Despite having been blogging for over 2 years, which in actual fact, isn’t that long at all, I still make mistakes. A lot of mistakes. Blogging is a huge thing and there is always, always more to learn.
However, since the days of not having a clue what I was doing and the lack of knowledge of all that blogging has to offer, I have learnt a lot along the way from other blogs, other bloggers and just gaining general experience in the big, wide world of blogging.
When I started blogging, I literally had no idea what I was doing. Like seriously, you’d be shocked at how little I knew so I’d like to share some of the mistakes I made in the first couple of months.
I was extremely naïve about followers
Despite having no idea where followers actually came from, I somehow thought they just found you and that was that. You did minimum work for maximum results and your followers just grew and grew until you had hundreds. WRONG. Oh how so very wrong I was. Followers do not appear out of nowhere. They don’t increase rapidly day after day and you won’t have hundreds over night.
I didn’t use publicise
It took me a good 6 months, maybe even more to understand what publicise was on WordPress (I’m sure Blogger has the same concept but I wouldn’t know) and how to use is. Basically, as most of you more competent people will know, it’s linking up your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other accounts to your WordPress account so it automatically posts your new blog links on these sites when they’re live. And I was confused as to why no-one was finding my blog…
I wasn’t sharing my posts enough
Publicise aside, even manually sharing your links I was oblivious to as well. I didn’t share them nearly enough – if fact, thinking back now, I’m wondering whether I even shared them at all?! I know there’s a fine line between sharing your posts effectively and simply spamming everyone with your link but don’t be afraid to promote yourself a little bit!
I didn’t reach out to other bloggers enough
Partly because I was new and shy and partly was because I didn’t know how. I didn’t use Twitter very much and would sometimes go days without tweeting about anything so it took me a while to find, get to know and become friends with other bloggers through it. Now I have, I couldn’t be happier! If you’re a new blogger, please, please, please don’t be scared to talk to other bloggers!
I didn’t get involved enough
Even when I had met some other bloggers, mostly those that blogged about books at the time, I still didn’t really get in on the action and get involved in enough to make myself known. It wasn’t until I emailed author Janice Horton about becoming an associate book reviewer for the online magazine she helps manage did I realise that it wasn’t so scary and that there are some great opportunities out there!
I didn’t find a healthy balance
It’s taken me this long to establish a blogging routine that I’m happy with. Firstly, I didn’t post enough and then I posted too much and sent myself into a frenzy. Either way, I didn’t find a healthy life:blogging balance for a very long time and it had an extremely negative impact. I was so caught up in having to blog every day and doing what everyone else was doing that I made myself so unhappy I went on a 6 month blogging break!