Life is full of wishing you had done things differently, and running a blogging business is no different! If I started a blog today, there are several things I would change!
I’m sure you could ask any blogger out there if there is anything they would do differently if they were starting all over, and you’re likely to hear a confident ‘yes’ 99% of the time.
Anytime you start something as a beginner, you will have to learn the ropes as you go and hope that you eventually get the hang of it.
With blogging, this learning process is a series of trial and error until you figure out what works for you. (Side note: most people tend to give up after a few of those errors, so if you’ve made it past that point, you’re already a step ahead of the game!)
I don’t know about you, but when I first started my blog (and even still), finding advice I could trust to be the best was extremely difficult. Every blogger has their own opinion, their own flow, and their own story of what has worked for them. And that’s totally okay! There is no one path to success.
However, that made it really hard to figure out which path to take. And trust me, I ended up taking them all. Like every single path.
But I don’t want you to do the same thing! I want you to go into blogging with a good idea of what is worth spending time on and what is not necessary.
For reference, I started my blog about 3-4 years ago and have been experimenting since then with different niches, focus points, marketing strategies, and so many other things.
I have gotten burnt out and exhausted, given up a few times, tried again a lot of times, and then finally got the point that I started doing the below things and actually began to see the results I have been wanting for years.
I know how exhausting the past few years have been, just waiting to be successful, and I want to help you avoid that waiting period as much as possible.
I hope this post will help you figure out what to focus on so that you can tune out the noise and see results faster in your business!
I am absolutely no pro, but I do know what has been a complete waste of time in my personal blogging journey and what has actually led to serious results.
This post may contain affiliate links, which means I’ll receive a commission if you purchase through my links, at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products that I personally would use or do currently use. Please read full disclosure for more information.
What I would do differently if I started my blog now:
If I started a blog today I would…
Pick a broad niche that gives me freedom to write about many things.
When I started my blog, I had no clue what I wanted to write about. But I heard from every blogger that you HAD to pick a very specific niche and that is how you would gain an audience.
After pigeon-holing myself into a niche for a few months, I lost inspiration and any motivation to write. So I switched niches. Then lost steam with that niche as well. And the cycle continued like this for a while. Not only was I not really gaining an audience, I was losing all interest in writing because I would get bored of the niche I had chosen.
If you are someone who has a very specific topic you want to write about and you have tons of ideas and knowledge on this topic, there is absolutely nothing wrong with having an entire blog based around that niche.
But if you’re someone who isn’t quite sure what you want to write about, or maybe you have a lot of different topics you’d like to write about, it is totally okay to have a broader blog niche, no matter what you hear from any other blogger!
There are plenty (and I mean plenty) of bloggers out there who are extremely successful even though they don’t have a specific niche. ‘Lifestyle’ blogs are still relevant and thriving!
Sometimes I want to write about travel experiences, or a mental health topic, or outfit ideas, or how I redecorated my home, and I can do all of that with a lifestyle blog.
No matter what anyone tries to tell you, it is completely possible to form an audience from a multi-niche blog. If you find that you end up writing about one topic all of the time, you can always narrow down your niche later!
If you choose to have a broader niche, just keep in mind that you still need to have a desired audience. For example, despite me writing about many different things on my blog, my target audience is still made up of mostly young and middle aged women, because that’s who my content is aimed towards.
Focusing on a target audience rather than a target topic is, in my opinion, a much easier and more doable thing for my business.
If I started a blog today I would…
Be consistent. Like, really consistent.
For the past few years, ‘consistent’ has not really been a defining word for my blogging journey. When I started a blog, I could go a couple of months writing blog posts every week, then just not do anything with my blog for an entire season.
And honestly, that lack of consistency showed in my results. As in, there weren’t any results to show.
I’ve always heard that being consistent is the most important thing in your blogging business, and I wish I had taken it to heart.
I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes it can be really hard to stay consistent. Life gets in the way a lot. If you work a full-time job or have kids or are taking care of other people, or any number of scenarios, it can be really difficult to find time every day or even every week to work on your blog.
This is probably the hardest part of blogging, but it is also the most important.
One thing I have found to help me stay consistent is just to set more realistic goals for yourself about what you will be consistent with. And it’s okay to start small.
For example, I work a 9-5 job still and have more responsibilities outside of that. I know that it isn’t likely that right now I have time to write a new blog post every single week. Especially if my weekends are filled with other events or activities.
So I have started with just making it a goal to make sure I schedule my Pinterest Pins for the week every Sunday night.
This is something that takes me about 2 hours to do (to make and publish all of the pins). This typically involves making some pins from old blog posts and scheduling them to post on various days throughout the following week. And since Pinterest is a huge contributor to my success as a blogger, it’s a high-value task that I can make time for each week.
By the way, if you are a blogger looking to increase your traffic through Pinterest, I am going to be releasing a course soon on this topic! If you’d like to get notified when the course goes live (and get a discount code sent to ya ;D ), sign up for the email list below to be notified!
[mailerlite_form form_id=6]Just by staying consistent with one small thing, I have seen my traffic increase, gained more of a following on Pinterest (which will keep paying off), and I’ve developed a habit of spending time every week focusing on my business.
As I get more time, I will expand my goals into posting new blog posts weekly, sending out weekly newsletters to my email subscribers, and other important things. But for now, staying consistent with even one thing is helping me grow my business in multiple ways.
If you also struggle with consistency, here are a couple of small consistency goals you could choose to start with. Pick one and add more as you grow the habit!
- Scheduling pins weekly
- Revamp an old post once/week or once/every couple of weeks
- Write for 15 minutes a day (about anything, just to practice writing)
- Send an email newsletter weekly
- Reply to any comments on blog posts weekly
- Post a new photo to social media (weekly or even daily)
If I started a blog today I would…
Pick one thing to focus on it and stay focused (aka don’t try to do it all)
As I mentioned earlier, every blogger out there will recommend different things you ‘need’ to be doing to be successful.
You’re likely to hear that you need to post weekly, grow your social media, have an email newsletter, run ads on your site, have a gorgeous website, post to Pinterest, create digital products, do affiliate marketing, sell courses, sell e-books, offer services, and the list goes on and on and on.
As a beginning blogger, you may feel overwhelmed by all of the advice out there and not know which of these things you actually need to focus on. After all, if something has the ability to make you money and propel your business, you don’t want to skip it, right?
I was in your shoes once, and like I said, I tried to follow every single thread.
One of the things that set me back years was trying to do it all.
If making money with your blog is your ultimate goal, it might seem like it makes sense to start making products and selling them right away.
If you want to gain a bunch of traffic, it might seem logical to put yourself on every single platform (Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter, etc).
And while this does make sense on paper, this method can actually just make you feel burnt out and not yield many results.
Doing everything can actually lead to no results.
Instead, focusing on one or a few things that are the most important is a great way to drive results without getting burnt out.
So yes, you might make money from digital products, but if you have no audience to sell those products to, it won’t do much good.
Everyone has different things they want to focus on. But if I were starting over, here is what I would focus on:
- Writing new blog posts consistently
- Posting to Pinterest consistently
- Affiliate marketing tied into my blog posts
These few things are the most important to me because I can’t be successful in my blog without traffic. And Pinterest is my #1 driver of traffic, so that is one of my primary focuses.
Choose a few things that are the most important to you and your business and focus on those things until you see results. And then you can start adding in additional things.
Hint: if you have zero traffic to your site, that should be one of the things you focus on! Everything else you do in your business will somewhat rely on you having an audience.
If I started a blog today I would…
Focus less on the aesthetics of my content & website
Here is one thing I have learned while blogging that has shocked me to my absolute core: most people do not care at all what your content looks like. Yes, your posts need to be readable and somewhat easy to look at, but as for the aesthetics of it, I’ve learned that the majority of the time, I care a heck of a lot more than my readers/viewers.
As much as it pains me, I have learned that spending a lot of time getting things to look *perfect* just has not been worth it.
Here’s an example for you:
While testing out different Pinterest pin templates recently, I had a couple of templates that I loved and thought they looked amazing. Like stunningly beautiful, they could have won awards in my mind. I spent hours making them look perfect.
Then I had two pin templates that I thought were okay at best. After a couple weeks of using them, I literally thought to myself ‘These are actually ugly, I’m going to stop using them.’
Then I checked my analytics on Pinterest and noticed that those two “ugly” templates were the ones performing the best. They were getting multiple clicks and saves while those “beautiful” pins were sitting there not getting any love.
I’ve seen evidence of this situation multiple times. Have you ever gone to someone’s website and been surprised at how simple it is even though you know they get a ton of traffic and are a very successful blogger? Yeah, exactly.
I’ve learned that how beautiful your content or your website is actually has very little to do with how successful you will be.
If I could only tell you how many weeks (or um, months) I wasted in the beginning getting my website to be as visually stunning as I could. I could have been getting traffic to my blog so much sooner had I just published a decent looking website and focused on the content I was creating rather than the design.
To summarize: It doesn’t matter how pretty your website is if you aren’t getting any traffic to it!
When setting up and designing your blog, I instead suggest that you do a couple of things to make sure you don’t spend too much time on it:
- Set a deadline (like 3 days to get your website made)
- Write out the things you NEED on your site, and forget all the extra stuff that won’t really mean much
- Focus on the functionality of it and not the minute details of it (i.e. “can a viewer find what they’re looking for” instead of “will my viewer think this animation is cool”). 9 times out of 10, your readers won’t care about how it looks.
- Keep it simple. As your blog grows, you can always add to it and reconfigure things as needed.
- Use WordPress. WordPress is the best platform for blogging, especially if you want to grow a business out of it. Most bloggers I’ve heard from that started out on another platform (Wix, SquareSpace, etc) ended up switching to WordPress anyway. So using WordPress from the beginning will save you lots of time later!
If you’re in the beginning stages of blogging, I highly recommend using Bluehost for hosting!
Bluehost is hands down the best hosting service I’ve ever used. They are one of the most affordable options (you can get hosting for less than $3/month) and the service they provide is high quality.
I’ve never had a serious issue with them, but anytime I’ve had questions or concerns, their customer service has been amazing.
I have used their hosting for about 4 years and plan to keep using it for my blog for the foreseeable future.
If you’re needing hosting for your blog, you can redeem a discount and get your first year of hosting for $2.95/month by clicking this link.
If I started a blog today I would…
Treat my blog like a business, not a hobby
If you are starting a blog solely as a hobby, then this may not apply to you. But if you have any desire to make money and/or a lifestyle from this (which I am guessing you do since you are reading this post), then take this advice and run with it.
Treating this blog like the business that it is will help you greatly when it comes to being successful.
If you have the mindset that your blog is just a hobby, it becomes a lot harder to stay consistent, make the right decisions, and keep working hard when it becomes inconvenient.
Blogging isn’t the type of thing where you have someone watching over you telling you what you have to do and when you have to get it done. You are your own boss, which is amazing for so many reasons. But it’s also hard because you have to be the one choosing to keep going when you don’t feel like it that day.
Here are some ways you can treat your blog like a business:
- Make sure you are blogging legally (you can find all the tools you need to get your blog legal here )
- Set concrete goals for your business that you can measure
- Take yourself seriously and believe that you can achieve those goals
- Set up business accounts, don’t use your personal ones (email, web hosting, blogging tools) setting up a professional email account is an easy way to start thinking like a business-owner
- Aim to solve people’s problems, not just write about yourself (this is how an audience is created)
- Come up with a business plan and look at it often (you can find great blogging business plan templates online with a quick Google search)
- Have a weekly check-list of the things you need to do on a regular basis.
- Have a work schedule that you aim to follow as closely as possible (even if it’s just working on your blog from 6-7 pm every Friday night)
- Keep your blog in the back of your mind always and be looking for ways you can grow it. (summary- always be looking for inspiration around you)
- Invest wisely
- Keep track of your expenses, even the small monthly ones
- Keep track of your performance (monthly reports are a great way to do this)
- Reflect & reevaluate often
- Grow an email list
- MOST IMPORTANTLY: keep going, even when you feel like giving up. This is the point when you will break through and start to see success.
If I started a blog today I would…
Set goals from the beginning
Going into any business without a plan is asking for a disaster, and blogging is no different. If you don’t have at least some idea of what your goals are and how you’re going to achieve them, it will be harder to make decisions that will lead you to success.
Setting defined goals right from the start is one of the best things you can do for your business.
When I started my blog, all I knew was that I wanted to eventually be a full-time blogger and make a good amount of money from it. But I had no goals or plans of how I would get there.
Taking the time to set actual goals helped me see what I was working towards.
Don’t just set long term goals either. Short term goals are important for helping us stay motivated and keeping us from feeling overwhelmed.
Just starting out? Even small goals like ‘get 100 monthly visitors to my website’ are great ones to have!
If I started a blog today I would…
Be myself and stop trying to be like every other blogger
When you’re starting a blog and you’re in that ‘research’ phase, your mind starts to get saturated with the advice and content that all the bloggers you’ve found are sharing.
After doing this for a while, it can be extremely easy to let your blog take on the personality of all of those other blogs. Especially if you aren’t sure what your voice is yet.
It’s completely natural- we see these other successful bloggers and business owners and we see what worked for them, so we almost try to replicate it. I’ve done it myself.
But eventually you start to realize that you aren’t being your true self. Your blog isn’t in your true voice.
Or maybe you don’t feel like anyone would want to take advice from the real version of you. After all, blogging is quite a bit about helping others solve their problems, and if you aren’t confident in yourself, it can be hard to feel like you have the authority or right to do that.
But let me tell you something that I have learned over and over again- your personality, your life story, your experiences, and your voice are the things that are going to set you apart from other bloggers.
Being yourself is the most important thing you can do. If you think ‘there is no one out there who will find me interesting or funny or knowledgeable’, you are wrong!
There is an audience out there for everything. Just because you may find yourself uninteresting does not mean that everyone else will too- trust me.
There is a very fine line between gaining inspiration from other bloggers and being so obsessed with certain bloggers that you will start to try to do things exactly how they do.
If you start to feel yourself leaning towards the obsession end of things, I highly suggest you press pause on the research and just start the blog based off of what you already know (which is probably more than you realize)!
And don’t worry, it happens to all of us!
Reminder: Be yourself. Someone out there needs to hear your story.
All of the things mentioned above are things I wish I had done from day 1 to increase my chances of success and avoid wasting time and energy.
If you’re a blogger or would like to become a blogger, I hope this list has helped you figure out what might help you in your own business and how you can reach success sooner. Owning a blogging business is all about figuring out what works for you, and hopefully this will give you some guidance as you either start or continue your blogging journey!
Fellow bloggers, is there anything you wish you could go back and do differently in your blogging journey? Share in the comments below! 🙂
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