Before I actually begin with the complete detailed blogging guide, I feel articles like these are necessary. What’s the point of getting into something when you have no idea about what it is? Now is the boom of blogging and at the same time myths about blogging are growing. Rather, it is the boom of blogging in blogging niche. Every new blogger is somehow trying to be a blogging expert and talks about blogging. And maybe that’s why the myths about blogging are gaining more momentum.
Here, I am going to talk about various myths about blogging and the truth behind them.
1.Blogging is Easy: Of course, every pro blogger would want you to get allured into this profession so that they can make more sales by selling the themes, hosting and so on. I am not accusing the bloggers but most of the pros who talk about blogging niche would agree to this fact. No one really wants to tell you what all goes into blogging. Blogging requires a lot of passion, commitment, hard work, consistency and learning attitude. You would need to learn a number of things ranging from content writing to SEO, all of them are very vast fields which require a lot of time and effort for understanding. So, anyone who says that blogging is easy and you can do it just like that, is saying this to make some money from you. It is your choice whom you want to listen to.
2.Blogging helps you to make a lot of money: In my article, 11 ways to earn money in 2015, I have mentioned blogging as a good way to earn some money online. But what I didn’t mention over there was how tough it actually was. You cannot just earn money by setting up a blog and putting a few articles on it. Advertisement requires great traffic and visitors. Affiliate sales require trust of readers in you. Sponsored posts require good domain authority of your blog and so on. All of these opportunities of making money through your blog are undoubtedly there but you can benefit from them only after a certain period of time.
3.Blogging is about setup and writing: Well, then all the writers out there would be millionaires by now. Just by writing good content on your blog and posting it regularly, you can’t make it big in blogging. In fact, you would hardly get any traffic to your site this way. No traffic, no recognition. No recognition, no more lives the will to put in more efforts. You need to work on other aspects of blogging like promotion, networking, monetization and SEO. Two years before, I had a friend who set up a blog like I did but he believed in the statement – “Write good content, rest will follow.” And now his blog is nowhere to be seen on the internet whereas mine is still there, growing manifolds. That’s because I understood how important it is to spread the word. One must remember, blogging has never been about ‘just writing’.
4.No one wants to read long posts: with many people shifting to audio visual content, bloggers have started believing that writing detailed content doesn’t work. Of course, they still write it for some Google love but they believe that there is no commercial use of detailed or long posts. Why do people come to your blog? To read. Right? If they didn’t want to read at first place, they would have gone to some video sharing website or if they had wanted to read less content, they would have used twitter. Why your blog? I know, when we see all the stats of readers’ behaviour, we do believe that the myth is no myth but a fact. I did that too and started trying to keep the content of my posts to minimum. And then my readers started complaining… They wanted to read more. So, if you have a good content on your blog, the long length isn’t an issue. In fact, the longer, the better.
5.You need to be a good writer: On this same blog, a very famous professional blogger from India commented on a post how he wanted to write a book but couldn’t because he was struggling to get a strong hold of the English language. My friend, seldom writers are actually good at English. What you read in a book or a magazine is the end product which comes through the endless efforts of proofreaders, editors and writer. Moreover, your presentation and content matters more than your language. Also, internet follows the rule of being as simple as possible. So, there is no point in worrying about your language. Yep, do give some attention to grammar for bad grammar makes it painful to read but there are plenty of grammar checks tools available online to help you in this. So, don’t worry about the writing part.
6.First start with a free blogging platform: I did this and was in favour of this myth for a long time until I realized what a folly I had done. I have been blogging from so many years and if only I used a platform like the Finix Post uses now, I would have reached much higher heights than what I have reached now. It is all because of this stupid myth that stopped me from spending a few pennies that ultimately caused me a loss of thousands. If you can afford an internet connection, you can easily afford a self hosted blog. Stop making excuses.
7.Avoid supporting competitors: I used to handle a business’s social media networks and its blog. The peculiar thing I noticed about their way of working was they never used to appreciate or support their competitors in any way. They wouldn’t even follow their competitor on twitter for well, they were their COMPETITORS. If you support a thought like this, you would definitely fail. In fact, many of the Indian newbie bloggers follow this thought. Instead of supporting their own community, they are trying to outsmart one another. This, my friend, would be the first and biggest reason for your failure in blogging profession. It is all about how much you give than how much you take. The more you give, the more you actually get.
8.You don’t need social media automation tools: People who used tools like hootsuite before they gave it a makeover would know what a pain it was to use hootsuite with that horrible user interface and because of the same reason; I never supported the idea of using social media automation tools. I thought I could manage all of my social media networks by myself and hence I ended up wasting a lot of my precious time that could have been spent on doing or learning more useful things. One must always try time to save as much time as possible.
9.Blog with more comments are popular: Well, there are many people who question the success of my blog by counting the number of maximum comments I have had on my blog posts. I don’t want to comment on this but you must know the comments on your blog don’t really matter. The fact that people are reading your posts, liking them and sharing them is what you must worry about.
10.You need XX amount of traffic/followers to be a successful blogger: How can you even give someone else the right to decide whether you’re successful or not? How can you even allow someone to say that you’re not a professional blogger just because you do not have posts titled – how I made $10,000 through affiliate sales and blah blah … Your success depends upon your goal and no stupid blogger/client has the right to question you on that!
11.You are too late to get into blogging: When it comes to factors like domain authority, you might want to shed some tears for you’re too late. But if it is about your chances of survival as a blogger, you must throw a party. Due to the boom of blogging, the amount of quality bloggers who actually have professional etiquette is decreasing day by day. So, there are more chances that if you follow some good ethics and principles while pursuing this profession, you would get noticed and make good identity out of it.
Did you notice I am kinda having a series of “11 Things…” on my blog. Do check all of them and make sure you keep reading this post again and again so that you never forget the truth behind these myths about blogging.
I hope this post would be helpful to you and don’t forget to share it, it was helpful.
Well said… I had many points which were proved wrong after reading this 🙂
Thank you. 🙂
Great article. Though I don’t agree with just one “blog with more comments are popular”. If your comments are not spam and you have a lot of comments it actually adds to the content of the post. More detailed content more better ranking. If you want to see it visit quicksprout(dot)com/blog/ and backlinko(dot)com/ .I am following these two famous bloggers for a long time. Forums used to get rank in google because they have content about discussion on a particular topic. But now due to huge spam in forums google shifted it’s focus from forums to blogs. It gives better ranking to blogs with genuine discussion and comments. When you read google guidelines for webmasters you will find that Google wants contents. By saying content Google means that you should give content to people they are actually looking for and it will reduce the bounce rate. If a visitors comes to your website he/she does not have to visit another website to know that he/she is looking for. This is content and discussions and comments do add to the content because they are on the same page of the post. If you see the source code of this page you will find out they my comment and your post are infact on the same page and it has added to the content. Feed google and it will send your visitors and people will automatically share your content on social media. 😉
I have been following the same blog since long and I agree that quality comments do add more valuable content to your blog post but when you say that ‘good number of comments is necessary for success of your blog’, that’s when it becomes a myth… a big stupid myth. The theory that if x=y, y would automatically be equal to x needs to be shunned when we’re talking of this topic.
Comments do help in bringing you more google love. Maybe but then their absence doesn’t mean you can’t rank well on google.
I agree with your post. If i talk about my experience in blogging from last 4 year . I had learnt many things in blogging. I start the blog in 2012. But failing of the blog is to i target to get money ASAP. My personal Experience say’s. Your points are good on blogging.
1) Start Up a Blog
2) Target the niche and audience
3) Social Sharing in 2015
Note : Stop thinking about the money before to start up a Blog. In Every start up you need to Seed the tree, than feed it and wait for the result.
Hello Aman, you are right. That’s a great though about starting your blog. Are you working on some new blog at present?
Manpreet thanks for reply. Yes i am working on more than 10 personal blogs. Appart from that i recently did start up in affiliate marketing with click bank and peerfly networks.
10 blogs… wow!
I would like to see all of them. 🙂
And good luck with affiliate work.