9 Blogging Lessons I Wish I Learned Before I Started My First Blog

Here I’m going to share some powerful blogging lessons that I wish I had learned before I started my blogging career. I’m writing this article for all the ambitious wannabee as well as existing beginner bloggers to ensure you get something straight and actually learn from my blogging experience. It will be useful, I promise.

My inspiration for starting a blog began back in 2010, while I was fresh out of college and looking for work. One of my friends shared an incredible concept with me. You guessed it right, it was blogging for money. Honestly, I had no idea about 95% of the things that were happening in the blogging community at that time.

However, I was unable to pursue that idea, which remained buried for 2 years. Then one day, while browsing Facebook, I came across a blog post about how to establish a blog, build an online business and make money.

The thought of launching a blogging business seemed interesting to me.

Why shouldn’t it be?

Who doesn’t want to make money working from anywhere in the world?

And honestly, creating a blog isn’t all that tough. It will be the simplest job in your entire blogging career. You decide on a topic to write about (preferable something you know or are passionate about).

And then…

• Select a name for your blog
• Buy web hosting and a domain name
• Install WordPress CMS
• Configure WordPress
• Write your first a blog post

Pretty simple, right?

Well, buddy, this is only the start; there’s a whole mountain ahead of you that I wasn’t aware of. So, here are the lessons I’ve learned from my experience.

Lesson 1. Invest in Yourself

I’m not referring to your blog’s basic investments, such as:

• Domain name registration
• Hosting services
• Mailing list provider
• WordPress theme

All of these are obvious blogging expenses that you must bear at all costs. Yes, there are ways to create a blog for free using one of the best free blogging platforms, but you must identify the sole purpose of your blog right from the beginning.

You won’t get very far if you don’t have a vision.

Having said that, the investments I’m referring to are for the blogging tools and services that will help you in developing your website. Essential premium plugins for your blog, eBooks, blogging courses, SEO tools, and services fall into this category.

I understand that you don’t want to spend too much money on your blog initially. I used to believe that once I earned money, I would spend it on my blog. However, the harsh reality is that you must spend money in order to make money.

In the initial days, it’s always a smart idea to invest money into a blogging course.

There are many blogging courses out there. But not all of them are as great as they should be. Click here to find some of the best blogging courses.

Lesson 2. Get Serious about Blogging

You should be very serious about your blog. If you’ve decided to start a blog, don’t expect good things to happen just because you’ve written a blog post or two.

You should treat it as a full-time job and devote sufficient time, money, and effort to its improvement. I was active on my blog at the beginning days of my blogging journey, but I was really busy with work, and time management was a major concern for me. It would be for you, too, because managing work, family, and a blog may be exhausting.

However, you must create a solid strategy that works for you and dedicate yourself to your blog. Determine what you want to achieve with your blog and set a deadline. This is exactly what I did, and believe me when I say that my blogging experience transformed the day I did it.

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Read – How to Make Money Blogging: A Beginner’s Guide

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Lesson 3. Build an Email List

Building an email list was one piece of advice I didn’t take seriously.

There are numerous ways to increase traffic to your blog and developing relationships with your readers. Email is one of the most powerful ways to communicate with your readers. But honestly, it didn’t seem to be very interesting back then.

As a spam email victim, I despised emails that were irrelevant and pointless to me. I found them irritating, and I didn’t want to expose my readers to the same destiny.

Second, I was concerned that my email might be filtered into the spam folder. It’s possible that your email will land up in the spam folder, but that should be fine. It’s also possible that it won’t end up in the trash and instead become a source of traffic and revenue for your blog.

So, if you already run a blog or are thinking about creating one, make sure you have an email list or create one immediately. Your most precious resource for driving visitors to your new blog post and increasing your blogging income will be an email list.

Though we learn as bloggers that Google and other social media networks are excellent sources of targeted traffic, you can’t rely on these traffic sources completely. And, you shouldn’t.

With an email list, you can communicate with your subscribers whenever you wish. It also serves as a backup in case something goes wrong with all of your traffic sources.

Lesson 4. Be Patient

Nowadays, one of the most common things that you’ll notice in the blogging world is blogging income and monthly traffic reports. Every month, almost everyone creates and publishes these reports. It can be both encouraging as well as discouraging.

With respect to all of the bloggers who are reading this article, please don’t get the impression that I’m accusing you of making false claims. Some bloggers, on the other hand, exaggerate the truth by reporting false traffic numbers or monthly income.

I’ve always been intimidated by large numbers and wondered if I’m doing the right things. I’ve seen bloggers with only a few blog posts get a lot of traffic and earn thousands of dollars in a matter of months. Honestly, it discouraged me from continuing with my blogging journey; it demotivated me and threw me off track many times.

But, here’s the fact:

In most cases, bloggers who show that get thousands of visitors are only trying to get your attention. Those traffic numbers and earnings reports are all fake.

In most cases, bloggers who claim to get thousands of visitors to a new blog with a few blog posts are just trying to catch your attention. Those traffic numbers and income reports are all fake. All the screenshots of their earning proofs are baseless.

And, here’s the truth you should remember:

In the majority of situations, it takes at least 1 year or more for a new blog post to get the ranking it deserves. So even if your blog posts are absolutely amazing, search engines will take time to evaluate it and give it the ranking it deserves.

As a result, getting a new blog to get thousands of visitors with less than 100 blog posts can be very challenging. And, forget to make any money from ad revenue.

So keep in mind that, while this business model appears to be simple and straightforward, it is far from it. You must put in a lot of effort and be patient in order to see results. My suggestion to you is to stick to your guns and continue to work hard and produce high-quality content. Success will only come as a result of your efforts.

Lesson 5. Don’t Be a Busy Idiot

Invest your time in the right direction.

We all know that hard work pays off. But if you keep putting in effort in the wrong direction, you will eventually burn out and give up. Time is a valuable asset that I believe you would want to put to the best possible use.

I was having trouble getting traffic at the beginning of my blogging career until I came across a blog post by a blogger who was getting a lot of traffic via Facebook threads. Don’t misunderstand; these discussions can help you generate a lot of traffic, comments, and clicks. But it’s all made up. Yes, I’m sure I’ll get a lot of criticism for this.

But, really, who are you kidding? You join these communities to increase your traffic, but all of your comments and like-follow threads are pointless. No one is actually reading your post because they are interesting to them.

It takes a lot of work to promote your site or posts on these Facebook threads. You must be extremely committed to liking over 100 pages per week and commenting on even more posts, even if it means having your account blocked.

Instead, you can use that time doing something more productive, such as writing new blog posts or pinning new images on Pinterest.

So, don’t be a busy idiot and follow the crowd; instead, concentrate on more essential things. I didn’t leave Facebook completely, but I did find a perfect balance that suited me and didn’t take my attention away from my blog.

Lesson 6. Don’t Hit Publish Every Day

Content is the most essential part of a successful blog. It will take time to get decent traffic if you don’t have any useful content or have a little amount of content on your site. That being said, it doesn’t mean that you should post on a daily basis.

Of course, it’s great if you can do it. It really helps.

But usually, in the race of publishing new content every day, the majority of new bloggers forget that quality is equally important.

And, that’s what matters the most.

The important thing to remember is that you want to publish content on your blog in order to attract and keep readers, not to bombard them with your blog posts. So, the best thing you can do is commit to publishing twice or thrice a week.

That will be a lot more relaxing than working on your blog every day.

Listen, the only reason you started blogging was to get some relaxation and freedom. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself by believing you have to publish every day.

Of course, it’s great if you can maintain quality while publishing on a regular basis. However, for most newbies, this isn’t the case.

Having said that, keep in mind that the frequency of your blog posts is usually determined by the niche you choose. If you’ve chosen a niche that is constantly changing, you may find that you need to update on a regular basis.

So, make your decision accordingly.

Websites like Mashable and Lifehacker have teams of people working around the clock to keep their sites updated. So, don’t try to copy them. You must determine your own pace. Because content creation is not the only part of your job. You must also invest some time to promote your blog posts to gain new readers or visitors.

Lesson 7. Focus on Social Media

You’ll learn about the importance of traffic in your early blogging days, even before that. It is, in a nutshell, your blog’s lifeline.

You can leverage your website visitors to receive sponsored posts, free products, affiliate programs, and money, among other things.

However, getting to your desired number of traffic isn’t going to be easy. Growing your blog traffic takes a lot of time and effort.

Driving organic search traffic to your website in the early stages of your blog would be very challenging. The best strategy you can use in those days to attract readers is to use social media sites like Facebook and Pinterest.

I tried a variety of techniques to get traffic, but as you may already know, networking is the key to building a large following and thus traffic to your site. These social media platforms provide the most effective networking opportunities.

Lesson 8. Networking is a MUST

Only by networking will you be able to thrive in the blogging business. I was a terrible networker. As an introvert, I’ve always found it strange to contact or respond to anyone’s Facebook message or to contact a blogger directly.

I was uncomfortable! However, my timidity didn’t help me get any closer to my blogging goals; I was getting traffic but couldn’t seem to create a solid following.

However, I soon realized my mistake and began working on expanding my network. I offered help on Facebook, left comments on their websites, followed them on Pinterest, and did everything else I could to get their attention.

This helped me to grow an audience and spread the word about my blog.

So, even before you start your website, try to work on growing your followers. Readers will be ready for your stuff if you do it this way.

Lesson 9. Plan Everything

Don’t rush into starting a blog. Before you dive into this blogosphere, make sure that you have everything planned out. I don’t just mean choosing a niche or a topic to write about when I talk about planning, but every other aspect.

I wasn’t much of a planner. What I did was either courageous or extremely stupid.

I purchased a domain name, bought hosting, and launched my blog with no content. I figured I’d keep writing and build my audience along the way.

Oh, certainly, it was a mistake.

Content is the most essential part of any blog. People aren’t just interested in your website or how nicely it’s built, or what a cool and innovative blog name you’ve selected.

They’d like to read something.

So, before you launch your blog, consider these suggestions:

Try to plan out at least two months’ worth of content ahead of time. The amount of posts is now entirely dependant on the frequency with which you want to publish them. It’s preferable to post twice a week, though.

So, try to write at least 15-20 good blog posts before launching, and publish a couple of them before going live to give your readers something to read.

Make sure you have some freebies already prepared to encourage people to sign up for your newsletter. It may be a book, a course, or anything else you think a reader in your niche would find useful. This would be really beneficial to your blog.

These are some of the top blogging lessons I’ve picked up over the years. Please do not hesitate to share your personal experiences. By learning from each other’s experiences, we shall all get stronger. And, if you found value in this post, please share.