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7 Lessons Learned in 7 Years of Blogging
I can hardly believe I’ve been blogging for 7 years now!
Two years ago, I published a blog post with the 5 lessons I had learned in 5 years of blogging. Today, I want to expand on that with 7 new lessons.
The blogging landscape has changed a lot in two years.
For example, when I published my previous post, AI had not yet entered the blogging world and ChatGPT was still months away from launching.
The massive Google algorithm updates of late 2023 and early 2024 had not yet decimated blog traffic for thousands of bloggers either.
On a personal level, my business model has changed slightly because I now earn money from freelance travel writing in addition to blogging, and this has allowed me to increase my income by several thousand dollars per month.
As always, things change constantly in the blogging world.
Here are some of the biggest lessons and takeaways from 7 years of blogging…
1. Blogging still isn’t dead.
When I started my first blog back in 2017, people were already talking about how blogging had reached its peak and it was too late to start.
If I had listened to those doom-and-gloom statements, I wouldn’t have started a blog and I would have never created a six-figure business!
Every year, people have continued to say that blogging is dead, but it wasn’t true then and it’s not true now. Has blogging changed? Yes.
Is blogging dead? Absolutely not. I wrote more about it in this post.
So if you haven’t started a blog yet, remember this: The best time to start was yesterday. But the second-best time to start is right now.
Check out my guide on how to start a blog if you need help.
2. You can’t rely on Google for traffic.
If 2023 showed me anything, it’s that you can’t rely on Google for traffic.
Many bloggers who only focused on SEO and had organic Google search as their number one traffic source saw their traffic plummet overnight.
I know bloggers who went from getting 100,000+ monthly pageviews from Google to zero in just the span of a few days. The algorithm updates were no joke, and tons of bloggers were affected by this. It’s really unfortunate.
For what it’s worth, none of my blogs saw any drop in traffic whatsoever — but organic Google search has never been my main source of traffic.
It’s so important to have diversified traffic sources. For me, this means a combination of Pinterest, SEO for search traffic, and my email list.
Getting traffic from Google isn’t a lost cause either. One of my blogs I started at the end of 2022 was not impacted by the algorithm updates and has been swiftly growing in organic traffic. However, it’s not my only focus.
3. Having an email list is more important than ever.
As I mentioned above, my email list is a big part of my traffic strategy.
On Blogging Her Way, I have close to 11,000 email subscribers. I started an email list at the very beginning of my blogging journey, and that was a majorly smart decision because it has really paid off for me.
Unlike social media, where algorithms change constantly and your followers may not actually see your content because you’re at the whims of the platform, you own your email list and have total control over it.
I’ve been sending a weekly newsletter for almost seven years now.
Not only is it a good way to drive traffic back to my blog, other benefits include connecting more personally with my subscribers, selling my own digital products, and promoting affiliate marketing offers that are a good fit for my audience.
Recently, I’ve gotten into newsletter sponsorships too.
If you haven’t started an email list for your blog yet, I highly recommend it. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to start an email list for bloggers.
4. People read blogs for a personal touch.
This is something that I think has shifted in recent years.
When blogging first started, it was basically a way for people to keep online diaries. In the early 2000s, lifestyle bloggers become popular public figures simply by sharing about their life, their home, and their families.
Then this shifted and blogs became more informational.
For a long time, you could make tons of money by having a totally impersonal and anonymous blog about, say, vacuum cleaner reviews.
It’s now harder to be successful with that type of site though.
For one thing, Google no longer ranks these types of niche sites as high (there are exceptions, but overall it’s become harder) in the search results.
For another thing, readers want to read about your personal experience and get more of a personal touch. That’s why people continue seeking out blogs instead of just reading bland AI-generated info that’s likely inaccurate.
5. You should care about what you’re blogging about.
This kind of ties into what I said above, but one thing I’ve learned in the past few years is that it’s really important to care about your blog niche.
Don’t choose to blog about a topic just because you think it will be a good niche for making money. If you do this, your lack of interest is likely to show, it will actually be harder to grow, and you will probably get burnt out quickly.
I do think it’s important to select a blog niche while keeping traffic potential and profitability in mind, but that shouldn’t be the only factor.
You don’t need to be super mega passionate about your blog niche (although it’s great if you are!) but you should at least have a good interest in it.
For example, I’ve started several travel blogs over the years, and I’m genuinely very passionate about travel. It’s one of my favorite things!
But I’ve also had a successful blog in the college niche. College isn’t a topic I’m extremely passionate about, but I had experience (given that I was a recent college grad when I started the blog) and more interest in writing about it than a topic like, say, gardening, which I know nothing about and have no interest in.
The point is, choose a blog niche you care about, have some experience with, and have some interest in, because this will help you be more successful.
6. Don’t overlook Pinterest.
With all the major Google algorithm updates recently, many bloggers have started looking towards Pinterest as an alternative traffic source.
I’ve personally been using Pinterest for blog traffic for seven years now and although there have been plenty of changes with Pinterest too, it has remained a great source of traffic for me (and the primary source of traffic for all my blogs!)
I’ve been using this strategy for years now and it has worked great.
It’s not too late to get started on Pinterest either. You may not be able to get super-fast results like you used to (gone are the days of growing a brand-new blog to 10,000+ pageviews within a month) but Pinterest still works really well.
If you aren’t currently using Pinterest for your blog, it can be a good way to diversify your traffic, something I’m a huge advocate of doing.
7. Taking shortcuts is okay.
Blogging is NOT a get-rich-quick scheme and when I say taking shortcuts is okay, I don’t mean that there’s a magical shortcut to instant success.
To succeed as a blogger, you need to be okay with the fact that you need to show up consistently for years, writing blog posts, sending email newsletters, posting on social media, optimizing your content, and so on.
There’s no way around that.
But there are ways you can simplify things and eliminate tasks you don’t enjoy so you can focus on what you do best. You don’t have to do it all.
Some of my favorite shortcuts include using stock photos on this blog instead of worrying about taking my own photos, creating blog post templates I can follow when writing content (really helpful on one of my travel blogs where every blog post follows the same format), and eschewing all social media except Pinterest.
In order to be successful with blogging, you need to be in it for the long haul, and shortcuts like this can make things a lot more pleasant and enjoyable.
Will I Still Be Blogging in 7 Years?
So these are some of the top lessons I’ve learned in 7 years of blogging.
Now the question is, will I still be blogging in another 7 years?
Blogging is the thing I’ve stuck with the longest now in my whole life. (I was someone who chronically quit all hobbies and activities growing up.)
During my first year of blogging, I was still in college. Then I kept blogging through over three years of working in the corporate world (not consecutively, I took some time off) as a cybersecurity consultant. And now I blog full-time.
Thanks to blogging, I was able to pay off my student loan debt in 9 months, quit my corporate job to travel the world (twice!), afford my dream apartment in New York, invest hundreds of thousands of dollars at a young age, treat my family to travel experiences, and so much more. It’s the best decision I ever made.
I certainly hope I’ll still be blogging in 7 years, although I anticipate that the blogging landscape will continue to change and evolve a lot.
That might mean pivoting how I run my business in the future, but that’s okay.
If you’ve been following along with me for a while now, thanks for sticking around. I hope we’ll continue to grow successful blogs for many years to come!