How to Become a Location Independent Blogger

photo: tanakawho

Do you remember when blogs first started popping up all over the internet? It seemed like every whiny, self-obsessed, blinking-text lover had a blog. If someone had told you that some day ordinary people would be making six figures from blogging, you probably would have laughed your ass off.

Blogging has changed. There’s still plenty of multi-colored angst floating around the blogosphere, but it’s balanced by an army of serious professionals who use blogging as a platform to add value to people’s lives. In the process, they earn a living.

What does this have to do with you? If you love what you do for a living, you can make your job location independent by running a blog geared towards people in your field.

The nice thing about blogging is that you don’t have to be at the top of your field, or even be in a particularly glamorous field, to blog about it successfully. It doesn’t matter if you’re a math teacher, an administrative assistant, a real estate agent, a plumber, a chef, an attorney, a paramedic, a nurse, or an architect. No matter what you do, somewhere in cyberspace are people like you – or people who want to be like you. They are your audience.

How much money will you make from blogging?

At first? Zero. In fact, you’ll be minus a few bucks if you buy a domain name and server space.

Eventually? It all depends on how much time and effort you put into it. Blogging will most likely not bring in profits overnight, so don’t quit your job until you’ve learned the ropes.

How to become a professional blogger

I’m no expert on blogging myself and I wouldn’t dream of giving you advice on specific techniques. The best way to learn how to blog professionally is to take lessons from someone who’s a recognized master in the blogging community.

Unfortunately, there are a lot of worthless learn-to-blog programs online. Many of them are written by people who haven’t even achieved success themselves. What’s the point of taking lessons from someone whose only revenue comes from people buying their regurgitated crap, rather than from blogging itself?

If you really want to learn how to become a location independent blogger, look for programs taught by people who achieved monumental success as professional bloggers before they tried to teach others how to do it.

How do you know the difference between a true blogging expert and a scammer? Read the blogger’s “About” page to find out who they are, how they started out, what kind of money they make from blogging, etc. If they’re vague about what they actually do to generate revenue, or if they don’t provide any content for free, they’re probably not in the blogging business to help people. (Cough * pyramid scheme * cough!)

2 programs that will teach you everything you need to know about blogging

I can’t tell you how to spend your money, but I can tell you who I trusted with mine: Yaro Starak and Leo Babauta.

The programs run by these two seasoned bloggers cover similar key topics, but the teaching styles are quite individual. You really get the feeling of hanging out with two smart friends who you like equally, but who have distinct personalities and quirks. Yaro and Leo’s personalities come through strongly on their blogs, so check those out first to see if you click with them as people.

Both of their programs include exclusive interviews with professional bloggers, step-by-step tutorials, community forums, webinars, coaching calls, reviews, guides, free e-books, and hours upon hours of video and audio.

1. Blog Mastermind by Yaro Starak

Blog Mastermind has an easy-to-follow building-block format: first you do this, then this, etc. As the lessons progress, you learn more advanced techniques and get access to information that can’t be found anywhere else online. I’m only on Lesson Five out of 32, but even the “beginner” lessons feel advanced because of the density of the content.

Yaro does a Mastermind teleconference every month where you can call in and ask questions. He’ll even go to your blog right then and there and critique it. Pretty cool. During the last call I was too shy to ask my question right away, and then there were so many questions I didn’t get a turn. I’m not going to be shy anymore!

Cost: Blog Mastermind costs $500 and it’s worth every penny. Yaro has made thousands of dollars online and is very passionate about helping people, so he’s a true expert and really fun to learn from.

2. A-List Blogger Club by Leo Babauta with Mary Jaksch

The A-List Blogger Club is a membership group. When you join, you get free access to all the past Bootcamps (week-long, intense courses about specific blogging strategies), as well as any Bootcamps that are taught in the future. The Bootcamps themselves normally cost between $285 and $449, so it makes better financial sense to join the Club.

At first look I thought the A-List Blogger Club was a little confusing to navigate, but the format is being constantly overhauled, and it’s now extremely easy to find your way around.

Leo and Mary both have a really natural, down-to-earth teaching style. The site reflects the aesthetic of Leo’s blog Zen Habits, so the design is minimalist and very gentle on the eyes. The forum here is a bit more active than over at Blog Mastermind.

Every month, there are two special training seminars and an online Masterclass where you can ask live questions. You can also get your blog reviewed by Leo or Mary.

Cost: It’s only $20 a month and you can discontinue your membership anytime, so this is a good one to start with if you don’t want to spend a lot of money.

Do you have to pay someone to learn how to blog?

FREE resource--click to download

No, of course not. There’s a ton of free information online–start with Yaro and Gideon’s 10 free Become a Blogger videos. (Setting up my blog with the help of these free videos was what convinced me to enroll in Blog Mastermind. I couldn’t believe these guys were providing such valuable content for free!)

Next, check out Yaro’s free ebook:

The Blog Profits Blueprint

And here are 3 awesome articles about blogging you should read:

• How This Blog Attracted 100,000 Visitors in the First 30 Days by Steve Olson
• The 8 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers by Annabel Candy
• How to Make Money From Your Blog by Steve Pavlina

See what I mean? It’s not like professional blogging is run by freemasons; everything you need to get started is in the common domain, for free. I personally tend to get information overload, so I prefer a structured lesson format and was happy to pay for it. But if you’re good at filtering information and slowly figuring things out on your own you can certainly do that. Just be sure it’s not false economy – the money you save may not compensate for the additional time you spend. Whatever you decide, good luck! Now, here are some case studies of successful bloggers.

3 case studies

1. Professional Hacker to Location Independent Blogger – Interview with Anil Polat Foxnomad by Jason Demant

Anil used to be a professional hacker and started blogging for fun. He says:

My job was basically penetration testing, looking at code and I was even sent a lot of places to try get inside a building by making up a story for example. It was a fun job. It gave me quite an opportunity to travel. They sent me around a lot of places. And I loved the job. But the blogging started taking off and I wanted to give myself to it and see what would happen and I have since left the job and all I do now is run my websites really.

2. Do You Want To Become A Professional Blogger? by Yaro Starak

Yaro says:

I never intended to make money as a blogger when I started. It was an experiment aimed solely at gaining more traffic from search engines. Little did I know that my blog would eventually become my business and just a few short years later I’d sell off all my other businesses just to pursue blogging.
Today my blog has helped pay for my house, my car, an 8 month trip around the world and I’ve just purchased a plush two bedroom apartment in my favorite suburb…

3. Becoming a ProBlogger – A Story in Many Parts by Darren Rowse

Darren stresses that professional blogging is not a get-rich-quick scheme:

…while there are stories around of people making good money from blogs much faster than I have, from what I know of the many bloggers that read this blog my own increases have been faster than most. I’ve had my fair share of luck, I worked insane hours and I started out at a time that was a lot less competitive than it is now – all of these things have contributed to any success I might have had. It took me over 1.5 years to get things to a point where I could say it was a part time thing and another year after than before I went full time. It takes time.

My personal experience with blogging

I’ve been an avid reader of blogs for a few years. When I got the idea that it would be fun to start a blog for working nomads like myself, I had no clue how to translate the concept into reality. I’d been following Leo and Yaro online for some time, and they both provide so much valuable content for free that I figured anything they were charging for would be worth it a million times over.

I enrolled in Blog Mastermind and the A-list Blogger Club around the same time. I thought about it for several months before taking the plunge, and I generated some extra income specifically for this purpose (by selling articles at Constant Content). Again, don’t spend money you don’t have on learning how to blog.

My only regret is that I didn’t do it earlier. It’s like the difference between trying to learn to swim from a book, and having an Olympic swimmer show you how to breathe and kick.

Which program is better? That’s a really hard question. I love them both. I’ve found little things in each one that the other one doesn’t have. I think they complement each other nicely, so I’d say do both if you can afford it!

I’m planning to use what I learn to build some blogs as a additional source of revenue as I continue my nomadic lifestyle. Hell, I might even make a few dollars off this blog (although that’s not its primary focus). A promise: although I’ll continue to apply what I learn at blogging school, I won’t be blogging about it on a regular basis. Let’s face it, there are enough “watch me blog about learning how to blog” blogs.

Again, don’t expect to turn your existing career into a blogging career overnight. You’ll need to put some time and effort into it, and I’d recommend doing that before you start traveling.

Good luck again, and feel free to leave a comment below.

You may also like:

The Complete Wi-Fi Railway Report: Europe

The Art of Making Mistakes

Where to Get a Tailor-Made Suit in Kathmandu