How to Start a Blog in 2019 (+ blogging definitions)
Are you looking to start a blog in 2019 or later? I started mine in June 2019 with much hesitation and worry and question marks, but I’m so glad I did. Despite it being such a wild and fulfilling journey.
That said, I did struggle for awhile in deciding whether to go ahead with this post, which is the start of a new section in Doing Life with Iuliya.
After all, one of the things that SEO experts always say you should remain in your identified niche to become an “authority” and not confuse Google (more details below).
However, I decided to go ahead because I want to chart my ongoing blogging and social media learning. This section will detail all the things I have learned, things I wish I knew and mistakes that I regret making.
There have already been mistakes made despite my copious amounts of reading.
Thankfully, none of those mistakes was monetary (SO FAR!) but I did notice that some of the mistakes I made weren’t raised in any other “how to start a blog” posts so I hope you will find my insights helpful.
And if want to make sure you NEVER lose track of this post, don’t forget to pin! 🙂
Table of Contents
Purpose of this “Blogging & Social Media” section
I want to:
(i) share everything that I have and continue to learn, whether it is in blogging, Google SEO or social media.
And trust me, no one can be a “successful” blogger without learning all of those at the very least;
(ii) synthesise everything that I am reading;
There is always so much coming out. My Inbox is dying under the weight of all the news, videos & free-webinars-at-crazy-2ams (because EST is 12 hours behind me).
I can barely keep up with! I need a proper place to keep it all together. To take a breather, think and digest all that free but valuable information.
(iii) have an archive.
Because I am a voracious notetaker and end up having my notes everywhere. Google docs. Notes. Microsoft OneNote (under the dozens of tabs and subtabs I’ve opened…).
It has only been 3 months since I started to blog and I already have notes spanning thousands of words. So why not put it here and share with the world? 🙂
So that’s the intention behind my “Blogging & Social Media” section, which is meant to complement this travel blog.
Even if you aren’t a travel blogger, I hope you enjoy reading the behind-the-scenes posts of what I am going through in this newbie travel blogging journey!
Blogging for Beginners
In case it wasn’t clear enough, I am no expert in blogging and/or social media.
My Social Media Journey
Before May 2019, I posted on Instagram sporadically. Maybe 2 to 3 times a year? I didn’t know what hashtags were. I barely tagged anyone except friends in my photos. And I had never edited any of my photos.
Ok maybe I need to confess further – I didn’t even know what the golden one third rule was for photography!! So many old photos of mine are blurry. Smudged with the outprint of a careless thumb. Taken at a weird angle. And with an iPhone camera that had yet to level up to the XS stage.
What’s different now?
I still take photos with my iPhone. Every single photo you will find on this blog is taken from my iPhone but the camera phone is so powerful these days.
And I also discovered the secret sauce of awesome photo editing. Learning the one-third rule is just the beginning. There is an iPhone’s PORTRAIT MODE that makes a huge difference. If you hadn’t used it yet, TRY IT. The bokeh effect will life-transforming and I am not exaggerating.
Second point: EDITING & FILTERING. I’ll write a post later on this & link it here (stay tuned!).
Those two points have helped to “elevate” my photos though I still have a long way to go.
So that’s Instagram.
I didn’t open a Pinterest account until June 2019. And I sent my first Tweet much later.
Trust me, the journey has been steep! Social media marketing newbie reporting for duty.
My Travel Blogging Journey
I bought the self-hosting website (which came with a free domain name via Bluehost) for Doing Life with Iuliya in June 2019. The first iteration of this travel website was launched after 2 full days’ of work on it.
Again, an obvious newbie. I knew nothing. Had zero tech background (I’m a lawyer). AND I refused to pay any money beyond purchasing my self-hosting name (will get to that in another post!), so I had to learn from scratch.
And you really can. There are TONS of free resources out there.
There are also TONS of paid resources/”how to start a blog” courses out there too.
The thing about all these “how to start a blog” courses is that they distill everything you need to know into one place, so you don’t have to go running around firefighting & seeking the answer to questions that might already have been collated into one place.
In certain courses, you might even get a course creator who is very present and willing to answer queries and hold your hand.
Maybe even a community of similar blogging newbies to work kinks out with and collaborate.
Maybe.
Not every blogging introductory course was made equal. That’s why if you are looking to shell out some money, make sure you read the reviews.
Check to find out EXACTLY what you are getting & whether that correlates with what is promised. Because the Internet has become something of a free-for-all where anyone can launch a course.
Personally, I won’t buy any “how to start a blog” course. The free resources are FANTASTIC enough already, and very very detailed. But that’s just me – person-who-refuses-to-spend-a-dime-more.
TL;DR If you want to be on a blogging fast track & are willing to spend a little, then a “how to start a blog” course might be perfect for you. |
My Blogging Newbie Status is My Strength
You read that right.
Despite the short time period between purchasing a self-hosting website (which came with a free domain name via Bluehost) and launching my website, I feel that my newbie status is also a strength.
Who better to tell a newbie what and how to do, then another newbie somewhat further along the journey?
But that doesn’t explain why I’m starting this section, which goes against the whole “don’t start more niches then necessary for Google SEO purposes” rationale (which I briefly alluded to earlier).
Here’s why.
Because in my experience, there are many articles posted in the blogosphere that are meant to help aspiring or newbie bloggers, especially from established bloggers. These bloggers are so, so impressive. They have made it, moreover when they release their “How I earned $100,000 in a month” monthly income report posts.
“Monthly income reports are real. Lots of people are doing that. They go down to the nitty-gritty sometimes of where their income is from, and even the affiliates (for instance) they are using. They are very helpful.
The easiest way to find them is to go to Pinterest and type in “monthly income reports”. You will find TONS.
But back to the established bloggers. And here is a persistent problem I struggled with.
They detail their blogging journeys from the peak. And their content is pretty identical. Or full of how-to listicles that don’t really delve into the nitty-gritty of all the things I struggled with.
They have probably already been overcome and forgotten some of the teething problems of blogging but for me, they are very real. I really struggled. Pondered. Banged my head. Went to bed in frustration and came back to tackle again. Rinse and repeat ad infinitum.
That doesn’t mean I have captured every issue here. I know some issues I faced awhile back, and I can’t even remember what those issues were! Gosh. There are just too many fires to put out.
Also to clarify: some established bloggers are amazing. I loved them. Their posts were so helpful, which is also part of what inspired me to start this new, complementary section to my travel blog posts.
I Need Your Help! Yes, YOU
I need your help.
If you haven’t come across anything that you are currently facing, please give a shout out in the comments below!
Let’s work through them together.
I might be working on the same issue as you right now or have already learned a way to resolve it. Either way, the struggle is real.
And we shouldn’t do it alone (well, I would like to not do it alone; what’s the point of the Internet if it doesn’t let me connect with other people beyond my immediate sphere of influence?).
The Power of Google
That being said.. if you can’t wait for a response – and I get it because I am such an impatient person myself! – here is a golden hint: USE GOOGLE.
(Nearly) EVERYTHING you are struggling with can be resolved thanks to the power of Google. And that word “nearly” is just a remnant of my legal training. A “CYA” (cover your a**) moment because to date, I have yet to Google an issue and not found an answer on page 1 of Google results.
So that’s my encouragement, and advice, to you.
Google is everyone’s best friend. And with featured snippets coming in (gosh, another blog post needed on this!), Google will only become even closer to us.
TL;DR If you are facing a blogging problem, type that query in Google. Ask Google the way you would ask your best friend. You will very likely get many versions of an answer (or answers) to your problem on page 1. In written and video form! Google, you read my mind. Or private convos. But let’s not get into that… |
My Promise to You
I will always be transparent with you & go into as much detail as possible (remember my thousands-of-words note-taking habit?).
If I disliked something, I will say it. If something didn’t work for me, I will also tell you.
And if I think there is a problem you can overcome with just a little bit more time, effort and headbanging (you can’t avoid it, so I’d just invest in a helmet, really), I will tell you.
At the very start of our blogging journey, I really don’t think you have to spend anything.
Blogging can be free, save for the domain name purchase and/or self-hosting website. I purchased Bluehost which threw in a free domain name as part of the package.
I’ll tell you too when I decide to succumb to temptation and purchase something to help me along my blogging journey.
P/S: If you sign up for Bluehost using this link, I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you!
Big Fancy Words you must learn to start a blog
This section will be updated as more words come to mind, or new words that I learn the meaning of.
Blogging is pretty technical. Social media platforms too.
If you have ever struggled with knowing the meaning or intention behind certain technical words, here is my dummies’ guide. In my own words.
(Just don’t take it as the law!)
General Terms
ENGAGEMENT
= INTERACTION
This is the golden stick that all social media platforms measure by. For instance with Instagram, engagement is likely measured by the number of likes, comments, shares, and saves that your posts or Instastories receive.
The more engagement you get, the more people like your content, the more Instagram’s algorithm notices then and spreads your content to an even greater crowd.
TL;DR Get maximum engagement for maximum exposure & success as a blogger. |
A social media platform that functions as a virtual scrapbook. It is the search engine for inspiration.
Want to travel to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia? Type that into Pinterest’s search engine, and you will get many results in the form of “pins”, just like the one below.
Did you know that Pinterest now has a visual search function? Take a picture of something you desire WITH Pinterest, and Pinterest will search for the identical object IN Pinterest. Try it. It’s scarily accurate.
The concept behind this is so that if you’re walking along the road and see something you like but don’t know what it’s called/where to find it, you can snap a picture and the results will tell you.
You can now upload products straight into Pinterest so with one click, you can buy the same item you were coveting on the streets.
Pretty cool, eh?
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
In simplest terms, it is what people need to do try and get themselves on page 1 of Google search results. A response to Google’s algorithm.
No one really knows what Google’s algorithm priorities and searches for when deciding when A deserves to be No.1 in a search result and not B. But lots of experts have spent YEARS experimenting, tracking and analysing Google’s engineering blogs.
There are lots of SEO best practices but they are constantly evolving. In its simplest form, have an “optimised” post means you have an SEO-compliant post. It can include things like using the right “keywords”, “meta description”, “alt text”, use of headings (e.g. H1, H2, H3 etc.), backlinks and sooo much more.
Each of these deserves many posts on their own, so let’s just leave it at that!
Pins
= search results in Pinterest in the form of graphics
Pinning
= saving
When on Pinterest, “pinning” means I saved your “pin”
Pinterest Boards
= aka virtual scrapbook
You can’t save/pin a pin into a void.
Instead, you save/pin onto a Pinterest “board”.
You can create many different boards for different categories, as broad or as niche as you want.
Group Boards
These are Pinterest boards that you collaborate with other Pinterest users on. In other words, you and your fellow contributors can pin any pin you want into this board.
Bear in mind however that each group board may have its own rules. Be sure to follow them or risk getting kicked out!
Conclusion
And that’s it for now! This terminologies section will be updated as and when a new term arises or crosses my mind.
For now, I hope the purpose of this section is clear.
And I look forward to getting feedback from you on your blogging journey and any questions you might have!
Let’s do this thing called life together. 🙂
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