You might have heard about the perks of blogging for business, but have you ever thought about the joys of blogging just for fun? That’s right! Blogging as a hobby isn’t just a way to fill your evenings or weekends; it’s an opportunity to dive deeper into your passions, unleash your creativity, and even boost your career credibility. Whether you’re keen on writing about your favorite sports teams, your culinary adventures, or even your latest DIY projects, this post unveils the numerous benefits of starting a blog as a hobby. Plus, we’ll guide you through the steps to kick it off smoothly. Ready to explore how this fulfilling pastime can enrich your life? Let’s dive in! LEARN MORE
You may be familiar with the benefits of blogging for your business, but what are the benefits of blogging on the side as a hobby?
In this post, we examine several benefits of blogging for yourself as a hobby.
We also discuss how to get started.
The benefits of blogging as a hobby
These are the benefits of blogging as a hobby we’ll be talking about today:
- Writing about topics related to an interest you have allows you to become more engaged with that interest.
- Blogging fills your free time.
- Blogging allows you to be more creative outside of work.
- If you blog about something related to your career, you may earn more credibility in your niche.
- All of the work you need to do to run a blog gives you additional skills to master.
- You can eventually earn money from a blog, even if you started it as a hobby.
Let’s expand on each of these benefits.
You become more engaged with an interest you have
All bloggers, professional or not, should blog about something they’re actually interested in. It helps you stay motivated to publish blog posts on a regular basis.
When you blog as a hobby, you’re more likely to choose a topic you’re interested in. Doing so can help you stay engaged with that interest, even one you haven’t been making time for.
A blog allows you to share your experiences with an interest as well as any knowledge and insights you have.
You may find yourself engaging with that interest more often to ensure you always have something to blog about.
It fills your free time
Some people have a healthy work-life balance in that they’re able to cover their expenses with a suitable amount of work per week and also have plenty of free time leftover.
Some of these people aren’t satisfied with filling that time with leisure activities. They need to do something productive.
A blog allows you to do just that.
Because writing and producing images can be pretty time consuming, you’ll always have something to do if you start blogging as a hobby.
It allows you to be more creative outside of work
Work can be a pretty restrictive environment, especially if you don’t work in a creative field. Having creative hobbies outside of work gives you freedom your professional life may be lacking.
Blogging as a hobby is one of the best ways you can stay creative outside of work.
You can write about whatever you want, and you can work on it whenever you feel the need to.
You can also experiment with different topics, writing styles, images and more.
You can earn credibility in your career
You can blog as a hobby and choose to write about topics related to your career.
If you write about trending topics in your career and produce extended guides about topics related to it, you may be able to use your blog as proof of your experience and expertise in your niche.
If you blog consistently or earn achievements, such as a certain number of visitors per month, you may even be able to use your blog as proof of your consistency and dedication as well as your ability to take something from nothing and grow it.
It helps you learn additional skills
Blogging involves multiple skills that require learning and mastering if you want to be successful.
This, of course, includes writing and the ability to edit your own work.
It also includes the ability to edit images, take and edit screenshots, create graphics, create social media posts, manage multiple social media accounts, learn basic web design skills, and more.
Learning these additional skills can give you more career opportunities depending on what your career is at the moment as well as what career paths you take in life.
Note from Adam: This ties in strongly with the previous point on building your credibility. You can use the additional skills you learn to leverage your way into a better job. This is exactly what I did. I was working a soul-destroying job. I started a blog and used the skills I learned to get a job at a marketing agency without any qualifications. Every skill you learn adds to the value you can offer to businesses.
You can earn money from blogging
This is one of the most attractive reasons for starting a blog as a hobby. It can eventually lead to an additional source of money in your life.
This likely won’t happen for several months, especially because you’ll only be blogging as a hobby and not professionally.
However, it’s nice to know that the work you put into a hobby can eventually turn into a lucrative business.
How to start blogging as a hobby
Here’s the basic step-by-step path you can take to get a simple blog up and running today:
- Choose a niche.
- Choose a name.
- Choose a blogging platform.
- Publish your first blog post.
The actual process is a little more complicated than this, but these are the basic steps you can take to start a simple, free blog today.
1. Choose a niche
Choosing a blog niche can be difficult if all you know is that you want to start a blog but aren’t sure what to blog about.
Some people luck out by knowing exactly what they want to blog about. Others have a general topic in mind but aren’t quite sure how to approach it.
Here are a few tips we have to share on how to choose a blog niche:
- Think of topics you’re interested in.
- Think of topics you know. Even if you only know a little bit about a topic, that’s still more than someone else might know. You don’t need to be an expert on a topic to start a blog about it.
- Conduct keyword research using a tool like SE Ranking to break down a topic into a smaller topic you can choose as your niche. For example, instead of blogging about gardening as a whole, you can start a blog specifically about succulents and cacti.
This should be good enough for blogging as a hobby.
Normally, we’d recommend validating your niche by making sure it receives traffic and has the potential to generate revenue.
But because you’re only blogging as a hobby, you can simply choose the topic you’re most interested in and get to work.
2. Come up with a name for your blog
Naming your blog is tricky as well. You might not be starting a professional blog, but this name will represent your “brand” whether you choose to go professional or not.
You don’t necessarily need to choose a blog name that represents your niche. For example, what does the name “Google” have to do with search engines?
However, you should choose something that’s short, catchy, easy to read, easy to remember and easy to spell.
Here are a few examples from real blogs to help you:
3. Choose a beginner-friendly blogging platform
Normally, we recommend using the self-hosted version of WordPress (WordPress.org) on a server hosted by DreamHost if you want to start a blog.
However, paying for hosting isn’t necessary when you only want to start a blog as a hobby. You’re better off using a blogging platform that’s entirely free instead.
We recommend WordPress.com due to its simplicity. It’s more advanced than it used to be, and it’s easy to transfer the entire blog to WordPress.org if you want to go professional in the future.
Medium is the next best option if you don’t want to use WordPress. Tumblr and Blogger aren’t bad, either.
The onboarding process for WordPress.com will involve choosing a name for your blog and setting up a template (this is free), so be ready for that.
4. Publish your first blog post
Once your blog is set up, you can publish your first blog post.
If you’re using WordPress, you can write it in Google Docs or Microsoft Word, then copy and paste it into the WordPress editor.
Choosing your first topic can be difficult. Because you’re blogging as a hobby, choose a topic that’s most interesting to you or a trending topic.
This is meant to be a relaxing activity you do in your spare time. Don’t overcomplicate it.
However, as you write, break up your post into H2 sections by choosing an H2 heading in your editor. If you need to break up those H2 sections, break them up into H3 sections. You may even need to break up H3 sections into H4 sections.
If you choose these headings in Google Docs or Microsoft Word, they’ll carry over to WordPress.
Don’t make your paragraphs too long, either.
A lot of people will read your posts on their phone. Long paragraphs may look fine on your computer, but they’ll look like walls of text on a phone.
How to take a hobby blog to the next level
As you become familiar with blogging, you may start to wonder how you can take it to a professional level.
Here are a few steps you can take to turn your hobby blog into a legitimate business:
