This post is all about what you need to know when starting a blog at the end of 2021/2022.
5 THINGS YOU ABSOLUTELY NEED TO KNOW IF YOU’RE JUST STARTING A BLOG – WHAT THE “BIG BLOGGERS” DON’T TELL YOU
It’s almost 2022 and you know blogging is not dead. So you want to start a blog. One that brings people value, brings you joy, and will one day make money, hopefully. Starting from zero, with as good as no experience? You can definitely do that! That’s exactly what I’m doing. You’re welcome to join the journey!
There are ENDLESS resources online. Endless blog posts all about where to start, how to set up your blog, and how to write your first entry. On top of that, there is no lack of blogging courses created by bloggers for bloggers. Taking a blogging course from someone who “has made it”, has an impressive income report can be a great way to skip months of trial and error but rather have more or less a strategy in place from the get-go.
The thing is though, as in any other area of life, the more experience we gain, the more successful and advanced we are at something, the higher the chance that we forget how it was in the beginning.
A lot of what is confusing to someone who’s just starting out, becomes common sense, something obvious to those who have been in the game for years. And so in this post, I want to share with you 5 things you might not know yet if you’re just starting out blogging. Things that the “big blogs” don’t usually mention right away in their blogging tips.
5 THINGS TO KNOW IF YOU’RE JUST STARTING OUT BLOGGING
1. It will take months for your blog posts to rank on Google – meaning if you publish something today you might not see traffic from that post until 6+ months later
Just because you have a gorgeous website and wrote a few great blog posts doesn’t mean tons of people will see your work. I’m sure you’ve heard about SEO if you already did some research on starting a blog.
I know when I was looking up information, there were not many blogs that mentioned the fact that they are as successful as they are because their blog is x years old, which means it has great authority and that even if you have your site optimized for Google, it doesn’t mean you will see instant results.
It will most likely take months, if not a year to see the best results for a blog post that you write today. On average around 6 months! So for now, focus on producing quality content.
2. So it takes tiiiime to gain traffic, grow an audience
Whether it’s Google or Pinterest or anywhere you hope to gain traffic from, it will take some time.
Yes, it is technically possible (at least so I’ve heard) to gain some traffic after a few days/weeks. However, with Google, it can realistically take 6+ months, with Pinterest 30-90 days. With Pinterest, I definitely see my pins do well after at least a few weeks have gone by after posting and as good as never right away.
Moreover, I think it’s sometimes misleading when a blogger states something along the lines of “How I earned x amount in 3 months of blogging”. What they don’t mention is that their blog has been up for months or years already, gaining some authority, but in the last let’s say 3 months they really put in some extra work, started to take it more seriously and that’s when they got such and such results. Well, that is still impressive and I’m sure they have valuable tips to share. However, someone who is just starting a blog today, will not see the same results in 3 months as they saw in “3 months”. So keep that in mind and please do not EVER compare your results.
3. So how long you had your blog for matters
4. You have to make a choice and deal with the consequences
You probably read or heard a bunch of times now that you should pick a niche. As narrow as possible, for best results. But if you’re anything like me and you want to enjoy the process of creating and writing, you have to make a choice. Either you follow a direct recipe for a successful blog and treat it purely like a business (like another job, you might not fully enjoy) or you try to risk it and do both- do what works and what has to be done (certain types of posts, certain count of words, following a certain post “formula”), but also mix in some freedom and creativity and produce content that might not be searchable, but that makes your soul smile.
One way or the other, one is true for sure, people don’t care about YOU. Don’t make it all about you…you gotta bring value. Yes, it can be based on experience and stories from your life but it has to have a higher purpose than sharing and oversharing…
5. The requirements set by ad networks are changing, so a lot of bloggers you look up to might be with for instance Mediavine, but it’s not gonna be so easy to get accepted these days.
Examples of current requirements as far as audience, set by popular ad networks:
Google AdSense – less than 10,000 page views, so you can set it up right away, however, it doesn’t make much sense with close to zero traffic anyway
Ezoic – 10,000+ site visits per month
Mediavine – 50,000+ sessions (!) in the previous 30 days
AdThrive – 100,000+ monthly pageviews …so yea.
Yes, it’s all doable and I am sure you CAN achieve all your blogging goals, but just don’t start out blogging thinking that ad revenue from one blog= ad revenue from another blog.
I am not by any means making this blog post to discourage you from starting a blog. Quite the opposite, you hopefully realize that NOW is the perfect time to start. Time goes by anyway, whether you do something with it or not. So better start today and see results in a few years, than contemplate starting for another few years. I am also not saying to not expect much, reach for the stars and aim to make thousands per month, I’m sure you can do it! I’m just saying that blogging is not a get-rich-quick option.
So adjust your expectations in the beginning.
Do not get discouraged or give up too fast.
Know that the results will come, even if you can’t see them just yet.
This post was all about what you need to know when starting a blog in 2021/2022.