24 Truths You Need To Know about Blogging Before You Get Started

When I first learned about blogging, I began (like many of us) reading success stories.

And while as it’s super entertaining to read articles like “How I made $289,564 Blogging This Month”, not too many of them do you any justice.

The life of a Blogger, I find, is usually perceived in two completely opposite ways:

1. Blogging is just for sharing how your day went, it’s super easy and is just a hobby.
2. You can make millions of dollars with blogging and it’s not even that complicated.

Well…

If you are reading this article, you probably don’t believe in the first one. However, I must tell you that the second belief is not true either (I wish!).

In fact, since I started blogging at the beginning of 2017, I’ve come to realize that there are many things I wish I knew about blogging before I got started.

Here are my top 24 truths in no particular order.

Note:

• If you are just planning to start blogging, check out my guide on how to start a blog.
• Or if you would rather have a PDF version of this article to keep forever, you can download it below!

1. Blogging is a lot of work

via GIPHY

It took some time to truly understand this concept.

Some bloggers out there will tell you that blogging is a lot of work, while as other will make it seem like a piece of cake.

As someone who is just getting started, we tend to want to believe more the second type of people more. And so I did.

Shortly, I began learning about all of the components there are to blogging. These components seem to keep growing the more my blog progresses every time!

Until you get started you won’t be able to fully understand this. Here is just a quick overview of why blogging is a lot of work:

• Designing a website
• Coming up with content ideas
• Writing valuable blog posts
• Researching
• Constantly improving your writing skills
• Creating Clickable Images
• Coming up with worthy headlines
• Learning SEO
• Growing Social Media
• Getting Traffic
• Learning Email Marketing
• Creating Lead Magnets
• Getting People to Subscribe to your blog
• Learning Affiliate Marketing
• Creating A Product
• Building relationships

This list might seem big to some, but truthfully, each of these bullet points can be broken down into a few (or a few hundred) things!

Is your head spinning yet?

Blogging is a lot of work. It gets overwhelming at times. Still, I wouldn’t want to do anything else.

2. You need to have a plan

When I started my first blog (yourartpath.com), I had absolutely no plan whatsoever.

It’s not surprising since I had a very vague idea of what blogging is.
All I wanted is a place to share my art, talk to fellow artists, teach people and talk about different supplies I’m using.

It was fun! For me… But nobody else seemed to be coming to read it.

Fast forward 2 years and my blog is constantly growing in email subscribers, monthly visitors and therefore my income.

What happened?

I changed my view of how I perceive blogging entirely, and actually began setting it up for success.

There are a lot of little components to the plan, but I don’t want to waste your time here. And if only one takeaway from this 24 point list will be the following, then it was worth the 2 weeks I spent writing this.

Plan:

Niche-> Value-> Traffic -> Followers -> Income.

This is the big picture.
If we look closer…

Niche: Plan the categories I’m writing about and the audience I’m writing for.
What do they like? What are their struggles? Can I relate to them?

Related Articles:
– How to choose a blogging niche and income examples from different niches.
– How to Pick a Name for Your Blog in 4 Steps

Value: Create content (writing, video) that solves my target audience’s biggest problems or can provide them with any sort of value (within the categories I defined).

Traffic: Get steady traffic to my website using SEO and Social Media.

Followers: Get readers who want to read more from me and subscribe to my email list.

Income: Master affiliate marketing, set up ads, and when there is good steady traffic create my own awesome products.

These steps are broken down into a variety of little tasks. However, they need to be followed in this order.

You can’t skip to making money if you don’t have the followers. People won’t keep coming back to your site and want to read more from you if they have never got to your blog in the first place.

You can’t get them to stay on your blog if you are not providing real value! And to provide value you need to understand your audience and speak directly to them.

Having a plan, even as broad as this, will help you strive. If your blog isn’t successful, try to find which one of these areas you haven’t mastered yet.

By the way, you can also read how you can make your first $100 blogging if that’s the stage you are in.

3. Blogging is an Investment

via GIPHY

Blogging is an investment in your future! And in the blogging game, you invest with time and money.

Here are some of the things I spent money on (or keep spending every month) that I think are absolutely worth it:

1. Domain name (Bluehost)
2. Hosting (Bluehost)
3. Mailing List Provider (ConvertKit)
4. Plugins (Elementor Pro, WP Rocket, Social Media Warfare)
5. Courses (On various topics and from many people)
6. Social Media Automation (Tailwind)
7. Course Hosting (Teachable)

There are many other little things that come up here and there, but these 7 categories are the most important and play a huge role for my 2 blogs.

Time-wise, I spend as much time as I can blogging apart from other things. It’s my full-time “job”. And the first one of a kind that I’m actually excited to wake up for!

4. Carving Out Time is Important

When I just got started with my blog I was really excited and worked on it ALL the time. A few months into it, the initial motivation fades a bit, and I began to get distracted with other daily tasks.

There were times when I abandoned my blog for a week or two at a time. A big no-no.

It doesn’t matter how busy one’s life is, I can bet everyone can find 20 minutes a day to work on it. Some of the most successful bloggers even shared that they would wake up 2 hours before their full-time jobs just to work on their blogs!

When I read about the sacrifices other bloggers would make, it hit me. If I want to see my blog grow and succeed I need to carve out time for it every day.

So if you like using planners, write down the tasks you want to get done for your blog today and every day!

5. Build and care for your email list from Day 1

I’ve read other bloggers say “Money is in the List”, but I honestly didn’t get it at first.

I started collecting my reader’s emails only about half a year after I began writing. Even then, I did it without any specific intention in mind.

Fast forward to now, I understand that without an email list your blog won’t thrive! Seriously!

It’s not just a list of random people, they are your people. They’ve read your content and subscribed to read more of it. They want to hear from you!

Helping them subscribe to your email list with incentives is important, but so is caring for them afterward.

The list of people you build will define your income. It will also help you build strong impactful long-lasting relationships.
Even more, you can even ask them about their struggles (hint: then solve those struggles).

Takeaway:

-> Write stunning content that solves problems (or gives value)
-> get them to subscribe with a lead magnet (also valuable)
-> build a relationship with your readers by emailing them
-> then you will get money, relationships and opportunities in return.

I use ConvertKit for my email list building/ marketing and I love it!

Related:

• 5 Reasons Why You Need to Start Collecting Emails on Your Blog NOW
• 6 Email List Building Strategies for Bloggers
• Free Email Marketing eBook by ConvertKit

6. Focus on 1 thing at a time

As a blogger, there are so many things you need to learn and do all at once (referring to the #1 point). That’s why it can be so easy to just start working on every single area at once.

Don’t do it.

Seriously, it’s impossible for one person to efficiently create articles, make videos, design images and interact at all of the social media in one day.
If you do all of that at once when you are just starting out you are setting yourself up for failure.

Have FOCUS in your work. First, design your site and brand. Then create valuable content and so on.

via GIPHY

There are so many ways how you can get traffic, grow your email and make money blogging.

First, focus on ONE way and master it, and only then move to the next.

7. Posting More Doesn’t Matter

I thought that if I could post 2-3 articles every week my blog would grow really quickly. So I did that for a few months, but nothing really happened.

Why?

First of all, I was so busy writing articles that I didn’t give myself enough time to promote it. It doesn’t matter how valuable and great your content is if no one is reading it.

And the second reason is that creating so much content so frequently made my articles shorter and less valuable.

Now, I post 1 article/week on yourartpath.com. I focus on quality not quantity and I give myself enough time to promote my content.

Like this article? Pin it to your Pinterest Board and help spread the word!

8. Blogging takes time

Blogging is not a get rich quick scheme. Nor does it make you an influencer right away, nor does it change the world in a month. Who says otherwise doesn’t completely understand it.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some people who became an “overnight success”. However, they are an exception, not the rule, and you shouldn’t expect it.

Blogs like this one, courses and seminars will help you reach success way quicker for sure. But it will take time either way.

On average, it takes around 6 months to see results(if you know what you are doing). The beginning is slow and might get discouraging. Don’t let it fool you, however.

I see blogs as investments. And investments tend to compound over time. Even though the progress is slow at the beginning, once the ball is rolling the growth will pick up!

Then, you will be able to put in way less time than before and still see the same results.

Takeaway: give your blog time, don’t get discouraged if the progress is slow, work hard and then reap the results.

9. Doing things doesn’t mean being productive

This simple truth was an eye-opening discovery for me.

I used to always find myself busy working 10 hours a day on my blog without seeing much of a result.

I was focusing on the wrong things! I could spend a day or two tweaking my site’s design, fixing grammar mistakes, analyzing every little thing. No wonder I didn’t see results.

Your blog’s heart is in the value you provide. All of those little things didn’t affect how much or how little value a visitor would get out of reading my articles.

Now, I make sure that before I do anything, I first do one task that would provide value. Whether it’s writing content, recording videos or writing to my email list.

Value=Growth.
Value=Income.
Value=Change.
Value=Success.

10. When you hit “publish” nothing actually happens

So you spend a few days researching, writing and creating the best piece of content for your blog. You are finally happy with what it looks like and you know it will provide so much value to anyone who reads it.

You hit “publish” and…

Nothing happens.
No one is reading, sharing or commenting. Hitting “publish” didn’t make a difference.

Creating stunning content is just half of the process, the other half is making sure people find it and read it.

In #2 I talked about having a plan, and after content goes traffic. It is your job to get that traffic! Sitting around and hoping that your content will go viral is not good enough. Make it happen!

via GIPHY

11. Site Speed Matters

I had to learn this lesson the hard way.

On one sunny day, I learned that there are many ways of checking your site speed, and that it’s crucial to your blog’s success.

People don’t want to wait around until your blog loads, it has to happen under 3 seconds or most of them will leave. So I decided to check my blog.
The result:

31.8 seconds!!!!!!! Whaaaaaaat? I was shocked!

There are so many factors that caused this terrible result to happen. All of these factors were piling up on one another since the beginning.

The sad thing is, I wasn’t able to fix most of them myself, and I will need to hire someone to take care of it.

Here are some things that will affect your site’s speed:

HOSTING

I started with a platform for bloggers whose name I won’t be disclosing as I don’t have many nice things to say about them (starts with W).

Moving to Bluehost was one of the best things I did for my blog as my site’s speed improved a tone right away.

On that note, I moved my site myself and it was incredibly hard and terrifying. (I couldn’t afford a moving service at that point).

So it’s important to get started with someone great right away.
I’m also aware that there are some hosting companies who offer an even faster speed for your site, but they also cost 10-20 times more.

That’s why I recommend everyone to start with Bluehost at the beginning (I bought a 3-year subscription with them and I love it!).

THEME

Some themes might be incredibly versatile and offer a lot of customization options, but they might also be poorly coded and take a long time to load.

Again, I never thought about these things previously, so I just picked a random theme I liked. I suggest you search for fast themes, and then use a good page builder if you need to make some major changes.

IMAGES

Large files slow down your website. You might laugh as it seems obvious, but this was a huge discovery for me.

I blog about art, and so naturally I would have a tone of images in each and every post – some of them 2mb in size! That’s insane! Don’t repeat my mistakes and do these 2 things:

• Install an image compressor plugin (I use the free version of Smush)
• Compress your images before uploading them to your site (I do it on this incredible free site: https://imagecompressor.com/ )

Every extra little thing on your site takes time to load and costs you visitors!

PLUGINS

There are many amazing plugins available in WordPress. You want something done? I’m sure there is a plugin just for that.

However, every plugin will affect your site speed. So, try to find those that can do many things at once and that are fast!

For example, I used to use the free version of SumoMe. I absolutely loved it for opt-ins, social sharing and many other things. Little did I know that it really slowed down my site.

Eventually, I switched to 2 other plugins that could do this job for me (ConvertKit Forms and Social Media Warfare).

I used to have close to 30 different ones, now I’m down to about 10 plugins in total.

These are just the top 4 things that affect your site’s speed, but there are many other little ones (like using many different fonts on one page).

I also started using WP Rocket (paid) and Cloudflare (free plan) that helps with site speed a lot.

The result is not the best, yet:

Still, going from 31.8 seconds to 5.7 seconds is a huge difference, and it took me more than a month to make it happen.

Starting my new blog annasok.com I thought about site speed from day 1, and you should too!

12. Understanding SEO is key

SEO is Search Engine Optimization. When someone enters keywords in Google, Bing, Yahoo or others a few best results will appear.

If you want a lot of quality free traffic, you need to make sure you do everything possible that your results are ranked #1.

There are many different components to it, but the most important thing, I think, is to write stunning valuable content that people actually search for.

You can do it by finding out what people search for and how many times per month, then writing about it.

Your content should be better than the content from blogs that are on page 1. Sometimes that means adding extra images, having videos or covering the topics in more depth.

All of your content needs to have relevant keywords in headings, sub-headings and meta description.

The sooner you begin thinking about these things, the more free traffic you will get. If you don’t, you will have a lot of tedious work to do later on.

13. You Need to Format Blog Posts For Your Reader’s Experience

Unfortunately, people tend to skim through content instead of reading every single word. We, bloggers, need to make our content as easy and as exciting to read as possible.

If the article is too confusing, looks like too much effort and feels boring to read, you won’t be able to get your message across. Ultimately losing readers and customers.
Some pointers for creating readable content:

Use Headlines

Break up big chunks of text using H1, H2 and H3 headings depending on the importance of the topic/subtopic. Also, make them invoke curiosity!

Short paragraphs and sentences.

It’s not a school essay. Your article should be easy to read! So, try to keep your paragraphs under 300 words each and break your long sentences into shorter ones.

Breaking text with meaningful images/videos.

Even if all of your paragraphs and sentences are short, the text itself might still look overwhelming. To ease your reader’s experience use other form of content that relates to or explains your idea.

Emphasizing text.

Use “bold”, “italics” and bullet points to emphasize the important takeaways in your paragraphs. This will help readers skim through your content to the part that matters most.

Don’t overuse it, however. If everything is emphasized then nothing is.

Width format matters too.

This one relates to the overall site design. It’s best to not stretch your content area to the entire width of a desktop. Keeping it slimmer will look easier to read.

All of these points will help you retain visitors for a longer time on your site actually reading content.

14. Lead Magnets Allow for a Quicker Subscriber Growth

We covered the importance of email list in #5, but how do you actually get email subscribers?

You can, of course, ask them to subscribe to your newsletter. And while that might attract some visitors, most of them won’t act on it.

So you need to create a freebie or a content upgrade (also called lead magnets).

Freebie can be anything valuable related to your blog’s topics that you are giving away for free in exchange for their email.

A content upgrade is pretty much the same thing, but it’s extremely close to the topic of your article.

For example, if you are in a health and wellness niche, you could have a freebie “10 Foods You Must Avoid and Why” 10 Page PDF file. Pretty good, right?

On the other hand, someone reading an article about how to gain muscles quickly might not be interested. So, you could create a content upgrade that appears in the article only where you are giving out a checklist: “10 Things You Need To Do Every Day To Get Huge Muscles” a printable checklist. This will be more interesting to them!

Or, simply, “if you want this article in a PDF format, click here to get yours free”. These freebies will 10x your subscriber growth.

15. Having a Competitive Niche is Often a Good Sign

When I first got started, I thought to myself, “Look how many huge awesome blogs are in my niche! They have thousands of subscribers, millions of readers a year and hundreds of blog posts. I will never be good enough. Why would someone read my content if they have theirs?”

I wish I could talk to myself from the past and tell me that it’s such a stupid thought.

The sad thing is, so many beginner bloggers also have a similar though popping into their head. Just don’t.

If there is a competition, then there is a demand for your topic. Some people will relate to you better than they do to those big blogs. You have yourself, your story and your own opinions and that’s what will bring in your readers.

If there is no competition, then I would start getting worried. Either you found an untapped niche (highly unlikely) or not a lot of people are in need of information on the topic.

Then it’s up to you! You could be the guru of a small niche or a part of a bigger one.

But seriously, don’t doubt yourself just because there is competition.

16. CTA is a Must

CTA stands for Call To Action. I think it’s a must in every article you write.

Do you want them to subscribe to your list?
Do you want them to get the product you are talking about?
Do you want them to read another article which has a specific CTA?

Overall, you just need one. Show your reader the one action they need to take after reading your article.

If the action is valuable, it’s a win-win for both sides.
Without CTA they will just come and go forgetting about you and your site.

17. Some Tasks Are Just A Waste Of Time

In #9 we talked about how doing things doesn’t mean being productive. This is the same idea, but a little more into the meat of it.

Checking analytics 50 times a day, or your AdSense account, or followers growth etc. is absolutely unnecessary. Does it matter if you got $2 or $2.25 from ads today?

Does it matter to analyze every single article in Google Analytics every day?
No! You are wasting your time instead of creating value (and value=success, remember?).

There are days and times to do all of these things. I used to refresh my Google Analytics account to see how many visitors I got every hour or so. Yes, it takes just a few seconds, but it distracts your mind from focusing on the important stuff!

Related Article:

• How to Set Up Google Analytics & What To Analyze

via GIPHY

If you are like me and you love to be in control of everything and always know what’s going on, give yourself a set time for checking all of those things all at once. One time a day!

More than that will just get you distracted and potentially upset while not bringing any actual value.

18. Diversification is KEY

Diversification is a huge part of being successful!

It might seem a little contradictory to #6 in which we talked about focusing on 1 thing at a time, but I stand by both.

You need to master one area before moving to the next, but eventually, you want to diversify everything you can.

For example, if you only get traffic from Pinterest or Google what will you do if they switch algorithms and you are not getting any more traffic? That’s why you need to make sure to be on different platforms, master SEO and collect email subscribers.

You can also diversify your income.

Only making money from ads is a bad idea. However, ads in combination with affiliate marketing and selling your own products is awesome! Some months will be better for one or the other and you won’t have to worry about what happens if one of them stops performing as well.

19. It’s Not About You, it’s about Them

Simple truth: want to make your blog successful? Focus on delivering value to your readers instead of focusing on yourself and your goals.

Stop writing articles that are talking about how your day went and what you ate for dinner tonight. Begin writing posts that readers get value from, learn a lesson or find out something new. And in the middle of all the value insert your own stories and examples. This is the perfect mix!

20. Your Blog Is Fluid

We often want to create the perfect design and the perfect logo and the perfect post. I want to tell you right now that even if it looks stunning to you at the moment, there is a huge chance that you will look back at it a year from now and be surprised by how bad it looks.

It happened to me so many times, and I’m sure it will happen in the future. I had to redesign my site a few times, change the imagery and the look of articles and many more things along the way. Even the categories you are writing about might shift a bit. It’s OK.

Don’t get me wrong, you should try and do your best at all times! But don’t spend weeks tweaking unnoticeable details.

21. People Won’t Get It

Blogging is a relatively new thing if you think about it. I’m sure you know plenty of older people who don’t understand the Internet or Social Media. So how do you tell your grandparents that you make money online?

Mine say things like, “oh, so you are a writer?”.
Well, yes, I am. But it’s not just that.
“So you sit on the computer all day?”.
Yes, but I actually work hard.

via GIPHY

It gets tough at times without the understanding. Even my parents were thinking that I just play games all day or something. Until they saw my first ever paycheque arrive by mail. The money I made from “sitting at my computer all day”. I wish you saw their faces!

What’s even sadder, is that not understanding doesn’t come from an age difference. My friends don’t get what I do either. They are still living the life of 9-5 (nothing wrong with that), but they just don’t see a different way.

When I start talking to them about making money from any spot in the world and being in control of how you spend your days – they nod supportively, but confusion and disbelief are also present.

My point being, blogging gets lonely at times. And sometimes you will have to stop talking about what you do until you can show results. Even then it might not be the easiest conversation.

The worst thing I was ever told by my friend is “Come on, you have more free time than all of us. You can afford to go”.

And by my parents, “ Well, if you had a real job you would be making money for your time instead of trial and error”.

It sucked. Big time. But I had the dedication and the confidence that the system will work. Now, I couldn’t be happier with what I do.

22. Taking A Break is Not Being Lazy

I hope that by reading all this point you get how many things are involved in being a blogger. Honestly, it gets overwhelming at times!

I used to punish myself for not being productive enough and not getting all of the things I want done. To be fair, my weekly tasks list could realistically be done in a month, not a week!

I pushed and pushed myself to the point where I started losing it. Don’t be like me.

Taking a break is important. So I had to FORCE myself not to be in my room where I work. I had to force myself to block out times when I am not allowed to check my email, or stats or work on anything.

It wasn’t always easy and sometimes I would break those promises and work away. But I found that when I made myself take a break on the weekends, I had enough time to think through my strategy, core values and evaluate mistakes.

Taking a break is not being lazy, taking a break is giving yourself a chance to look at your situation with a fresh pair of eyes. It’s one of the best things you can plan for yourself.

23. Being Passionate is Important

When you start a blog you will need to make a choice of what topic you want to talk about. Being niche is important. Some blogs are successful and talk about many different topics, but it’s an exception, not the rule.

Having a niche is great because it allows you to position yourself as an authority. Also, the readers that subscribe to your list are your people and you know what they want to read from you. Creating and selling a product is way more efficient because it’s connected to your core niche! Plus many other benefits.

Whatever niche you choose you have to make sure you are willing to write on the topic for the next year and even 10 years. Will there be enough things to write about?
Are you passionate enough to always keep learning new things and share them with others?

Choose a niche you are passionate about.
… All that said, you can quickly become passionate about something that makes you a great amount of money and allows for freedom. Your call.

24. Blogging Changes You

Most of these points were about technical aspects of blogging and the thinking behind it, but I wanted to end this list with something that truly surprised me.
Blogging is going to change your life and your character. At least it did for me.

Since I started blogging in the early 2017 my whole life was turned upside down.

• I started paying more attention to how I spend my free time.
• My daily/weekly/monthly schedule changed completely.
• My biggest goal in life was to travel full-time and now I’m able to get started on it since I can make income remotely.
• I started blogging as an Illustrator and ended up positioning myself as a blogger.
• Topics I’m passionate discussing changed, and therefore my circle of friends did too.
• I gained confidence in myself.

The last point is so important to me. I never considered myself a confident person, but now I do.

I walk differently, I speak differently, I perceive the world differently. And I’m not exaggerating when I say it.

Having a blog, a BUSINESS of my own is a life-changing experience.

Seeing what I’ve built myself, receiving emails from people whom I’ve helped and overcoming hundreds of obstacles along the way is incredible.

Now I feel that I can do anything I put my mind to. Now I know that I’m not wasting my time and my life. Now I know it won’t be filled with regrets.

People say YOLO (you only live once) and treat it as though they shouldn’t worry about tomorrow.

I say YOLO and get to work to build a better future for myself, people who surround me and those I touch with my knowledge and experience.

Starting a blog is an insane amount of work. It takes discipline, dedication and willingness to learn and improve.

It’s tough.

But it’s by far the best decision I ever made in my life.