Blogging as a Full Time Job: Take the Smart Step

Good Morning Dinks.  A few weeks ago we put out a call in the FinCon Facebook group for guest posts about blogging as a full time business.  It’s no surprise that we had a wonderful response from our personal finance friends and Voila, a new blogging series has been born.  If you want to learn about making money from blogging and how to turn  your part time blogging into a full time business then keep reading.  If you are a full time blogger and you want to submit a post, just let us know – we love sharing.

Our first guest post in the blogging as a full time job series comes from Andrea Travillian who will teach us how helping others helped her become a full time blogger. Enjoy!

In 2007 I was doing freelance bookkeeping.  While I was doing this I realized that more of my clients were asking me coaching questions than accounting questions.  Since I have always been a problem solver I decided to transition to a coaching practice.  Part of my certification training required that I started a blog to chronicle my journey.

Over the next couple of years it went from being a personal journey to a marketing tool for my ever evolving business.  At first I blogged very sporadically, finally in 2010 blogging became a permanent and integral part of my business.

Today Smart Step, Inc is focused on helping others become more balanced and stable in all areas of life so they can in turn make the world a better place.  I believe that when we are balanced in our money, heath, career, relationships and spiritual practice then we can be the best versions of ourselves.  It is only when we are this best version that we are able to really focus on helping others and making the world a better place.

Smart Step, Inc achieves this through education that is easy to understand and immediately useful.  I currently have three sites to achieve this:

• Takeasmartstep.com – this site mainly covers personal finance, but I am working on developing out the other personal development categories over time.
• Hearthealthjourney.com – this site is dedicated to preventing heart disease.  This is the number one killer of both men and women in the United States, and is preventable.
• Migraineshelp.com – this site is dedicated to relieving migraine pain.  I have suffered migraines for twenty years and wanted to share my knowledge of how to reduce the number of migraines and quickly eliminate the pain.

I make money blogging multiple ways including methods tied directly to blogging and also income from non-blogging products and services.

Income from Blogging:

• Advertising
• Affiliate Sales

Income Outside of Blogging:

My education and experience is in personal finance and investing so the income from outside of traditional blogging is for my personal finance expertise.

• Success Coaching – I believe in living holistically so we focus on building a life plan, a financial plan and then making sure you achieve your goals while living your vision and values.  What is the point of money if you don’t enjoy life?
• E-products – including a budgeting class, financial assessment tool and a goal achievement workbook.
• Kindle books – covering kids and money and how money is tied to your overall health.
• Speaking
• Curriculum development for colleges

I have been actively working on building the income and traffic for a solid two years, while hard and frustrating at times it is easier because I am very passionate about everything I do.  I am blessed that I have an amazing husband that has let me do this full time while he brings home the main income.  That has been crucial in helping me stick to my focus and not compromising.   While hard at times the ability to focus on how I can make the world better has made it worth the hard work.

– Andrea Travillian runs Take A Smart Step a site dedicated to personal development, including personal finance, health, career and relationships. 

Photo by jorge

Kristina Tahnyak

Tahnya is a Certified Financial Planner and former Investment Advisor turned marketing and communications professional She holds a degree from Concordia University, is debt free and currently works in the field of digital marketing.