Have you ever had someone assume your blog was “just a hobby”? Maybe sometimes you walk the line between it being a hobby and a business. In today’s episode, I’m sharing some things you have to do in order to take your hobby blog and turn it into a business!


Can’t listen to the episode? Read on for the transcript!
Take your business seriously or no one else will.
I can remember for the first few years of my business, I took a lot more seriously than most people did.
You have so much potential in your blog and have so much potential to create an income that maybe some things are family or just provide some extra cushion but you’re having a hard time getting past the perception that others have of your business and what they assume that your business is like.
The first real step that you can take in turning your blog from a hobby to a business is that you have to take it seriously before anyone else is going to.
I found that this came from the way that I talked about my business. I was actually making it seem like it was less important than it actually was to me. It really took me a couple of years to realize that I had to set those boundaries and that no one else was going to set them for me.
Figure out your focus and don’t get distracted.
Now this one is really hard for me because I am someone who loves to experiment and I love to try new things and so it’s very hard for me to not get distracted by the things that come up as the new things to try out.
What I have found is it’s really hard to do a lot of things well especially before you really have a grasp on what you’re doing so what I mean here is it if you are trying to post regularly to Facebook and be on Instagram stories or Instagram reels because that’s the newest thing that came out and you’re also trying to be on Tik Tok and you want to start a YouTube channel you’re going to either burn out really quickly or you’re going to make very little progress in all of those places.
Really focus on one area and focus on learning all that you can about that one particular area or platform before you start to add something else in the mix. What that does is it’s going to really allow you to make progress in what you’re doing instead of feeling like you are just spinning your wheels. It is also really going to help you to see what is worth your time.
If you put all of your eggs in one basket for a short amount of time maybe it’s two weeks or a month then you’re really going to know whether or not it was effective.
Be willing to invest in yourself and your business.
This can really take a lot of forms and it doesn’t necessarily mean you are spending money on your blog especially when you are not making money. I am a really firm believer in focusing on what you are best at and letting someone else handle the rest. That could mean that you hire someone to help you with SEO, maybe you do not love photography so you hire a photographer to help you with your photos, maybe it’s branding or design that you are not good at and you stress out over and hiring someone to help you with those things can really let you focus on the things that you are good at.
Apart from just hiring out certain tasks within your business is also comes down to being willing to invest the time. What I mean is really taking your blog seriously and being willing to invest the time, the mental energy and maybe even the financial resources into your business even if it is not making money yet.
This can also mean investing in education for your business. Focus on one thing at a time. I talked about this a lot when I hosted the Food Blogger Summit back in February but if you never prioritize what you’re learning and you never Implement what you’re learning you’re just simply not going to get any further along you’re going to look back a year ago or two years ago when you were working on the exact same thing in your blog.
This comes down to prioritizing and making the time to put into action what you are learning. It is so important to prioritize the actions that you need to take to move your business forward and not just the investment of time. Do more of the implementation and action taking in your business.
If you are just constantly learning new strategies but you’re never doing them then the time that you’re spending learning it really becomes useless.
Experiment and try new things.
My next piece of advice is to experiment and try new things. In the online space there is never any shortage of new things coming out with a new platform or a new strategy. Maybe try one new thing a quarter, experiment with adding in one new platform or trying out YouTube for 6 months.
Give yourself the freedom in the space to be willing to try something that may not work.
It is much easier to experiment NOW before your blog is at a full time business or income and you have a lot more to lose with trying out something new!
You just never know what may take off and where your audience might be hiding.
Routinely audit what is working and what is not.
You need to routinely audit what is working and what is not.
Related post: How to set strategic goals for your blog
You really need to set aside this time whether it’s on a monthly or quarterly or even a yearly basis to just review all the things that you’re doing to try to grow your food blog or increase your income or connect more with your audience and make sure that those things are working.
If they’re not willing to let them go there is really no value in holding on to things that are doing nothing to move your business forward it is only going to hold you back in the long run.
Make money!
From a technical standpoint at some point or another, a business cannot be a business without making money! I put this last because I truly do not believe you have to be making money in order to take your blog seriously and treat it like a business.
However, the sooner you have a plan in mind for how you want to monetize and make money, the sooner you will get to that point.
Whether you want to run ads on your blog, do affiliate marketing or brand partnerships, or even create digital or physical products, knowing that will make all the difference in the strategies that you take!
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