Blogging is a business and you are probably here to find out what my big mistakes were before you make them yourself. I don’t blame you. Here are some blogging mistakes and things that I wish I had known when I first started out on this journey.
Because we live in a world where money is needed to survive, Latte Lindsay runs a number of affiliate programmes and offers paid/sponsored content. If you choose to click the links and read the posts, the site may earn a commission or receives a payment. All of the opinions are my own. Opinions expressed here are author’s alone, not those of any partner brands/company(s), beauty & lifestyle brands, airlines or hotel chain, and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any of these entities unless specified.
It costs money
A lot of bloggers start off with a free blogging platform to get them going. Some choose to stay on the free service (which is fine) but others choose to switch to a hosting service. Why do this? Well, if you wanna make money, you will make more if you have your own website rather than the free service. Plus, with your own site, you can write about whatever you want and don’t have to worry that your site will get pulled down. Unless it’s breaking actual laws, but that’s on you.
Writing more is not always a good thing
I know you are probably scratching your heads right now and muttering under your breath because I post every day. Yes, I do. But I have a plan for posting every day. There are some people who only post once a week, or once a month. That is what works for them. For me, it is daily. However, there are times I find myself putting a few posts up in one day. The main reason for this is I will have something planned out, but then I get a request for a sponsored post to be done. When I pop a few posts up during one day, it does not mean that I will get loads of extra traffic. People think that churning out content will mean more money, but it doesn’t work that way. If you do choose to put multiple posts out in one day, they still have to have a certain level of quality.
You learn something new every day
I’ve been blogging and writing for a few years now and every day I learn something new. Blogging is an area that is always evolving and it can be tough to keep track. I’m very lucky that my hosting peps over at Lyrical Host are very supportive and have loads of resources to help expand your knowledge. Even reading other blogs and business books will give you an insight into how to make your site better. When I started, I was a fool who thought that just writing would be enough. LOLZ!! Foolish little me! Since that time of ignorance, I have read so many books and blogs about blogging it’s scary. One thing I do know is that I know very little about blogging, even after all these years in the business.
Social media is everything
I’ll be honest, if it wasn’t for this site I would not use social media. I really hate how soul-sucking it can be and I try to avoid it if I can. Social media is one of the best tools for any business to help expand its reach. Before Facebook, we had the Yellow Pages for listing businesses. If you wanted to be a writer, you had to go to college and get a piece of paper to say that you can write good. The internet has made it possible for anyone to showcase their talents, but social media is the essential (and not so secret) ingredient for being successful. If you can get a good social media following, then your site can be shared far and wide so you can reach millions of people instead of your granny and your cat being the only ones to read your stuff.
Building a blog is harder than it seems
You might have come here and seen what I have to offer. You have maybe had a poke about and thought to yourself that what I do isn’t that impressive. And if you were to say that to my face, I’d probably cry because you have NO idea how much work goes into this blog. First of all, I have designed it all myself. I have had to learn some basic coding so that links and stuff work when you click on them. I spend the best part of two hours this morning redoing the sidebar and updating pages. And don’t even talk to me about SEO, I could weep! Putting the actual content and the words that you are reading together is (at most) 10% of what goes on here. There is so much behind the scenes stuff that goes on and nobody warned me about it when I joined the blogging world.
What about you? Are you a blogger? Is there stuff that you wish that you had before you started? Let me know in the comments!
This post is seriously SO relatable! I had never realised how much of a learning curve it would be! Astonishing, but I love it! 🙂
I agree with all of these points except the social media one. I find it so hard to bring traffic on my blog through social media these days. I prefer to focus on Google as that’s where quality traffic comes from.
Yes! Especially about the free sites, to me they just aren’t worth it and a lot of new bloggers for some reason don’t want to hear that. Even though it costs, it can be done rather inexpensive but still sometimes that is something people need to learn the hard way.
So true! This is harder than it seems. People think it’s easy to just bang out a post with photos, but it takes time to edit.
Do true it does cost money and its not only about writing for the sake of it but great content and lots of planning too
So true! There are so many blogs these days and more people are jumping on this industry but I agree with you that it costs money and it is harder to build than it is.
Yes!! Blogging is a lot of work! Fun work but definitely more work than I thought it would be!
These points are all so true! A few years into my blog journey and I underestimated the amount of time and dedication it is needed to keep it going!
Yes!! It can be hard, but worth it for many of us. Great tips about getting a blog started. I say join a few blogging groups, mine is called blog colleagues and work together as a team to strengthen eachother both personally & professionally. Good luck!
A great post with a lot of the insights you shared being of great use to us over at PromGuide. Thanks for a great post.
Yes! I can relate to this list entirely! It is hard work but so worth it!
I’m currently dealing with the struggle that social media is everything. For the longest time, I tried to avoid it. But I’m trying to learn it. Slowly but surely
Yes Lindsay, blogging can be difficult. When I started blogging over 10 years ago I was so excited to finally get it started and even build my first landing page. I am a bit of a geek though so I absolutely enjoy the challenges. The worst nightmare for me is incompetent web hosts, they stress me out like nothing else.
I wish I knew those too when I started! It does costs quite a lot but if you manage to make money out of your blog, you break even so that’s good. It is so much work though!
“you learn something new every day” ! Isn’t that the truth! If you’re not open to new things and prefer a safe unchanging world, then move along! However, if you love challenges, blogging is for you!
Yes, building a blog is harder than it looks. After a year of blogging, I took about a two month break because we were busy with family visiting from all over. When things got back to normal at home, it was hard to get back on track. Proud though of how much I’ve grown with my blog.
I am totally hooked up with this article. You just mentioned each and everything which is required to start blogging. Not I’m totally agree you on this building a blog is harder than it seems.
True. I also wish that I have researched more back then. I just blogged for the heck of it without direction. Now I am trying to make amends.
I wish I knew that I’d need to be more serious with social media since it’s very important for reach. But I’m glad that I also learn something new and better each day.
You are right building a blog is exhaustive work. More difficult than finding the inspiration to write sometimes.
I definitely agree with you! Blogging isn’t as easy as everyone thinks!
Blogging is definitely one of the hardest jobs that I have had over the years 🙂