The Rubinshteinic Guide to the Philosophy Blogger

(For how to understand a philosophical text, click here)

Have you ever wanted to open up a philosophy blog of your own, like this one? After years of intensive work, I can testify that it will not be easy, nor will I guarantee immediate, optimal results.

It's more than just the mere act of philosophizing; it's about designing a website, attracting and preserving an audience, staying ahead of your many competitors, and making sure you are active enough online to keep your content relevant.

Also, financial gain isn't something that's going to happen in an instant, as that depends not only on your content but also on the traffic of your audience and making sure you do not blast your blog with advertisements, left and right.

In this article I'll try and help you as much as I can in regard to this subject. I've set up a few points for you to browse through.

I do hope what I have to offer will suffice and serve as a starting point for anyone who wishes to be a blogger in this niche.

1. Create your website/blog by first deciding which platform to use and how much you can afford to pay for domain maintenance. Make sure you have enough funds to maintain a basic domain for as long as possible. WordPress and Wix are the platforms that I recommend for anyone who wants to blog.

When it comes to your domain, you should choose something that is both memorable and relevant to your niche. A too-long name will make it hard for users to remember your brand, and a too-irrelevant name could mislead your visitors.

Every professional-looking website should be white with specific fonts in black. That design is most fitting in the mentioned niche of philosophy, as it gives off the vibe of a philosophy book.

2. Make sure you have enough content to provide for the world. When it comes to philosophy, your articles should be written as if you were presenting an argument and trying to convey it to others in the most logical way possible.

Make sure you present your theories and assessments with logical coherence, while keeping your audience interested enough to continue reading, hopefully, the whole article.

• It should be mentioned that people nowadays don't always have the patience of book readers, so don't expect right away to have your average reader stay on your site for ten minutes straight.

Make your articles not too long but interesting by trying to make the reader feel like your article is worthwhile and insightful enough to contribute to their own thoughts. Make people appreciate your thoughts!

3. Once you have enough content in the form of posts, try to get approved by Google Adsense. It is a platform provided by Google through which you can make money from your blog through automatic advertisements. While the ads are automatic, you can technically filter them to further match the interests of your audience.

That way, it would be more likely that more people would click on your ads. Once you are approved, design your website in a way that will allow space for ads to be added. Make sure the ads are not too big or too small, and that they are placed in a way that does not interfere with the reading experience – both on the desktop and on the smartphone.

If you decide to use Wix, minimize the width of your post and put some ads either left or right, in whatever space you've allowed to put them in. You can also put ads within the post to save site speed (depending on the variety of content site of your posts. Perhaps it may be unwise to put ads on the sides if you're writing like an ancient Eastern philosopher, sometimes or usually)

The income at first might be small, but with enough readers on a regular basis, you'll eventually be able to make a monthly income; that, of course, depends on your traffic.

(You also will need to be regularly updated with their policies, to make sure their services won't be disconnected because of a mistake on your end).

4. Convince your audience that your voice is distinct, within the competition. Philosophy might be a relatively esoteric niche, but you literally have hundreds of competitors from across the globe. Use your writing and thoughts to convince your followers to stay specifically on your site and less on others'. Make your writing not only convincing but also attractive to anyone who seeks insights and new points of view.

Make your readers engaged, willing to contemplate your words, and moved by them. Show not only logic, but passion. That way, you will increase the distinctiveness of your blog in the eyes of others.

• Study influential philosophers if you'd like. Try and see not only what they've claimed but why what they've claimed was so important to keep countless people interested in their material over the course of history.

The path to philosophership stays the same even today: reach a state of having not only good reasoning skills but also a chance to become a public figure with the power of your work.

5. Identify your ideal audience if you're using an ad campaign. After all, some marketing can help if you have enough money to invest on a regular basis.

6. Critics and Haters -- identify between those who have genuine feedback and those who are out to hurt you for writing things they don't want to read (but do read anyway, for some reason...). Use the words of your critics to improve your craft and discard the words of haters if they have nothing truly constructive to say.

Criticism isn't bad by default, especially helpful criticism. Instead of being insulted unnecessarily, you can deem some criticisms as insights for improvement.

• Remember, you don't write to yourself, you write to an audience.

  
  

• Consider their feedback, especially the feedback of your loyal readers (those who read you occasionally/regularly).

Should you be discouraged, remember the words of your supporters, and even use them as testimonials to show the world that your content is good in the eyes of others; it keeps a good reputation.

Understanding what ad-hominem means can also help.

That is all I have to offer right now to anyone who wishes to become an "E-Philosopher" like me, AKA, an online philosopher and content creator.

As stated before, it is more than just philosophizing, but one should remember that all the work around it is in the end to further expand your contemplations to audiences that you may not otherwise ever interact with.

For anyone who wants their voice to be heard on the global stage, the internet should not be discarded at all as a good idea for just that. Even if you have a specific target audience, I can attest that you may have readers from places you once might have thought you could not reach.

This is how powerful the internet is, and how, technically, a blog is far more convenient than what books used to be.

You can therefore say that the future of content is not in books but in blogs, accessible freely to everyone with an internet connection!