Last Updated on by Michael Brockbank
There is more to starting a blog than mere content. It’s about engagement and whether or not people want to read your material. Some writers have the misconception they need to be well-practiced before creating a blog. In reality, anyone can start immediately with varying degrees of success. It’s all a matter of what you want to say and how you say it.
Realism of Starting a Blog
A lot of people build a blog as a kind of retreat. It’s a way to vent frustration or share interesting thoughts, ideas and information from across the globe. It’s not always about appearing professional or having experience.
In fact, a lot of people will start a blog today without having typed a single post online.
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If you’re looking to get rich quick with your blog, good luck. It’s not something that has a guarantee of immediate income. If you think having previous post experience is going to increase your likelihood of making money, it’s not all that cut-and-dried.
In reality, even the best writers wind up waiting more than a year to see any good return on their blogs.
Benefits Immediately of Starting a Blog
Aside from using a blog as a real-life hideaway, there are several benefits to creating one today. Don’t focus too much on trying to get enough experience under your belt.
Practice Makes Perfect
Starting a blog today gives you a chance to apply what you learn as you develop your skills. This is one of the reasons why I created this website to begin with. Not only is my focus to help other freelance writers such as myself, but also to flex my content-building muscles.
A blog gives you a platform to share ideas, but it’s also a method to perfect your ability. No one expects you to be perfect right off the bat. It takes time and education to establish yourself as a “good writer.”
Waiting until you write a certain number of guest posts for other people is simply a waste of time. One of the reasons why clients love working with me is because I am well-practiced…which came mostly from maintaining my own blogs.
Establishing Yourself
Starting a blog today helps you establish yourself as an expert in your field. That’s part of why “blogs” were created in the first place – to offer a running “web log” of growth and discovery.
In many instances, people will build a nest of sorts within their own websites. It’s a comfortable place where they can share ideas as they see fit. It’s like visiting someone’s house. Many of these writers will establish themselves rather quickly depending on their content.
Of course you’ll still need some type of marketing platform to really get your name out there. But waiting until you write a certain number of entries is just prolonging when you can benefit from the experience.
Monetizing the Site
Blogs offer a vast number of ways to monetize the content. Some of them have potential for success rather quickly, as long as your content is attractive to readers. But the longer you wait, the longer it will take you to make a significant amount of money.
I monetize all of my sites immediately. It gives me a baseline of success and I can see if I am heading in the right direction with blog posts. I also know that it takes a great deal of time and effort to establish a popular enough blog to make any real money.
And that’s the key to understanding blog monetization. Time and effort. The longer you wait to start your own blog, the longer it will be before you’ll see income…it’s that simple.
Discovering What Works for You
Another excellent reason for starting a blog today is discovering what works best for you over time. Because you’ll have access to your own statistics, monitoring tools and data, you can see where you stand in the eyes of your audience.
For instance, some industries see a high-degree of success with numbered list posts. Personally, my health blog’s most popular post answers a simple question. But you won’t establish what works best for your blog without starting it.
The way you write, the industry and even the layout of your blog will all play a role in how successful you are. There’s more involved than simply writing post after post. Unfortunately, you won’t discover the keys for yourself until you put in the effort to run a blog.
Discovering Your Audience
Think of a blog as a way to invite people into your den. You want people to visit, but you need to give them a reason. Your audience will be more attracted to your message rather than how many posts you create. As long as you can deliver solid information, they will come.
Starting a blog now gives you a chance to see what your specific audience is finding more engaging. When you’re writing for another already-established website, you’re engaging their audiences while using their layout and designs.
Take my health blog, for example. I thought for sure a review on one product would be more popular. But instead, the bulk of my audience reads something I really didn’t put much thought into writing. That’s my audience and what they want to read.
A Historical Count of Your Progress
One thing I love about this website is that I can go back in time to my earliest days and feel pride about how far I’ve come. My earlier content was quite cringe-worthy, and I don’t suggest reading it. However, it serves a purpose of reminding me of how much progress I’ve made as a freelance writer.
If you write some brilliant evergreen content, your history can still gather quite a bit of attention in Google. But, you’ll never know what will be successful for you if you wait to start a blog.
Overall, I view this site as my own lair. It’s where I continually practice my skills and hopefully help others. For myself, the experience of starting a blog was well worth the effort from day one. From my experiences with Textbroker to the work I do on WordPress, sharing my progress has been rewarding for me.
Starting Your Blog Today
The beautiful thing about starting a blog today is you don’t really need money to begin. Free services such as WordPress.com and others give you a platform to flex your abilities. All it really takes is a bit of time, some good content and a good marketing platform. Don’t believe you need to have so many posts published elsewhere before you can be a blogger.
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