13 Long-Term Benefits of Starting a Blog in 2014

I’m always fascinated by the amount of people that do not have a blog, but have an incredibly emotional story to share about their lives. I’ve blogged both globally, and within a community. I’ve tried tons of styles, but it all comes down to who you’re as a person in the end. I thought I had a bigger story to tell, but it ended up me realizing that I want to blog about my passions and learn from that.

Blogging enables us to learn about ourselves, and the world around us. It’s so awesome that I don’t think I’d ever want to give it up. Every word that appears on the screen when I am typing it away, it has come out from my creative spirit and it certainty has got some meaning.

I would love to think short-term, as I’ve done it in the past, but I am over that and instead I want to focus on my long-term success, and the long-term success of my readers, as I provide so much content about business and blogging tips. It’s not an easy job, but it’s something I love to do, and so I don’t feel like I am working. I’m learning. That’s what blogging is to me, and that is also the first reason benefit of being a blogger.

Blog Becomes Your Business

You can use advertising strategies on your blog, or you can turn it into a real business. It’s up to you. Blogging offers the ability to turn what you do into a business, if you’re helping people and they want more of what you’re already delivering.

Write Books, Become an Author

Write Books, Become an AuthorIt’s very common for a successful blogger to start publishing books about that what he does. You blog until you become an expert, by having spent so much time publishing and learning about a specific subject. You’ve also learned a few tricks along the way, which might be better explain in a full-scale book. I know it’s something I’ll do, as I’ve got ideas about books coming to me almost every day.

It requires commitment, and the belief that you can do it.

The Ability to Write

You’re bound to take your writing to the next level as you keep blogging, even if you do it just a couple of times a week. You become conscious of the quality of your writing, and you want to improve it – because that’s what all great writers do, and it really does come easy if you put the right energy into it.

Instant Feedback and Reviews

This is a huge benefit from blogging, if you’re looking to improve your writing skills. A blog is a platform for people to gather up and discuss something that you’ve published and given to them. It takes a while for blog comments to start appearing, for less popular blogs – but it doesn’t mean that they won’t appear at all.

There are people blogging who receive 100 visitors a month, but they manage to get almost 50 comments for each of their posts – it’s because the author is sharing something incredibly emotional and appealing to those people. Experiment with your blogging, and the feedback will come.

Become an Authority

And not in the sense of being superior of others, instead – someone who has learned his craft so well, that he is ready to advise others about it, and help them get to the same level. The web, and blogging as a whole is not about selfishness, it’s about being able to give back and teach others what you’ve learned along the way.

Build a Tribe, Community, Network

Build a Tribe, Community, NetworkYou can call it what you like. If you posses the required leadership skills – you’re able to bring together masses of people who will always be there for you, to support and help you spread the word. This usually happens after a few months have passed, and you’ve sort of proved yourself to the community. Blogging is really great when it comes to building a network of people.

Learn ‘Unusual’ Skills

Like for example, programming. It comes in many forms, for WordPress user it’s going to be mostly CSS and HTML, and some PHP. For others it might be JavaScript, and jQuery. It is however extremely good that we learn these things, as they not only help us grow intellectually, they also help us modify our blogs the way we like – without having to pay a developer huge amounts of money.

Selling Your Products

I’d start a blog in 2014 for this reason alone. You can probably come up with an idea for a product right now, something that’s close to your heart and perhaps even something that the market is missing. Go ahead, and get this product done and start selling it through your blog. You’ll find visitors if you really want to, and the same applies for finding customers.

Creative Expression

Creative ExpressionWhen you start a blog, you sort of make an agreement with yourself – that you’re not going to get angry at your own writing and ability to write. We publish – time to time – something and then we instantly regret it. There have been those moments occurring in my own blogging career.

I didn’t go ahead and delete those posts, I simply let them stay as I knew it could only help me learn more about myself, from the feedback that people would leave and the overall attention it would receive. Trough small tests like this we can really find out what works and what doesn’t work.

Help Those Who Need It

I’ve said it loud and clear on my about page, I’m blogging because I like to help others to achieve the same results I am able to achieve. I rarely force myself to do something that doesn’t feel right, or seems like a complete waste of time. Starting a blog enables you to cultivate peoples compassion for your work. You are able to give back to people. It always comes back twofold.

Interview the Experts

I’ve yet to do this myself, but blogging enables you to do interviews with experts from within the industry you blog about. I could easily send some emails out to people whose blogs I read the most, and probably squeeze out an answer for Q&A topic of choice. This is also what makes the internet so great!

Build a Subscriber List

Building email subscribers have become the thing for online blogs, and the most amazing thing is that it enables you to promote, get in touch and generally stay up to date with your community from anywhere in the world. You can use an email newsletter platform to help you send out emails whenever you like, from wherever you like.

Make a Living out Of It

The last tip I want to leave you with is quite obvious, but blogging does enable you to make a living out of that what you do. It seems impossible to a lot of people, but if you’re serious about what you do and you want to dedicate a lot of your time to a specific blogging project – it’s bound to bring you in some income to help you along the way.

Starting a Blog in 2014

Starting a Blog in 2014There isn’t a best or worst year to start a blogging, any moment is good enough to begin blogging and exploring the world. The sooner you start, the quicker the above benefits I’ve mentioned are going to start kicking in and working for you. I’m encouraging you to engage in a discussion about your own point of view, and I’ll happily write more in-depth about the specific points I’ve discussed, if you let me know which ones.