Honest Truth About Blogging | What You Need to Know Before You Start a Blog

Last updated on January 19th, 2023

It’s so frustrating when you read articles claiming overnight success with their blogs just to get clicks to their website. Here’s the raw, honest truth about what you need to know before you start a blog and how we REALLY went from zero to a five-figure launch in just six months.

As bloggers, we often use search engines like Pinterest, YouTube, and Google.

We’re always adding content to Pinterest and Tailwind to boost our blog posts’ traffic. We reference YouTube and Google regularly for popular keywords to spark new content ideas.

We even search for things to learn more about, so we’re constantly providing up-to-date information for our own readers!

But there’s one thing we simply don’t do. In fact, we NEVER did, even when we were starting this Simplifying DIY Design journey.

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We don’t spend any time reading posts about “How I Get 50k Pageviews After 3 Months with No Experience!”

We don’t read “How to Start a Blog in Under 5 Minutes.” And we definitely skip right over “How I got 1k Subscribers My First Month Blogging!”

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If there’s one thing that makes our blood boil, it’s when people make online business seem fast, easy, and free.

Business isn’t supposed to be quick and easy. Unfortunately, people write these blog posts because it gets others to click. This is also known as clickbait.

What’s ‘clickbait,’ you ask?

According to Merriam-Webster, clickbait refers to “something (such as a headline) designed to make readers want to click on a hyperlink especially when the link leads to content of dubious value or interest”

We can’t tell you how many times our readers have expressed frustration about how blogging was much harder than they thought. And we totally agree!

Most who aren’t familiar with the stark reality of blogging think they can write nonsense about their life, and the masses would come.

All they have to do is slap up a few ads, and poof! They replaced their full-time income in a few months.

To be fair, we don’t blame them because that’s what those posts led them to believe.

Here’s the honest truth about what it’s really like to start a blog.

Setting up your blog shouldn’t take five minutes. It should take five minutes to install WordPress, maybe… but the rest of it?

The theme, the logo, the pillar content; That all takes time.

It matters what your site looks like. It matters what your logo looks like. The quality of your content matters. The overall foundation of your blog matters!

If you’ve launched your blog but still have minimal growth, always revert back to your foundation.

What’s your brand personality like? Is your content packed with value your audience wants to learn more about?

Are your titles easy to read, or are you writing sentences in a fancy script that can’t be read on a giant computer screen, let alone a mobile device?

Related Post: Rock Your Fonts with These 5 Typography Tips

Are you using all the “free” stuff because you don’t want to invest in your business?

You have to spend money in order to make money. Even something as simple as a stock photo membership (we chose DepositPhotos) can make a world of difference.

#1: Know your audience FIRST

Instead of focusing our blog on a topic that’s centered around $$$, we combined our love for design with a common problem in the blogging world. In other words, we chose passion over profit.

We created our blog FOR our avatar.

Because we did the research right from the get-go, we already knew our avatar and had a crystal clear focus on what they needed.

A common mistake with starting a blog is choosing something you like FIRST and then trying to figure out your avatar and who you’re speaking to.

We spent literal months getting to know our audience FIRST through Facebook group research and surveys. Lots of surveys!

Related Post: The Easy Way to Create and Sell Printable Products

That’s actually how we mapped out our first product, which generated $10k in sales in just one week!

#2: Focus on content OVER products

You didn’t get 1k email subscribers in your first month?

Well, that blog post you read probably forgot to mention that they already had an established network (like a Facebook group) to which they could drive their offer.

They weren’t starting from scratch. And they probably didn’t mention that they were knowledgeable about Facebook ads or had a decent ad budget.

Oh, and we’re sure they conveniently forgot to get into the nitty-gritty details of a fantastic lead magnet that people want.

Related Post: Hot Content Upgrade Ideas To Grow Your Blog

After we knew exactly who we were writing to, we jumped head first into our content.

We started with 10-15 pillar posts (aka cornerstone or very in-depth blog posts) centered around our main topic – blog design. Then, we created a resource library to hold all of our lead magnets as our primary opt-in method.

Next, we made sure our lead magnets were heavily promoted in our pillar posts AND that it was super easy to sign-up thanks to our eye-catching forms.

#3: Shout from the rooftops

Because we were determined to make our blog successful, we pulled out all the stops, including stepping out of our comfort zone.

For some, just the thought of telling other people about their blog makes their stomach turn. What will people think? What if they think it’s silly? Right?

You should be so unbelievably proud of this and want to shout from the rooftops!

We told everyone about our blog. Family, our favorite Facebook groups, and even other blogging friends we’ve met while researching our avatar.

We never “hid” our blog with a coming soon page because we wanted Google to have to find us and our keyword-rich content. Google can sometimes be a bit slow, even through your requested indexing!

#4: Add a well-thought-out tripwire

Soon after we ‘officially’ launched Simplifying DIY Design, we were ready for our first product!

It wasn’t long until we quickly realized our lead magnets were converting well with the traffic we had, so we made a tripwire product.

Related Post: Tripwire Product Ideas for Your Blog

Tripwires are a product you can offer to new subscribers after they sign-up for your opt-in.

Because our lead magnets were very specific (just like our pillar posts), we knew what tripwire products to start with – product templates!

We created an ebook, planner, and workbook template using Canva and bundled them together for just $7.

#5: Utilizing ads for faster growth

Once our tripwire was complete, we started on ads and promoting in Facebook groups that offered promotional content on specific threads. Always make sure to reference group rules first!

Because our tripwire was bringing in about 2-3x what we spent on ads, we were already making money while we worked on growing our email list.

Now, before anyone jumps to any conclusions, we started with a VERY small ad budget because we didn’t have a ton to start with.

We went into this fully prepared to invest for faster growth, so we did set aside a little each month leading up to this point.

#6: Email list, email list, email list

While location means everything to a realtor, an email list is a gold mine for a blogger.

You own your email list. No matter what happens to your email service provider, the list you export every month is YOURS.

Can you say the same about Instagram or Facebook? You’re at the whim of the algorithms, which, as we all know, is a complete mystery and changes with the wind.

Not to mention the dreaded #Instagramdown that conveniently happens right when we want to go live…

Within the first six months of starting our blog, we spent 100% of our time growing our list by writing newsletters that focused solely on value (even when it was just a handful of people).

We wanted to provide them with useful information while getting to know them (and vice versa) at the same time. Every morning we’d wake up to replies with a simple “this is so good, thank you!” to “My pins weren’t converting until I found your blog!”

It’s things like that that give us the motivation to push forward, even on our worst days.

#7: Time for product surveys

Once we hit about 800 subscribers, we sent out a survey (using SurveyMonkey) to see what products they’d be interested in.

Surveys work because people love to be heard. They love to tell their story and share their opinions, whether good or bad.

Don’t believe us? Go into a business-related Facebook group and ask, “what’s your favorite planner?” You’ll be turning off notifications within 15 minutes – guaranteed.

We even added a survey to our welcome sequence, so we always had a full content bank. This is huge when you’re struggling to come up with something new to write!

#8: Listen, create, launch

A couple of weeks after our original product survey went out, we knew exactly what our audience wanted.

They wanted a product that took the stress of design completely off the table.

While it wasn’t an easy feat, we created our Complete Blogger Template Toolkit with, at the time of our first launch, had 250+ Canva templates that covered every fascet of a blog.

We have since grown that product to incorporate 450+ design templates available for both Canva AND PicMonkey users because we never stopped surveying our audience!

We spent another few weeks designing the product, writing the copy, and creating a sales page.

Because our readers already knew that we were in the works on a product they specifically asked for, we didn’t spend a ton of time on our sales page.

That came after when the testimonials started pouring in. What better way to write copy than using the exact words and phrases from the people who bought it from you? With their permission, of course.

After our incredibly successful first-ever launch, we knew we had to put this product into an evergreen sales funnel.

So, we turned to our email service provider ConvertKit and got to work.

#9: Automated email funnel

ConvertKit has been our choice of ESPs from the very beginning. It’s simple enough for even the most non-techy blogger all the way up to fully customized, automated email funnels with segmented offers.

We wrote a handful of promotional emails within a ‘sequence’ and then added them to specific ‘automations’ within ConvertKit.

This now converts our product into an evergreen launch which means it’s on constant promotion to subscribers who hit a certain point of our sales funnel.

To put it simply, it means less work for us!

Simplifying DIY Design wasn’t our first blog. It wasn’t our second or third.

We weren’t new to the blogging world, which meant we had a competitive edge. We knew what didn’t work so we could cut out a lot of the trial and error most bloggers have with their first blog.

Because of this, we can help YOU create a clear line of focus and get results a lot quicker!

Blogging is anything but easy. We laid out our exact game plan to help you and also show that it was not an overnight success.

The first six months had a lot of (very) long nights, dinner-less evenings, missed get-togethers, LOTS of tears, and many finger cramps.

Why do those EASY ‘start a blog’ posts bother us so much?

It bothers us because it’s discouraging. It’s discouraging to those that work so hard and don’t understand why they aren’t seeing those same results.

It’s discouraging to have the resources and money to get that success, but you never knew you needed to do those things because people weren’t honest about what it takes in the first place!

It’s discouraging to read posts about quick success and think, “Yeah, I DO all that, so what the heck?!”

What happens when people get discouraged? They give up. They succumb to defeat, and they never see success.

We want nothing more than for you to be successful, which is why we’re sharing the real, honest truth about what it’s like REALLY like to start a blog.

• You need to invest time, money, energy
• You need to believe in yourself and have the confidence to put yourself out there
• You need to sacrifice – any moment you have to yourself, you blog
• You write, create, learn, and don’t stop

And if not, that doesn’t mean you won’t be successful eventually, but it’ll take longer, and you need to be okay with that.

You can’t look at others’ success and wonder, “why not me?” But we know you, you’re not like that. You do the work. You have what it takes.

We’re not saying to burn yourself out or that you need a lot of money to succeed.

Instead, you need to trust the process. Don’t give up. Stop comparing yourself to others. There’s always another side to their story!

RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS POST:

• FREE Product Creators Quickstart Kit

Don’t forget our FREE Product Creators Quickstart Kit! You’ll get a checklist, cheatsheet, and Canva design template to help you nail your launch!

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