How Low Earners Can Make More Money Blogging
Are you working your tail off as a low-earning cog in the machine (such as a Chef or line cook) and rarely seeing the outside world? I was, and here is how chefs can make more money blogging. Chefs can make good money, $60k to $100k a year. But, when you divide that income by the 12 to 16 hour days a chef works it turns into $3 -$6 dollars an hour.
This basically is slave labor, because a chef typically is the first to arrive and the last to leave. It just isn’t a healthy life. And, with over millions of chefs in the world, They need a better option if they ever want to live a better life, To be able to be home more and see their children, To not have to stand in one place on a hard kitchen floor all day, To not have to come up with 3 soups, 5 appetizers and a fish and meat special every single night.
I was the Executive Sous Chef in Colorado at the Mesa Verde National park. I worked a lot and the thing is I never cooked. Most Executive Chefs don’t usually even cook. They are in an office creating schedules, orchestrating orders and deliveries and creating menus. They rarely actually cook! Many aspiring chefs that love to cook end up in the office as Executive Chefs. This is a slap in the face of any foodie that loves dealing with food. So, what is the solution to getting out of chef work altogether? Blogging. That is right, Blogging.
Anyone can blog and make a living if you know how to start and maintain it. It is realistic to retire from being a chef in 3 to 5 years with your blog. Most professional bloggers make from $5,000 a month up to $100,000 a month. If you like writing or being creative with words, this is for you. But, what do you write about if you are a Chef? This is where you get creative and brainstorm three to five topics you want to write about consistently. You can write about the antics behind being a chef. You can create a blog and create a blog using just your name, like my blog. When will I write, I work all the time? If you have the desire to eventually fire your boss and work full time from home, you will find the time.
Let’s say you are an Executive Chef and you work in an office. Great! You have at least an hour throughout the day that you can pull out your laptop and write a 600 to 800 word post. If you don’t work in the office, you can do a third of the post in the morning before work, a third of the post at lunch and a third of the post after work.
Do whatever it takes to make a blog post 5 to 7 times a week. How much do I have to write? I know you’re already a hard worker, because you’re a chef, so I will be realistic with you. You are going to write at least 300 posts a year. That means that you are going to have to write some weekends and six day weeks. This sounds harder than it actually is. I blog everyday. It takes me about an hour to write an 800 to 1000 word post, if I am inspired. These words add up. I have written a 100 posts in the last 95 days. You can do this also. So, if you write 300 posts a year, that’s 900 blog posts in 3 years. I know for a fact that you can at least make $5,000 a month by then, if your content is original and is in a specific niche.
How do I find my niche? You take two things that you are passionate about or want to help people with. Like me, I wrote about network marketing when I first started blogging, but it is extremely competitive and refined my niche to “help introverts make money online.” Let’s say you love sautéing and you also love fire. You could talk about how sautéing food is like walking barefoot on a fire during a firewalking ceremony. Tie sautéing in with fire in a creative way.
You will eventually gain a readership of people who either want to learn your sauté recipes or hear about your spiritual journey with fire walking. Write down 5 topics of interest you want to fold into your blog. Don’t worrying about perfecting anything. Your writing will definitely get awesome after the first 300 posts. How do I make money Blogging? The way that bloggers usually make money is by converting their “blog traffic” into buyers. You can do this several ways, but the easiest way is to advertise on your site.
You become an “affiliate” for a company by promoting their products. You get paid a commission when someone clicks through your links and banners, or when they purchase a product through your links. So, the name of the game is getting lots of traffic to your blog. What kind of traffic and how much traffic depends on what you choose to write about. If your concept is clever, people will share it more and you will get traffic quicker than if you wrote about something not as interesting.
My blog took off when I started writing about my anxiety and my heart attack at the young age of 32. Not many people cared when I wrote about network marketing because I didn’t make it pop with a creative bent. I suggest, if you start a blog, that you create your five topics you want to cover and create an “avatar” of your ideal blog reader.
The avatar (a mock up of the type of person who reads your blog) will become more realistic as you fill in all their interests, hobbies and habits. Then, write for these blog readers. Let’s say your avatar is for LGBTQ chefs over 40. What interests do they have that you can tie into your writing? My blogger avatar is an introvert, maybe an ex-alcoholic, someone who wants to make money online, and is secretly really smart but doesn’t know how to tap into it yet.
Your blog will come to life the more you add to it. Be patient. You might have to write for almost two years before you see some traffic coming your way. Blogging is about being patient. Eventually your business blog will start making money, then more money, then enough money to turn in your notice!