Girlfriend's Guide To Starting A Blog

So you’re thinking about starting a blog and wondering if it’s for you. There are hundreds of other blog posts that will walk you through the technical part of it. If you want to know step-by-step how to set up your email list, just type that into Pinterest, and people much more qualified than me are ready to help you do that. I’m here to talk about the REAL parts of blogging like I would if a friend asked me about it. I’m not a step-by-step kind of person instead this is you and I chatting over coffee. This is the girlfriend’s guide to starting a blog.

who is your audience

What are you going to write about? No one thinks they’re interesting enough for a weekly blog but if you find the right niche, anyone can be! You have a unique point of view because you’re a unique person. Brainstorm to find a topic.

Food bloggers are super popular. My own personal Pinterest feed is mostly just recipes I hope to make one day. You could narrow it down even further if you are vegetarian or vegan, specialize in kid-friendly foods, or grow your own food.
Parenting. We could compete but in a good way. I started because I thought I had a unique perspective on common topics. Like my blog post about screen time. You can find a thousand articles about limiting screen time, but how many about relaxing your screen time rules, and coming with facts? Find your unique perspective and run with it.
Beauty blogs are incredibly easy to monetize. If you’re one of those people who are always getting complimented on your hair or eyebrows, or makeup is your secret passion, this is a great path.
Travel blogs are still going strong. Yes, even in Covid! Even if other people aren’t traveling, they want to live vicariously through yours! This is yet another topic where you could take in many different directions. Travel on a budget, road trips, or RV traveling. Maybe it’s about your excursions on the trip. The possibilities are endless!
Think about what makes you and your perspective unique. Are you a special needs parent? A working mom? A stay-at-home dad? Maybe you finally figured out how to co-parent with your ex or juggle taking care of your aging parents as well as your toddler. You have something to say and there is an audience for it. You can be the voice you needed when you started your particular journey.

how much time does it take

You’re busy. You have things you want to share with the world, and think your voice would benefit others, but can’t commit to another full-time job. I think it goes without saying that just like with anything, the more work you put into it, the more successful it will be. Think about if you want your blog to eventually make money or not, and that will influence how much time you’ll want to devote to it.

I know some bloggers who write multiple posts a week and then schedule them along with the Pinterest pins and social media posts. They work really hard for a few days and then they don’t have to do much the rest of the month. I have heard of other bloggers never having a post written before it goes live, and manually pinning and posting on social media. Both bloggers might work the same amount of total hours in a week or month, but the way they go about it is completely different.

How much money do I have to spend

It’s not a free hobby, but how much you have to spend really depends on how much you already know how to do and what you’re willing to learn. It would be very cost-efficient if you already knew how, or could learn how to, make a website. If you pay for that service (which a good amount of bloggers do!) then you probably would want to focus more on making money from your blog, which then increases the time you will spend working on it. That’s definitely something to think about. If you invest a lot of money, you will be more motivated to monetize and quickly.

I was able to do a lot of it for free because my husband does this for a living. Even with that benefit though, there are things I still spend a considerable amount of money on.

The domain name. You might have to change your ideal name a little, depending on the price. That’s why we went with a .co instead of a .com. I wasn’t willing to change the whole name so I pay $20 yearly for my name.
Self-hosting your website. It might sound easier to go through websites like Blogger or BlogSpot, but then you have to use their themes and can’t customize. Your domain name also ends up being something like chaosandcoffee2.blogspot/blog.com and no one is going to remember that. I pay $100 yearly to self-host.
Security. This is two-fold. One reason is so that bots don’t take over your website and comment spam, and the other reason is people want to know their information is secure with your website. If you don’t have security then people will get a warning before they proceed to your site. Even if it’s harmless, no one is going to take that chance and you’ll get no traffic. This is roughly $50 for a 2-year certificate.
I pay to have my stuff backed up. I learned this the hard way after accidentally deleting a week of work. This was also about $50 for 2 years.
Stock photos. You need to either take your own pictures or pay for them. If you use Google Images you can get sued and no one has time for that. Make sure you’re blogging legally so it doesn’t end up biting you in the ass. (and another bonus of paying for your images, or using your own is it’s unique to you. You won’t see the same picture in a dozen other pins) There are many different sites to choose from, I chose one that’s $30 a month.
I have spent money on classes and books related to blogging. You certainly do not have to do this. There is plenty of free information out there. I was impatient and wanted all the information at one time in one place and was willing to pay for convenience. This is definitely the easiest thing to skip though to save money. You might have to look around a little more, watch a couple more YouTube videos, but we’ll end up with a comparable amount of information and knowledge.

free resources

Bloggers are a tight-knit community and they are incredibly generous with their experience and knowledge. Join a couple of blogging Facebook groups and you’ll learn a lot! Search past questions and answers, and don’t be afraid to ask your own!

YouTube, Pinterest, and Google are invaluable resources! Get a notebook and pen ready to take notes!

Pinterest gets its own section because you are going to spend a lot of your time here. It’s not only a social media site, it’s more importantly a search engine. If you invest in any class, let it be one for Pinterest. Pinterest has its own unique algorithm like Google and you can get a lot of traffic just from a great-looking pin with concise wording.

I pay for a service called Tailwind by Pinterest. You get access to a tool that will create pins for you, schedules them for weeks in advance, and have access to community boards which can be a great way to reach a broader audience. This is especially helpful if you’re just starting on Pinterest and don’t have a big following. From what I’m gathering, the blogging community is pretty evenly split on if Tailwind is worth it. If my girlfriend were to ask me if she should join, I would say I honestly don’t know. I don’t have enough data to compare my re-shares from beforehand. You can pay monthly or yearly, so if you want to do a deep dive analysis, it wouldn’t be an expensive experiment.

how do you make money from a blog

Some niches are easier to do this than others, but it’s certainly a possibility in all! Affiliate marketing is the most popular way. Ads are another way and the most passive way. You need a lot of traffic for both of those options to make money. A lot of bloggers sell e-books or printables. You need something high-quality that people want to pay for. I would tell my girlfriend to wait before trying to monetize. Build your brand, gain traffic, AND THEN focus on earnings.

In the meantime, you could guest post for other blogs and websites. You can get paid for them and they’ll link back to you potentially gaining you more followers. It’s a win-win really. These are the articles I’ve written for other people:

MY FAMILY TRAVELED INTERNATIONALLY IN A PANDEMIC. THIS IS HOW IT WAS.

HOW I’M RAISING MY KIDS TO BE ANTI-RACIST

Not only does it help your SEO, but you get to possibly write about something you’re passionate about but might not fit into your own blog’s theme.

Guide to Starting a Blog-Your Turn

It takes a village for parenting-and blogging! I am always willing to help if I can. Comment a question and if you do decide to start a blog, link to it below and I’ll start following it! Good luck!

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