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I have decided that not only do I absolutely love blogging, I want to do it as my full time job. That seems like a big “duh”, but it took me several weeks to decide that it would be possible and I would enjoy it. I was worrying that I may lose interest in blogging if I had to do it on a schedule, but I’ve been sticking to my set schedule for months with BFS, so I am going to pursue this like a dog after a car made of bacon…
I have tentatively decided that I can quit my day job after I get my blog income to more than $36,000 a year – $3000 a month. Here’s my rough plan to make that happen:
1. Don’t suck
If I let my writing slip or get lazy, you (my very awesome readers) will be oh-so-bored and give up on me. So, I will try very hard not to suck.
2. Post regularly
I post on BFS every day and post at least every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday on here and It’s a Dog’s Life For Me. I will keep to that schedule come hell or high water.
3. Care a little more about SEO
I have been blowing off the idea of search engine optimization, but if I want tons of hits, I’ll need to dig in. I promise not to give up my personality or to start writing boring SEO-only posts. I’m just going to include more SEO-friendly titles and wording. Heck, we may not even notice. Let me know if it causes me to break the first rule above, lol.
4. Comment, comment, comment
Due to time restrictions, I haven’t been able to read and comment on as many blogs as I did before. I’m going to have to schedule in a little weekend time or something because I cannot let that slip.
5. Get my name out there
I will be guest posting as often as possible and accepting lots of guest posts too. I hope that word of mouth will pass along how amazing my blogs are and that the wacky red-head that runs them is pretty funny too.
Okay, that’s my plan. My goal is to hit that $36,000 a year mark by 2012. That gives me the rest of 2010 and all of 2011 to build up some major traffic. Look out, Crystal in out for as many readers as humanly possible!!! 
Thanks to all of you for being a part of my life. If you are reading this, I mean you. Seriously.
Good luck! Just remember all those sneaky self-employment taxes.
If you want to write a guest post, shoot me an email, I own several blogs in different personal finance niche.
cheers,
TFB
@Lauren, are they much worse than the taxes taken out of my paycheck every time (25% ish)? Thanks for the good wishes!
@TFB, thanks! I will take you up on that. If you ever want to guest post over at Budgeting in the Fun Stuff, you are more than welcome anytime – here too of course although it won’t be as good for link love yet, lol.
Bold Move! Full time blogging! I’ve flirted with the idea, but I just don’t think I have the passion in me. I can tell from your post, you do. I want updates on your progress (i.e. traffic stats and income stats) because, let’s face it
a) I’m nosey
b) I love numbers
If your alexa ranking at BFS is any indication of your blogging potential (which it obviously is) you shouldn’t have a problem reaching your goal.
Kill it girl!
Oh you can totally do it BFS. You can blog while all your little dogs run around at your feet.
You know you have the energy, and you have done it long enough now to know you aren’t going to burn out on it.
Do it! Do it!!
Everyday Tips recently posted..Drinking On The Job – What Do You Think
@Ninja, updates on my blogging stats actually could make a great series…I could start with this one as a “blogging from the beginning” kind of theme…I like it!
@Everyday Tips, me and you together – I will push you and you can push me and we can both make full time salaries by 2012! You in?
You can do it! Are you going to cut to part-time once you’re making 18K?
Maggie totally doesn’t want to worry about SEO. (And I’m lazy!) We were talking about the trade-offs for monetization. I’m totally willing to give out electronic cookies if someone pays me to do it. But we’re still a ways off from even our first ad.
Nicole recently posted..Hacking my work habits
@Nicole, I think I’ll work full time and maybe cut back to part time instead of quitting if I find a job I like. If I’m still working in my current position, it doesn’t allow part-time, so I’ll just quit.
I didn’t worry about SEO either, but if I want to make a full time salary, I’m going to start. No worries though, all that means for me right now is that some of my titles are going to have more searched for terms.
I’m horrible at the background stuff. I decided to just skip the SEO stuff and focus on writing and commenting, otherwise I think my blog wouldn’t have gotten beyond post 1.
I would love posts on what you’ve learned on SEO (in plain english) and in general what you think influences readership and stats. Many of the tutorials on the web use a lot of IT jargon that I’m not always familiar with.
Do, it. I know you can. I would never say no to guests posts on FirstGenAmerican, so just say the word.
@Sandy L, I know! I decided that SEO and whatnot could wait – first write and then see what happens.
The jargon of SEO articles is throwing me off too, so right now I’m just concentrating on using more terms in my titles that are searched for more than 50,000 times a month. I have a post going up next week at BFS titled “How to Make the Money” and even refer to the oddity of that wording in my first sentence (it gets seached for hundreds of thousands of times a month I think, lol). Hey, if weird titles can help me out, I’ll try it. I also try to use the word money more often since that is a BIG one according to keyword searches.
Long story short, I am a complete SEO novice but will definitely keep everyone updated as I learn more.
Full time blogging would be my ultimate dream to come true. It is a bold move but I do believe that if you work really hard and believe in your dream, it might come true one day. All the best to you!
Aloysa recently posted..About Aloysa- The Kitchen Sink and the Yakezie
@Aloysa, I really hope so. Thanks for the well wishes!
Regarding the taxes mentioned at the beginning of the comments:
The 25% taken out of your paycheck now is your income tax and your social security and medicare taxes. Your employerpays half of your social security and medicare taxes, while you pay the other half. When you are self employed, you must pay both halves. Apparently a lot of self-employed people forget to do this (including my tax professor, the first time she had some self-employed income!) Which is why Lauren said it was sneaky
.
The plus side is, if you run your own business, you get to deduct some more expenses than you otherwise would be able to.
Kellen recently posted..Yawn…
@Kellen, thanks for letting me know! I am going to see how bad our taxes end up being this April based on the $5500 I’ve made this year minus the deductions I need to scrounge up (probably around $500 or so…maybe $600 at the most).
Good thing about blogging, not many built-in expenses (like I’ve paid for hosting for the next 3 years, so I won’t even have many expenses at all next year…). Bad thing about blogging, not many expenses.
Okay, what are all of the bottom entries, referrals to other sites where you have linked this article? I am guess that is why there is always at least one at the end of the comments section.
Also, are you involved in Twitter? I searched for you there and couldn’t find Budgeting in the Fun Stuff or Crystal.
Hope you are enjoying the blogging. I have fun reading them.
Very cool how you already met your goal and its not even the end of 2011. Plus looking back on this post and reading some of your others, it just reminds me of first starting out online and how hard it was. I bet you must be excited to see the success these past few months! Congrats!
Ben – BankAim recently posted..Top 5 Checking Account Promotions This September 2011
The best way of measuring a guys honesty isn’t his income tax return. It does not take zero adjust on his bathroom scale.
There’s only 1 boss. The consumer. And the man can fire everybody within the company from the chairman on down, by just spending his money some other place.
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