Monday Moments: 5 Things to Know Before Starting a Blog

Last Monday, I wrote a post about things you should do BEFORE starting a blog and I received a lot of great feedback from you guys! I figured this week I’d talk more about things you should know / things I wish I knew before starting a blog. I’ve been wanting to open up about some of the lessons that I’ve learned through blogging and I know this will be helpful for those that are wanting to start a creative endeavor as well. Here are 5 things I wish I knew before I started blogging:

YOU NEED BOTH QUALITY + QUANTITY

I’ve seen bloggers post 3-4x a day and others post maybe once a day– there’s no real recipe to win on Instagram but one thing for sure is it’s not about quality > quantity or quantity > quality. You’ll definitely have to learn to balance both equally. Don’t just post a photo because it’s been a day or write a real quick blog post just because it’s been a while. When writing your blog posts, ask yourself this question: is anyone benefiting from reading this post? Think about it, why would your readers come back to your blog if you’re not writing quality content? That being said, why would your readers come back if you’re not posting regularly?! See, finding that balance between posting regularly and writing content that actually means something to either your or your readers is key.

FOCUS ON EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS

This is actually something I wish I knew earlier on in my career. One of my goals for early next year is to starting writing newsletters for you guys once a week– maybe have one go live every Sunday? I think that might be too ambitious and may start at least sending out newsletters on a monthly basis and move up from there. I know tons of bloggers that do this and it’s actually a pretty neat way to stay connected with their readers and provide with them sneak peeks, early access to deals and so much more! It’s just such a great way to build a solid relationship with your readers and I don’t know why it took me so long to realize that! I haven’t really promoted my subscribe page on my blog (you can subscribe here btw!) but I’ll be doing a giveaway soon for my actual blog subscribers to simply thank you guys for sticking around and also help grow my email list as a whole!

IT’S A LOT OF HARD WORK

I started my blog as just a hobby at first and even then, it was surprisingly a lot of work. From content creation, writing thoughtful posts, taking photos, editing, learning SEO, website maintenance, writing invoices/bills, responding to emails, negotiating, working on weekends, keeping track of everything accounting related, dealing with taxes, and goodness gracious a million more things, it’s A LOT!!

YOU’LL NEED HELP

I was lucky enough to have a supportive husband to pick up photography and be my right hand throughout this whole journey. However over the last year, I needed more help specifically in making my site better and improving engagement overall. I have trouble giving up control on a lot of things– especially when it comes to my own website but I knew the smartest thing to do was to delegate those tasks so I can put my all in everything else that’s on my plate! If you’re just starting out, just know that if you really want to turn your hobby into a career like I did, you’ll have to learn how to let go and grow your team at some point!

YOU’LL ALWAYS BE INVESTING IN YOUR BLOG

Blogging in itself is not free at all, you’ll need to spend money on basic things (i.e. design customization, better web hosting, software, photographers, camera equipment, editing softwares, etc). But THEN, you’ll eventually want bigger and better things as you grow your blog. I thought after buying a camera and two lenses, the investment portion of my blog was done. Boy, was I wrong!! Just know your blog is evolving every single day and so are you. You’ll start noticing all the little (and big) things that you once thought you didn’t need suddenly become a significant investment in your business.

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Alright my loves, I hope this helped all of you that are interested in starting your creative endeavor!! As always, feel free to message, email or DM me if you have any specific questions and I’ll be there to help! I hope you all have a great Monday and get amped because Thanksgiving is just a few days away, eek!!

Chat soon, loves! 💙

SHOP THE LOOK👇

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