5 Ways to Know You're Serious About Blogging!

Blogging can be a hobby or a job that can sometimes take over your life. You spend hours on your computer producing content. You spend hours on social media dedicated to increasing your following and getting your blog known. But do you ever sit and wonder if you are taking blogging serious enough or if you are even a serious blogger. While you might spend all this time on your blog or growing your blogging business, does that really make you serious about what you do? In today's post, I'll share with you 5 ways that I know I'm serious about blogging as well as prompt you with some questions to ask yourself so you can understand your seriousness of blogging.

#1) Your productivity is in line with the amount of time you spend on your blog. Spending time on your blog and being productive are two completely different things. For example, today I chose to spend 8 hours working on my blog. But really I only got one post written up and gained 300 views and 5 new Twitter followers. Is this productive for my time? Tomorrow I spend another 8 hours on my blog, but this time I get 4 posts written. I also gain 1000 views and 50 Twitter followers are added to my list. Is this productive? For me being productive mean's using my time wisely and using 8 hours of my day to create one post is not productive to me, especially when the next day using the same amount of time I can double what I did today. Getting serious about blogging means more than the hours put into my blog, it means the work put into the hours. Make sure that you are filling every single second of your blog work time with productive activities. Paper-based planning methods are great for those who might need to be more strict with themselves. Keep to-do lists handy and always take notes of other things you want to get done. #2) Purchasing products means more than just using them for their intended purpose. As a beauty blogger, this is one of the biggest things I notice. I walk into a store and I purchase a product because I truly need it or because something else has run out. But I also chose the product because it relates to my blog and because at some point I can probably blog about it. Also don't forget about those bloggers and YouTuber who influence our product purchases. Needless to say, if you're purchasing a product 1) for yourself and then 2) because of something you heard about it or because it might be a good addition for your blog. Chances are your blog has become a pretty serious staple in your life.  #3) Your bedroom is not only where you sleep, but where you prepare everything. Does your bedroom look more like a photography studio or an office? As a blogger, we need an organized and happy space to be able to work. If you are anything like me you don't have the luxury of having a separate office from your bedroom. So my bedroom has to double as my 'do everything room'. I spent countless hours arranging the room and adding pieces of furniture just to suit my blogging needs. Being serious about blogging means having a multiuse and operational space. My bedroom doubles as a studio, office, photography area and so much more. #4) Branding, Search Engine Optimization, and Analytics are now words in your everyday vocabulary. Because the blogging world is a world in its own that means many of those everyday words that you used to use seem so easy compared to one's like Search Engine Optimization. Because blogging has become a huge community and a huge force of nature on the internet it's important to keep up with the lingo. For me being serious about blogging means keeping up with the latest trends, the latest sciences and of course, all the latest vocabulary. So one day you're sitting down watching TV and all of a sudden you start rambling to your mom about Branding. That's when you know blogging has become serious in your life, that not only have you enjoyed learning about all the blogging terms but yours translating them for other people who aren't within the blogging community to help them understand. #5) You spend more time staring at your own blog than any other website or social media platform. Bloggers can't be perfect and no one can expect us to be. Yet every day we get comments, e-mails and all forms of messages that point out our flaws and that are just plain mean. For me, this usually leads me right back to the visual aspect of my blog in some way or another. I spend countless hours staring at my own blog screen looking for misspelled words or images that are low quality, links that don't work and so many other minor imperfections. It's time to take a step back and remember that our blogs are who we are, and I know for a fact that not one of us is perfect. Are blogs aren't meant to be perfect either. Taking blogging seriously means that yes you do spend that time staring at your blog and making those changes because we are always trying to better ourselves. But I think it's also important to remember that being serious about blogging mean's we are serious about every aspect of our blogs right down to if 'blog' is actually spelled wrong in a post. How do YOU know if YOU'RE serious about blogging? Here are a few simple but complex questions that you can ask yourself. Of course we all have different levels of how severe something is, but this might trigger you to rethink your blog, strategy or work ethic when it comes to getting serious about blogging: What made you start blogging? Why did you continue to blog after you started? What aspects of your life have changed because you started blogging?