The term “side hustle” has grown in popularity tremendously over the last few years. Essentially, this refers to part-time gigs people take on to add some supplementary income in support of their regular, day-to-day work.

Some people drive ride-share cars on the weekends. Others tend bar or teach piano lessons. And many people blog—either for their own websites or those of other brands.

It’s this latter group of individuals who often turn their side hustles into full-time jobs. How do they do it? More importantly, how can you follow in their footsteps and become a professional blogger yourself?

Become a Pro Blogger in Practically No Time

Let’s detail some tips and tricks that can help you launch your pro blogging career.

Fine-Tune Your Content Marketing Craft

Before you contemplate taking your blogging to the next level, take a step back to examine your current writing skills. It’s important to closely analyze the quality of your work:

• Do you follow typical blogging best practices, like writing succinctly and with specific audiences in mind?
• Do you know how to mix up your tone and voice to best resonate with the particular readers of a given blog?
• Can you develop lots of unique angles to take with your blog content so each article you write is new and fresh?

Ask yourself questions like these and take a close look at past articles you’ve produced. The more you audit your own work, the better you’ll understand your content marketing strengths and weaknesses.

From here, you can then figure out how to improve your writing over time.

Focus on Owning a Single Blogging Niche

If there’s one content-preneur who knows the impact high-quality blog posts can have for a brand—personal or otherwise—it’s Neil Patel.

Patel has made quite the living due to his vast digital marketing knowledge. One constant piece of advice he offers other professionals who want to “own” a niche online is to read up on the topic(s) you plan to write about.

It’s fairly simple, really: The better the grasp you have on the subject that will be the focus of your very own blog, the greater the odds are you’ll be able to write as a subject-matter expert, or SME, on that topic.

Develop a Content Marketing Action Plan

Full-time blogger Paul Scrivens hasn’t worked a “real” job since 2014. Instead, he’s built an entire career running and writing for more than a dozen blogs on various topics/industries.

As he notes on his (you guessed it) blog, in order to succeed as a pro blogger, you need to treat your blog as a business—one that needs constant TLC in order to thrive.

“If you want to blog as a hobby then more power to you, but successful bloggers understand there is a huge difference between blogging for fun and blogging for money,” says Scrivens.

Blog Twice a Week at the Very Least

Muscle memory is something that helps athletes like quarterbacks, shooting guards, and golfers become great at what they do. The same concept (well, sort of), applies to pro bloggers.

Your content marketing skill set will only improve the more often you write. Even if you end up crafting several articles that you know will never see the light of day on your blog or elsewhere online, you’re actually bettering your blogging abilities and expertise.

So, once you have a firm editorial calendar in place—one you create or from the business who hires you—start typing away. Make it your mission to get at least a couple of posts done per week and, in time, you’ll transform into a blogging machine.

Promote Your Blog Posts Early and Often

Expecting your blog posts to become successful—that is, widely consumed by the audience(s) in question—right after you click “publish” isn’t very realistic. Organic traffic should improve for your articles in time, assuming they’re search-optimized.

However, your best bet to get the most traction out of your pro blogging efforts is to actively promote your content to the intended readers through multiple means:

• Start an email newsletter featuring your blog posts, or ensure the organization who employs you send out a regular newsletter (weekly, bi-weekly, etc.).
• Share your content across all major social media platforms, and post attractive multimedia (images and/or videos) along with explanatory copy.
• Reach out to big-time influencers and publications within the same space as your blog to see if they will share or re-publish your articles.

By being proactive with your blog promotion, you enhance the odds of connecting your content with the right readership and driving more income potential for your blog work.

If All Else Fails, Outsource Your Writing

There’s no shame whatsoever in acknowledging you just don’t have the content marketing chops you thought you had (or simply don’t have the bandwidth for). Should this situation arise,  turn your attention toward professionals bloggers who can craft your content for you.

You could, in theory, own and run your very own blog on a topic you’re very passionate about, and then simply hire a pro blogger (or multiple bloggers) to handle the content for your website. You could still write the occasional post yourself, of course.

In this scenario, though, the bulk of your content creation would come from those who write for a living and can capably speak to any niche audience about any niche subject—and in a compelling fashion.

How have your efforts to become a pro blogger gone to date? What else do you want to learn about modern content marketing? Share your comments with us!