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Hey guys! Welcome back to my youtube channel. My name is Natalie, and I blog at
NatalieBacon.com. I am going to talk with you guys today
about what I wish I knew before I started my blog. These are things that I
think would have made the journey much better faster and smoother and I get a
lot of questions about starting the blog so that's what I want to share with you
today. Let's get started. The first thing that I
wish I knew before I started was that I should have had an end goal in mind. So
instead of just winging it and starting the blog because I wanted to talk about
my money journey I wish I would have known that if I had the goal of building
it into a business ahead of time it would have made all of my choices early
on a lot easier and clearer. So if you know that you want to start a blog to
make money or to become an influencer or just as a hobby to diary your life kind
of those three different things knowing that ahead of time will help make your
decisions about your blog so much easier because they are all very different
paths. What a lot of times will happen is you'll want to make money blogging but
you'll make a lot of choices down be like influencer path and focus more on
popularity and you won't make any money that's just one example. So I wish I knew
that sooner. The second thing that I wish I knew before I started was that the
name of my blog doesn't matter like that much. So I stressed out so much about
what to name my blog I ended up with Financegirl in the beginning and now
it's rebranded to NatalieBacon.com. Well this is just not something that is
as big of a deal in determining the successful blog as I gave it weight or
as a lot of new bloggers give it weight in the beginning so if you're freaking
out about what to name your blog stop freaking out yes it's good if you come
up with like a good name but it's not going to determine the success
of your blog I suggest looking at your competition and your niche and seeing
what their blogs are named do a lot of people have their first and last name
are they a combination of a few words or is the topic name and the blog like you
know the Financegirl was obviously finance and women related topics. So do a
little research but do not freak out do nothing weeks trying to come up with a
blog name this is just a very big mistake that I made. The third piece of
advice that I have for you is to not be intimidated if there are already a lot
of bloggers doing what you want to do. This is a common myth that oh there's
already so many bloggers out there in my niche I don't know what I can bring to
the table. You totally can bring new things to the
table it might not be in information or expertise but it's gonna be in your
story like no one else is you and no one else has your story as it relates to
whatever it is you're blogging about so don't feel overwhelmed or intimidated by
a market being saturated. I would be more concerned if you're thinking about
starting a blog in a niche where there really isn't a niche and like no blogs
exist about it that I would not do. The next thing that I wish I would have
known before I started blogging was that my blog is gonna stink at first and
that's okay. And I think I would so much pressure on myself to have this perfect
blog and I just needed to be okay with the fact that the first couple of months
are going to be rocky like ups and downs everywhere and that's just part of
blogging. So don't feel like you have to come out of the gate with this perfect
blog because it's impossible it's like you weren't born knowing how to blog you
have to start as a beginner and then get better and that is what you'll do you
know it's it's like money this YouTube channel. Oh my gosh if you go back to
some of the very first few videos I look like terrified talking to the camera
like terrified. It's painful to watch, but now it's what six months later and it's
so much easier for me to talk to the camera.
There was no way for me to jump to where I am now without going through those six
months. Same thing for blogging you're going to struggle at first and that's okay
that's the beauty of it because you'll learn and grow and you will get better
and your blog will get better too. The fifth thing I wish I knew before I
started my blog is that blogging is just as much about the topic as it is about
sales and marketing, if you want to turn your blog into business. So when I first
started I was just blogging about money my money journey I have no idea I could
make money from my blog and fast forward to now and I totally turned my blog into
a business where I made 45 K gross last year. If I would have known from the
beginning that that would require the sales and marketing that it does I would
have done it so so so much faster it's not enough to just learn about your
niche so for me like personal finance and personal development you have to
learn about the sales and marketing too and this can kind of tricky because you
have to become an expert in both as a blogger over time. So what I would start
to do is start listening to sales and marketing podcasts in the morning when
I'm getting ready or reading a sales or marketing book and just constantly be
trying to fill my mind with new information about it
even though the content on my blog that I'm producing is personal finance and
personal development. So if you want to start a blog to make money you need to
learn about sales and marketing because you're building an online business. The
sixth thing that I wish I knew before I started my blog is that I should have
got in the mindset of making my blog about the reader right away I made it
all about me and this is hard for me to understand at first because everyone
says you know you need to be vulnerable and you need to be honest and open and
your readers need to like you and connect with you so I thought that meant
sharing all these stories about me and it does and it doesn't, so you need to
include stories about yourself or about someone else as it relates to the point
you're making. So remember that people are always thinking what's in it for me
when they're reading content. If you can share a story about a point that you're
trying to make like you know if I shared my getting out of debt story that
someone would be interested in that not because of you know any gossipy
information that's like irrelevant but about my life they would be interested
in it because it's sharing a story about getting out of debt that they can apply
to their life. So I wish in the beginning I would have known how to intertwine
personal stories with the point I was trying to make. One really good quote I
heard on a podcast was never tell a story without making a point and never
make a point without telling a story. So it's having both of those in your
content that really makes a difference. The next thing I wish I would have known
before I started my blog was that starting a blog requires spending money.
This is hard for people to understand at first including me I had no idea I
thought you know maybe like 100 bucks or something and that would be it. My
blogging expenses are over a thousand dollars a month and that kind of blows
people out of the water. So gross last year I made 45K and my expenses were
like 13K or something so it does cost a lot of money. But you know that's
relative right it didn't cost me $13,000 my first year blogging I only made you
know just over 8K my first year. I don't remember what my expenses were off
the top of my head but it's always been relative so I just wish that I would
have known that my expenses would increase over time. And this is due to
other services that you kind of want for your blog as your business grows because
there's a higher rate of return so I use ConvertKit
for email marketing and Leadpages for my landing pages and all these things to
try and get more people onto my blog staying there joining my email list all
that stuff. Well those services cost money so I just
wish ahead of time I would have known and had that mindset that this is a
business I'm growing and there's going to be expenses that grow over time.
Before I started blogging I had no idea that I could actually turn my blog into
a sustainable business while working full-time. I wish I would have known that
because I probably would have quit practicing law even sooner I would have
become a financial planner sooner and I would have made more money blogging
sooner and paid off more debt faster. So it's just it took time for me to grasp
that and get that mindset that I could do both and that I could be able to turn
my blog into a business while working full time. You know I do this by being
really really intentional about my goals and my planning so I have my goals I
planned them out on my calendar and once it's on my calendar it's as good as done.
I just execute and I have that mindset that it's going to be successful and
it's going to work so I believe it and then I get the results I want. I highly
encourage you to adopt this mindset and really believe that you can do it
because you will get the results that way. The final thing that I wish I would
have known before I started blogging is that there's going to be this like a
resistance to starting and to taking your blog to the next level each step of
the way and to fight through that resistance no matter what. So when it was
starting my blog I spent way too much time thinking about the blog name and
stuff that just you know you can do quickly when I created my first lead
magnet or email opt-in spent way too much time on it and it ended up you know
being terrible I had to create a whole you know bunch more before I even got it
right and now I can whip one out like a few a week if I want it to. I'm going
through that right now with my ebook it's almost done you guys that is what
really taken me months to write one ebook. That is absurd.
So there's like this resistance whenever you're trying to take your blog up to
the next level and it's a mindset thing for sure because it's a new
territory right I'm so used to blogging and creating you know lead magnets right
I can just do it quick quick but like this you go this first digital
product I'm creating that is new it's new territory so I'm going so slow and I
think I wish ahead of time I would have known that at each step of the way as I
grow my business it's going to be challenging and have these new feelings
of resistance that it's best if I just work through with massive action. So
that's it as far as things that I personally wish I knew ahead of time
before I started my blog. I've created a one-year blog action plan that's a
freebie you can download I have a five-day blogging bootcamp if you're
interested in starting a blog a few other blogging tools that I use and
recommend that I will link to below. That's it for this week thank you so
much for tuning in please subscribe and have a great week bye bye!