How I Started a Blog With ZERO Experience And What I’ve Learned
You may be thinking, “Emily, this is like your 6th blog post. Your site hasn’t even been up for a week. What makes you think you can write about blogging already?”
While you’re not wrong, I wanted to offer a unique perspective. Every post I’ve found about blogging is written by somebody who is already successful at it.
They’re telling you about their experience through the lens of knowing it all worked out already. But that isn’t where you are. And it isn’t where I am either.
So instead of writing this post a year from now when I am successful, (I’m manifesting it ok?) when I may not remember all of the things I learned, I want to write it now, while it's still fresh.
So here is how I got started and what I’ve learned so far, from the perspective of a novice.
If you want to keep up to date with more posts like this as I learn more and navigate my blogging journey please sign up for my beginner blogger email series!
The Kick Start
First of all, I fought the idea of blogging for a long time. I touch on this a little in Making Money Moves: 10+ Side Hustle Ideas to Generate Real Income When You’re Financially Struggling and I’ll be mentioning it again later in this series. So don’t forget to sign up above if you don’t want to miss it!
The kick start I needed was, at first, this post by Jennie Leigh. I was also working a job I hated and, soon after I found Jennie’s course, I was let go. Read more about that in this post. (COMING SOON)
While I was waiting for pay day so I could buy her course (yea, money was tight) I found a few other posts that I started reading in a new light. (Check back next Wednesday for this post. Or, better yet, sign up for my email list above to get it straight to your inbox!)
First Steps
From this research I decided to go ahead and narrow down my niche. I thought really hard about the things I was passionate about and what I could write about more or less effortlessly.
With that information in mind, I then tried to build a character to whom I was writing. This was a little easier for me than thinking of a target audience, but both methods work.
I then took those two things and went back to Pinterest to research topics and keyword searches to figure out what to write about.
Prove It
At this point, I still hadn’t spent any money. I decided that I needed to prove to myself that I was really interested in pursuing this first.
From what I was reading, it was recommended to have 10-15 posts ready before creating your blog. So I went back to my pinterest research and ended up coming up with about 20 ideas for posts.
This was good news. It meant I had a good niche that I could write in. Now I just had to do the hard part–writing the actual posts.
My Biggest Insecurity
This may sound weird but I gave myself a little push by remembering that I have read some truly awful blogs. This helped for 2 reasons.
The first was that, while I may not know what to do right, I do know what NOT to do wrong. I’ll touch more on that in an upcoming post as well. (See? You definitely want to sign up for my email series ;) )
The second is that I am not, and have never been, confident in my writing ability. I’ve always hated writing papers. Even when I did enjoy writing them, I’d be confused when I received even worse grades.
Writing is absolutely not my strong suit. So remembering that there were other bloggers out there who could say the same–and still be successful–was really helpful. The perfectionist in me cringed a little less.
Course Correcting
That’s when I noticed that maybe I hadn’t focused my niche quite enough. I still didn’t really enjoy writing.
I had chosen topics that I was interested in and knowledgeable about. However, that didn’t mean I knew how to write about them.
I struggled through my first few posts, as I’m sure everyone does, but I did manage to put a few of them together. I thought this meant I was doing ok and I would just need some practice.
While I do still believe this–writing is a skill that needs to be practiced to be any good at it–I realized there was another issue that wasn’t going to resolve itself.
Missing the point
I wanted to start a blog because I’ve found a lot of healing through writing lately–the thing I hate …shhhh. I wanted to connect with people and share my unique view of the specific struggles I (and others) have.
I also wanted to start a blog because I knew it could be a way to make money. I wanted to make enough money to actually pay my bills and not hate my life both in and outside of work. Sound familiar?
And THAT was the facet I focused on for the first 3 weeks it took me to do my research, start writing my posts, and get my blog up and running.
Sharing My Missteps
That is also the reason I started a blogging series. Not because I know what I’m talking about but specifically because I don’t.
I want to share my missteps with you from my current headspace so you know you're not alone in this journey. I don’t want to teach you. I want us to learn from each other.
If this is something you’re interested in following along with, you can receive all of my updates to this series by entering your email below. This is separate from my normal once weekly blog posts, so please sign up for both if you’re interested!
And let me tell you. THIS was the easiest blog post I’ve written yet.
Have you started a blog recently or are you planning to? What have you learned so far? Let me know in the comments!
