The 5 Best Decisions We Made Our First Year Blogging

Happy one year to Sincerely Jean (2/1/16)!  It feels so good to type those words!  I feel like we have officially made traction in the blogosphere!  This year has been a HUGE learning curve!  I never knew how much work went on behind the scenes of blogging…but trust me it’s a lot!  We didn’t have a huge budget to spend on our blog the first year so we have had to learn how to do everything by ourselves.  We are our own photographers, writers, editors, ad managers, web designers, and creative minds.  It is basically like running a small business on your own.  But blogging is very rewarding.  It is a creative outlet and a way to connect with so many people.  It is also a great self motivator because you are forced to constantly learn and keep trying if you want to see progress!

If you are looking for more info on starting and monetizing your own blog, read our “How to Start a Blog in 5 Steps” and “5 Ways to Make Money Blogging” posts.  You can also check out our full recommendations page.

I want to first share where we were at a little over a year ago.  Rewind to January 2015, Tami, Patti, and I were at our parents house sitting in their office.  We had thrown around the idea of starting a blog every now and then but never actually did.  Finally, while we were sitting in that office, Tami was the one who said let’s just do it!  I was the one who was most hesitant because I was 6 months pregnant and didn’t know how much time I would have with a newborn.  But Tami kind of took the reigns and signed us up for a free blog on Weebly.  (We now have our own hosted site with Bluehost-which I will talk more about later- and we don’t recommend Weebly because it is not very user friendly and very limited!)  Our very first blog post was exactly one year ago from today on February 1, 2015 by Patti.  For those first few months we honestly didn’t really know what we were doing.  I don’t think a lot of bloggers do when they first start.  Luckily, we did have some connections with other bloggers who started giving us advice and leading us in the right direction.  

Fast forward to July 2015, we found ourselves in that same office again at our parents house discussing how we needed to take this blogging thing a little more seriously if we wanted to be successful.  We decided to dive in 100% and haven’t looked back!  We did our research and decided to host our site on Bluehost.  We originally chose a free theme and designed it ourselves which forced us to learn the in’s and out’s of WordPress.  After learning more about WordPress and SEO, we later ultimately ended up making the decision to purchase the Genesis Framework and Foodie Pro Theme.  If you want to read more details on Bluehost and the Genesis Framework, you can read our “How to Start a Blog in 5 Steps” post. 

We also decided to purchase DSLR cameras so that we could seriously up our photography game!  Our photos have made a TON of progress from where we first started!  One huge thing we have learned this year is GOOD PHOTOS ARE VERY IMPORTANT!  We didn’t break the bank on our cameras.  We actually found less expensive used ones that were still in good condition.  We have taught ourselves how to use the cameras by reading articles.  One of the best articles I have found is written by Serious Eats and you can find it HERE. 

We have really been working our little hearts out this year!  We have made a ton of progress and are happy with the success that we have had!  We wanted to share with you the 5 best decisions we made our first year blogging.  We hope that this will help anyone who is thinking about starting their own blog or who is currently in the beginning stages of their blog!  

#1 STARTING TO NETWORK

You might be thinking to yourself right now that you don’t know very many bloggers and don’t know where to start networking.  This is how we felt at the beginning because we only knew a few bloggers.  We are going to share 3 great ways that we have been able to network this year.

One of the  best ways we have found to network is by doing LINK PARTIES.  You can find my very detailed post on link parties HERE.  Basically, link parties are when large blogs allow other bloggers to post content on their site once a week for free.  Hundreds of bloggers add their posts and it is a great way to meet other bloggers!  When my sisters and I first started doing link parties, we visited other blogs who had linked up and made a Google sheet to keep track of the blogs that we liked and that were in our niche.  We also looked at their social media following to get an idea of how much traffic they have coming to their blogs.  We then decided to reach out to larger blogs in our niche and ask them if we could guest post for them.  We had a few not respond to us but most of them did.  Guest posting is not only a great way to connect with other bloggers but is a great way to gain new followers.  The bloggers that we have guest posted for have allowed us to link back to our blog within the guest post and have given us shout outs on their social media.  After doing several guest posts, we decided that we would like to become a regular contributor for a larger blog.  We kept our eyes out for opportunities.  When the timing was right, we were able to become a monthly contributor for a blog that we had previously done a guest post for.   Being a contributor is great because we get to connect with the same readers on a regular basis.  They get to know who we are and what our blog is about and hopefully look forward to our next contributor post! 

Another way to network is to SHARE other bloggers content.  The best compliment you can give to a blogger is to share their content!  I have been doing this mainly through Bloglovin’.  I follow the blogs that I like and regularly share their content on our Facebook page and tag them in my post.  The blogger usually always likes or comments on the shared post on our page.  Make sure you are genuine though!  Only post content that you really do love.

Another great way to network is by doing ROUND UP POSTS.  Round up posts are basically when you chose a topic and then find great posts from other bloggers that fall into that topic.  Make sure you clearly give credit to that blog!  Don’t steal people’s content!  That is a HUGE no no in the blogging world!  After your post has gone live, reach out to all of the bloggers you featured via email or social media and let them know you featured them and give them the link to the post.  You can see an example of a “20+ Kids Christmas Crafts” roundup I did HERE.  I reached out to every single blogger that I featured and several of them responded or commented on the post and thanked me for sharing their content.

#2 STARTING TO RESEARCH

You should treat your blog like a business.  There is SO much to learn about blogging, it’s nuts!  Before I started blogging I never realized how much work goes on behind the scenes.  I have done research on everything ranging from SEO to photography.  I would recommend doing all the online research you can.  There is a ton of great free information out there.  One of the best photography articles I have found is by Serious Eats which you can find HERE.  I would also recommend to start reading books about blogging.  One book that I have read and highly recommend is “How to Blog for Profit: Without Selling Your Soul”.  It was written by the author of the Living Well Spending Less blog, Ruth Soukup.  According to her media kit on her site, she currently receives over 3.4 MILLION pageviews a month so I think she is worth listening to!  She gives a ton of helpful tips!

#3 MONETIZING OUR BLOG

This seems to be a controversial subject in the blogosphere.  Some people think that you need to reach a certain amount of pageviews per month before you can start monetizing.  We started monetizing about 6 months after we started blogging and we are glad we did!  We didn’t have a single complaint from our readers about our ads and I actually think it is good to start with ads from the beginning rather than bringing in ads after you already have your following.  There are tons of different ways you can monetize your blog.  Right now we are using Google AdSense and Amazon Affiliate links.  And yes, we actually did make money our first year blogging!  It wasn’t a whole lot but it felt great to actually make some money from all the hard work we put in this year!  (Update 8/29/16: Check out our “5 Ways to Make Money Blogging” post.)

#4 SIGNING UP FOR A BLOG CONFERENCE

We are attending our first blog conference this month and we are so excited!  We signed up back in July so we have been waiting for 7 months!  Even though we haven’t attended yet, we are glad that we signed up because it has kept us motivated!  When you pay for something and have a set date, it forces you to commit.  Our conference has given us something to look forward to and has motivated us to keep improving.  We can’t wait to meet more bloggers and gain knowledge on how to improve our blog!  We will definitely write a post about it when we get back!  (Update: Check out how our first blogging conference went HERE.)

#5 HAVING REGULAR PLANNING MEETINGS

My sisters and I talk about our blog with each other pretty much every day but we also have formal planning meetings.  We usually meet about 2-3 times a month to plan, discuss our ideas, and make decisions.  Sometimes we meet in person and sometimes we have a three-way phone call.  It helps a TON and we highly recommend it!  Even if you are running your blog by yourself, it is a good idea to set aside some time to plan.  (TIP: I put a list of things I want to talk about in our meetings in my notes app on my phone so that I can easily add things whenever I think of them.)

Keep doing your research and try to constantly learn!  If you have any questions, we would love to hear from you!  Leave a comment or email us at Contact@SincerelyJean.com. 

Sincerely, 

shari jean

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