Bloggers Are Such Liars

A few years ago I’ve started researching blogging, and all things connected to it hoping to earn some $$$. I’ve always enjoyed writing, and I didn’t know about Medium and a self-hosted blog was the only solution.

Oh boy, I was so naïve in the beginning. Soaking up every word from bloggers who were successful or were selling themselves.

After realizing things, or lies if you prefer, bloggers tell you I gave up on them and start a blog and learning from every mistake I made.

1. It’s not just writing

Many blogging newbies fall into this trap. You keep reading how you should be consistent and publish blog posts at least two times a week. And there is a plethora of advice on how to come up with ideas for content when you dry out or how to write a blog post in a jiffy.

But what most omit to tell you is that there is more to blogging than just simply writing. When you just start, there is no way you can finish a blog post in an hour as more seasoned bloggers will tell you that is possible. Why? You should find the perfect photo for the blog post, then you should create at least one Pinterest image, have at least one outbound link, and preferably one inbound link. It takes more than an hour to “pack” a blog post. And it takes more than writing to complete a single blog post.

Oh, I forgot to mention, making your blog post SEO-friendly but not too robotic is another job. I assume more seasoned bloggers manage to incorporate SEO friendliness while writing a blog post, but for beginners, it might be easier to write your post first, than SEO it and move on to making it “pretty”.

2. You will spend more time promoting than writing

It takes time for Google to “crawl” your website and all the SEO things to kick in, and while you wait for that to happen you should promote your blog as much as you can.

Let’s take Pinterest for example. There are many opposing opinions on how Pinterest works, how many times you should Pin, how many “fresh” Pins, etc. You will need at least a day just to create a month’s worth of Pins. If you have only a few blog posts, you must be careful to not Pin too often because you will be suspended (or in Pinterest jail). Also, you need to have different images/Pins for every link so you are not repeating hence not juggling with suspending. Can you see where I’m going? And it’s just for one platform.

Facebook is whole another story. There are tons of blogging groups where they have specific days you can promote your blog. It’s an ok source of traffic, but those are not your readers aka not the ones who will probably come back to your blog because they are interested in reading what you have to say. And keeping up with groups and their promoting days is exhausting, you’ll need a Trello board or something.

How many bloggers will tell you that promoting is a b**** and that essentially you will spend more time promoting than writing?

3. It’s not as easy to grow as they tell you

Like I’ve mentioned before, there is a lot more to blogging than just writing. You will read from more seasoned and “successful” bloggers that Pinterest is your go-to method of driving traffic to blog and that you can have thousands of views like that. STOP now, don’t believe that crap. Yes, Pinterest is good, but your blog needs to be big and old to gain traction on Pinterest. You’ll waste a lot of time building a Pinterest profile one way only to learn from someone else that it’s the wrong way and so on. Don’t focus on just one method of growing your blog.

There are other platforms to promote your blog and to get it seen, but it’s not for the long run. Like I’ve mentioned, there are a lot of Facebook and Twitter group threads with promo days that can get your blog seen. Some seasoned bloggers recommend those, some not. I’m conflicted because I’ve found some amazing blog posts and blogs via those groups. Maybe even more than on Pinterest.

Learn about SEO as much as you can. You don’t have to pay crazy amounts of cash to learn it, there are some pretty awesome free resources out there. SEO is a game-changer. That is the proper way to grow, but it takes a lot of time and a lot of practice.

So, next time you read “This is how I grew my blog in 6 months and you can too” trust me, that is not a new blogger. That blogger had a few previous blogs “to practice” and by the time they managed to grow a new blog in six months they are seasoned bloggers. You’ll need more to grow and that’s ok.

4. Income reports

OMG, these I hate even on Medium. Like, stop already. What worked for someone may not work for you. Don’t be discouraged by that. Income reports can be faked. Income reports are NOT helpful. STOP income shaming new bloggers.

I’ve noticed that most of those bloggers have the same line in their income reports: a certain hosting company (I will not share the name). They will write how easy and cheap it is to start a blog via that company, not to mention that you will be able to grow it fast. It’s nonsense, a hosting company has little to do with growing your blog. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to have a good hosting company, but that’s not your source of traffic.

5. Nicheshaming

The first thing bloggers, and Medium writers, will tell you is to find a niche and how without a niche you are doomed. They will also shame anyone who has more than one interest by telling them they don’t know how to focus and that’s impossible to be interested in several things at once. And that you will run out of ideas pretty quickly since you are all over the place.

What happens if you still don’t know your style of writing? Or you are not quite sure in which direction you see your blog going as it’s your first time doing that and you are still testing stuff? There is nothing wrong with not having a niche as soon as you start a blog. Don’t let them niche shame you.

You made the first step and a commitment, work your way up the blogging scale and once enough time passes and you write a lot of blog posts, you will be able to see the “niche” direction. And even if you don’t, there’s no shame in that.

Write what you love, people will follow you because of your writing, the content comes second.

To end this rant, I just want to tell you something. Be patient. Be careful who you follow and who you take advice from. Think twice before believing bloggers.

This story was originally published on Medium.

Some shameless self promotion — I wrote on my blog about these two helpful things: FREE SEO resources and FREE blogging courses