5 Crucial Blogging Lessons I've Learned
I know this is a bit different from the stuff I usually share with you all but in the past year/year and a half, I have gotten so many questions from online and offline friends about how to start a blog and all that jazz. I think there are heaps of resources all around the Google-sphere that give extensive tips to help you from concept to creation (Check out Blog With Me & Simply). But, I figured I’d share a few key pieces of advice that I've learned to be beneficial and I think anyone should consider before stepping into the blogging world.
*I want to be fully transparent and say that I am still riding the struggle bus and working out the kinks of building a profitable business in the world of blogging/content creation. This, of course, is purely from my experience of starting and gradually building a blog for the past year and a half. *
1.
What Is Your "Why?"
Why do you even want to go into blogging? What about the idea excites you? And, most importantly, what will you bring to the table? Do you want to educate? To share something valuable? Once you identify your key objective, it will ultimately indicate if blogging is for you. And if you decide blogging is for you, your blog mantra will remain your best friend throughout your blogging journey because it will continuously remind you of your mission and ensure that you only create content and partner with brands that are in line with that mission.
2.
Identify Your Audience & Listen To Them
A great way to think of this is just like how you would treat starting any other business: Who is your target customer? That is the customer that you want to hone in and focus on as you create an entire blog/brand and curate content for. This is really in line with number 1: your “why” should match your target reader. At the end of the day, there's got to be a demand/need for what you have to offer or vice versa.
3.
Be Consistent Or Don’t
I have said this to pretty much every single person that has asked me for blogging advice: you have to (x 100) be consistent if you want to see traction. This often means posting once to twice a week on your site and posting 4+ times a week on all of your social media. If you’re a frequent reader/follower, you know I've had 2 separate months where content was slow because I genuinely needed the mental break and creative recharge. But other than that, my mission has always been to post, at the bare minimum, one post on the blog and 3-7 posts on social media per week. This has been something that I truly believe has helped me grow organically and gradually.
4.
Stop Comparing
Seriously. Please. Don’t do that to yourself it will eat you up and inhibit your growth. The tendency to want to compare yourself will never go away, I think it’s human nature. However, how you respond to it really impacts the effect it will have on you. Only compare yourself to others if it will motivate you to do something better or more strategically, not if it will take away from your journey or purpose.
5.
It Costs Money To Make Money
I think any entrepreneur or self-starter will agree with me when I say that if you want to see your idea/business grow, it not only needs an investment of yours and others' human capital but money as well. If you want to build a business through blogging, know that you will need to invest money in others (and yourself) and a variety of resources at one point or another. I’ve learned that sometimes what might feel like a financial sacrifice is something you need to do because it will help your business grow and, in the long term, will be worth it. This is something I am truthfully struggling with and working through.
Photography By Yasmeen