What I wish I would have known before blogging

 

Blogging is a wonderful thing, A WONDERFUL THING.  I think people tend to forget, or don’t know all of the benefits that come from it.  Heck, I sure didn’t know ANYTHING about it before I hit publish.  I really hope this shines some kind of light on you guys who are trying to blog and even to you guys who have no idea what goes into blogging and have no intentions of ever doing it in your life.

These are things I wish I would have known before becoming a blogger.

• It takes time.

The amount of time that I spend working on my content and learning about new things for my blog is unbelievable.  It’s a never ending changing process. You will never know EVERYTHING and I had NOT A CLUE when I started.  I thought I was going to come on here once a week for an hour and BAM, it was just going to work. W R O N G. I basically eat, sleep, and breathe my website.

• You need thick skin.

Read it again and think about it for a little while, and then read it again, because that’s how important it is.  Blogging is throwing yourself to the wolves and hunny, it can get REAL, real quick.  People are not nice.  They will make mean comments, they will not understand you, and they will not support you.   If you don’t like criticism, you’re going to struggle.  Seriously, if you can’t handle that, you will not be a successful blogger.  So before you even think about hitting publish on your first, make sure your skin is super thick.  Unless you like to cry, then be my guest. I mean, I’ve done it a few times and I’m still here.

For Example:  I have had people say I don’t have “style” ouch–I mean really, my main focus is clothing, so it hurt pretty good.  I have had been told I have a mental illness, w h a t ? Because blogging? Okay. I’ve had girls sit around and laugh at my content – well, thanks for the views honey bunches of oats. It’s a never ending list, but you know what, they aren’t paying my bills.

• You have to plan.

I said earlier that I thought it was just going to work, that I was going to wake up every morning and it was going to be rainbows and unicorns and I was going to be so successful and grow like wild fire and everyone was going to LOVE my content. You catch my drift? Again, wrooooooong. I stumbled and fumbled and crawled my way through my first six months before I was like…I can’t live like this. Get you a notebook, get you a planner, get you a calendar and prepare to spend hours planning your content.  I created a free blog planner printable if you just need a lil something something to get you going. It includes the 2019 calendar and tips when writing your blog post.  I spent like 3 hours on it so I really hope it gets you guys started!!

(make sure to check your spam folder!!)

Remember, blogging isn’t about you, it’s about who you want to reach and how you want to help someone.  That means you have to learn your audience, which takes time and a whole lot of planning and…..

• You need patience, I hope you have it.

One in a million bloggers, at least it feels like, get unbelievably lucky and blow up in a short amount of time.  That is not the case 99% of the time, though.  It’s a whole lot of trial and error.  Did I mention time? Oh yeah, it’s the first bullet because it’s THAT important.  There was a time when I was legit pulling my hair out because all I was focused on was growing my following instead of the things that matter, like taking time on content I was putting out, learning the right ways to write an effective blog post, taking time to learn new things, new reaches.  I was burning myself out focusing on all the WRONG things, that I actually almost gave up.

• It’s a business.

I got collaboration emails within my first month of blogging and I was like WHAT THE HECK.  I had NO IDEA what I had just gotten myself into.  I started scrambling.  If you haven’t caught on…I legit scrambled around for a long long time before I was like, LAUREN WHAT ARE YOU DOING THIS IS YOUR JAM.  You may not get paid collaboration emails for a while, but I just want to touch on that you don’t need to accept them all.  You don’t need to post something just because they’ll pay you.  If it doesn’t stick to your brand, let it go.  I promise something else is going to come by and you’ll be glad you didn’t accept it.

• Instagram followers aren’t everything.

I said it earlier and I will say it again.  If you are putting all your time and effort on growing your instagram following and trying to beat this algorithm, you are missing a huge chance to grow your blog.  I did this for six months, which lead me to posting a picture everyday on instagram trying to get as many likes and followers as I could over writing quality consistent content on my blog and figuring out better ways to grow my traffic to the one piece of the web that I actually own.  Now I get it, you want followers on instagram, and you need them, but make sure that you’re balancing out the pieces of your business.  Can I also just throw in a tip that if you don’t utilize pinterest for your blog to get on that ASAP.  I just jumped on this train and wow, I’ve been missing out on such a huge opportunity to get my content out! <--- thanks Sarah.

Overall what I want my non blogging babes to come away with from this blog post is that I spend an incredible amount of time learning and building this website of mine into a business.  I don’t just wake up in the morning, take a picture, type a few words, and post.  A lot of people have this negative stigma towards bloggers where I am from and I want to break that immediately.  We’re real people who just so happen to get joy out of what we do on the internet.  Try supporting it and I bet your life will be a little more easier.

To my current and future blogger babes, blogging is hard.  I want you to remember why you started this and no matter what to keep pushing forward because you can do it.  Plan your content, schedule your goals, do your research, and keep your patience.  Spend every day working on something that you can do better and I promise you will see incredible growth.

As always, thank YOU GUYS for sticking along.  Every like, every comment, every view is why I get to do what I love to do!!!

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