13 things I have learnt in 7 months of blogging

I’ve been blogging for 7 months now, and in this short time, I’ve learnt an incredible amount. As well as being a good hobby, blogging has given me some great skills that help in my line of work, and I’m really enjoying writing posts and everything else that goes with it.

I don’t think that “non-bloggers” appreciate how much work goes into it, I certainly didn’t before I started. I know that I’ve still got so much to learn to develop my blog, but here are 13 things I have learnt in 7 months of blogging…

Blogging will take over your life – You will constantly find yourself thinking “Ooh I could blog that” and making notes of possible blog titles or topics.

It takes a lot of time and effort to establish your blog – there is so much more to blogging than just writing a post and hitting ‘publish’, there’s finding/taking the right photos, scheduling social media posts, interacting with other bloggers, joining link-ups and twitter chats…

Whenever you go out for the day you’ll try to take photos that will look good on your blog – I have to keep reminding myself to pay attention to what we’re doing and seeing, and not just trying to frame a photo because it will look good in a blog post or on Instagram!

You’ll get addicted to stats – I’ve downloaded various apps to check my visitor stats, and am still at that stage where I check my phone religiously every time I publish a post.

You will be constantly amazed that people are actually taking time to read something you’ve written – I still can’t quite believe it when I see that people are visiting my blog or sharing my posts on social media because they like them.

Posting to social media is just as important as keeping your blog up to date – writing a great blog post isn’t enough, you need to make sure that you tell people about it as well.

Every spare opportunity you have you’ll start to write a post – I’ve downloaded the WordPress app and have written blog posts in the bath, in the car waiting for my daughter to come out of school, while I’m waiting for something to cook…

You will get to know some fabulous fellow bloggers – I’ve been lucky enough to chat online to some great bloggers whose blogs I love reading, and am hoping to meet some of them very soon.

You will learn a lot about social media, SEO and analytics – I already knew a fair bit about these things anyway, but it’s very different when you are using these mediums to promote something for yourself rather than for someone else.

When you read about other bloggers’ accomplishments and stats you’ll be in awe – I read blog posts about how many visitors other bloggers get each month, or how much money they are making, and I just can’t comprehend my blog EVER being that successful!

The more blog posts you write, the more visitors you will get – this kind of goes without saying I suppose, but I’ve realised that writing one post a week just isn’t enough!

But quality is still more important than quantity – I don’t feel comfortable just churning out loads of blog posts unless I feel that they will be of value to my readers.

You will want to give up your job to be a full-time blogger – Being a full-time blogger would totally be my dream job right now!

So they are just 13 things I have learnt in 7 months of blogging – there will hopefully be a lot more to come and  I look forward to finding out what else I can learn in the next 7 months. Any advice welcome!