Things I Wished I Knew About Blogging Before I Started!

Hello everyone! I hope you're doing well. Today I was thinking about things I wish I had known about blogging before i started. I thought that if I just started writing, I would just know everything, but boy was I wrong. There is so much that goes into blogging, that if I had just known these few things, my transition would go that much smoother.

Twitter Chats

When I starting blogging, I had never used Twitter beforehand. Sure, my friends all wanted me to join, so I would create one, use it for about a week or two and then quit. I probably have about 2 other profiles swimming around Twitter as we speak. I don't honestly even remember what made me decide to get another twitter. I think I must have read a blog post recommending I get one? I honestly don't know. Well I did, and boy am I glad I created one. So much of the blogging community communicate on there! One thing that I had no Idea happened was twitter chats! There are actually special chats that happen throughout the week. It's such a fun and easy way to get to know people from the blogging or YouTube community. They are a little hard to keep up with since everyone's so busy, but if you ever want to meet cool like minded people, definitely start there. Actually, Jordan, came up with a helpful chart that shows all of the bloggers chats and what time they start! Remember that these are in BST time! 

Scheduling Tweets

This is something that has actually changed my life. There are some days that I don't have the time to actually promote my blog posts on twitter. This is when I have to learn about Buffer and Crowd Fire! These websites are so amazing! They each come with a free option and some premium options. I usually use Buffer for the actual scheduling my posts. The free package allows you to schedule 10 posts at a time. I am going to actually invest in the Awesome package while I go on Vacation! This will allow me to post up to 100 posts at a time, which is perfect for my week long trip to Costa Rica next week.

SEO

This is probably the most important one, and still the one I work the hardest on every single day. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is basically a way to lead search engines to your blog. The better you are at SEO, the more likely your blog will be found. For this I have two recommendations. I use the plugin Yoast SEO, for my blog. It rates how well each post is in two categories, SEO and Readability. I don't usually use it the moment I write the post. I usually go back and do a few at a time at the end of the month.

The other suggestion I have is to go to an SEO professional. In my state (New Jersey), one of the best SEO companies is NJ SEO*. They are a family owned business that take the time to turn your readers in customers and will help you get on the front page of Google! It's kind of cool if you don't have the time to try to learn SEO. Even I, a person who's been blogging for about a year can tell you that SEO is not easy and if I could hire a person who already knows it all, I totally would! Definitely check them out (SEO NJ)!

Blogging takes LOADS of work/time.

If you read my past blog posts (here and here), you would know that I started blogging because I had a passion. I thought I would write a few words, and take some mediocre pictures, and I would be done! I mean you can see by my earlier posts, that that is what I thought. I'm here to tell you now, that I mean it could be that easy, but if you want to continue improving your blog. It is going to take a lot of time. I spend every single day doing something for my blog, whether it's taking pictures, checking on my social media and emails, brainstorming new posts, or even just reading other people's posts. I'm always trying to improve my blog, and that is always going to take time. You're never done learning when it comes to blogging.

The wonders of Canva and stock photos

This is something I deff wish I knew once I started! When I started out, I had so much trouble trying to create pretty featured images for my posts! I was using Pic Monkey, which was a good way to start, but not the ideal. I was on a twitter chat when someone recommended using Canva! This immediately changed the way that I design my covers. They have different sizes for frequently used covers. You can create YouTube thumbnails, covers for your social Medias, literally anything. Another thing that really helped me was stock photos. If you guys don't know, there are pictures that you can legally use for free. These pictures are called stock  photos. I don't know if you knew this or not, but you can't just go on google images and take any image you find. That's called stealing. You might not think so, and it's okay if you don't, cause I'm here to tell you that there are websites you can use to get images. I typically use Pixabay and PicJumbo. They have a large variety of images, so I hope this helps you guys!

I hope this helps any of you new bloggers out there, because if I found a post like this when I started, things would be so much better for me. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to either send me a private message or leave a comment down below. I promise to get back to each and every one of you. Have a wonderful day. Sending you all love and positive vibes!

-Melina xxx

**Note that there is sponsored content on here. Everything mentioned on this post is written by myself. Everything stated is my own honest opinion.**