Starting a blog is harder than it looks...
So you want to start a blog, eh? I’m with ya; I literally just started mine! With about 5 attempts to start one over the last 8 years. Cheers to finally taking action (virtual high five)
The reality of starting a blog is that it is NOT as easy as it looks!
Now, I want to start out by saying this… I literally JUST started my blog. As of this moment, it released only a few days ago. I’ll do my best to come back and make relevant updates when needed but I want to emphasize the fact that I am literally just a few steps ahead of you.
Therefore, this is a very raw and transparent blog on my recent experience releasing my own blog.
I’m not some famous blogger you came across on Pinterest who is sharing her expertise in blogging. But I DID just experience the process of getting this thing up and running and I am here to tell you, it’s NOT as easy as it looks.
I posted on my IG stories the other day sharing that I was roughly 40-50 hours in and how hard it was to get it all together before it launches, then someone responded, “Wait why is starting blog so hard?!”
So I figured I would blog about it, because when I tell you that my response to her looked like a damn novel, I’m not exaggerating lol
This is gonna be quite a lengthy blog, so buckle up!
Why starting a blog is harder than it looks
There are SO many moving pieces that you just don’t see when you learn from the blogging coaches/gurus/experts. I paid for 2 programs/courses, read about 10 articles from bloggers I trusted (I will list them later on in this blog), and watched atleast 20 Youtube videos. That was all in ADDITION to the courses I had signed up for. If you are looking for a great course that I would recommend, The She Approach was my fav!* And it’s free!
Yes, you can learn the basics from a course, but trust me when I say there is SO much beyond what’s on the surface that you probably will never expect. Even if you go the route of using Wix or Squarespace which are a little more “user friendly” when it comes to creating blogs, especially when building out your website.
I want to emphasize the last part of that sentence: building out your website.
This is what takes the most time! It’s NOT the blog itself that takes a ton of time and energy.
If you’re smart, you will create the most basic website ever and focus only on the blog portion, but even then, you still have to build out the website. Aka adding your brand colors, fonts, logos, website layout, connecting your email provider to grow your subscriber list, designing your home page/contact page/other pages relevant to your branding, etc.
With that said, let’s start out by talking about that first step: website building.
Choosing which website builder to host your blog
The number of times I went back and forth with WHICH website building platform to host my blog alone gave me insomnia lol I’m the queen of indecision though so I hope you don’t waste as much time as I did in this very process. I’m hoping this blog will eliminate that for you.
First, I suggest you start out by answering this question: What exactly is your goal with your blog?
If it is just an additional piece to your brand/company, then I suggest going with Wix or Squarespace. Even Mailerlite is a decent option.
But! If you want your primary focus is to make money solely from a blog, then WordPress is the best route to go.
Second, figure out your budget and how much you want to spend on your blog.
For Wix, it was about $36-45/month to have website, domain, SSL (protects your website), blog and e-commerce.
WordPress via Bluehost ended up being $4/mo which includes everything Wix offers, however, this is only includes basics. And that’s truly all you need. You can upgrade plugins later if you want, which I loved having that freedom to start with a more affordable price and then expand if I wanted to in the long run.
Mailerlite* was $20/mo for an email list under 5,000 that offers a website and landing page builder along with a blog. But not the best options to customize your blog. Their website builder is AMAZING though!
Squarespace is $23-65/mo. I never tried this one so I’m unsure what is all included in their different price levels
So, you can see how much money you save on WordPress. But it IS true: WordPress is waaaaay more involved in the tech area. I’ll go into detail on that later, but it’s quite nuanced to say the least.
Last, with a WordPress blog (hosted by either Bluehost or Siteground), YOU are the owner of your website. With Wix or Squarespace, it’s more like you are renting out digital space. Which is why so many full time bloggers prefer WordPress because they have full control, full customization and complete ownership of their site.
I tested Wix, Mailerlite and WordPress before making my final decision, which took about one week’s time. To say my brain hurt would be an understatement lol
My decision and what I learned:
I started with Wix. I felt like… Ahhh this is nice and easy! Drag and drop? Sign me up!
Well… I started to build out the website and while it IS “drag and drop” there was still some weird glitches I personally experienced that drove me NUTS. I’ve come to find that almost all website builders have annoying aspects in one way or another, it’s just some are *more* annoying than others.
I chose a template that I loved on Wix, but that particular template didn’t have the font I wanted (Wix is very limited in this area of customization), and so I proceeded to try and choose a different template.
Lo and behold, Wix does NOT allow you to switch templates. You literally have to create a brand new website all together just to switch your template. Talk about a f*cking headache.
I started researching how to choose a different template via Youtube and there was literally no way around this. I was stuck with what I chose, which reeeeeally didn’t sit well with me. I personally don’t like feeling completely locked in, so this was a huge NO for me.
This led to testing Mailerlite’s* option for a blog (I use them for my newsletters and absolutely love it), but found real quick that their blog abilities are NOT what I wanted lol
So I went back to attempting Wix. Womp womp.
I proceeded Googling “Successful bloggers on Wix” or “Reviews on using Wix for bloggers” and ya’ll… there was virtually ZERO articles or videos showcasing bloggers who have a successful blog. Let me really define what I mean here: full time bloggers who make money from their BLOG.
What I DID find was this: those who found *financial* success from their Wix (or Squarespace) blog all had their own courses or physical products that were heavily promoted in every single blog post. Which was the driving force for their financial success. This is not something I want to do… maybe eventually. Long story short: been there done that and wasn’t a fan.
They were either bloggers who blogged about blogging and promoted their courses about starting a blog (what an inception), OR they were brands that utilized their blogs as just an added element to their brand, aka their blogs would promote their merch, digital products, physical products etc.
So if you are like me and you want to primarily make money from your BLOG, Wix and Squarespace are not the answer.
I went down a rabbit hole (for 2 months to be specific) and noticed that every successful blogger who I look up to uses WordPress. So… I decided to move forward with WordPress (through Bluehost) and I am SO happy I did. But… that does NOT mean I didn’t lose sleep or dodge migraines in the process of creating my blog on WordPress lol
The headache of WordPress
I am so happy with my choice to go the WordPress route, but maaaaan has it been stressful.
WordPress is completely customizable which I absolutely LOVE, but with that said, if you are not tech savvy, it can get overwhelming REAL quick.
You start with the absolute basics, which is totally fine. But in order to have your site run properly, not be super slow when people come to your site, have full security and protection on your site, etc you need to add plug-ins.
These plug ins alone have their very own process to set up. The amount of time I have spent watching tutorials on adding plugins like Elementor for my themes, or Yoast for my SEO was roughly 2 weeks alone.
Some plugins require you to cache your site before activating them in order for those plug ins to work properly. If you don’t know what that means, it basically means clearing your site history.
You have to also be careful that when you upload new plugins, they are compatible with the current plug ins you have, which is why I always watch the tutorials of each plugin I ever activate.
Having that said, I would highly recommend you immediately activate some sort of plugin that is designated for backups. I went with Bluehost and they do backups, but having your own plug in for daily back ups is just extra insurance to protect your website daily incase somethng crazy AF happens. Ya never know!
I could go into more detail, but I think you get the idea. By now I’m sure you’re thinking “Omg this sounds like such a headache, why would you continue to use WordPress if it’s so complicated?!”
This part is what most Bloggers don’t really talk about. The time it takes to set up all these plugins and make sure they work, are setup correctly, learn how to edit templates etc. It hurts the brain if you are like me and loathe website building lol
But I fully believe it IS worth the time and energy in the long run! Hence me taking so much time to explain all of this for those of you who are like me and want to become a full time blogger.
Design and templates
I’ll be short and sweet with this: choosing a template is what you will address first (for my WordPress peeps, this comes after you set up the plug ins you need to start with).
For those going with Wix, make sure you ABSOLUTELY LOVE the template you choose. Once you choose it, there’s no going back. Well…you CAN change it but omg its a f*cking nightmare.
For those using WordPress, I highly recommend watching tutorials on all the options for templates. WordPress has free templates which are great for starting your blog, but even those require watching some tutorials on customizing them.
If you go with Mailerlite, it’s super straight forward and probably the easiest I’ve ever experienced.
If you go with anything else besides what I just listed, uhh… well you’re on your own bc ain’t nobody got time fo’dat. I would recommend my best friend for lyfe: Google.
Back to the point… This is the part of creating your site that takes the longest. It’s why I loathe designing or updating websites. I personally spent about 15 hours on this part alone! From testing different templates, understanding how to integrate different plug ins for different parts of my templates, the endless hours of Youtube videos or blog articles, the list goes on.
Ideally this is the time you add in your brand colors, fonts, logos, etc but I skipped all that and moved forward with whatever the template came with because I just wanted to get the damn thing started and come back to the details later.
Feel free to take whatever route works best for you, though!
Next up: the graphics and branding
This is completely up to you, but having nice images, graphics and branding is ideal. It’s not required to just start though!
This very step is the reason it took me over 8 years to just do the damn thing and put my blog out there. So don’t get too hung up on this step as I have in the past. With the very blog you are reading, I started to hyper focus on my brand colors, fonts and images, but immediately stopped myself from getting too hung up on it all.
So instead of making sure my home page had EVERY detail I wanted, I just made it basic AF. You could even have a “Coming soon” or “Under construction” message for the home page. Trust me when I say, no one will really care! You will most likely get back to that detail before a large number of people start coming to your page anyway. It’s not worth wasting time on!!
In my humble opinion, if your focus is the BLOG, then focus on that and nothing else. I mean it when I say it is sooo easy to go down that slippery slope of getting all your pages perfected and getting stressed AF over small design details that cause you to want to throw your laptop across the room.
I started to do that but then caught myself and was like NO ABSOLUTELY NOT, AMBER. We are NOT falling into the trap of perfecting pages that can 100% be perfected AFTER I release my blog.
So, I made my home page super simple and basic. My contact page was super simple with a short statement and a contact form. And my “free resources” section currently has ZERO free resources and simply states “coming soon.”
Do I want to add more pages? Maybe. But I’m not even thinking that far out because once again: My focus is releasing my blog.
With that said, I chose simple stock images as well as pre-made blog templates from Canva as place holders. With WordPress, I can circle back and update those later. Not so sure I can say the same for Wix as I had the issue with swapping templates, but I’m sure its the same as long as you keep the same template?
You would think adding images and graphics would be fairly easy and for the most part they are.
The only nuance/frustrations with images and graphics is that if you want them to link to another page or area of your site, you have to make sure those links do in fact work. So you’ll want to test every single one of them to ensure they work.
Connecting your newsletter provider
This is another headache. Call me dramatic but it might be the one I am most overwhelmed by lol
You can skip this and come back later if you want to just get the ball rollin. If that’s the case, then feel free to scroll to the next section.
Buuuuut
When you start a blog, it is highly recommended that you capture email subscribers. This is true for full time bloggers or brands that utilize their blog on the side.
Why?
Because you are infact losing out on money and viewership if you don’t
Having that said, this is a whole other process you have to go through in deciding which email provider to choose. I’ll leave the details of that to another blog but I started with Convertkit, which I had for 6 years, but recently switched to Mailerlite*
For those wondering, I switched because Mailerlite* has options to add polls, quizzes and surveys to their emails. Plus it’s half the price of Convertkit!
I can hear the questions rolling in, “What if my website builder offers email?”
Eh… Idk why but I have never trusted that route. Therefore I’ve never tried it or researched it to give my full opinion. I would suggest doing research on it before you make a complete decision.
Anyway… Once you decide on an email provider, you have to integrate it to your website. Almost all website hosts integrate with 98% of email providers out there so you shouldn’t have an issue with that, HOWEVER… the process to connect the two is exactly that: a process.
When you add an e-mail opt-in to your site, you need to have an email automation in place before you can even add it to your site.
So let me explain what I mean here:
Someone comes to your blog and somewhere on your site you have added a “Join My Newsletter” opt-in.
They add their details, and then what?
Ideally, you will have set up an email automation for the moment they submit their details. Once they submit, they would (ideally) receive an email from you regarding whatever they signed up for. If you don’t have this in place, I promise you: you are potentially going down the path of low open rates which isn’t ideal and indirectly leaving money on the table.
Setting up an e-mail automation is another part of the process to releasing your blog. Is it required? No, you can literally do whatever TF you want, but definitely make sure to come back to this ASAP.
I, personally, made a really simple and straight forward email automation for mine just to get started. But I know how important this is, so I didn’t skip it entirely and have every intention of coming back to this after I get my blog under control.
Still wanna start a blog?
If you are still reading, I’m proud of you and we should be best friends lol This was a long one and it definitely shows that you are serious about starting a blog, so I wish you all the success! Feel free to reach out and DM me on Instagram to tell me when you release your blog so I can help support!
I was like most people and assumed starting a blog would be a breeze. Nah. This sh*t ain’t easy. It’s probably why so many people don’t follow through with one.
What I had to remind myself was this: the set up and designing is the HARDEST part. Once that is done, it IS a breeze.
And that it WILL BE worth the temporary stress and frustrations.
So cheers to you and your journey of starting your blog! I hope you found this blog helpful, if you did, feel free to share it on your IG or Pinterest to spread the love!
