Before you get into blogging, you should understand what you’ll be dealing with so you won’t be met with too many surprises.
Table of Contents
1. There are a lot of things to learn in blogging
A lot of influencers will tell you that starting a blog is so easy that anyone can do it. They are kinda right but they don’t tell you the full truth so here I am telling you before you get into blogging.
It’s easy to set up a blog (you can pay someone to set it up for you or have your hosting provider set it up for you for free), but the hard part is knowing what to learn about and implementing what you learned into your blog.
There are a lot of things that influencers won’t tell you when they prompt you to sign up for the blog. For instance, they won’t tell you that backlinking is part of the equation to creating a successful blog and just how hard it is to get high-quality backlinks.
A lot of bloggers spend a lot of time getting backlinks (links that link to your own site and are found on other people’s sites) and not much time to spend on creating content for their blogs. They end up with very few blog posts that are low quality at the end of the year.
Here are just some of the things you’ll have to learn as a brand new blogger:
- Sitemap
- Backlinks
- Linkbuilding vs. Backlinks
- Guest posts
- DA score
- Moz and Ahrefs
- Linking scheme
- Pageviews
If those words sound confusing to you, trust me, you’ll have to learn them one day as a blogger if you want to succeed in this endeavor.
It may seem like all you have to do is write articles but that’s only part of what you need to do as a blogger. You’ll have to learn how to promote your articles and how to get your articles on the first page of Google.
2. You can outsource your blogging business
This option won’t be available to everyone but you can outsource your blogging business. In the beginning, you should strive to have as many articles out as you can. You’ll want to outsource your writing if you have the resources to do that. It’ll help you achieve success faster.
3. Backlinks are only a part of the problem
Backlinks are important but it’s only one of many things you should focus on as a blogger. Some bloggers spend a lot of time building backlinks but their articles are low quality and they also don’t have many blog posts written. Compared to someone who spends more time creating content, their backlinks may come more naturally without them spending a lot of time trading for it. So make sure you don’t overly focus on backlinks.
It’s very difficult to get high-quality backlinks when you don’t have leverage. You could be someone well-known and it’d be easier for you to get backlinks but when starting out, no one knows who you are, how is anyone going to trust you enough to let you guest post?
With 3000 backlinks, a well-known 7 figure blogger got his DA from 0 to over 70 in his first year but he had good connections and used his title at his day job as his leverage to make it happen. For most people, getting that many backlinks in a year simply isn’t feasible.
You can see how backlinks can be a part of the problem but there are more problems you’ll face in building up your blogging brand. There are more things you have to tackle as a blogger if you want to be successful.
4. It’s hard to get people in the niche to recognize your brand
Something that I found is that at the beginnings stages of your brand, it can be hard for someone to acknowledge your presence in a niche even if you do reach out to them directly.
I’ve reached out to a blogger in my niche with a low DA score through their website and also on a Facebook group but got no response. Not gonna lie, it doesn’t feel good. I’m sure it happens a lot to her as well.
You really have to delegate your time to use it wisely. Some people spend all their time backlinking while others spend their time focusing on creating content. Finding that balance can be the key to success in blogging.
In the beginning stages of your blog, you can spend all your time reaching out to people but get little to no result. In fact, to get 1–3 backlinks, it’s not uncommon for people to send out 3000 emails. Those backlinks will be low-quality in most cases. You can literally spend all your time getting backlinks and raising your domain authority but if your content is low-quality, it wouldn’t help too much.
Getting acknowledgment from other bloggers in your niche may take time and you certainly should have high-quality articles to show for it first.
5. The number of articles you have matters
Some people will tell you that it doesn’t matter how many articles you have. Yes, it does. You can have only 100 articles and make a full-time income while someone else needs 1000 but you can’t deny the fact that with more high-quality articles, you increase your chance of success with blogging.
Each of your articles is like a line in the water. With more lines in the water, you can catch more fish. Fish being monthly pageviews. Of course, you should aim to produce high-quality articles that people are searching for.
Your article on “How to make money online” may not make you much money because it’s low-quality. Why would Google suggest it to readers?
Your article on “10 Things Amy loves about owning a pet Gold Fish from age 5 to 20” will not get any views because no one is searching for it.
The number of articles does matter and so does the quality.
6. There’ll be times when you really don’t want to write but you still have to
There’ll be times when you really don’t want to write but you still have to. Blogging has a lot to do with consistency. You don’t want to produce three articles in a week and then no blog posts for the next three months.
Putting out high-quality blog posts consistently will help you succeed as a blogger.
During the times when you don’t want to blog, it’s up to you to push yourself to write.
Something I notice with many writers is that they often look a bit disheveled. And I’ve seen plenty of other writers who look older than they should be due to all the stress.
Writing is kind of like a form of art and you must have heard of the term “tortured artist” in this case, a “tortured writer” is also quite fitting too. Each word you write is you getting one step closer to having one more article out. Each high quality that you put out is a chance to get more monthly pageviews.
So at times when you don’t want to write, you either have to hire someone else to do it for you or, you’ll have to buckle down and continue to write. Each procrastinated moment is delayed success.
7. Sometimes high-quality articles won’t matter
Google doesn’t always allow the best articles to show up on the first page of Google. The results you see on the first page are often from blogs with a high DA rating.
DA stands for domain authority. The way you’ll get your DA to increase is to have other blogs in your niche include a link to your site. You could ask if you can guest post for them and in doing so, include a link to your own site. With higher DA, your blog posts are more likely to be on the first page of Google.
You can see how that can be a problem. Even if you have the best blog posts on the matter, if you have a low DA score, not many will see your articles.
This is why sometimes high-quality articles won’t matter.
However, the type of articles you’re writing also influences whether the quality of your blog posts will matter. You see, if you write blog posts on a topic that a lot of people are competing for, you’ll need more backlinks for it to move up the rank on Google. If you’re writing on a topic that not a lot of people are competing for, your blog posts are more likely to show up on the first page of Google. In which case, you may not need as high of DA to rank on Google and drive traffic to your site.
Final thought
It can take a lot of time to build up a blog and maintain it but the result can be so satisfying. You can work 5 hours a week and use the rest of the time to do whatever you want. Good luck!
Want to learn how to start a blog? Click here.
