{"id":18090,"date":"2024-02-09T15:50:03","date_gmt":"2024-02-09T15:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.webmonkey.com\/young-money-interview-6-shruti-on-taking-blogging-full-time\/"},"modified":"2024-05-24T19:40:06","modified_gmt":"2024-05-24T19:40:06","slug":"young-money-interview-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.webmonkey.com\/young-money-interview-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Young Money Interview # 6 – Shruti On Taking Blogging Full-Time"},"content":{"rendered":"
When I first decided to start a blog, one of my main goals was monetization.<\/p>\n
The idea of being able to work remotely and to make money from a blog is certainly an alluring one, and I'd argue this is why many people decide to get into blogging alongside the fact that blogging is just a tonne of fun.<\/p>\n
I've made an effort to create transparent income reports<\/a> on WebMonkey to track growth and inspire others, and series like my Road to $100 Blogging Income A Month<\/a> have set (I hope) a decent foundation for anyone who is just starting out.<\/p>\n However, I have 0 idea about what it takes to blog for a full-time job. I'd also argue that many of the top income reports from six figure sites are from bloggers who have been blogging for so long they have lost touch with what it's like to be a beginner.<\/p>\n So, if you've ever wondered how you can actually take a blog from a beginner to intermediate level and make the leap to full-time, this is the post for you.<\/p>\n I'm incredibly excited to have Shruti from Indian Girling<\/a> to break down how she recently became a full-time travel blogger.<\/p>\n Keep in mind, Shruti started her blog around the same time I started WebMonkey…it's safe to say that she is absolutely killing it while simultaneously providing an immense amount of value to her readers about how to effectively monetize and grow a blog while travelling the world.<\/p>\n Time to let Shruti take over with her incredible story about how she scaled to a full-time blog in under two years.<\/p>\n Let's get to it!<\/p>\n Extra reading – <\/strong>Check out the 5 previous entrepreneurs in the Young Money series!<\/a><\/p>\n Hi! My name is Shruti Pangtey. I\u2019m a full time travel blogger and online entrepreneur. I was born and raised in India and had a traditional childhood where getting good grades was valued above all else. <\/span><\/p>\n I studied economics as my major during bachelors and went on to do an MBA straight after. <\/span><\/p>\n During my MBA, I had the chance to spend two semesters abroad. One semester was in Indonesia and the other one was in Poland. Having never traveled that far alone, I was positively bitten by the travel bug. <\/span><\/p>\n After finishing graduate school, I worked with a both big multinational company and startups for two years, until I realized I didn\u2019t want to do that for the rest of my life.<\/span><\/p>\n I wanted my life to be about more than a 9-5 job. <\/span><\/p>\n I wanted more control, more travel, more freedom<\/em>. <\/span><\/p>\n Realizing this made me pack up my life and move to Germany for a second master degree. I figured this would give me enough time to travel, learn a new language, and hone in on what I really want to do in life. <\/span><\/p>\n After moving abroad in late 2016, I wanted to be able to share my adventures with my friends and family back home. <\/span><\/p>\n As far as I knew, I was the only person from my circle of friends who had chosen to move to Germany. As you probably know, most Indians head to the US, Canada or the UK to study and work, so I was quite the odd one out. <\/span><\/p>\n The desire to stay connected made me start an expat blog in 2017, and I worked on it during my free time. It wasn\u2019t until I accidentally had a post go viral on Facebook and reached 20000 page views in a week that I realized I had a voice! <\/span><\/p>\n I realized I had so much potential to create an impact with fellow millennials around the world. However, having come to the end of my \u201cexpat advice\u201d as a blogger, I realized there was one thing I was more passionate about, and that was travel<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n The desire to write about travel made me start my second blog in July 2018, and this was the start of Indian Girling. <\/span><\/p>\n I focused this blog on my travel tips for Europe and a bit of life in Germany.<\/span><\/p>\n I knew traveling to Europe is such a dream for people around the world, and I wanted my blog to be the go-to Europe travel planning resource. I also wanted more people from developing countries to be able to explore the beautiful continent that I now call home.<\/span><\/p>\n Extra Resource – <\/strong>Checkout SiteGround<\/a> if you're thinking of starting your own blog and want affordable hosting!<\/p>\n I had started my second blog in the hopes that I would one day be able to monetize it. <\/span><\/p>\n I also wanted to make sure I didn\u2019t make the 100 mistakes I made with my first blog. You can say that this was true start of my \u201cside hustle\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n At this point, I was still finishing my master, learning German, and working 20h\/week to pay for my living expenses. So, I basically spent every weekend and free hour I had working on my blog. <\/span><\/p>\n In the first six months, I didn\u2019t see massive growth. However, <\/span>I was busy with reading, studying, and educating myself about how I could convert my blog into a business. <\/span><\/p>\n After six months, I hit a point where my traffic started to grow thanks to my new found Pinterest marketing expertise, and I started to cross tens of thousands of page views a month. A big turning point was when I hit 40000 page views in a single month and qualified for Mediavine<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\nAbout Shruti:<\/strong><\/h2>\n
What Side Hustle Did You Start?<\/strong><\/h2>\n
The Second Blog:<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Blogging Results:<\/strong><\/h2>\n