5 Lessons Learned From Blogging

Blogging is a journey.

There is no doubt about that. And, the harsh reality is that many will attempt this road and few will make it and succeed. But, before you give up, or never even start; let me ask you this.

What is success and how do you succeed?

Success is the aim of an accomplishment, but is defined differently for everyone. Blogging success is no different.

Blogger A may consider their blog successful… if they made $15,000 in one year.
Blogger B may consider their blog successful… if they increased their email subscriptions by 1,000 in one year.
Blogger C may consider their blog successful… if they simply created good content on a consistent basis throughout the year and had an engaged audience.

In each scenario above, bloggers may have considered their blog successful.

From this, I learned my first lesson.

Lesson 1 – Blogging is a very personal thing with very personal goals.

My Personal Blogging Goal for 2017

For me, when I picked up blogging (again) towards the end of 2016, my goal for us and this blog was to travel to all 50 states and document our travels.

Since, I already work full-time, my intent was never to get rich off of blogging or to quit my job. While the latter sounds great, I know first hand how challenging it can be to generate various profitable streams of income from a blog; especially if you do not choose a money making niche.

Nevertheless, when 2017 started, we started our travels in between work and school and made it to 17 states in one year!

To me that is quite impressive.

Not to mention, we have revisited several of the same states within the year. So, in that regard, I feel like I did an awesome job!

Attempting to travel to all 50 states in one year in between work and school was a little crazy, but it gave me something that was measurable to work towards.

This brings me to lesson two.

Lesson 2 – Have realistic and measurable goals for your blog.

For example, had I set my goal at visiting one new state per month instead of 50 in one year, we would have surpassed our goal. But, because the initial goal was terribly unrealistic, we didn’t reach it. Am I sad about it? Heck no. We made awesome memories and explored cities and states that we’ve never been to as a family. As a matter of fact, traveling and being consistent with my blog definitely increased our quality of life this year.

This however, brings me to lesson three.

Lesson 3 – Take time out to reflect and reassess to keep your blog running and relevant.

Since my goal was, in fact, unrealistic and unmet, it gives me something else I can continue working towards next year which keeps my blog running and relevant. Perhaps, the goal will be (as I mentioned above) visiting one new state per month.

So, again, be sure that you take time out to reflect and reassess to keep your blog running and relevant.

Lesson 4 – There is enough for everyone.

The 4th lesson learned this year on my blogging journey is that there is enough out here for everyone. I hear so many people saying, “There are already so many people doing it.”

But, here’s the thing, two bloggers can review the same product and have two totally different experiences and personalities while writing. What will resonate with one reader from one post, may not do the same for another reader.

This is where audience building happens.

Here’s a quick story.

Before I rebranded, I read so many stories from other bloggers saying things like, “Don’t expect your inbox to be full with opportunities because it doesn’t happen like that.” So, I was terrified to even start the process because I felt like that was something that just would not happen for me.

But, guess what? They were wrong.

Once I started writing reviews and sharing our experiences, opportunities seriously landed in my inbox weekly. I went from writing about our travel experiences to writing relevant product reviews and hosting successful giveaways in our down time – which again has kept my blog running.

Lesson 5 – Have a back up topic to write about.

Lastly, I have learned that if you do have a niche, it’s still important to have a backup topic or something relevant to write about in your down time to keep your blog running.

from my experience, if I had only wrote about our travel experiences, there would have been months where I had nothing new to write about this year because we didn’t do as much travel as before.

Final Thoughts

Blogging is a journey and very rarely does overnight success happen. So, keep these five things in mind as you either start or continue your blogging journey.

- Blogging is personal.
- Have realistic and measurable goals for your blog.
- Reflect and reassess to keep your blog running and relevant.
- There is enough for everyone.
- Have a secondary niche or backup topic to write about.

Updated 5/30/19. First Published 10/25/17.