15 Things I Wish I Had Known When I Started My First Blog

Over the last 3 years I created 2 blogs, my first (Pronet Advertising)is on marketing and my second (Quick Sprout) is on business. Althoughboth of my blogs do well, I made my share of mistakes. I am not a bigbeliever in regrets and I have learned a lot over the last 3 years, butif I started all over again, I would do things very differently.

Don’t blog about news

Within your industry there are probably dozens of blogs that writeabout the news. So why do the same? I know blogging about the news canget you more traffic, but it doesn’t provide your readers with muchvalue.

Pronet Advertising was accepted into Google newsa few years ago, this meant that it could appear really high in theGoogle search results for almost any search term. Due to this, I wouldanalyze Google trends andwrite on things that were hot. This was a great way to get tons oftraffic, but my readers didn’t care to read blog posts that were newsrelated.

Pick a niche

My first blog was about marketing, the problem with that niche wasthat there were too many blogs that already discussed marketing. Sooneror later I realized this and started blogging about social mediamarketing instead of general marketing. After I did this, my blogbecame so popular that it got into the Technorati 100.

Now I don’t have a niche with Quick Sprout, but if I had, it would be more popular. Make sure you pick a niche with your blog.

Pick a big niche

As I mentioned above, my first blog was about social media marketing. Quick Sprout also had a niche at one point and it was personal branding.Both of these niches were so small, that I got tired of blogging onthem. With my first blog, I just stopped blogging on it. With QuickSprout, I ended up changing the blog from being on personal branding tobusiness.

You want to pick a niche, but it can’t be too small. If it is, you may run out of content ideas.

Be passionate

I wasn’t too passionate about social media marketing, which is why Istopped blogging on Pronet Advertising. If you aren’t passionate aboutwhat you are writing on, your readers will be able to tell. Just lookat the content on Pronet Advertising, you can tell by reading it that I didn’t care about the blog.

Don’t burn yourself out

When I started blogging, I used to blog twice a day. I got burnedout and felt that I was writing too much. Blogging shouldn’t seem likea chore, you should enjoy it. I now blog once a week on average and Ilove doing it. Don’t force yourself to blog to often or else you willget burned out.

Make money

There is nothing wrong with making money. If you are spending a lotof time blogging, you should be rewarded from it. With PronetAdvertising, I made money from ads and consulting deals that camethrough the blog. With Quick Sprout, I am not making any money from it,which is fine because I don’t care for the money I could make from ads.

If you are in a position where you don’t need money, that’s great.If you aren’t, you better figure out a way to make money off of yourblog.

Don’t spend too much on a design

I spent around $5,000 getting Pronet Advertising designed. What Ididn’t realize is that you don’t need to have a cool design to have apopular blog. If you look at some of the most popular blogs on the web,such as Boing Boing, there isn’t anything special when it comes to their design.

The main thing you should be concerned about when it comes to your blog’s design, is that it needs to be usable and simple.

Have a unique design

With Quick Sprout, I am using a generic blog design. It looks great,but too many people are using it. This is making my blog blend in withthousands of other blogs. Because of this, I have two options:

1. Modify the theme and make it look different
2. Change the design

Write detailed content

If you look at the blog posts that I wrote when I first started Quick Sprout,you will notice that they aren’t too detailed. Until the last month ortwo I continued to write sub standard blog posts and because of thisQuick Sprout wasn’t growing. Once I started writing detailed blogposts, my traffic increased and you started to enjoy reading the blog.

Respond to every commentor

The biggest mistake I made was taking commentors for granted. If Iresponded to every commentor since the first day I started blogging, Iwould have built tons of relationships. After I started to respond toevery comment, I got to know a ton of people on a personal level, suchas you.

Build relationships with other bloggers

If you want your blog to be popular, you better get to know otherbloggers. The easiest way to make your blog popular is to get otherbloggers to blog about you and your blog. Sadly, I didn’t figure thisout until a year into blogging.

After I figured this out I started building relationships with manyof the top bloggers. When I launched Quick Sprout I told these bloggersand they naturally blogged on it. This lead the blog to have a 1000 RSSsubscribers within the the first 24 hours of launch.

Pick the right blogging platform

My first blog was on Movable Type and this one is on WordPress.I had tons of problems with Movable Type such as comment spam and worstof all it wasn’t easy for me to make changes. Due to this I had tospend a lot of money on Movable Type developers. Once I switched toWordPress I was able to do everything myself. This saved me a lot ofmoney and time.

Don’t write for Digg

Pronet Advertising did very well because it got on Digga lot. Digg traffic caused the blog to grow like a wild fire, but itcaused me to lose my core reader base. On the other hand Quick Sprouthasn’t got on Digg more than once and I have a very strong core userbase. This is the main reason Quick Sprout has tons of readerinteraction compared to other blogs.

Tell your story

Open up to your readers by telling them your life story. I didn’t dothis during my first few years of blogging, but now I have a verydetailed about page. I wish I did this from day one because it creates a stronger bond between you and I.

If you don’t have a detailed about page, you should consider writing one. Don’t be shy, make sure you open up to your readers.

It’s not about you

Who doesn’t want to write about their accomplishments? Bragging maysound cool, but people don’t like it when you brag. I did this a bitwhen I started Quick Sprout, but luckily Darren Rowse from Problogger set me straight and showed me why it isn’t wise to brag.

If you want to do well in the blogosphere, write with the intent of educating, not to brag.