Working at home and making money with the help of writing skills seems like a dream job for many of us. However, what exactly should you do if you want to pursue a career in writing? There seem to be so many opportunities yet this doesn’t make it any easier for beginner writers to understand where to start.
In order to understand this, you have to realize what exactly can you do to earn a living using your writing skills. There are many careers, but in this article, I want to focus on two of them: the one of a blogger and the one of a content writer.
What Do Bloggers And Content Writers Do?
The blogger’s goal is to create unique and interesting content for blogs. It could be their own blog, a corporate one, or even a few blogs belonging to different clients. Though a blogger is sometimes limited by a corporate style, most of the time they are encouraged to speak their own mind and to let their personality show (especially when we’re talking about less corporate and more personal blogs).
People like bloggers mostly because of two things: they provide more personalized content and they have a lot of experience in the niche they work in. It’s possible for a blogger to work in a few niches simultaneously; however, this doesn’t happen often – mostly because you do have to understand these niches very well in order to succeed.
The content writer specializes in creating content for websites. This might seem like a copywriter’s task and yes, it can be. However, copywriters create many other types of written content too, while content writers limit themselves to websites only.
Unlike bloggers, who usually settle with one niche, content writers are more flexible as they receive different requests from different clients. Their goal is to create high-quality content that will give the audience all the necessary information about a website, a product, or a service. Moreover, they aren’t as free to write some personal and provocative opinions as bloggers are. The content writer has to represent their company or clients, not themselves.
Which Career to Pursue?
There isn’t any standard answer for that. Sure, blogging might look more appealing to some writers – but it isn’t an easy job. When you blog for yourself, you have to not only be able to create interesting content but also learn how to promote it, how to optimize it for SEO, how to interact with your audience, and so on. You also need to learn other things, which might seem even less related to the writing process. For example, no blog could function without a design and while there are many free templates that can be found online, you’ll have to at least learn how to install them (as well as various plugins that will help you in your work).
If you are willing to pursue a blogger’s career, you’ll also have to prepare yourself that it might take a while until you start making decent money. There are many ways to monetize your blog. For example, you can partner with various ad services, write product reviews, sell your own products or offer some extra content to the readers for a bit of money. However, before you can start doing this, you have to make your blog actually popular – and this might take some time and a lot of effort.
This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try it though. If you want to blog and earn a living at the same time, you can try offering your blogging services to clients on various freelance platforms or simply find another writing job that will allow you to earn money while working on your blog.
Content writing is another thing. All you need to do to start working is to register an account on the most popular freelance platforms, create a portfolio, and start looking for clients. Even if you won’t find any clients during your first week, you’ll still start receiving money soon enough. And if you are good at this, you’ll be able to build a personal brand too.
However, this doesn’t mean that writing skill is all that it takes to become a successful content writer. You’ll have to learn a lot too, working hard to create texts that do deliver the message to the audience and are SEO-friendly at the same time.
So, despite these two careers being quite different, each one of them requires dedication and hard work to succeed. Lucky for you, you don’t have to choose between them right now. You are able to try both careers and see which one of them brings you more joy and turns out to be more successful. Or, if you try and still find it hard to choose between two of them, you can combine them too.
For example, you can make money with the help of content writing and try creating and promoting your blog at the same time. This way you’ll have a job that pays off well and a hobby that could become your source of income later.
However, in this case, I recommend choosing a different niche than the one you’re working in. One of the most complex things about combining these two careers is switching between your writing styles: a content writer’s one has to be more professional, while a blogger’s one can be less formal. So if you try writing for the same niche, it could be harder for you to switch between these styles. Moreover, choosing a different niche for your blog will distract you from your work more effectively.
Which of these two careers seems the most appealing to you and why? Maybe you already work as a professional blogger or a content writer and are willing to share your experience with me and the readers. In this case, please write your opinion and leave comments below.
I think blogging is a better career. You get to keep track of your writeup and you also get to write on your own clock, unlike content (freelancing) jobs where you have to meet with your client time. But then again, content writer are most likely going to start earning before bloggers. And blogging requires much work.
Thank you for your comment. I always make sure that people can draw certain conclusions for themselves after reading my content. I am pleased that you took the time to write your opinion.
Thank u for the information… with less known about content writing, how could I choose it as carrer?
Blogging is a better option then content writing. I started getting results with my blog.