I am not writing this article to discourage you, am only telling you the things you need to know before you start a blog. I have 10 friends that started a blog last year, 6 of them already stopped while 2 are still contemplating whether to stop or continue.
If you want to create a profitable and proffesional blog, you will need to get yourself prepared as blogging is not that easy like many aspiring bloggers think it is.
These are the things you need to know before starting your own blog
#1.Blogging is hard, it is not for the weak: Am quite sure this will surprise you since you have already been told that blogging is the easiest job on earth, blogging requires hard-work and consistency especially when the industry is already saturated.
You will need to carry out some tasks after starting your blog as this is really necessary like designing your blog, add posts on your blog, designing blog post images, improving your seo, get traffic on your blog, make money from your blog. SEO and traffic are not something you can achieve in a month, it requires time and effort.
As for developing contents, it seems to be hardest if you don’t copy and paste as you have to develop articles, publicize them and hope your readers like it and designing your own images can be stressful sometimes.
#2.Starting a blog is not free: Many aspiring bloggers do love to start a blog but they don’t know the repercussion, the main excuse aspiring bloggers in Nigeria give is that Lindaikeji stated a blog for free then why can’t they also start a free blog? Linda ikeji started a blog when blogging is less competitive in Nigeria.
Between she started with a free domain name too, am quite sure you did not know what she faced later on? She had to buy the domain name at exorbitant rate from resellers who hijacked the domain name related your blog.
If you will still spend the money later on in future why don’t you spend it now to have peace of mind and avoid transferring your blog from one place to another?
Also note that even after spending money on domain name, hosting you will spend money on wordpress themes or blogger templates, plugins etc. though they are not necessary
#3.You will need a whole lot of data subscription to maintain your blog: This is the major issue many bloggers in Nigeria are currently battling with, we need to stay online to monitor our blogs and apart from blogging we have to surf the internet to entertain ourselves on other platforms like facebook, nairaland, instagram etc and the worst part is that we use pc to carry out some of these tasks—all these will increase our internet subscriptions monthly .
Just imagine the large amount of data we use to submit backlinks to 1000blogs, to search for blogging guides, read extensively on topics you want to write on, download your blog backup, add browser extensions etc. compared to the money you will make from your blog as a beginner, this can be challenging if you don’t have a plan
4.Blogging with your phone will be very difficult: I have done this before and it can be so challenging especially when you want to design your blog yourself.
There are some tasks you will not be able ro perform effectively with the use of phone like drag and drop, grammarly won’t be available, if you want to be a wordpress blogger xampp and wamp will not be available to test your themes and plugins, typing with a phone could be a mountain to climb, designing a proffesional logo and favicon yourself will be out of it etc.
#5.COM is still the best anyday anytime: Don’t be deceived with all those free domains like .tl , .xyz , .free . They are annoying and unprofessional domain names, try and get a .com.ng , .co.za if you can’t afford .com but if you have money for .com domain name and it is available please buy it because if you don’t you will regret it later on in future as they will hack your blog down by stealing your traffic or auction it for you at higher price, they can even sell it to your competitors. .com domain names are easier to rememember.
#6.Copy and paste won’t work:So you want to start a blog to copy and paste? Forget it, it won’t work! This illegal hack is no longer working, only your family will be reading your blog if you continue with it (sorry to say).
There are legal steps the real owner of the articles will take on your blog that will be damaging and you will even risk the chances of getting your blog deleted on search engines, disabling your adsense In future.
The only thing you can do to avoid this is adding the link which will damage your blog reputation. However, writing articles is easier said than done–at first writing articles yourself can be so challenging as you will waste a whole lot of time writing one article
#7.Blogging is not a “get rich quick scheme”: You won’t start making millions the first month you start a blog, you will have to work very hard and wait for months before you can earn reasonable income online.
Many aspiring bloggers do think bloggers make money from the number of views they have on their blog No we don’t and if it is so in rare cases it may be 1000views for $1-2 for some adnetworks. We make our money from Adnetworks, direct adverts, selling digital products etc.
You must have seen some bloggers you know offline telling you they make multi-millions from blogging, don’t be deceived they may not!
After knowing these things what next? Start your blog now!
Finally, I hope I haven’t discourage you from starting a blog with this tips you just read? am sorry it had to come this way but if you are very serious with blogging you will surely make it from blogging no matter the problems you face. If you work hard you will surely make it, Blogging will become easier as time goes on but Most of the new bloggers give up too early.
Also, you will surely get to the point when you will feel like quitting pls don’t quit because quitters never win and winners never quit. You will regret quitting later on. Let the success stories of other top bloggers in your niche inspire you to move on.
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