7 Things I Wish I Knew Before Starting a Blog

I’ve been blogging for over 6 years! But there is so much I wish I knew all those years ago before starting a blog.

I started a blog because I wanted to have a creative outlet. I was working for a bank, and really just wanted an excuse to wear clothes I liked and take photos of them.

And when I started out I knew nothing!

Before actually starting a blog myself I’d been reading blogs for a while. Mostly fashion ones. They were a source of style inspiration for me and it was so refreshing to see clothes on real girls. And in a lot of cases, options that were affordable. A huge change from my days of flicking through Vogue for uni and crying inside over the things I couldn’t afford!

I had grand ideas of building my own website (HA!) and took myself along to a night class at a college in Glasgow to learn. I picked up pretty quickly that I definitely would not be building my own blog which meant I had to find a platform to use. This brings me nicely to my first point.

1. Pick your platform wisely

I definitely went for the easy option, or so I thought…! After a small (very small) amount of research, I decided to go for Blogger. It was free, it looked pretty straightforward to use and it meant I could get going quickly. Perfect. And in many ways, it was perfect for someone starting a blog with no knowledge of code. The tiny amount of HTML I learned at my night class didn’t count. I had to figure out how to do a lot of stuff on it though – like getting widgets down the side for my Instagram feed. That involved finding code somewhere on the internet. Nowhere near as easy as adding these kinds of things onto a WordPress site!

You can still get free blogging platforms without going to Blogger and I would advise a free WordPress.com site as a good place to start (a free WordPress means your URL will show as wwww.yourdomain.wordpress.com).

2. Know the difference between WordPress.com and WordPress.org

My confusion around this is probably the reason I steered clear of WordPress at the start. I thought WordPress would be really hard to use. But having used both the .com and the .org versions I now know that is not true.

So, here to clear it up for anyone thinking of starting a blog – WordPress.com is the free version. It does mean that you will have wordpress.com after your domain name (e.g www.yourdomain.wordpress.com). There are some limitations with the free version in terms of how much you can customise it but it’s a great starting point.

Next up we have WordPress.org, also known as self-hosted. Using this version means you need to pay to host* your website with an external company as well as buying your domain name. This isn’t as scary as it sounds! There are loads of options for companies that can take care of your hosting for you. I’ve recently started using Lyrical Host and can’t recommend them enough. WordPress.org gives you so much more in terms of customising your blog and there is the addition of plugins which can be used for loads of things including security, SEO, Google Analytics and for adding elements to your site like an Instagram feed.

*A company to hold all the files that make up your website on an external server.

3. Have a plan for what to write about

When I started out my thinking went as far as pretty dresses. Turns out I didn’t have a lot to write about when it comes to fashion! Or enough money to buy loads of clothes. So it didn’t take long before I changed direction more towards lifestyle. Think about what you want your content to be before you start writing a thing, and make sure you’ll be able to come up with enough ideas to keep your blog going.

4. SEO

Oh, how I wish I’d known what SEO was all those years ago! And I wished I’d used it from the beginning. For those of you who aren’t familiar with SEO and what it means – SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation. Basically, it means how easy your site is for Google to find. There are many things that contribute to a well-optimised site and blog posts including the use of keywords. Google has some great online courses you can do, their Fundamentals of Digital Marketing is a great one if you want a complete overview or you can opt for a course just focusing on SEO.

This is a topic that is really worth mastering straight away. It can make sure a difference on how well your blog does and it also means you don’t have to go back and fix old posts.

5. Use titles that make sense

This kind of falls into SEO a bit. When I first started blogging I used titles that made absolutely no sense! And they gave zero indication what the post was about. It’s pretty important that the title of your post gives readers a clue about what they’re going to be reading.

6. Use alt tags

Alt tags are descriptions added to images to say what the image shows. While this is again something that contributes towards SEO alt tags are really important for visually impaired visitors to your site. People with a visual impairment use a screen reader so they can still get the information from a website and their screen reader will read the description you’ve used for each image on the page. This is an important factor in making your site accessible.

7. Google Analytics

I didn’t even look into Google Analytics until I moved over to WordPress. So I had years of just relying on the stats Blogger used, and years of missed insights into my blog. Get your analytics account set up straight away and get it onto your site. If you want to have a blog that is more than just a hobby it’s important you have access to your stats.

The list could go on. Before starting a blog, I really only thought it would be a hobby. I had no plans for it to be more than that. I didn’t even tell a lot of people I blogged until about two years into it! But I think starting something like this should be seen as more than just a hobby. Set out with the intention of making it more than something you do for fun. Blogging has opened so many doors for me. From meeting some great people to helping me get jobs and steer the direction of my career.

When my wee blog hit six years last month I didn’t acknowledge it (it’s been a busy year so far and my brain has been struggling to do anything creative), but you can read my half-decade celebration post from last year here.