The 5 Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Started Blogging
Sometimes, I regret hearing about this whole blogging and affiliate marketing thing.
Mostly because I got sucked into the rabbit hole so deep that I now don't know how to get out of it.
The funny thing is, the whole process started about 3 months before I found Wealthy Affiliate and a part of me is thinking, things probably would've been a lot easier if I had WA before I actually started.
This is a list of the things I wish I'd known before I started blogging, all of which I only discovered in here.
1. The importance of .com
Because I didn't understand how important .com is, I looked at my domain and chose .live because it seemed pretty fun. *facepalm*
I spent maybe another week after Level 2 - Lesson 1 thinking about what I should do about my domain before deciding to do a rebrand.
New domain name - check.
.com - check.
I then spent the better part of three weeks redirecting my entire site to another domain.
While I was supposed to be on holiday.
In a remote island.
With only mobile broadband and a two-year old who was sprouting his back teeth (not fun!).
So yeah, DON'T move hosting while you're on a remote island with intermittent internet connectivity because you'll be paying the price for weeks on end.
2. Keyword research
By the time I signed up for my premium membership, I had a whopping 12 posts in my site.
Not much by the ultra-successful blogging standard but since they were all over 1,500 words, there was a fair bit to wade through.
Especially as I had no idea what the heck keyword research was so I was just writing blind.
For example, I had a post with the title, "The One Thing You Need To Know Before Creating Domestic Bliss". And guess what my keyword was, the one I actually put in Yoast.
"The One Thing" - That's what I put in!
And there was me scratching my head wondering why my traffic was nil.
So yeah, I had to go back and rewrite those too.
PS. Don't bother looking for it, that post has now been rewritten. :-)
3. Image size
See those 1,500 word blog posts?
Know how I broke them up?
I used images. Massive ones. You know, the ones that are sized for Pinterest.
One of those images was 3.5MB.
Just one.
So naturally, when I checked SiteSpeed, I got a question mark.
Not a zero. A question mark.
I scrolled down and basically got told off for using images that were not optimised.
I have now been sitting in front of my laptop for the better part of 4 days, resizing, compressing and optimising all of my images.
At times, I just want to cry.
4. Fetching and rendering
*sigh*
I didn't even know about this one until today.
While I was pushing my son's buggy to playgroup and wondering why, when I checked my page rank on Google for a keyword with a QSR of 47, I wasn't in the top 100.
Eh?
What was going on?
Apparently, I'm supposed to be fetching and rendering after publishing a post.
Well, I checked my Google Search Console Dashboard and lo and behold, my site wasn't even added.
After I'd done that and verified all versions of my site (http, https, www, non-www), I went to URL inspection and copy pasted the link to the offending post.
"URL is not on Google", spouted my dutiful laptop.
No wonder.
One more thing I needed to fix.
5. Nofollow Affiliate Links
So, of course I have affiliate links.
A bazillion of them.
I don't even remember where I used which link.
And there I am happily typing away only to discover, while searching for something else, that apparently dear Mr. Google needs me to nofollow my affiliate links so that he doesn't assume that I'm just spamming and then penalise me by not indexing my site.
What did I do about this?
Errrr, I haven't actually done anything yet. (Except probably annoy SiteSupport because I am once again messaging them about my site's painfully slow speed. Peace, ladies and gents!)
But eventually, after a break and maybe an entire bottle of great Scotch whisky, I'll get round to adding rel="nofollow" to all my affiliate links.
In conclusion
To end this whole rambling post, I suppose I just want to say that if you ever find yourself needing to go back and fix something, just remember that you're not alone.
We've all been there.
It's a part of the process (my process anyway, I don't know about the more successful online entrepreneurs out there but I like to think it's part of their process too).
And everything is a learning experience.
It's a marathon, remember? Not a sprint.
What about you? What were the key things you really wish you'd known before starting out?
Recent Comments
2
Great post!
Yes we are in marathon and the race is
not against anyone, but in the company
of the WA community that helps us to move
forward.
Have a great day!
Ingrid
Thank you, sometimes it gets pretty lonely and disheartening but when you're with like-minded people, it really does help 😊