Don't compare yourself
I know it's easy enough to say it, but one thing you shouldn't do as a new blogger is compare yourself to people who have been blogging for much longer than you have. It takes time to build your blog, so don't compare your beginning to someone elses middle. I know I did this when I first started out, and saw really high quality blog posts, thinking "God, I wish my posts were like that!" You need to give yourself time, and one day you could have really high quality blog posts yourself - I know my posts have really improved since I started.
Give yourself achievable aims
When you start out blogging, you always hope your blog will do well and reach a large audience. Over the course of your blogging career, with enough time and effort, this can be a very realistic aim. But when you first start out, you have to give yourself small and achieveable goals. You can't expect 100,000 blog views in your first week of blogging - although I'm sure someone somewhere has crazily done this. Even just one person viewing your blog in your first week is one person you've been able to reach. Keeping your goals realistic can help you feel positive about blogging, as I'm sure giving yourself massive goals that you don't reach can leave you doubting yourself and your blog. But always dream big - believe your blog has the ability to grow and take you where you want to go.
Use social media
One of the biggest assets bloggers have right now is the ability to share their blog on social media. When you first start out, meeting people in the blogging community and getting yourself known is a massive help. Not only can you meet amazing people with great blogs themselves who can give you some advice of their own on starting out, but you can allow your own blog to reach a much wider audience. Social media has been my biggest help since starting out, with many blogs retweeting your tweets to a large audience and the ability to join in Twitter chats with other bloggers, which I'd highly recommend. I honestly don't feel I'd get even half the views I do without the help of Twitter.
Know what you want to blog about
A really important thing about starting a blog is knowing what you want it to be based on. I found myself in my first few days of blogging, considering and writing various posts but finding myself just not feeling them. I've scrapped a few posts and ideas that I just didn't enjoy writing or feel that would benefit or be appropriate on my blog, which is something I'm very happy I did. Don't just write things you think people will like but you don't enjoy writing - there's no point spending your blogging career talking about things you're not passionate about just for views. Find your niche, and when you do, you can run with it.
Give it time
It may seem really difficult and daunting when you first begin, but blogging has been such a great experience for me so far. If your first post doesn't do as well as you may have expected it to, give yourself some time. No great blog was created in a day, so I would really encourage anyone who feels discouraged or disheartened to just stick it out - it'll definitely be worth it in the end.
Give yourself achievable aims
When you start out blogging, you always hope your blog will do well and reach a large audience. Over the course of your blogging career, with enough time and effort, this can be a very realistic aim. But when you first start out, you have to give yourself small and achieveable goals. You can't expect 100,000 blog views in your first week of blogging - although I'm sure someone somewhere has crazily done this. Even just one person viewing your blog in your first week is one person you've been able to reach. Keeping your goals realistic can help you feel positive about blogging, as I'm sure giving yourself massive goals that you don't reach can leave you doubting yourself and your blog. But always dream big - believe your blog has the ability to grow and take you where you want to go.
Use social media
One of the biggest assets bloggers have right now is the ability to share their blog on social media. When you first start out, meeting people in the blogging community and getting yourself known is a massive help. Not only can you meet amazing people with great blogs themselves who can give you some advice of their own on starting out, but you can allow your own blog to reach a much wider audience. Social media has been my biggest help since starting out, with many blogs retweeting your tweets to a large audience and the ability to join in Twitter chats with other bloggers, which I'd highly recommend. I honestly don't feel I'd get even half the views I do without the help of Twitter.
Know what you want to blog about
A really important thing about starting a blog is knowing what you want it to be based on. I found myself in my first few days of blogging, considering and writing various posts but finding myself just not feeling them. I've scrapped a few posts and ideas that I just didn't enjoy writing or feel that would benefit or be appropriate on my blog, which is something I'm very happy I did. Don't just write things you think people will like but you don't enjoy writing - there's no point spending your blogging career talking about things you're not passionate about just for views. Find your niche, and when you do, you can run with it.
Give it time
It may seem really difficult and daunting when you first begin, but blogging has been such a great experience for me so far. If your first post doesn't do as well as you may have expected it to, give yourself some time. No great blog was created in a day, so I would really encourage anyone who feels discouraged or disheartened to just stick it out - it'll definitely be worth it in the end.
I hope, if you're a new blogger yourself, these bits of advice can help you on your blogging journey. It may be difficult at first, but it's honestly so worth it. Let me know if you have any advice for new bloggers or if you've taken any of the advice yourself. Thank you so much for reading my post and I hope you all have a wonderful day!
I think even if you're not a new blogger a lot of this advice is still relevant. I've been blogging for around a year now so I don't know how much of a 'new' blogger I'd be considered as but in the grand scheme of things I think not comparing your blog to other people's is so so important. When I look at some people's blogs who've been doing this for like 5 years I have to remind myself of how much I'd improve in another 5 years as well.
ReplyDeletewww.thesundaymode.blogspot.com.au
That's true, people will constantly be comparing their blogs no matter how long they've been blogging for!
DeleteAs someone who has been blogging for 3+ years, I think these tips are also helpful to me :D I agree with all of these! I've only recently started setting blogging goals and it took me a few months to work out what was reasonable and what was unreasonable. Good luck with your blogging journey :)
ReplyDeleteMili | Sharmtoaster
I think that's true! And thank you so much, good look to you too :)
DeleteWhen I first started blogging, I never thought I'd get to 100 Bloglovin followers, let alone almost 500 a year later. It takes a long time to gain the attention of an audience that really want to read what you're writing.. but it's worth it :)
ReplyDeleteNatasha Kendall