This is the second in series on how to make money on the road by writing a blog, running a website or making Videos for Youtube. In the first of the series I tried to provide a balance of a warning against having too high expectations of success, but also being aware there was still a market for anyone who had a modicum of talent and also was willing to buckle down and do the hard work required.
Today I want to look at the talent that is needed and where your hard work has to go. I firmly believe that if you either possess these eleven skills or are willing to do the hard work required to learn them and master them, then you can be a success with a blog or videos.
Let’s take a look at them:
Required Skills for Success: 
Before you even consider creating a website, blog or Youtube channel, read this list of Required Skills. The more you have the better, but you must at least be willing to work to gain them. My advice is, if you aren’t willing to do the work, don’t even bother!

1. Passion for your topic: Some people will tell you to use keyword searches to find a topic that is under-covered online and cover it. I say forget that! Only blog or Vlog about something you love! If you are in it for the money, then your audience will see and sense that and will not be loyal to you–why should they be, you just want their money? Above everything else, you are seeking to build a relationship with an audience and they can spot instantly if you are a phony out to make money off them. Never do that!! Only pick a topic you have a genuine and deep passion for!
2. Be genuine, open and honest, the more transparent you are with your audience, the more they will like you and stay with you.That seems counter-intuitive, don’t you want to convince them how great you are so they will listen to you? No! People who toot their own horns are a dime and dozen and people will follow them for awhile, but eventually the truth show through and they will stop following them. What’s hard to find is someone who admits they have the same problems, questions, and fears as the audience has–but they are figuring it and getting through them. That is so rare, people will be very devoted to that person! Vulnerability and honesty are your number one assets!
3. You MUST like and care about people enough to Serve them! If you are in this for the money, everyone will see that and no one will care about you– you will get back from your audience the care and compassion that you give out. The truth is we are all mainly focused internally on ourselves and so finding someone who seems to genuinely care about me is so rare, I’ll instantly be drawn to them. If you are just using them, they’ll never follow you! Decide what you have to give to others to make their lives better, and be single-minded in doing that. Making money must be a distant second place in your priority list. Surprisingly, if you will do that, the money will come in.
4. Dedication and Commitment: One thing you should never do is carelessly get a pet like a cat or dog and then get rid of it quickly. That is a relationship you form with your pet and it’s too important not to take it seriously. In the exact same way, you are creating a relationship with your audience and once you’ve created that relationship you must maintain it. Honor them and treat them with respect by being dedicated to it for the Long Haul. So I strongly encourage you to commit to putting in the hard work and time it requires for at least one full year–and preferably more like 2-5 years. After the first year make a strong evaluation and maybe make some changes. If you haven’t made it after 5 years, it’s time to give up!
5. Have a Passion for learning: It’s likely you will face a steep learning curve on the technicalities of web-building, blogging, and making videos and sharing them on Youtube, but you just have to put in the time and work to learn and do it right. If you do a half-ass job, you’ll get half-ass results! Plan on spending a LOT of time studying and learning by reading, watching videos, and doing research–it’ll pay off in the end result. More importantly, you must become an EXPERT on your topic, and competent on the other topics surrounding it. When I first started cheap RVliving.com I had already been living in my van for eight years and during that time I learned everything I could. But, there was still much more to know! When I started blogging I thought I was an expert, but, I knew there were many other ways to do the same things, and I only knew my one way to do them. There is an infinite variety of ways to accomplish the same goal, and I wanted to learn as many of them as I could! Since then I’ve tried to learn something from everyone I met so I could answer any question and help anyone in any way. That is the attitude you must have, “I’m a learning machine that will end up knowing everything possible about my topic.” I recommend Amazon Kindle books as the cheapest and best source of books.
6. Play Well with others: One thing every blogger and Youtube Creator can tell you is there are lots of trolls and haters out there that want to make your life miserable. For whatever reason, they are unhappy people and they want you to be unhappy too! Plus there are also people who legitimately think you were wrong and need to tell you why (I get that a lot) so they’ll write and tell you how wrong you are. I never object to a legitimate discussion of ideas, but I draw the line at the people who write in and just want to insult me and hate on me. There are also others who love drama and write in with the sole goal of causing a fight and stirring up trouble.  You must be able to deal with them in an intelligent and reasonable way. You will get angry and you will be hurt but you must develop a thick enough skin to cope with that. If you can’t you may want to reconsider this as a field to make money in. There will be haters and you will be hated! and you can’t respond in kind.
7. Writing skills: writing skills are essential for your new job. Even if you’re not writing a blog or website and you’re just doing videos you still have to write titles and descriptions. All of those things require writing skills. Writing titles is one of the hardest things you can do. They must be very short but they also must grab attention that’s a difficult chore. So whatever skills you have now start with them and they’ll be good enough. But you must also always be working to increase your skills and gain more. Read books on the topic, have a good thesaurus on hand. Have a grammar book on hand to learn grammar skills. Do whatever it takes to become a better writer! But, be aware that a lot of it is simply practice, the more you write the better you’ll become. Over a period of time, I’ve found my writing gets better just because of the large amount of it I do! I’m living proof of the old adage practice makes perfect and you can too! Don’t let a lack of writing skills keep you from starting–you can improve with time and work.
8. Photography: I’m very lucky in that all of my life I have enjoyed photography. Nature photography has been my number one hobby since I was a very young man. So when it came time to have photographs on my blog and website I was ready for the challenge! I had the camera and I had the skills. I could take decent photographs from the very beginning. And just like writing, my skills and my artistic ability with both a still and video cameras have improved, and your’s will too! If you lack that background, start studying and taking lots of pictures now!! With hard work and persistence, you can gain competence and even artistry!
9. Marketing: The bad news is that the fields of RVing and Vandwelling are very saturated by both blogs and Vlogs! But the good news is there’s still room for more if you’re willing to do it right! The hunger and demand for it is virtually insatiable! If you do it well, you can build an audience. But because the market is so saturated and full already you have to make yourself stand apart. People are NOT going to come flocking to you because you opened a new channel or a new blog. You have to make them aware of you and that is the Art and Science of marketing–like it or not, you have to learn the basics. I don’t have the time now to go into details about how to do it we will cover it a little bit later this is one of those areas you may want to hire a pro and have a professional guide you through it. At any rate, there are plenty of books and videos on it that will give you a beginning and a start on marketing–do your research and learning!
10. SEO: the single most important element of gaining an audience is SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and you must become at least competent and have a basic understanding of that. Most of us know nothing about it so you’re going to have to take the time to learn! You keep hearing me say that over and over again that you’re going to have to read and study the books and videos and you’re probably getting tired and discouraged by it: GOOD! You need to go into this with a clear view of what lies ahead of you. Learning and more learning is the key to success! It won’t just happen because you’re so pretty or admirable or a Nice Guy! People still need to find you the first time and that comes mostly from just good old fashioned hard work. So do the research and learn SEO and make it happen on your Vlog and on your blog.
11. Computer Technical Skills: finally you have to know at least a modicum of computer knowledge and skills to put it all together. If you have a crappy looking Channel or a crappy looking website no one’s going to stick with you. If your website is slow or they can’t hear your videos or find anything in your videos channels or websites no one will know anything about you. So you have to have the technical abilities to make it clear, concise, fast, and usable. Usability is the key and only computer skills will give that to you. You’re going to have to know some basic underlying facts and skills but you still may want to hire a professional to do the initial build on your website it will pay off in the long run.

The more of these you get right, the far greater your chance of very good success!! Fail to embrace them with hard work, and success becomes unlikely. It’s all in your hands and your control!

Be sure and check out my YouTube Channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAj7O3LCDbkIR54hAn6Zz7A

Thanks for supporting this site by using these links to Amazon. I’ll make a small percentage on your purchase and it won’t cost you anything, even if you buy something different.

CLICK HERE TO SHOP AMAZON.COM