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10 Lessons Learned from First Month of Blogging

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Every time, when you are making something for the first time, you don’t know, what will be the result of it.

But every time, and it’s not important, if it was success or failure, you have to learn from it as much as possible. It’s because you must avoid wrong behavior and continue proper actions.

 

So today, you can find here 10 lessons learned from the first month of blogging on NoPassiveIncome.com.

In reality, this blog was started at the beginning of this year, but in January and February only some posts were published, without any marketing effort. Work on this blog was restarted in the middle of April, so the first, full time month of blogging was May 2012.

 10 Lessons Learned from First Month of Blogging

 1.       Build Great Blog First

It is one of the most important (and difficult) things – If you want to be a successful blogger, you should have great base for it. And concern not only on appearance and content of the blog – there is a lot of other things, you must care about – visibility in social media, strong relationships with other bloggers, SEO, link building, credibility of you and your blog.

If you want to have great content on your blog, please start with reading two of our articles about it:

10 Article Writing Tips, How to Write Killer Article

How To Attract Your Blog Posts – 20 Tips For Normal People

 

 2.       Make Strong Relationships with Other Bloggers

As I wrote above, having great content isn’t enough –it’s only beginning. You have to build close relationships with other bloggers. Two most important steps in building such type of relationships are commenting on other blogs and guest posting. If you don’t know, how it should be performed, please read following posts:

How Commenting May Help You Build Your Credibility And Traffic For Your Blog

and

Great Guest Post and another 9 Secrets of Guest Blogging

 

3.       Give First, Take Later

If you really want to build great and devoted audience around your blog, you must offer them something special. So, prepare for giving, not for taking. For example you can create some series of killer articles or lists, where you can link to other sites, blogs and resources. Below you can find two killer lists, which may be helpful for every blogger 🙂

Top 100 Websites for Bloggers

150 Great Topics and Ideas for Bloggers

 

 4.       Participate in Social Networks

There are a lot of social networks. We have Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest,  LinkedIn and lot’s more. Even for bloggers we have plenty of networks – for example Bloggers.com or Networkedblogs.com. It’s almost impossible to participate in all of them, but you must try to be here 🙂 Relationships make on social networks are almost as valuable, as direct relationships with other bloggers. In May I concentrated my effort on Bloggers.com and on Twitter. But except networking, you should make something special, for example tutorial for chosen network:

How to use Twitter – tutorial for beginners

 

 5.       Don’t Consume, Create

Reading other blogs, participating in social networks or even commenting on other blogs is very good for you, especially on the beginning of your blogging way. But all of these activities are “passive” – you consume others work.

So stop consuming and try creating something new – write article for your blog, prepare guest post for others blogs or create an ebook, which may be used by you on your blog.

Spending your whole time on reading other stuff will cause, that you will waste your time for blogging. Your time is your money, so don’t waste it, because Blogging isn’t passive income

 

6.       Concern Your Effort on 1-3 Things at The Same Moment

Making a lot of things, at the same time, is very ineffective. As a blogger you must prepare great articles for your blog, make relationships with other bloggers and build traffic for your blog. If you don’t have enough money for outsourcing it, and you aren’t problogger, you must do it by yourself.

For good results of your work you must prioritize your activities and concern on 1-3 tasks. For example – in one week(month) concern on 1-3 social networks, comment on 1-3 other blogs, be active on 1-3 forums, etc.

 

7.       Fight with Distractions

Distractions are very dangerous and time consuming blockers for you and your blog. Only you know how much time you spend on Facebook, Pinterest or by reading emails. Here you can find some tips, how to fight with major distractions.

Top 10 distractions of work in online business – how to operate with them

 

8.       Traffic First, Monetization Later

As you can find in one of the first articles on this blog (Goals for this blog), goal of this site isn’t making money. And even if your goal is to make money from blogging, firstly you must build credibility and huge traffic for your blog. If you will do it in the wrong order, you will fail, because people will not read your blog…

 

9.       Monitor Your Progress

If you want to know, where you are, you must monitor your progress. You can analyze your stats, your followers, your fans or even amount of your subscribers.

I’ll give you some examples of numbers for this blog:

 

1st May 2012

1st June 2012

Alexa Rank

7 860 368

841 613

Twitter Followers

27

343

Bloggers.com followers (friends)

1

(6)

17

(182)

Facebook Fans

1

2

So you can see huge progress in Alexa rank, Bloggers.com and in Twitter followers. Amount of Facebook fans is really small 😉 , but in May I didn’t make anything to get Facebook fans (and for the next two months I’ll continue it).

And here you can see graph of stats for NoPassiveIncome.com since the beginning of this year:

You can see here, that internet users start visit my site in May 🙂

 

10.   Don’t Give Up

This problem concerns all of the bloggers – beginners and probloggers. Sometimes we feel tired, exhausted and unmotivated. There are a lot of reasons for that – too much work, drop in statistics, only virtual contact with other people or even noisy environment at your work place.

But you must be strong and don’t give up – you are BLOGGER, and bloggers don’t give up!

 

And how about your experience? What are your most important lessons learned? Do you remember your first month of blogging? Or maybe it was long time ago and you don’t remember it? Please share your lessons learned with us.

Wait! Before You Go, Read:

Currency Symbols On Laptop Screen Showing Exchange Rate And FinanceMaking Money Through Affiliate Marketing – Some Tips by the Experts What John Lennon Can Teach Us About Blogging How To Attract Your Blog Posts – 20 Tips For Normal People subscriber rate5 Easy Ways to Boost your Subscriber Rate Top 10 reasons, why your site may be downranked by Google in SERPs Business Graph with blue backgroundSurefire Ways To Increase Page Views Using These 7 WP Plugins Triberr - a lot of followersHow to Use #Triberr – Best #Social Network for #Bloggers? Business Lady Using Laptop In ParkImportant Lessons for Freelance Writers 10 Blog Habits to Help You Being Penalized by Google SEO and Google updates10 Tips to Beat Google Panda and Google Penguin Update Under Construction - Man workingWhy You Royally Screw Up Online and How to Fix Your Failure How Commenting May Help You Build Your Credibility And Traffic For Your Blog eAngel: Useful Business Tool for Proofreading Your Emails facebook cover photoHow to Enhance Your Facebook Timeline Page With Images Staying Motivated as a Freelance Writer: 10 Actionable Tips 5 Factors that Small Businesses Overlook in Their Website Great Guest Post and another 9 Secrets of Guest Blogging Traffic from Social NetworksSocial Network Sites – Which One is The Best for Traffic? Market Samurai – Review of Great Tool for Online Marketers and SEO Specialists a Woman struggling in front of a laptopI’ll Never Read Your Posts Again, You Know Why?

Comments

  1. First of all, I want to congratulate you on your success Chris! In one month you have reached a lot ! I remember I had only around 10-11 visitors or less. Had to work hard.
    The most important points out of the lot is #8 and # 10. I am sure many prefer to earn first rather than concentrating on building up a reader base and of course, losing hope will make matters worse.

    Best of luck Chriss ! I smell success !

    • Thanks Mushfique for your support. This month I want to concentrate on good content, and since the next month, I plan to start getting more traffic.
      BR, Chris

  2. Congrat Chris for huge difference on your blog from 1st May to 1st June. Great post with great linking to other blog posts. Liked it.

        • Hi Ehsan, my plan was to double the amount of FB Fans 😉
          And seriously – FB must wait, because these days there are more important things 🙂
          BR, Chris

  5. That is the big thing I need to work on is the to teach more and sell less. Most of my blog visitors come for information and not the product.

    • Hi Michael, knowledge about visitors is very important, because we can give them, what they really want 😉
      Thanks for commenitng, Chris

  6. It is extremely important to track your progress. A lot of people don’t do this, so they have no idea how well things are going for them and whether or not they are doing things right.

    Adam

    • Hi Adam, you are right – tracking progress is really important. But in post I forgot about one important thing – prior tracking we should plan it!
      BR. Chris

  7. Hi Erik,
    thanks for your support 😉
    And your tips about Twitter are really helpful – so I’ll try this tool 🙂
    BR, Chris

  8. Hi Valentine, thanks for commenting here. I know, that there is a long way in front of me 😉 , but I’m prepared for it. And there is a lot of things, I must learn, especially about social media and services like justretweet.
    BR, Chris

  9. Congratulations on your first full month of blogging here Chris. You’ve done a fabulous job of sharing some excellent lessons you’ve learned.

    It’s funny what we learn as we go isn’t it! I mean people can tell you something but unless you do it yourself, the lesson doesn’t really stick with you as much. At least it doesn’t for me.

    Your stats look good for what you’ve done so far but the lessons you’re taking away are even better. I have no doubt they’ll continue to climb over time.

    Keep up the excellent work and best of luck to you.

    ~Adrienne

    • Hi Adrienne, thanks for stopping here. You are totally right – last month I learned huge amount of new things, especially about social media and social networks. And this is the best – not stats…
      And thank you for your support.
      BR, Chris

  10. Hi Chris, That is a great post. I especially like the message about ‘not giving up’.

    It seems to me that you have made tremendous progress in 1 month.

    Do you have other blogs or is this your first?

    I also liked what you said about focusing on traffic first. This is critical. Without traffic, there is no chance to monetize.

    keep on blogging.

    • Hi David, thanks for stopping here. I have some websites on “Polish” market, but this is my first blog and first (and not last 🙂 ) website on English market.
      BR, Chris

  12. Never give up also is my lesson to become a successul blogger, that’s why not everyone can be a better blogger. Thanks for sharing your lessons to us.

    • Hi Trung, thanks for comment. This advice (never give up) you can apply for almost all parts of our life 🙂
      BR, Chris

  13. It’s a great month Chris and I want to congratulate you. Yes, reading other blog might be good, but it doesn’t grow a blog per say. You need to spend time crafting unique and valuable post for your blog. I like this post – Keep up the good works!

    • Hi Michael, thanks for your support. I agree with you – only hard work will make blogs better 😉
      BR, Chris

  14. Excellent tips on blogging- I’m learning to fight distractions but sometimes it’s tough when you have kids running around all day 🙂

    • Yes, fighting with distractions is very hard (especially with emails and social media for me 😉 )
      Mercy – thanks for commenting here.
      BR, Chris

  15. Great post- the baby is cute too-hope that’s not really paint-Have a great day on purpose!

    • Thanks for your comment, RCONNORIII. I don’t know, if this picture is real – I bought it. But my children (3y and 5y) are also good painters 😉
      BR, Chris

  16. Really liked this post – especially the closing point about not giving up. I have a 2 year old and another arriving soon (7 weeks) so my blogging may take a slight hit over the next few months! But, I certainly wont give up – this site and many others are the inspiration sometimes to show what can be achieved with hard work!

    Excellent source of information.

  17. Thanks for this great post, Chris! If not for the fact that you mentioned how young your blog is, I would have thought it has been here for at least a year.

    Just a few months of work and already with an Alexa rank 167k. 🙂

    Great job and an inspiration…

    • Hi Yeremi thanks for the info about Alexa, I’m really excited about it (my plan is to be below 100k till the middle of September, but it’s harder and harder…)
      BR, Chris

  18. Very very useful tips for any new blogger Chris. Another one I would like to add is to set daily, weekly and monthly targets to spur the growth of your blog.

  19. Hey Chris, great job on the blog! Congratulations, your numbers are looking good!
    I’m with Adam in that choosing which metrics to track (the ones that are important in your business) and then setting goals and tracking systems in place to measure those metrics will keep you not only informed of your progress (or lack of at times) and also act as a source of encouragement. I mean who doesn’t like forward progress right? 🙂

  20. Chris! Thanks for the info. I am new to blogging and will keep your tips in mind. I too when I first started was not consistant with posting. I am now more mindful of posting and constistantly trying to learn more about blogging as well posting content. I find once I have my topic in mind the creative juices start to flow.

    I think I worry too much about what others think but I am slowly finding my voice.

    To your Success!!! 🙂

  21. This article was particularly useful to me as I’m coming up to my one month anniversary. It was great to read your article and you have helped me to move forward. As you say “never give up”
    Thanks

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