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9 Hard Truths About Growing A Blog I’ve Learned

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Blogging is an incredible thing with an amazing community and endless opportunities. But it isn’t always sunshine and rainbows! There are incredibly difficult aspects that I don’t hear people talk about enough. So after almost 2 years of running this site (and years of running an old, failed blog!) I want to share 9 hard truths about growing a blog.

This isn’t to discourage anyone because blogging is so rewarding and is definitely not “dead” the way some people say it is.

You can start a blog now, it’s definitely not too late and you can absolutely grow and monetize a blog. If monetizing is the goal you are going for! These are just the hard truths that I really wish someone had told me before I started my blog. So I want to share the knowledge and hopefully it will help any new bloggers out.

Also, I do want to remind you that these are just my opinions! I consistently get 300k blog views every month and this is what I have learned but every single experience is different. So maybe a hard truth I learned isn’t applicable to you or is totally different than what you will or did experience. Again, just my thoughts and things I wish I had been told when I was starting out.

So I hope this helps you out a bit on your blogging journey because I fully believe that you can make your blogging dreams come true!

9 Hard Truths About Growing A Blog I've Learned

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9 Hard Truths About Growing A Blog:

{ Hard Truths My Blog Journey Has Taught Me }

1: You can’t just post and then not promote.

You could be making some of the most amazing content ever but if you don’t promote it then no one will know to look for it.

Marketing your blog is one of the least fun parts of blogging (in my experience) but is completely essential if you have dreams of growing your blog.

If you are just starting out I recommend first focusing on Pinterest and one other social media platform. Hint: when picking the other social media platform think about which platform your targeted audience likes to use. For example, if you are starting a fashion blog you probably want to hop on Instagram because a lot of people go to Instagram for fashion advice and inspo.

Then after you have been blogging for a few months I recommend starting to read about and get the hang of SEO. Getting Google hits will take longer than growing on social media but it is more stable and you don’t have to worry about a social media platform disappearing or deleting your account.

2: New content is important for growing an audience.

Okay I know I just said promoting is important. And it is! But it is also incredibly important to have new and consistent content.

There are a lot of websites that will tell you that marketing your blog is so important that you don’t need to worry about creating new content. And that may be true if you have a super evergreen niche but for the majority of niches that isn’t the case.

If you want to keep an engaged audience that will keep coming back you need to have new, fresh, and relevant content.

You want your readers to know that when they follow you on social media and join your email list that they will get fresh content. Make people excited to go back to your site! This will also lead to loyal readers who are more likely to shop through your links and buy any products you sell which will be essential to monetizing your blog.

3: You can’t please everyone.

You can find thousands of cliches about not being able to please everyone and they are all true!

When I first started blogging I took every comment really to heart. I tried to make sure my content was something everyone liked!

But I quickly learned that it wasn’t possible. If I had a longer article someone would comment that it was too long to read or if I had a shorter one someone would comment they wished it was longer. There are so many things that contradict each other and I realized that unfortunately I can’t make everyone happy and that is okay. Remember that it is your blog first and foremost.

4: It takes time to grow.

I found so many posts about “getting 100k blog view your first month” that made me think that you could grow that quick.

And of course some people do. But for the most part if you read those posts you will find that either through another blog or other social media that they already had a really big following.

For someone just starting out it takes time! And you need to stay consistent but also be patient with yourself and your blogs process.

5: You don’t have to blog about blogging to make money.

Most of the bloggers who release income reports and talk about the money they make are those who “blog about blogging”.

So for a while I thought that was the only way to make money blogging but that isn’t true!

I do some “blog about blogging” posts but only to help out new bloggers. I make all my advice free to read and easy to find on my site. Because I make my full time income blogging about other topics (mainly self improvement and lifestyle) and doing content creation for brands. You absolutely can blog about tons of different niches and make money doing them.

6: You will probably have to learn more about tech.

Unless you get insanely lucky and never encounter a single tech issue (super unlikely) or if you have someone who can handle tech issues for you then you will need to learn some tech basics.

In my first year of blogging I learned so much more about website coding than I ever imagined. Especially since it was so different than my college degree which was Hospitality Management! I also learned tons about SEO, photography, marketing, and so much else. But the tech side of a blog was probably the hardest on my brain to learn!

7: There will be ups and downs.

It is so much easier to feel excited and motivated about your blog when you are in an up. When you are seeing growth and hitting goals.

But there are downs and you have to stay focused and motivated during the downs too.

Some of the ups and downs are going to be related to things you know. Like how views normally drop at the beginning of the year. That’s totally normal!

But sometimes there will be downs that you didn’t predict and can’t figure out why. Chances are you just got to get through it and keep making content and promoting your content and then you will see an up swing again if you stay consistent.

8: Blogging advice can be too generic.

If you are spending a lot of time reading top ranking articles on google and pinterest you probably have already experienced this.

And a lot of the advice if you aren’t careful will take all of the YOU out of your blog. A lot of advice recommends never talking about yourself in your blog. And that’s okay for some people but if you want to create a relationship with your readers they are going to have to learn who you are!

Some advice will tell you to totally niche down. And if you’re a business or really have one strong hobby/interest that’s great! But most of us have a range of interests and that is totally okay too!

Just remember that a lot of that content is being told to tens of thousands of bloggers and isn’t personalized to you, what you want from your blog, and what you want to create.

So don’t feel guilty ever doing something different than what other bloggers do or what they recommend.

9: Blogging can be isolating.

I found this truth to be especially true during the pandemic. For me, I started to really grow my blog at the beginning of 2020 which would have been a great time to find other blogging friends in my city but unfortunately the Covid pandemic struck and made that impossible (well at least to do it in person).

I have found that Twitter is the best place to make blogging friends that make this feel a bit less lonely but the loneliness is still present.

When you work by yourself at home every day it can be really isolating! So after the pandemic I have grand plans for organizing blogger meet ups and trying to fight the isolation. But it is definitely something that everyone who is considering blogging full time should think about!

I am super aware that everyone’s blogging experience is different and everyone’s hard truths about their blog journey will be different!

But I think that if more bloggers share their journey and the things they have learned it should make it easier for everyone and hopefully a fun and exciting experience.

I hope you stick around and always feel free to email or DM me with blogging questions or just to chat about blogging or life in general!

Korra-Shay

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