Ten Things I Wish I'd Known When I Started Blogging

I had a lot of ideas when I started blogging a few months ago and some of those ideas were good.  Some of those ideas were... not so good.  These are the things I wish I'd known when I started blogging and things that I hope can help new bloggers!  Learn from my mistakes, ladies. :) There's nothing groundbreaking here, but they're all true things that I've learned so far.  Here we go!

1. A good design matters.  I started out with one of Blogger's standard templates before I realized that all of my favorite bloggers had really eye-catching designs that must have been custom made.  Go the extra mile for your blog and prettify it!

2. Sidebar ads aren't going to get your far. When I started, I thought sidebar ads were the key to becoming a successful blogger.  They're not.  I get very few views from sidebar ads on other blogs.  Sidebar ad swaps are a good way to start out if you're not ready to go for guest posts or sponsor spotlight posts but don't expect them to generate a lot of traffic.  Passionfruit is a good place to start your search for blogs to sponsor.

3. Photo quality matters.  Gritty, low quality photos are okay for instagram, but not for your blog.  You don't have to own a DSLR or anything, but take the time to make sure your photos are in focus and use a photo editor like Picmonkey if you don't know your way around Photoshop yet.  I do know my way around Photoshop, but I still like to use Picmonkey for some things because it's so easy and user-friendly.

4. You have to read other blogs.  This seems like such a no-brainer, but when I started blogging, I was only reading the biggest blogs out there.  Those blogs are great to get inspiration from, but you want to connect with other smaller, newer bloggers like you.  That way, you can see what they're doing that's working and help each other out.

5. Comment.  If you want comments on your blog, you're going to have to comment on other people's blogs.  Plain and simple.  You get what you give in the blogging community.

6. Social media it up.  I kind of brushed off the whole social media thing when I started because I wasn't a big Twitter or Facebook user but then I realized that in order to connect with other bloggers, you have to interact with them, and the best way to do that is through social media.  It's also a great way to get your blog's name out there and promote your posts!

7. Don't be a no-reply blogger.  I kept hearing about this phenomenon when I started blogging, but I didn't know what it was, and I just sort of assumed that I wasn't a no-reply blogger.  Turns out that I was a no-reply blogger and the blogs that I commented on weren't able to reply to my comments!  Venus Trapped in Mars has a great post about how to remedy this problem.

8. Write an About Me page.  If you want readers to keep coming back to your blog, you're going to have to let them get to know you.  Simply Clarke has a good post about what it takes to create a good About Me page.

9. It's not all sunshine and rainbows.  Just like any community, especially online, there are bound to be some bad eggs.  People will leave negative comments and people will grudge you your success.  That's life.  All you can do is ignore those people and refuse to give them the attention they want.

10. Schedule your posts.  I don't have time to write a blog post everyday, but I do have time to type out a few at one sitting on the weekends.  I do this so I don't have to stress about writing blog posts during the week, when I'm usually already stressing about work.  It's also a good idea to brainstorm blog post ideas beforehand so you're not stuck for ideas when you do sit down to write a few.

What do you wish you'd known when you started blogging?

Linking up with Little Friday and Treat Yo Self Thursday.