Starting a blog can be daunting. Growing a blog can be downright difficult. Monetizing that blog, even tougher still. Any of these issues resonate with you? Do you think attending blog conferences can help you become better at what you do and finally start earning some serious money?
Can a blogger conference really help you?
Do you want the short answer or the long one? The short answer is yes. Do you want to know why I can answer “yes” so confidently? Well, this is where the long answer comes into play.
I attended a blog conference with my wife, Wendi, back in 2016. She started blogging, and it was an opportunity for her to learn more. Little did I realize I would attend an SEO session that changed our lives in a dramatic way.
I was an award-winning journalist at the time. The awards were nice, but the pay wasn’t great. I had a master’s degree, but people with high school diplomas and bachelor’s degrees earned more than me.
After the SEO presentation, I ended up enrolling in an online SEO auditing course. It cost $500, but I received a $100 discount for attending the blogger conference.
The allure of making $75 an hour (it would have taken me nearly six hours to earn that kind of money at the newspaper) as a side hustle intrigued me. The presenter, Claudia Pennington, said there was no reason I couldn’t work with 10 clients and earn six figures. I was sold. (Found out later, that she was not making that up.)
Business launch delayed, but not forever
The family-owned newspaper I worked at ended up selling to a billion-dollar corporation. I thought it would be a nice opportunity, more training, more pay, and more support. The new company had a policy that I could not compete with it. Because it had a digital marketing agency, I would not be able to do SEO audits on the side.
After about nine months or so, I decided I would leave the company so I could start my own business. In January 2018, I founded Wooster Media Group LLC, an SEO, content creation, and social media management business. I went on to launch another entity, After Journalism, to help journalists who have left or want to leave the industry.
5 benefits of attending a blogging conference
For me, the immediate benefit was connecting with a person who would help me launch a new career and my own business. Here are the benefits of attending blog and influencer conferences:
- Networking opportunities: I met a lot of wonderful and helpful people who have given me great advice and insights beyond the presentations. There is a lot of learning when people are not presenting.
- Having your opportunities expand: I thought I was attending a conference where I would hear from blogging industry professionals, which at the time it meant to me learning how to get a website up, write blog posts, and learning how to make some money. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would lead me to a career in search engine optimization and content optimization. I also met and learned best practices from lawyers, travel bloggers, food bloggers, and influencers.
- Learn new skills: In the blogger conferences I have attended, I learned about podcasting, affiliate marketing, the rise of new media — especially video and YouTube, I learned about finding blogging niches, what it takes to have a blogging business, all the while rubbing shoulders with podcasters, influencers and content creators.
- Get motivated: When you are trying to launch and grow a blog all by yourself from your home, it can be difficult staying motivated or trying to produce when you are extremely busy with your full-time job. When you attend these conferences and blogging events, whether it is a day conference, a two day conference or a weeklong conference, you will get excited about what you are doing. The bloggers and content creators you meet will inspire you to continue. Your mission is to stay motivated and keep producing.
- You make more money: That was the case for me. I was able to learn new skills and start a new business. I make a little money from blogging myself, but where my revenue comes from is helping other bloggers rank higher in Google so they attract more visitors.
So, did I hit those 6 figures after going to a blog conference?
Almost! Revenue from my business came close to hitting six figures in 2020, and I would have reached that mark had it not been for the pandemic. My business was growing during the early months of the pandemic, before slowing down in October and November. It picked back up in December 2020.
In the first nine months of 2020, revenue surpassed five figures three times. In those three months alone, revenue exceeded what I made as a journalist for a year. It’s not free money, I had to work. And, I had expenses, too.
All because Wendi decided to attend a blogger conference and I tagged along. You have a similar opportunity with the Blogger Breakthrough Summit.
Are you still on the fence? Listen to my wife
It is amazing how one decision, seemingly random, can have such a huge impact on your life. I don’t think I’m overstating that if my husband, Bobby, and I did not decide to attend a blogger conference in Sandusky, Ohio, back in 2016, we would not be where we are today.
In 2015, I started a blog, called Wendi’s Weekend Trips and Whatnot. It is a lifestyle blog that gives me an outlet for writing and also allows me to capture the places that Bobby and I visit. In early 2016, Bobby heard of a blogging conference that was near our home in northeast Ohio and he thought we should go. I’m always looking for getaways, so a weekend away with him sounded great to me.
I showed up at the conference expecting to learn and hoping to find out about monetization. Bobby wanted to learn all he could to help my blog grow. The conference had tons of breakout sessions, so we decided to attend them separately, so we could learn and then share the information with one another. Bobby said he was interested in attending the breakout session about SEO (search engine optimization). Since I didn’t know anything about it or even care at that point, I agreed he was better suited for that than I was.
Well, that session changed our lives. It was there that he met Claudia Pennington, the owner of DIY Marketing. She opened Bobby’s eyes to what was possible when understanding SEO. Bobby has always had an entrepreneurial spirit so the idea of having a side hustle doing SEO work sounded good to him. He took her course with plans to begin offering his skills in the beginning of 2017.
As circumstances would have it, he wasn’t able to start his side business at that point. However, after several months of deliberating and talking to business owners, we decided that Bobby could take the leap from full-time job (working for the man) to full time business owner by starting Wooster Media Group, LLC. He began his new path in January 2018.
I continued to work full-time while Bobby was building his business. I spend most of the time crunching the numbers at our house. With some planning, we were able to build up enough wiggle room while Bobby built up his clientele. All I cared about was that the business could contribute enough to meet some of our financial needs.
Toward the end of 2019, Bobby’s business was bringing in a consistent amount each month and we began talking about the possibility of me leaving my full-time position and doing some part-time virtual assistant work from home. It has always been our dream that I could stay home. March 17, 2020, was my last day working at my job. I have been working from home ever since. I have had the privilege of working side by side with my husband as we grow his business. None of this would have been possible if we hadn’t made that one small, seemingly insignificant, decision to attend that blogger conference in 2016.