New Bloggers, Read This Warning!

I love blogging. I love blogging so much that if it were human, I’d marry it. I’ve had hobbies before but nothing as enjoyable and fulfilling as blogging and I’ve been doing it since 2015.

Because I work 40 hours a week with a combined total of a 1.5 hour hellish commute everyday, every moment is precious to blogging. I blog and work on social media every morning, every evening, while my sons are at practice, before soccer games, sitting in hotels during tournaments, in waiting rooms and lastly on the toilet (yes, I said on the toilet). In my think tank (aka the shower), I’m thinking up new ideas and it’s not uncommon for me to have a conversation with myself either admonishing a stupid idea or giving myself high fives and pats on the back, all while shaving my legs.

I don’t make a lot of money yet and that’s ok. From the beginning, I’ve looked at this as a war, not a battle. Like all accomplishments, it doesn’t come easy. Let me repeat, this doesn’t come easy! If you think after a year you can quit your job, your mistaken.

Avoid the How I Made $_______ With Blogging

You want the first clue you’re on a site that’s going to tell you how someone quit their job to blog then offer “courses” that you could find for free somewhere else? Let’s start with the graphic. It’s always cute, girly shit, lying around the title. It usually looks like this:

Is that what it’s going to take for you to listen to me? Ok, I’ll make you a graphic. Here it goes:

These people make money off new bloggers that are looking for the secret to blogging success. Good for them for making a living but don’t think you won’t be just as successful, if not more, if you don’t buy their course(s). There’s plenty of free information out there, you just have to search.

Content is King

Have you ever read a blog and you think to yourself, ‘dear God, this is beyond painful!’ They go on and on about relatives you’ve never heard of and about shit you don’t care about. Now this is great if your blog is just for you and you don’t care about growing it. But if you want to have repeat visitors, write interesting stuff.

How to Grow Your Blog

In my opinion, here is what I feel you need to grow your blog:

• An ability to tell an engaging story. Whether its humor, drama, current events, if you can’t tell a story, you don’t stand a chance.
• Consistent social media maintenance. It sucks but you need to be on most social medias and actively participate. I’m on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Though most call Pinterest social media, it’s not. It’s more of a search engine. That is where the majority of my traffic comes from but again, this has taken time.
• Blog often and consistently. I think I post about 4-5 times a week. You can’t post once a month and ask why you don’t have any followers.
• Patience. I can’t stress this enough. If you think after 6 months you can quit your day job, think again. It takes years, unless you are part unicorn and after a month you have 3 best sellers.
• Willingness to learn. You have to learn social media. You have to learn metrics. You have to keep up on the blogging world. I can’t stress this enough. You have to learn about sites that post social media for you so you’re not posting 24/7. I don’t care if you are 15 or 75.
• Accept set backs and get back on the horse. I always tell my sons: it’s not what you do when you’re on the horse, it’s what you do when you fall off. This is when they look at me as if I’ve just said the alphabet in German. No seriously, my blog posts has been banned by Pinterest and I’ve been threatened by Google Adsense to be shut down. I’ve faced numerous bouts of writers block and at one point, I lost all of my followers. Yet, here I am, still going after it. With every drawback, I addressed each crisis (with a lot of wine) and overcame. It sucked but I got through it.

So, you in it for the long haul? If you’re new to blogging and have any questions, feel free to drop me a line! That’s the other thing, the blogging community is amazingly supportive and helpful!