Bloggers usually get a bad rap in many parts of the world. However, this misrepresentation stems from a few bad apples and misunderstandings by most people on what blogging is and what a typical blogger does.
I’m a blogger and in this post, I’ll break down for you what blogging is and what most bloggers do. It’s a legit career with all the ups and downs of any kind of profession you can think of.
What Is Blogging and What Does a Blogger Do?
Blogging refers to creating written content for an online publication. This publication could be a blog, website, or syndication platform like Medium.
The content could be readers’ guides like the one you’re reading right now, personal stories, product reviews, political pieces, career advice, celebrity gossip, tutorials, tips, and tricks among many others.
With the understanding of what blogging is—a blogger is someone who creates written content intending to inform, teach, entertain, or advise readers. You’ll notice from my definition, many people will pick out the politics and gossip part and leave the rest.
Considering the controversial nature and politics, most bloggers like myself always have to explain ourselves whenever we are talking about our careers. Remember political and gossip bloggers are just a small section in the field of blogging.
Using myself as an example, I’ve never written a political or gossip piece in my life yet I’m a full‐time blogger. I only cover tech topics and reviews and do occasional finance pieces for my clients on their websites or publications.
I write on my blogs including Kenyan Radar 80 percent of the time. Kenyan Radar only focuses on guides and product reviews—nothing negative. It’s still a blog, it helps people and that makes me a blogger.
You can also become one without being controversial. You just need to have a good command of English or whichever language you want to write in and an idea that you want to share with the world. I’ll show you how.
How Do You Start Your Blog?
Apart from an idea and decent language skills, you need a platform to write on. This platform could be owned by a third party or be a personal one that might need some monetary investment to pull off.
Free Blogging Platforms
Besides Medium which I mentioned earlier on, you can start publishing your work for free on platforms like WordPress, Tumblr, or Blogger among many others.
These platforms have a few serious problems though—you’re not in complete control of your content and can be difficult to monetize your audience. In case you accidentally or deliberately violate their rules, you could lose all your written work just like that.
Also, if they ever shut down, there’s no guarantee that you can save your work. For these reasons, I’d recommend investing in your platform.
Self-Hosted Blogging Platforms
Kenyan Radar is my platform (self-hosted blog) and I have 100 percent control of my content and monetization.
Owning a self-hosted blog means you take care of everything like website servers and domain names yourself. Don’t worry, you don’t need any special technical skills to pull it off. Simply sign up for a hosting and domain name provider and they’ll take care of everything for you.
I’ve written a complete guide on how to start your blog in a few simple steps. Read it if you want to become a blogger.
Should You Become a Blogger?
This might come from a point of bias as a blogger but yes, you should consider becoming a blogger. It’s a real career that can change your life financially. Please note that simply writing something controversial on social media doesn’t make you a blogger.
It takes hard work and patience to create written content and build an audience. Find a topic that you love and have a deep understanding of and run with it. It could be finance, sports, pets, travel etc.—just go for it.
Remember to be consistent and write better than the competition and money will start coming in later. I also have a blog where I exclusively talk about content creation as a career.
