What to Expect The First Year As A New Blogger My Experience

Last updated on August 1st, 2018 at 07:01 pm

Have you ever wondered what to expect the first year as a blogger? Some of us have unrealistic expectations of what we can achieve with our blogs.

I’ve been known to have pie in the sky dreams. I’m a huge dreamer.

While there’s nothing wrong with dreaming, it’s important to have realistic expectations.

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This doesn’t mean that you don’t shoot for the stars.

It just means that you just don’t throw in the towel or beat yourself up if you don’t reach your expectations.

If you’ve just started your blog, I’d love to say congratulations. You’re about to find out that blogging is hard work. I’ve got you covered on the basics of WordPress, everything else, we’ll learn together 🙂

There’s no shortcut to the success, so stop looking. Don’t make the same blogging mistake I made countless of times in the past.

As you know, I share my monthly blog growth stats with you. I don’t do it because I claim to be an expert blogger. Instead, I choose to do it to help me stay motivated and it challenges me to improve each and every month.

Even though that doesn’t always happen. I can go back and look and see what I’ve accomplished at the end of every month.

I thought since you like reading my monthly blog growth stats, why not share what to expect the first year as a blogger.

I’m not saying that my first year expectations will be the norm. After all, your first year expectations could be totally different than what I’ve encountered my first year.

I Set Unrealistic Blogging Goals

Before I share with you what to expect the first year as a new blogger. Let me share something with you. When I started this blog, I sat down and made some goals.

I even created a video of my blog stats on month 5. The video walked through my Google Analytics at that time and I talked about some of the goals that I’d love to reach by my first year.

It was kind of like a letter to my future self.

I just watched the video the other day when my blog hit it’s first year anniversary.

It doesn’t seem like my blog has grown very much. However, when I watch that video, I can definitely tell how much my blog has grown in just 7 months.

Why 7 months? Because I didn’t start promoting my blog until it was 5 months old. Huge rookie mistake.

As I continued watching that video I have saved on my computer. I realized that once again I had set unrealistic blogging goals. Here’s a great article that will help you set realistic blogging goals.

I had aimed too high and didn’t reach any of them. While it’s great to set blogging goals, it’s important to make them realistic.

Otherwise you’ll end up feeling like a failure that you didn’t reach them.

It’s funny because even though I didn’t reach my first year blogging goals, I don’t feel like a failure. I don’t even feel like throwing in the towel and calling it quits.

Why?

I guess it’s because I know that I’ve worked my ass off the entire first year of my blog. There was never a day that went by that I didn’t take some type of action to grow my business.

That’s all I can ask of myself.

[clickToTweet tweet=”Starting a blog is half the battle, focus on growth #WordPress #freetraining at susanvelez.com” quote=”Starting a blog is half the battle, focus on growth #WordPress #freetraining at susanvelez.com” theme=”style4″]

What to Expect The First Year As A Blogger?

Man that’s a loaded question, and there are so many responses to it. Instead of trying to answer everything, I thought I’d share a few my own experiences throughout my first year.

As you know, I’m not new to the Internet world. However, this is the first time I’ve stuck with something this long.

Can I get a virtual high five 🙂

So here’s a list of some of the things that I’ve experienced my first year.

Feeling Overwhelmed

As you know, the techie side of blogging is something that comes pretty easy to me. I’ve never been good at promotion, that’s why I’ve always jumped from one thing to another.

It’s easy to start a blog, but building a successful blog, well that takes a lot of hard work.

Promotion is the thing that helps you get your blog off the ground. Without it, you’ll never have success.

When I first started my blog I spent so much time reading about how to promote a blog. How can I increase my page views and so on and so on.

I would type in search after searching reading different blogs.

There are literally thousands of posts online that promise to show you how to promote a blog.

The truth is that it’s NOT that hard. Focus on 1-3 promotional tasks at a time and keep doing those things every day.This podcast helped me realize what it actually takes to grow a blog.

This is what I’ve done for this blog. Yes it’s taking time, but everything takes time. You can’t expect to start a blog today and see huge results tomorrow.

You’re going to have to put in the work, there’s no way around it.

Trying to Learn Everything At Once

Jumping into the Internet world is not easy. Especially, if you’re trying to turn your blog into a business.

As new bloggers, we wear all the hats in our business. We’re the ones who do the content writing, blog promotion, video creation, image creation, networking and the list goes on and on.

The thing is that most of us have never had any formal education on how to do any of these tasks. (I know I haven’t)

Everything is new to me. I had never used social media before this blog. (I know that’s crazy huh)

There are so many social media platforms and I was trying to learn them all. About two months ago, I finally decided to stop and focus on learning the ins and outs of Pinterest.

Related: How to Verify Your WordPress Blog On Pinterest With Yoast

Don’t waste your time trying to learn everything at once. Focus on just one thing and then move on to the next thing once you’ve mastered that.

How to Handle Frustration

You can sit down and write amazing content for your blog.

But if you don’t get off your blog and promote it, no one is ever going to see it. Even when you’re working your butt off to promote your blog, it’s going to take time.

It takes time to build up traffic to your blog.

It still seems like it’s taking me forever to grow this blog. I can’t seem to grow fast enough, so I’ve learned how to enjoy the journey.

In the beginning of my blogging journey, there were days that I was so frustrated because I saw people growing a lot faster than I was.

It’s easy to let those overnight success stories and income reports get you down.

The best thing that I did was stop reading them. They don’t do me any good and they just make me think that maybe I’m doing something wrong.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that so and so figured out how to grow a profitable blog. However, reading their income reports does not help me out whatsoever.

I’ve learned how to put my head down and focus on my blog.

How Many PageViews Should I Get The First Year?

We all want more page views. Without pageviews it means that no one is visiting our blog. And if no one is visiting our blog then no one is clicking on our affiliate links or buying our products.

I wish I could tell you how many page views you can expect the first year. I can only show you how many page views I got my first year.

It’s nothing amazing and I’m sure that many bloggers have gotten more than I have. However, this is my personal experience and I have no doubt that my page views will continue to grow as my blog grows.

For the first year of my blog I got a little over 31,000 page views.

Remember, I didn’t start promoting this blog till it was 5 months old.

I’m sure I could’ve done better if I had started promoting it right away.

How Many Subscribers Should I Have At the End Of My First Year?

I’ve read so many blog posts that say you should be able to get your first 1,000 subscribers in your first year. I did manage to get my first 100 subscribers.

What does this mean? Nothing other than I should take a look at ways to improve my conversion rates.

Am I upset that I didn’t reach my first 1000 subscribers in my first full year of blogging. No, what’s the point it won’t do me any good.

I’ve never been good at growing an email list. To tell you the truth this is the biggest that my email list has ever been.

Just like my blog, it’s growing even though it’s a slow process. That’s why everyone says that blogging is like a marathon not a sprint.

I can’t imagine my blog growing without the use of my favorite plugins.

I am a huge fan of the Social Warfare Plugin. This is the social sharing plugin that I use on this blog. Without it, I don’t think that my blog would be where it is right now.

The social sharing plugin makes it easy for people to share my content. That’s why I love this plugin, in fact, I’ve written several tutorials to help you get started using the plugin.

Related posts on the Social Warfare Plugin:

• Is Social Warfare the Right Plugin for You?
• Steal My Pinterest Image Creation System for Social Warfare
• Customizing the Click to Tweet on Social Warfare
• Setting Up The Free Social Warfare Plugin

Will My Blog Make Money In The First Year?

Let’s face it almost all bloggers want to make money with their blog. I know that’s why I started this blog. My goal is to replace my freelancing income with this blog.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with monetizing a blog. In fact, I think that every blogger should monetize their blog from the very start.

However, it’s important to realize that you won’t make money right away. Keep working on building up your blog foundation and working your ass off.

Eventually, the time will come when your blog starts to make money. You just want to be prepared in advance so you won’t have to go back and monetize all your posts later.

If you’re doing everything right, yes your blog will make money in your first year.

This blog has made money in the first year. It’s nothing llife-changing However, it’s nice to know that the money will continue to grow as the blog grows.

If you don’t know how to monetize a blog or want to learn more about affiliate marketing, I suggest looking into Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing.

I’ve been using the lessons that are taught in the course and they do work.

I Feel Like A Fraud

We all feel like an imposter at one point or another in our blogging career. Take me for instance, I blog about WordPress and blogging.

There are a lot more people who know about more about WordPress and blogging than I do.

So why makes me think that people will listen to me?

The truth is that we all share our own experiences on our blog. This is what makes you unique from other bloggers.

While it’s true that there are other WordPress experts who know a lot more about WordPress than I do. I’ve come to realize that I know enough to help people who are just starting their WordPress journey and want to know the basics.

The same goes with blogging. Plus I am continually sharing what I am learning as I blog.

So stop worrying about feeling like a fraud and just get over it. You’re just sharing your own experiences with people and the ones that want to listen will join you on your journey.

Other Bloggers Are Way Ahead Of Me

There are always going to be people who are way ahead of you. This doesn’t mean anything, it just means that they either started blogging before you did.

Maybe they know a lot more about how to promote their content than you do. If you’ve been following me on this blog, you know that the techie stuff comes easy for me.

When it comes to marketing, I pretty much suck. It’s all a learning process.

The only way that we learn is by taking action day in and day out. You’re going to make mistakes, heck I still find myself making mistakes all the time.

However, I don’t let my mistakes stop me from working towards my goals.

It doesn’t matter if so and so is way ahead of you in their blogging journey. The truth is that we all have to take our own journey in life.

So stop comparing yourself to other bloggers and just keep working on yours.

Final Take Away

It takes time to grow a blog and there’s so much to learn. Some of us start without any knowledge of anything. This means that we have a longer learning curve than others.

However, it doesn’t mean that you can’t success online with your blog. It just means that you’re probably going to have a harder and longer journey than others.

Don’t let that discourage you from starting and growing a blog. So what if it takes you 3-4 years to create a blog that makes you money.

What will you have if you don’t take the steps to start today? That’s how I choose to look at it.

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Did you set unrealistic blog goals for your first year? If so, did you experience the growth that you wanted? Let me know what you learned from your first year of blogging.