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Are you starting a blog?
Here are some harsh truths you should know before you start blogging.
These are things you might not know when you start blogging, but it is helpful if you know about these in advance.
1. Growing a successful blog doesn’t happen overnight
The first harsh truth that I want to share with you is that growing a successful blog doesn’t happen overnight.
It just doesn’t.
I know we see all of these so-called overnight successes online. But the truth is, if you look behind all of those success stories, most of the time it will be years and years of work, learning, having slow progress and small results here and there.
It takes time to actually see real results and real success.
So if you expect your blog to go viral or start growing overnight, you’re going to have a major disappointment there.
2. You won’t make money unless you know how to make money
The second harsh truth about blogging is that you won’t make money unless you know how to make money.
That’s just the truth of it. So many people feel like once they’re starting to get traffic, money will magically fall into the bank.
But unless you have a clear idea on how you’re going to monetize that traffic, that income won’t just come with traffic.
This happens on any platform.
Even if you have an Instagram account, a YouTube channel, whatever it may be.
If you don’t know how to monetise it, you’re just not going to make money.
I’ve had conversations about this with students and with some of my followers in the past. They’ve messaged me saying “hey, I do have quite a big following, but I’m not making any money yet”.
You need to know how to monetise that audience or monetise that blog traffic in order to actually make money.
If you’re struggling with this, I also wrote about how to make money blogging and how to make money on Instagram.
Those are things you really need to know in order to start making money from your online business.
3. Your blog is confusing people
The third truth is that your blog might be confusing to some people.
You really need to look at it very analytically and from an outside perspective. Which is really hard to do yourself, so it might be helpful to have someone else have a look, like a close friend or family.
That’s because they might look at it and give you ideas on things that you might not realise yourself.
What do I mean by making sure your blog is not confusing?
Here are some things to consider:
- Is your blog easy to navigate?
- Can you find the search bar easily?
- Can you find the categories of your blog?
- Do you have a well structured menu at the top?
You need to make it super easy for people to find things on your blog.
If people get confused, they’re more likely to just click away and forget about your blog.
4. People won’t care about your personal daily life
This is something you might not like to hear. But, in the beginning at least, people won’t really care about your personal life.
This is something I actually did for years. I had a lifestyle blog and I was just posting about daily life things I was going through.
It’s not necessarily a bad thing to do that, because obviously people want to learn from other people, see what they’re struggling with and – most importantly – what they did to overcome that struggle.
It’s not wrong to talk about your personal life, but it’s the way in which you talk about it that matters a lot.
If you’re just posting about your daily life, writing posts on “what I did today” or even days in the life on YouTube, there are a few things you should know.
You have to make that lifestyle content searchable.
You need to include things that people want to learn about or that would be interesting to them.
Because people online want to know solutions to their problems, they want to know things that help them.
They won’t want to know things about you at first.
Of course, once you build a relationship, they will want to know more about you and your personal life as well.
But that comes in time.
The first thing that you need to focus on is to get people helpful and valuable content.
5. Your mindset is: I’ll give this a try for 3 months and if it doesn’t work I’ll give up
Is this your mindset starting your blog: “I’m gonna give this blogging thing a go for 3 months and if it doesn’t work out, then I’m just gonna give up and try something else”?
If that’s where your mindset is, it’s basically like you already gave up.
Because if you put that in your head, you’re already giving yourself that excuse and that reason to give up.
I see so many people doing this.
They give it a go for a few weeks. They post consistently for a little while. They don’t see results right away and they just give up.
Then a year later they think: “oh, actually maybe I should give that blogging thing a go again”.
So they do that again and the same process repeats over and over again.
And they never see results, but rather they’re stuck in this cycle of wanting more in their life, but not getting serious enough about it to actually stick to it through those first months.
That’s the thing. You just gotta keep going.
If you need to take a little bit of a break, obviously that’s fine.
Life happens.
But don’t give up on it.
Keep going and keep posting as consistently as you possibly can. Because otherwise it’s just not going to happen.
Your mindset will play a huge role in your journey. This is why in my Blogging Secrets course I actually talk a lot with my students about mindset shifts and looking at things from a different perspective. And how you can actually motivate yoursel, stay organised and be consistent, even when you don’t feel like it.
The truth is: if you’re not in the right mindset, you’re just not going to get there even if you have all the strategies that you could put in place.
Because if your mindset is not in the right place, you’re not even going to put those strategies in place for long enough to actually see results.
6. You posted 3 blog posts and are disappointed you’re not getting views yet
If you’ve posted, say, 3 blog posts or 5 blog posts and you are really disappointed because you’re not getting any views yet, then what you need is more patience.
You need to keep at it.
So many people get really excited to launch their blog and they start posting a few blog posts. They’re not getting any views or maybe they’re getting like 10 views here and there.
And then they feel really disappointed and feel like giving up.
The thing is you need to build quite a big portfolio of blog posts in order to get constant results in time, as in months and years.
In time, this actually happens passively.
You’re going to start getting traffic and earning money passively from your blog, but that takes a long time of working on your blog.
It’s not something that happens after 3 blog posts.
So really look at your blog and think about how many blog posts do you actually have out there. If you only have around 10 or 20 blog posts, then you need to do more work. You just need to keep at it and add more blog posts, because you’re not going to see results from just those first few blog posts.
7. There will be things out of your control
There will be things out of your control and we just have to accept that.
There will be algorithm changes.
Google might not favour your blog that month. Or maybe the Pinterest algorithm will change and your pins will not get a lot of traffic.
Or if you rely on social media, then algorithms will be even more frustrating, especially the Instagram algorithm.
So yes, there are things that will be out of your control.
But what you need to do is to focus on the things that you can control. And that’s usually the content that you create.
8. You need to learn some tech
This is something that a lot of people don’t like.
You do need to learn some tech.
And you might think “well, I’m not very tech savvy, I don’t know my way around things”.
If you know how to post on Instagram or on Facebook and you know your way around those platforms, you can absolutely learn how to write a blog post.
It’s not really that hard once you learn how to do it.
It can be tricky at first to find where everything is, but after you do that once, it will get easier each time.
If you need help with this tech setup, I’ve got a free Blogging Made Easy mini course that walks you through click by click how to set up your blog in the beginning.
So if you’re really struggling with tech, then this course might be helpful for you.
9. You need to learn how to manage your time
Yes, you need to learn how to manage your time.
This is a big one, especially if you are doing blogging, like a lot of people are, on the side of your main job.
Maybe you have a full-time job and you’re blogging in your free time, on the weekends and at nights.
Maybe you have kids. Maybe you have a baby and you’re just blogging during nap time or when they go to bed, like I did.
That’s what I did for years. In those first few years of growing my own blog, I had a baby with me at all times and I was only working nap times and after bedtime.
One thing that’s really going to help you here is to really learn how to stay organised and how to manage your time.
Having a plan in place is going to be really helpful.
I wrote a post on how I stay organised in my business and how I plan all of my content every month and every week.
If you need a longer term plan for your blog, then you can grab my free 12-month blog plan and that’s going to give you a roadmap for what you need to do every single month to grow your blog.
10. Your blog is too colourful
The next harsh truth about blogging is that your blog may be a little bit too colourful.
I don’t mean this in a bad way. I don’t mean you don’t need to have any colours in your branding, because that’s absolutely not true.
You do need to have an aesthetic, you need to have a certain vibe that your brand gives off.
What I mean by this is that your main text, the main body of your blog post needs to be very clear and easy to read.
If the background and the text don’t have a good contrast, it will be hard to read and then people will just not bother.
That’s just the truth of it. We have a really low attention span these days, everybody does especially with social media. So we need to keep people engaged and you need to keep them reading.
But if your text is hard to read, they just won’t do it.
I recommend having on your blog white background with black text. That’s the easiest to read.
That’s for the main body of the text.
Obviously for things like your headings or your blog logo, you can have colours and you can still have a fun blog through that.
But make sure the main text is really easy to read.
11. If you don’t know how to rank your blog on Google, it won’t magically happen
The next harsh truth about blogging is that if you don’t know how to rank your blog posts on Google, it won’t just happen magically.
You do need to know certain things that will help your blog posts rank and you will need at least a basic understanding of SEO.
If this is something you need help with, I wrote here on how to rank your blog posts in Google.
12. Blogging makes you feel alone sometimes
Blogging can sometimes feel really lonely, I’m not gonna lie.
Especially in the beginning, when you don’t really have a lot of blogging friends.
I’m assuming a lot of us don’t really have friends or family who do blogging.
It can feel like you don’t have a lot of people to talk to about this.
But the great thing about the internet is that you can find people who blog.
For example, you are reading this, so you can consider me your new blogging friend. 🙂
But yes, blogging can feel lonely at times.
13. There is a bit of competition
There is a bit of competition in the blogging world.
A lot of people think “oh, blogging is dead, no one’s reading blogs anymore”. Which is so far from the truth. Blogging is still very much alive and highly profitable.
Yes, blogging can be quite competitive sometimes, depending on your niche and the topics that you write about.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t grow a blog.
If there is competition in a niche, that means there’s a need and demand for it as well.
You can still stand out in any niche, because you have your own life experiences to bring to the game.
Don’t feel like because there’s competition, that’s a bad thing.
Is a blog really worth it?
Yes, blogging is still worth it. Blogging can become an incredible source of income, sometimes even a passive one. Blogging is still highly profitable. And no, it’s not too late to start a blog in 2022.
Those are the 13 harsh truths about blogging that you really need to know when you’re starting a blog.
Comment below where you’re at in your blogging journey! I’d love to hear from you.
