What I wish I knew before I started blogging, that was a DM (Direct message) question I received the other day. It got me thinking about my blogging journey and how it came to be. When I started blogging years ago, the word influencer wasn’t even on the radar. There was only blogging, and to be a blogger you had to have a blog.
After blogging for years, I’m excited to announce that the last year and a half I’ve been able to support myself blogging full time. I wanted to complain a list for those of you who are on the fence about becoming a blogger, and for those of you to avoid the mistakes I learned when I first started blogging. I can only hope this article give you a leg up on your blogging journey.
Without further ado, let’s go ahead and jump into the 7 Lessons, I wish I knew before I started blogging.
Blogging Takes Time…and a lot of it
In a world full of instant gratification, blogging, and SEO aren’t one of them. If you want to be a blogger and a successful one, you are going to have to put in the time and the effort.
Did you know there are over 600 Million blogs on the internet? Yes you read that right, 600 Million Blogs, and google rewards blogs that have been constant and provide value. Am I saying that you can’t go viral overnight, no that’s definitely possible, but it’s something I wouldn’t count on. You need to build a constant strategy to uploading valuable content.
It takes time to build a blog, gain traffic loyalty and on top of that rank on Google, but once you accomplish these things, traffic starts to grow exponential and so does your revenue.
Niche Down
I know it’s hard to write about only one topic, but it’s important that you niche down and become the authority figure in that space.
When I first started blogging, I wrote about literally everything, anything that would inspire me that day, whether it was travel, food, fashion, my life, handbags, jewelry anyway the wind blew I would write about it.
That is where I went wrong, I didn’t niche down and wrote about whatever topic I felt needed more articles. Here is a great blog article I wrote that I share with you what blog topics make the most money.
Today, I always tell people when they are blogging to pick a niche. For example: If you like food, what type of food do you like or perhaps you want to write about food under a certain amount of calories, or even focus on dessert only recipes. I even read an article about a blogger who found her niche by writing about Spas.
These are all great niche down topic ideas.
Write about what you Love
One of the most important things someone told me was if you love what you do, it won’t feel like work. I applied this same principal to blogging, if you love what you are writing about it won’t feel like work.
When I write blog articles, typically I do endless amounts of research before I post a topic, but it doesn’t feel like work. I genuinely have an interest in the topic I am writing about, which makes the research fun.
I strongly believe my passion about writing topics I love shines through on my blog posts. I’m not saying you have to love literally everything you write about, but it’s good to be passionate about a majority of the topics you write about.
Learn about the New Trends
When it comes to blogging and writing, there are endless amounts of information online to help you learn about the new marketing trends, how to improve your social media presence, and even upcoming Google Changes.
What I love about the blogging community, is how most of these resources are free. I’m writing this article because I genuinely want to help people avoid the mistakes I made, and a lof of the blogging community has the same mind set.
In fact, I stumbled upon this article that I found extremely helpful that talks about new Marketing trends to be successful in 2022.
Income fluctuates
Number 5 and number 6 go hand in hand, and it’s all about revenue and profit. When you are blogging, it’s important to know and understand that income fluctuates.
There are days and months when my income is sustainably higher than a previous month. The trick is to not let the down days bring you down.
Multiple streams of Revenue
There are many ways you can make revenue in a blog. My advice is to have multiple streams of revenue coming in. There is ad revenue, I love ad revenue because it’s predictable based upon your traffic.
The second way is through affiliate links, for my, during the holidays my affiliate links are always so much higher than in Q1.
The third way, is through collaborations with brands directly. My advice is to only accept collaborations that align with your brand and a product or service you believe in.
The fourth most popular way is to sell a product or a course. While, I haven’t dabbled into this sector yet, I have blogging friends who have and have been very successful doing so.
Have fun and meet new people
Many times, the 7th and final lesson I wish I knew before Is tarted blogging was to have fun and don’t take it so serious! When I first started out I was so obsessed with making everything perfect, getting the perfect photo, having the perfect lighting, and writing the perfect article. While I was trying to make everything perfect, I forgot to have fun and enjoy the moment. Yes, blogging is work but it can also be fun!
Blogging also allows you to meet people you wouldn’t normally meet, it’s been so fun over the years to get to meet people from different walks of life and the one thing we have in common is blogging. One of the most unexpected things I learned from blogging is that there are so many blogging out there willing to connect and help along the way.
Well there you have it, what I wish I knew before I started a blog.
Recap on 7 Lessons I wish I knew before I started blogging
There are so many lessons and advice I would give to a new blogger starting out. I could probably write tons of articles on the topic. However, to narrow down to 6 pieces of advice, I wish I would have known before I started blogging.
In Short, the 6 lessons I wish I knew before I started blogging: Blogging takes time, it doesn’t happen overnight, so be patient. Niche down, when choosing a blog topic try to be as niche as possible, write what you love, it makes the writing process easier, learn about new trends and marketing tactics, know that income fluctuates month over month, and finally when you are blogging make sure there are multiple streams of revenue coming from your website.
While I understand every blogger’s journey is different, I’m hoping these secrets on blogging will help you skip the frustration I faced when I first started out.
Do you have a blog? I’d love to hear from you if so, what lessons wish you knew before you started blogging?