Got a blog? Thinking of starting one? Join the club, who doesn’t.
These days it’s actually rare to meet someone who doesn’t either have a blog or plans of starting one. Whether it’s a photofeed, a vlog, a portfolio of writing, some kind of coaching, documentation of travel, or just an active social media page, everyone and their mother (literally) seems to be a blogger.
As you can imagine, I get questions from people all of the time asking how they can start a successful blog. They want to travel indefinitely, blog about their experiences, and somehow make a living in the process. But… they’re unsure how to do it, afraid to expose themselves vulnerably, and are concerned about the oversaturated marketplace out there.
With good reason. Frankly, the world doesn’t need another blogger. There are plenty of us out there. Perhaps, too many out there. So many that it’s hard to be noticed, hard to grow an audience, hard to differentiate yourself, hard to be seen. The world doesn’t need another blog.
But… the world does need you. The world does need your voice. The world does need your unique gifts. And you deserve to be read, heard, and seen. So even though the world doesn’t need another blog, create one anyway.
Not to say that being a blogger is at all easy or glamorous. It takes a ton of work, dedication, courage, and humility. If you’re looking for an easy way to travel and make money, there are way better paths you can follow (check out my article How to Travel and Work From Anywhere for those). However if you’re aching to dig into the depths of your soul, reveal yourself layer by layer to the world, and shatter your ego through the radically kind and shockingly mean responses of strangers, welcome to my world. You belong here.
In this post I’ll share with you both the practical and emotional lessons I’ve learned in my journey becoming a “successful” blogger. My intention is to help you process whether this path is right for you, and to offer you the necessary insights to walk it more courageously and consciously.
Here we go…
“Why”
Why do you want to start a blog? What is your intention behind creating it? What drives you to write, document and share? Are you hoping to connect more with your audience for a business you already have? Are you hoping to find an outlet to write, create, and share? Do you desire to be a living permission slip for others to follow their dreams?
If you already have a blog, why do you keep showing up for it? Why do you keep writing? What keeps you motivated? Do you see the way that blogging has transformed you? Do you hear the way that your blog has transformed others? Do you feel happy, alive, expressive, free when you blog?
Knowing your “why” and always coming back to it is the most essential aspect of being a successful blogger. Because your “why” determines how you measure success.
The world may tell you that success looks like a million followers on Instagram or thousands of dollars a month in passive income, but unless blogging makes you feel the way that you really want to feel, how successful can you possibly be? When you’re not getting as many “likes” on your Facebook post, or nobody commented on your latest blog, what makes you show up? Why do you keep doing this? Can you come back to your key intention and check your ego at the door?
Uncover your “why” and bring yourself back to it often. This keeps you in alignment with your heart’s wisdom, which is the only place any of us should be blogging from at all.
and Help Them
Perhaps the biggest missed opportunity I see on many blogs, is a complete focus on “self.” Yes, your story is beautiful. You are beautiful. People want to know you and connect with you. But before they give a f&*k who you are, give them a reason to want to.
There’s a really simple way to do this: listen to the questions that people have most often and write the answers on your blog. Give people the advice that they’re asking you for. Help them by directly offering solutions to the problems they express.
My posts that have received the most shares, comments, and views are the ones that offer truly valuable, helpful, useful solutions to common problems.
For instance, from traveling and blogging for years I knew that money was the main factor that limits people from travel. So, I decided to unravel that limitation head on and wrote a post “How to Travel the World When You’ve Got Absolutely No Money.” I spent days on this post in an effort to make it the most useful, comprehensive guide on the subject.
It went viral immediately, has had millions of views, and has brought me many long term loyal followers. More importantly than that, I get feedback often from people that it reframed their mindsets, opened the door to freedom, and even changed their lives. That looks like success to me.
**Get Over Being Perfect **
I talked about starting a blog years before I actually did it. What stood in my way? Perfectionism. Though once I finally pulled the trigger and pressed publish, blogging really helped me heal my relationship with perfectionism. If I wanted to consistently post and learn how to do something I had very little experience in, I needed to publish stuff that wasn’t perfect. Which I did. The more I did that, the more freely I created.
Just start something. Put something out there. Keep putting more stuff out there. Allow it to evolve. Let yourself learn. See what happens. You are way more amazing than your first blog posts will be. Your potential goes far beyond what’s going to show up in the beginning. Humbly recognize this, and put it out there anyway.
Give, Give, Give, and then Give Some More
So often I witness people get frustrated about their following not growing as quickly as they’d like, not monetizing their blog as effectively as they’d like, not getting as much response as they’d like. And at times I see myself go through it too. What we all need to remember is that writing a blog doesn’t make anybody owe you anything.
I wrote for my blog at least once a week, if not several times per week, for years before I received any kind of compensation for it. I posted on social media every day back when I had a few hundred followers. I poured my heart out for the 10 people who would read my blog posts. I did it, because my “why” told me to. I did it because it felt good for me write, to share, and to give. No matter what the response was in return.
Blogging is in its highest form an act of pure generosity. You must offer your gifts freely, simply because they want to be given, without expecting anything in return. Otherwise, there will be times where you want to give up because the validation won’t come through. Find something that your heart wants to share so fully, that you simply must express it, even if you don’t get anything back.
Sell Up, Don’t Sell Out
When I started my blog, I never intended to sell out. I adamantly steered clear of advertising and any kind of sponsorships, despite the fact that I was pretty broke. Keeping the integrity of my blog was the most important thing to me of all.
And then… I wanted to taste the other side. I got desperate. Selling out started to look good because I was tired of working hard for no money. I went a route that many bloggers take, having all of my travels sponsored by tourism boards and companies, writing them recommendations in exchange for a free stay. It was sweet for a moment, but it wasn’t sustainable and left me feeling shallow and trapped. To make money, I accepted guest posts from companies who put a link in the article back to their site, a sneaky form of Marketing, and then just hid those articles from my readers. It felt… sneaky and out of alignment. But, I didn’t know how else to make money through my blog, and it’s what the other travel bloggers I knew were doing.
I lasted less than 6 months, since betraying my heart has never really been an option for me. What I learned the hard way, through 2 years with little to no money, and 6 months living like a Queen on somebody else’s dime but feeling completely unfulfilled, is that it was time to stop selling out and to start selling to my audience.
Unless you’re content to sell out the quick and easy, cheap and dirty way, you need to create valuable offerings to sell to your audience. Selling to your audience beats selling out any day. First of all, you get to create what you want to create, and offer it to the people who already trust you. Secondly, you don’t need to worry about accumulating a massive audience, you just need enough people who really want you’ve got to sell them.
What can you package and offer that isn’t already available for free through your blog? Can you write an eBook? Offer workshops? Live events? Online courses? Consulting? Create physical products? The same way you can ask your audience what problems they have and how they can solve them when creating blog content, you can use what your people really want, and what gifts you have to share when creating products for them to buy. Everybody wins.
Build an Email List
When it comes time to sell to your audience, an email list makes all of the difference. Your email list has people who dig you so much they want to hear from you. They want to know what you have to offer. Best of all, you have control over your list, unlike with social media channels. Assuming it’s not being hidden by the recipient’s spam filter, everyone on your list will actually receive the email. This is different from social media channels which decide how many people get to see your post and how.
As soon as possible, create an email list and make it easy for your readers to subscribe. Then, invest energy into growing the list by giving people a reason to want to subscribe. Most importantly offer value in the emails that you send out, and give people a reason to want to stay subscribed. Typically I recommend the 80/20 rule, which means 80% free, quality content, and 20% sales pitch. So for every 8 helpful emails you send, you can throw in 2 sales pitches.
Having an effective email list necessitates an entire blog post in and of itself, so I recommend you dig deeper by reading some other articles on the topic. More on http://www.thisamericangirl.com/2016/11/02/how-to-be-a-successful-blogger/
HAPPY TO ANNOUNCE THE HOW TO SERIES BEACUSE THEY SEEM TO DO WELL AND I ENJOY DOING THEM