helps to me simply has been to sit down and experiment with different forms of SEO. I haven’t had the chance to go back into my old articles at the time of writing this, so when I look at posts from 2021, I see how different my SEO style was.

I evolved with time, and with the Google Helpful Content Update (HCU), my posts and website actually skyrocketed with traffic after it happened. Most websites I’ve heard have been suffering. Not sure if they hire their own writers, but everything on this website has been written and figured out by me.

Learn to diversify your content—sometimes a niche might limit you.

I know some websites and blogs will tell you to own your niche, but sometimes I wonder if people take that too literally. This website serves as a bit of my online diary, and you’ll find that I have everything from book and movies reviews to thoughts about my career and blogging tips—just like this post.

Because I have such diversity in topics, it honestly has helped me with my traffic overall. I look at my analytics a lot and try to analyze them, and I see that literally my top three traffic posts are a Korean drama review (so television), a book review, and a movie review. That’s three different subjects.

Maybe make a different, separate website if you’re going really hard with one subject area and neglecting the others, but I find a balance I think with this site. People enjoy seeing what I’m up to, which makes it a lot easier to keep it compact under this one blog.

When it comes to Google Discover, my posts sometimes get on there. The posts about blogging and travel typically are the ones that draw in bigger traffic on Discover, though, hence the need for me to diversify. I’d also get really bored if I did the same thing all the time.

Drive traffic towards social media and other platforms.

The Google Helpful Content Update made me realize the need to branch out, as I saw how many other publishers and blogs were severely impacted by the update. I personally benefited from what was going down, but it definitely made me highly aware of the need to push social media platforms.

Brush up on Pinterest SEO if you want to include your own photography and visuals, then figure out how to upload onto those platforms. In addition to that, I think something to consider is making a blog adjacent Facebook, if you’re catering towards older audiences, TikTok, or even Instagram if you want to diversify your content streams.

Newsletters are a big thing with bloggers and writers nowadays, so maybe consider creating a newsletter that does a round up of your best performing posts by the end of the week, or even every two weeks.

Don’t lose your passion for what you’re consuming.

As you’ll realize with any website and trying to get it to grow, something big is this: it really takes time in order for a website to gain traction with SEO. Same with social media. Also, growth is not a linear process at all.

I know there’s something else motivating people: creating a large passive income stream. And what I have to say about that is to consider why you’re doing this sometimes. If you don’t like writing and talking about books/movies especially and are trying to create this kind of blog, it might be miserable to upkeep these kinds of posts.

That said, it can also be mindless to chase after popular things because you know they will get the clicks. I don’t see movies because they’re popular, or pick up those kinds of books because I know I’ll go insane if I try to read things I don’t like.

It took me two and a half years to get into the ad platform Mediavine, which is when I began making real money off of my website. That’s a long time, and some people don’t have this kind of stamina at the end of the day. And that’s fine, but know your limits and chase after the things you love, which helps keep this going.

Finally: know when to take breaks and step away.

This ties into my previous point, but when you chase after things you’re not passionate about, burnout becomes so much of a bigger problem. Even when you love these things, there comes a point when you realize that you shouldn’t have to be writing eight million blog posts every day on top of your full time job.

Humans aren’t meant to constantly be working. Take a step back and return to the blog when you can. I know it seems hard when it becomes a financial tether especially, but the world will keep continuing without you, and, when you’re monetized, it will still continue to make some kind of money.

All in all: sometimes you really just deserve some moments to yourself, so have some compassion for yourself, too.

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