For the past 3 years, I have been blogging and I am fortunate enough to make a living out of it.
You might think that 3 years is not that big of a deal but it is for me. At first, I was doing it for money then I got to know more about it and I got very passionate about it.
So over these years I have learned a lot and made many mistakes along the way. So today I am going to share with you what mistakes I made and what should you learn from them if you starting out as a blogger.
Here are the 7 things I wish I would have learned earlier.
1. Build an Email List
When I first started my blog I didn’t care about email or repeat visitors. I was so hell-bent on making money. My primary monetization was AdSense and I was making a decent amount of money from it.
Back then RSS feed was very popular but now Mail letter has taken its place. If your blog topic is really good (Not affiliate sites) then visitors are likely to revisit your blog.
But the thing is, even if your blog is awesome they may forget your blog and this is a very common phenomenon for most of the people.
So all you need to do is notify them via email and you are good to go. Deploy the Mail newsletter for your site and try to collect as many emails as possible.
My first niche wasn’t worth collecting email but my current niche has great potential to rank and earn some decent income.
You might not know this but when people click on the link from your email google notice it and takes that into consideration as a ranking factor.
So my advice is to start collecting emails today if you haven’t already otherwise you’d missing out on a great opportunity.
2. Focus on Profit Instead of Trafic
In my early blogging days (when I was in college) I was focused on getting traffic. To increase traffic I would continuously add more posts.
But as may know AdSense monetization method doesn’t convert well.
At that time I knew there are other better methods are available then this but I was too lazy to even start. I knew that my niche won’t generate income after some time.
It took me quite a while to focus on huge income niche ideas. So I would say pick a niche that would generate huge income even on the small traffic.
And the best example of this would be promoting products and earn commissions on them.
Traffic doesn’t matter at all if your product value (I am talking about affiliate website) is high enough then you will make a lot of money even on the small conversion rate.
Forget about the small term goals, try to focus on long-term goals that would generate passive income for years to come.
3. Focus on Goal Actions
The other big mistake I made was to set goals that won’t help me achieve success. I would set goals like I would try to get 20,000 visitors this month or like earning 1000$ a month.
Goals like these aren’t bad to have but this won’t help you understand what you need to do in order to achieve them.
Later I changed my approach and after that, I would set goals day wise or weekly. For example, I would set a goal like I need to write an awesome guest post this week and try to get a link from a high authority website this week.
Or you can set a goal like, I will try to publish 3 posts a week from now on and try your best to achieve that goal.
These types of goals are directly related to your completing a specific task at a time which will help you grow your blog even bigger.
So now I set goals like these every week which helps me make a list and complete my work on time and it ensures that I am on the right track of success.
It keeps you focused on your work and you can even give a treat yourself for accomplishing a specific goal.
4. Create and Sale Products
Like I said in my early days I was earning only through Adsense and I was very happy with that at that time.
But many of might have famous blogs that people will follow. If you are truly giving value to your reader by providing some great info for free then they are willing to pay for your courses.
Most of the famous bloggers are making money through their online courses, webinars, and ebooks. It makes a huge difference in your income if you are selling products like these.
On top of that, it only takes your little time to produce these types of course after that the money you will make will be all yours for years to come.
There is no denying that making these course will take a considerable amount of effort and hard work but it can help you maximize your revenue to great extent.
5. Outsource Your Work
Being a blogger, it involves a lot of work to run a successful blog and keep adding new quality content. It takes a lot of time to do all work by yourself.
And these hours are limited and valuable. Sometimes because you have to do all the work by yourself you can’t focus on a particular thing which you like the most or the particular thing which will make your blog more profitable.
When I started my blog I would all the things my self that includes researching the subject, writing the content, editing, adding links and images and building backlinks.
If I want to grow my blog bigger then I would need more content and because of that, I can’t focus on backlinks so that is very frustrating.
If you are financially capable then you can outsource all the work and can focus on a particular thing. But if you are not financially independent then first try to reach that level so you outsource the writing part.
6. Diversify Your Income
When you are making a decent amount of money from a particular asset (Or your blog), chances are that you will spend all that money on worthless things.
If your income were to stop from that what would do?
It’s a big question. Then you may have to do a job to feed your family let alone pay the bills for daily expenses.
So don’t get lazy and always try to increase your asset column so after that, you can earn a passive income from that asset. You can invest that money to get a decent return from that after some time.
I would invest that money in making new affiliate site. I would hire content writers and VAs to do all work so I can focus on other things.
It is a great way to invest your money (If you want to) or you can invest money in mutual funds or buying other assets like property.
Final Words
These are some of the mistakes I made and learned from that too. There is nothing wrong with the mistakes you make but it is all about what you learned from that and how you do better next time to achieve your goal.
If you are a blogger and did something like me then let me know in the comments below so other bloggers can something from you.
Also, If you have any queries or liked my post then also comment down below.
Author Bio
Jerry is a passionate blogger and seasoned SEO. He likes to read new books and research in SEO that would teach him something valuable. He also works in a software company that works in Application Development with Dynamics 365.
