What to Know Before Starting Your First Blog
Things I wish I knew if I were to start over again!
Blogging has been one of the most fulfilling side projects I have stuck with over the past year, but it is definitely not for everyone. You have to be passionate about what you’re writing about; you cannot be solely driven by the goal of monetization. Why? Because investing several hours each day for many years with little to no results will be extremely discouraging, so you have to be truly passionate about writing about your topics and sharing them with the world!
There are many popular bloggers out there who have been able to successfully create a business out of their blog, but what they fail to mention is that it takes several years of blogging or starting over from scratch with a new blog, and relentless motivation to get there. Even then, some blogs simply don’t get these same results. So if you have been wanting to start a blog — the points below are not meant to scare you away, but to level-set expectations so there are little to no surprises once you start your journey.
I truly believe that blogging is a great long-term investment and is a forcing function to improve your writing skills, SEO and marketing strategies, introspection, and creativity. I am a strong proponent of everyone having a creative outlet and if you find that blogging is not for you, I do encourage exploring other passion project ideas!
SEO Strategy
A big portion of blogging is understanding SEO strategy and how you can utilize keywords to improve the chances of your blog posts getting indexed and ranked. In addition, you need to be patient with how long it may take. Some pages simply stay stuck in the “Crawled” stage but never get indexed. When you first start your blog and make your website live, it can take a few months just for the site itself to index. This is where patience and consistency of posting weekly improves the chances of a top ranked blog post. I recommend checking out Google Search Console, as it will become your best friend once you start blogging! Some SEO tools I tested this year were Semrush and Moz.
Social Channels and Automation Tools
I did a lot of experimentation with social media channels and automation tools this year, and have many learnings. If you already have well established social media accounts that you are comfortable using for your social media strategy, definitely promote your posts there. I on the other hand created brand new accounts, where a lot of time was invested for a very small portion of traffic.
I also created my Pinterest business account well after my blog was live, which required its own heavy time investment. If the goal is to write blog posts and drive traffic to them, I would spend the majority of your time on your blog and Pinterest. Create your Pinterest business account at the same time, so you can efficiently write your new blog post, publish it, and create a pin. If you are unfamiliar with Pinterest or think that it’s old school, you’d be surprised by how many people have an account and use it.
Automation tools are fun for me as I work in tech, but could be scary for others on how to integrate them and set-up automations for scalability. I wouldn’t worry too much about using these at the start, but definitely create a strategy on how you plan to scale blog update emails, newsletters, and audience analytics. My rule of thumb is to set things up at the start, but it is not the end of the world if you choose to wait. If you are interested, I would check out automations within your blog platform (I use Squarespace), Mailchimp, Asana, Canva, and/or Semrush or Moz (in SEO Strategy above).
Free Time, Other Hobbies, and Relationships
As emphasized in my opening statement, you have to be okay with blogging taking up the majority of your free time. Let’s do the math on a conservative blogging schedule:
Brainstorm post strategy - 15 minutes
Writing one post - 6 hours
Proofreading, selecting images, and SEO - 30 minutes
Creating Pinterest pin image and publishing to social media channels - 15 minutes
This assumes only the basic tasks of blogging, where it is recommended to post at least twice a week. Let’s assume one more hour a week to work on website enhancements, newsletters, and updating old posts. This comes out to 15 hours/week, ~61 hours/month, and 780 hours/year (~33 days)! In the beginning of my blogging journey I was writing a post every single day, and you can only imagine the burnout of 50 hours/week in addition to a full-time job (post coming soon on balancing work-blog-life).
I am a known hobby collector, and I am thankful that my blog allows me to talk about a handful of my own hobbies and interests. Most posts you may find on the internet will say to only pick one niche, but going my route is still possible. They say this because you want to become an expert in your niche/field, and it is faster to build up a ton of blog posts for one niche vs. multiple. But typical me, I rise up to the challenge!
And lastly, I acknowledge the privilege of time that I have by being in my 20’s, single, living alone, with no responsibility towards a significant other, children, or pets (besides what’s left of my dying plants). If you already have a ton on your plate and blogging is a long time dream of yours —strategize your weekly routine, delegate, or identify a less time intensive route such as blogging on Medium or becoming a guest blogger.
Buy Your Domain Early
It may come as a surprise to you that some people out there randomly buy domains (even specific names that are not their own) just to sell them back to people at a crazy high price. This is where it is important to buy your own name’s domain early, and any other names you may have brainstormed for your blog site. My sister bought mine several years ago as a gift, and I am forever thankful that I already had it on hand to use without having to jump through hoops or pay a hefty price!
Speed Matters
You will hear this in nearly every blog on this topic, but it is so important! I want to reiterate that even once your website is live and your first blog post is published, it takes a long time to gain traffic and engagement. This is where it is key to strategize how fast you can get your site live — without wasting too much time on aesthetics and blog design. You just want to get your content out quickly, and the rest can come later!
I myself spent several months trying to figure out Squarespace and every detail of how I wanted my site to look, before eventually working with Sophia Ojha and building my site in a day. If I had just accepted that I needed help (very Virgo of me), then my site could have been done so much earlier. No regrets as these are all lessons learned that I can now convey to you, dear reader, but please do not fall into the same trap!
Costs
There are many hidden costs that come with blogging, that I would like to highlight before you get started.
Website building and design
Website domain
Website hosting/plan
Potential upgrading of plan for integrated email marketing & scheduling features
Lawyer or legal documents site for Privacy, Terms, etc.
SEO tool subscriptions
Personal mailbox or PO box for email marketing
Ads
Canva Pro
These are just the baseline of potential costs for blogs, for others there may be more! Prices can range so I will let you all do your own research on products and pricing plans — but I want to make sure these are top of mind prior to your blog launch!
Self-Belief
Working on a long-term project without immediate gratification requires a substantial amount of self-belief, so make sure that you have built this within yourself — even if you have an amazing support system! In the end, you are the one writing your blog posts and driving the growth of your blog, so you have to believe in it — even if just mom and siblings are reading it at the start. Consistency is key, so even if you have an off week and dropped the ball on dedicating time to writing — don’t be so hard on yourself! These things happen with anything in life, and the most important thing is that you do not let one bad week dictate future progress. You’ve got this!
Passion
Lastly, passion is what is going to keep you going throughout this process, so make sure that you are excited about blogging! If you do a few practice runs and find that you hate it, that is totally okay too! The whole idea behind finding a hobby or passion project is that you keep trying new things. Some might satiate you for a few days, weeks, or months then tire you (which is completely normal), and others may surprise you where you can see yourself doing it for the long run. Whatever you do, I am proud of any self-exploration — as so many people do not even take the first step of trying something new!
I hope this blog has been helpful to anyone out there starting out in their blogging journey! If you are having a hard time getting started — I offer one on one sessions that can be scheduled here. Subscribe to my blog for future posts! XO
If you enjoyed this blog post, I would greatly appreciate you taking a moment to browse my other blog posts (I write on lifestyle, beauty, travel, restaurants, working in tech, and cocktails + wine), subscribe, and/or make a donation. Donation proceeds go toward monthly Squarespace fees, PO box fees, website enhancements, ad campaigns, SEO tools, and time investment in addition to my full-time job. Thank you for your readership from the bottom of my heart! xx Nicole
