If you’re looking to make extra cash from home, you may wonder if blogging is a good side hustle. Blogging can be a great choice for some people but not everyone.
Consider the pros and cons of starting a blog with the intention of making money. Then, you can make sure the side hustle is worth it for you.
But first, this post contains affiliate links. Read my full disclosure policy to learn more.
What Makes Blogging a Good Side Hustle
Blogging can be a very good side hustle for some people. Compared to other popular gigs, blogging offers many benefits that make it attractive to beginners and experienced hustlers.
Consider the following factors that make blogging a suitable side hustle to try.
Minimal Startup Costs
If you want to give blogging a try, you don’t need a ton of money. Technically, you could start for free with a blog on a platform like Medium or Blogger, and you can start your own blog later on.
But if you want to increase the chances of making money, you should start with your own website. I use SiteGround to host all of my blogs because it’s affordable, and they offer excellent features and support.
You can even buy your domain through your host, but I prefer to do so through Google Domains. That makes it easy to get my domain to start ranking in Google search, and connecting it to SiteGround isn’t too difficul.
The first year I switched to using my own host, I paid about $48 for the year. Each domain costs an average of $12 through Google, so you could start for about $5 per month.
Flexible
One of the most important parts of a good side hustle is flexibility. After all, you may need to work on your hustle in between shifts at work, homework, or other obligations.
You can work on your blog whenever you have free time, so you don’t have to adjust your schedule like if you were a tutor or delivery driver. Of course, you still have to do the work to start and grow your blog.
However, it can be a much better option for students, full-time employees, or other busy people. If you need to have control over when and where you work on your side hustle, blogging might be for you.
Passion and Profit
Another thing I love about blogging as a side hustle is you can combine your passions with profit. You can start a blog about almost anything, from food to pets to fashion.
Be sure to consider your interests, skills, and expertise. That way, you can choose a blog niche that you’ll enjoy writing about, which is crucial in the beginning before you actually start to make money.
But you’ll also want to make sure that your blog can make money at some point. You can research your topic idea to validate the need for it, so you won’t have to waste your time blogging about something that won’t generate a profit.
Ability to Scale
Some side hustles are impossible to scale without either working more hours or hiring people to help you. Blogging is one of the few side hustles you can scale on your own.
As you write more blog posts, you may start to get more traffic to your blog. When that happens, you can use display ads and affiliate links to monetize that increase in traffic.
Usually, more traffic equates to more money that you can earn from your blog. You don’t necessarily have to complete more delivery shifts to increase your earning potential.
Plus, once your first blog is up and running, you can start working on a second blog. That can help you double your income potential.
Semi-Passive Income
Some people call blogging a form of passive income. Personally, I don’t think that’s accurate, because a lot of work goes into starting and running a blog.
However, your blog could eventually turn into a semi-passive side hustle. You may be able to get away with publishing new posts less often, especially once you have a larger library of content for visitors to read.
Depending on how much you make, you could even outsource some of the writing to others. You could also use an AI writing tool, but I’ve heard they aren’t that good and still require a bit of editing.
Freelance Writing
Blogging is a good side hustle if you want to have multiple ways to make money. And if you want to make money from blogging sooner rather than later, you can get freelance clients.
You can use your blog as a portfolio to show clients how well you can write. Add a services page to your blog so that visitors know you’re open to working with them.
When you submit your article, your client will pay you a one-time fee for the work. That can be a great way to make money from blogging without waiting for your own site to get traffic.
What Makes Blogging a Bad Side Hustle
Unfortunately, blogging isn’t a perfect side hustle, even for people who love it. Before you dive into creating your first blog, you should consider the drawbacks.
Then, you can determine if the pros outweigh the cons and if you’re willing to still do the work.
Upfront Work
One of the worst parts of starting a blog as a side hustle is all of the work it takes. You can’t just launch your website with one blog post and expect to make any money.
It can take months for search engines to recognize your website and start ranking your content. You need to write and publish at least one post per week if you want your blog to get visitors.
While you wait for search engines to show your content, you need to promote it elsewhere, such as on social media. Between writing and promotion, you may have to put in hundreds of hours before you earn your first dollar.
That can be very discouraging for some people. If you’re starting a side hustle to make money now, blogging (unless it’s for clients) probably isn’t the best route for you.
Time to Profit
Even if you manage to make your first dollar within a year, you may not necessarily profit. Sure, the costs to start and maintain a blog can be pretty low, but they’re there.
If you host a blog with SiteGround, you can expect to spend around $60 for that first year. That means you have to make at least $60 to break even and more to make a profit.
Of course, if you pay for other blogging tools or outsource some of the writing, you’ll have more expenses. It can take you a lot longer to profit from your side hustle, and you might not want to wait that long.
Requires Consistency
Blogging isn’t a good side hustle if you want to work on it whenever you feel like it. You need to commit to creating and publishing new content consistently, especially in the beginning.
At the start, you have to build up a reputation with search engines before they show your content. That means you should post weekly or more often if you can.
Even once you start ranking in search engines, you need to create more content. Your readers will come to expect new posts on a schedule, and you could lose readers or followers if you stop posting.
Staying consistent isn’t easy, particularly if you’re not a writer. It can also be difficult if you choose a niche you don’t know much about.
No Guaranteed Income
Another drawback of blogging as a side hustle is that there’s no guarantee you’ll make any money. If you choose the wrong niche, focus on keywords that are too competitive, or hardly post anything, you could easily fail.
You might spend a ton of time on something that costs you money rather than earns an income. Of course, you can minimize the chances of this by choosing the right niche and keywords.
But like any business, there’s always a chance your blog won’t work out. Now, you can use what you learned and start a second blog to try and make some money, but even that isn’t guaranteed to work.
Mentally Heavy
I’ve been blogging for almost a decade, and writing is hard work. It might not be physically taxing, but it can be mentally taxing, particularly when you have to do a lot of research.
Now, maybe you stick to writing topics that don’t require much research because you understand the content already. You still have to sit down and put in the time to writing those articles.
I frequently get bouts of brain fog, and writing seems almost impossible, even if I have a content idea. If you don’t want to deal with this, you may want to choose a side hustle like dog walking or food delivery.
Potential for Burnout
You could argue that any side hustle has the potential for burnout, and I can’t say I disagree. However, blogging can be particularly troublesome since it requires a lot of mental energy.
It also requires that consistency I mentioned. Those things combine to form the perfect environment that can lead to burnout, either from writing or regarding the topic of the blog you start.
As you start and grow your blog, don’t be afraid to pace yourself and take it slowly. It’s better to grow a little more slowly and continue to enjoy the process than to experience exponential growth and burn yourself out and never want to blog again.
How to Start a Blogging Side Hustle
If you decide that blogging is a good side hustle for you, it’s time to get started. Sure, you could spend weeks learning about blogging, but you have to put what you learn into practice at some point.
Consider the following steps to start and grow your blogging side hustle.
Choose a Platform
The first thing you need to do is to choose what blogging platform you’ll use. As I mentioned, I host my website with SiteGround, and I use WordPress as the content management system (CMS).
On WordPress, you get to choose a theme, which is the basic design and layout of your blog. I use and love the Astra theme since it’s pretty simple and easy to customize.
You can start on a free platform like Blogger or Medium, and you can migrate to a self-hosted WordPress site later. Then, you can make sure you enjoy blogging before you invest money into it.
Settle on a Niche
Next, you’ll want to choose the niche for your blog. You can start a blog on almost any topic under the sun, so I’d recommend starting with something you already enjoy.
The first blog I started was in the music niche since I studied it in college. After gaining experience in the blogging world, I decided to start this blog to help others.
When starting your blog, try to choose a more specific subject. You can always expand your blog later, but you want to make sure visitors know what to expect from your content and if the posts are for them or not.
Use your niche to help choose a catchy name for the blog. Make sure the domain is available as well as any social media handles you want to use.
Develop a Schedule
Another vital part of your blogging side hustle is having a schedule. I’d recommend creating a few types of schedules, the first of which is the schedule you follow each week so that you dedicate time to working on your blog.
If you have a lot of other things going on, you may need to specifically write out when you’ll write posts. That way, you can make sure to stick tot the other schedule you’ll need, which is your content calendar.
The content calendar notes when and how often you publish a new blog post. Consider how much time you can spend blogging per week and how long it takes to write a post to help choose your posting frequency.
Write Your First Few Posts
Now, you’re finally ready to spend a few hours writing some blog posts. I’d recommend you write at least three to five so that you can launch multiple posts with the website itself.
You probably won’t get any visitors right away. But if you do, you’ll have plenty of content ready to go so that the visitors have more to read.
Writing a few posts can also help you ensure that you actually like writing about the topic you choose. If you find it hard to do, you can switch to a niche that suits you better.
Start Marketing Your Blog
After you launch your first few posts, it’s time to market those posts to get your first few visitors. I’ve used platforms like Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, and Quora to promote my blog posts.
Even if you use search engine optimization (SEO), you should still market your blog yourself. SEO can take a while to work, so if you don’t want to wait months to get traffic, you need to promote the posts from the start.
In the beginning, try to spend as much time marketing your blog as you do creating content for it. That will increase the chances of people seeing your blog and blog posts, so you might get more traffic right away.
Stay Consistent
I can’t stress enough how much of a long game blogging is. You can’t just put up a few posts and become a millionaire overnight, so you need to be willing to continue to work.
For the next few months, you need to consistently publish new articles and promote them to your ideal readers. If you find that takes too much time, scale back on your posting frequency.
You can also choose outsource some of the work if you have extra money. But I’d probably keep costs low since a side hustle may not make as much money as a full-time business.
Final Thoughts
Blogging is a good side hustle for people who love writing and aren’t in a hurry to make money. But if you can’t stand putting words on a page, you may want to find another side hustle.
I love blogging and have made it not only a side hustle but my primary income stream from clients and my own content.
If you think you’ll enjoy blogging, you should enroll in the Instagram Marketing & Sales Academy. That way, you can learn how to promote your blog from the beginning.