Debunking Common Blogging Myths: A Guide for New Bloggers

Debunking Common Blogging Myths: A Guide for New Bloggers.

If you’re completely new to blogging, learning what is and what isn’t factual is so important.

You don’t want to be put off before you’ve even started.

On the flip side, I want you to be fully clued in on what to expect when you first start your new blog!

We will go over some of the most common blogging myths and what the reality for these statements actually is.

If you are looking to start a hobby/personal blog and don’t intend on making money from it, or have no want to grow your blog into a business of any sort, that’s absolutely okay! You will just find that a few of these points don’t apply to you. 

This common blogging myths list is aimed at debunking the most common blogging myths you are likely to come across at some stage!

 

Blogging Is Dead And No Longer Relevant 

This one (to me) always amuses me.

I know that video is HUGE now, especially with platforms like YouTube and TikTok.

Just because those platforms are so popular, doesn’t mean that blogging is dead.

YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world!

Google is #1.

Blogs are found through Google! (Other places too but you get my point here.)

Every time you are Googling something, you most likely either end up on a niche website, or a blog.

Blogging may not be the most “trendy” of things compared to the likes of TikTok, but it’s still hugely (hugely) relevant.

Blogs are a source of information for your readers. Whether those readers need the information now, in 6 months, or 4 years time.

 

You Need To Be An Amazing Writer To Start A Blog

I actually did a whole post on this topic HERE.

The post explains exactly why you don’t need to be an epic writer to start your own blog and be successful with it. 

Have a read through that post if you want all of the ins and outs.

As a quick summary for you though, no, you don’t need to be a great writer to be a successful blogger.

The beauty of blogging is that you get to share your own information and opinions, your way. 

You will most likely find that as you grow in blogging experience, your skill of writing blog posts grows too.

Your readers are reading your posts because they are interested in what you have to say and the information you are providing.

This is much more important to a reader than the odd spelling mistake or if your grammar isn’t completely accurate all of the time.

If you are really concerned you can either use an online platform like Grammarly, or use a text-to-speech app. This way you can talk directly into your phone or computer and it may have more of a flow to it if that’s one of your concerns.

Overall this is definitely one of the most common blogging myths. And as much as I can understand why people think that, when you yourself think about it, you know that as readers we go to a page for the information, not to judge someone’s writing skill level.

 

You Need To Be An Expert In Your Niche To Start A Blog

Now this one is a common blogging myth which can certainly put people off starting their new blog!

You do not need to be an expert in your niche to start a blog!

Of course being somewhat knowledgeable in a particular niche can help in the beginning. But this only has to be a baseline of knowledge.

If you have a passion for a topic and want to learn more about it, that’s absolutely an amazing place to start.

You can learn and expand your knowledge with the growth of your blog.

Learning and doing research to grow your own knowledge is key. Then you can portray that information over to your readers, with your own passion behind it.

Of course you need to be careful not to share incorrect information as much as possible. Never share information on anything medical, legal or financial etc unless you really are qualified!

I’m talking more about if you have a love for something you can learn about and share.

Chances are that if there is a topic you are passionate about, you will already have a good knowledge of it. Or maybe you don’t think you do but if someone asked you a question relating to that niche, you could happily chat away about it without thinking.

That would be the perfect base to start with!

Blogging itself is a learning curve. 

If you are really new to a topic you’re really interested in, share that with your readers! Then you can all grow together.

Being knowledgeable helps, but isn’t essential by any means.

 

 

You Can Start A Highly Profitable Blog For Free

You can absolutely start a blog for free. It’s just not recommended if you want to monetise it to its full potential!

If you want to take blogging seriously and be able to really grow it into a business, you need to go the self hosted route.

This means you need to pay for a domain name and hosting.

These don’t have to be expensive in the beginning at all! I would always recommend HostGator as they never let me down, were super affordable and their online chat help was an amazing resource.

After that you don’t technically have to spend anything, but there are definitely other recommendations to make sure you get off to the best start!

Buying a premium theme will help give you those extra customisation options. It will also help your blog to look and feel a lot more professional, no matter how new it is.

If  you like the theme I have on my blog (correct as of April 2023), it’s Ashe Blog Pro! Was a one off payment of around £30ish and I still love it.

After that the other recommendations would be a legal bundle to make sure your blog is compliant and legally protected. SO many bloggers fail to add in this step and it can ultimately be the thing that makes or breaks your blog if things go wrong and you aren’t covered!

You can hire a Lawyer to draw you these up too if needed, but this will be pricey. 

Opting for a bundle of legal page templates offered by a Lawyer specifically, is by far the most affordable way to get yourself and your blog fully compliant.

You need a legal Privacy Policy page, Disclaimer page and Terms and Conditions page.

This is the bundle I used to get all 3 pages set up. Takes around 10 minutes to get set up on your blog and then you’re good to go!

You may feel you need to skip this step – please don’t. 

Blogging courses would be something else I would advise purchasing when you can. Of course there is loads of information in other blogs and on YouTube but if you want the premium information, you need to pay for the courses.

Any area you are stuck in, there will be a course on.

As you can see, as much as you can start off keeping the costs low, you do need to invest that little bit of money into it to really give it the best start. 

 

 

Blogging Takes Very Little Time

This one is so far from the truth it’s crazy lol.

Now don’t get me wrong, if you have a super busy/hectic schedule and don’t have much time, you can absolutely still have a blog.

On the whole though, blogging takes A LOT more time than you will ever expect it to.

If you are blogging as an online journal or just as a hobby, you can take your time and put as much or as little time into it as you like!

For anyone blogging to make money or have it as a blogging business, it’s a little different.

Blog post writing itself can take hours. This process can be streamlined but only with practice, and the practice itself takes time lol.

On top of that you have the engagement with other bloggers and with your own readers. Marketing and promoting – especially more in the early days. Learning and implementing SEO. Creating pinterest pins and scheduling them to go out multiple times a day. General research and Keyword research (using a tool like Keysearch can speed this part up massively). Taking courses. Admin. Affiliate Marketing and Email Marketing if you do those too.

That’s not everything, just a quick rundown!

Should you let this put you off if you don’t have hours of free time?

Absolutely not.

Processes get quickened as you go.

Writing an SEO friendly blog post may take a couple of days initially, but soon enough you’ll get that down to just a few hours.

If you are super short on time you can aim for 1 blog post a week instead of the “recommended” 2.

Things can be adapted and you can definitely fit it in around  your life/schedule so don’t let this put you off! I just wanted to be completely real in the fact that it does take time.

 

Blogging Results Will Be Seen Really Fast

I wish this one wasn’t in the list of common blogging myths lol. 

It will depend slightly on what results you are looking for. 

I’m sure you know that it takes time to grow a blog into a full business.

It will also take time even if you are wanting it as a successful blog but without it being “a business”.

You can start to see your pageviews start to go up early on. If you use a platform like Pinterest to market your blog this can really help!

Pinterest doesn’t favour big accounts, so even newer/smaller creators can be found in search! This is amazing for anyone new in the game as it means your pins can show up a lot sooner than your posts may show on Google.

(Quick disclaimer on Pinterest – if you are brand new to Pinterest as a creator or it’s a new Pinterest business account, this in itself can take a few months to fully optimise and start really getting traffic in.)

Learning SEO will definitely help you be found more on google.

This mixed with a good Keyword Research tool should really help you to rank on Google.

Google can take months before it ranks your posts, so the key is to keep writing well researched, high quality content, and not worrying about what is or isn’t showing on Google in the early days.

As long as your posts are indexed, Google can find them. It’s then up to Google.

You can market your blog yourself via Social Media before Google shows your posts! There are absolutely ways to market and promote your blog before Google and Pinterest really start sharing your content out.

Again – don’t let this put you off!

I’m just wanting to be completely honest with the reality of growing a blog.

It’s still absolutely worth it!!

As long as you are consistent and in it for the long haul, you will see results.

It just takes time.

 

You Can Make Money Blogging Really Fast

Of course there are always exceptions to the rule here! 

If you are one of the people who has made a lot of money really quickly, that’s amazing!

For most people, that isn’t the reality though!

Blogging can take months, if not years, to show a monetary return.

This will all depend on your experience, your knowledge, your strategy, and various other factors!

Often advertising platforms and affiliate marketing  programs will pay you at least 1 month behind the month you reach their payout threshold.

If you need to get to £60 to get paid from Adsense as it is in the UK, your account will keep topping up until you reach that £60 mark, and then you will get paid the month or so after. So if you hit the £60 in March, you would see the money in April/May time.

Your experience, strategy and size of blog following will determine how much you make from your blog. But these things can grow and be learned. It just takes time.

Here is a post on 7 ways to make money blogging – some will be quicker than others!

The sky really is the limit as there are so many ways you can make money from your blog! 

But you need to be aware that blogging is a long game.

It takes time to grow your skills, grow your content and grow your audience.

 

You Need To Publish New Blog Posts Daily

Some people do choose to publish brand new blog posts every single day.

Hats off to anyone who can do that!

Writing high quality blog posts is time consuming. Especially in the early days.

The recommended number of times to post in a week is 2 or 3.

As mentioned earlier in this post though, consistency is what’s important.

If you can only post once a week then do this, but make sure you do post once a week.

If you can write more than that – amazing! Don’t burn yourself out though.

If you find you can realistically publish a new blog post once a week, then do this. You may find there are times where you get two or three written in a week. If you do this, you can then schedule them to go up at a future date! That is the perfect way to take the pressure off of the upcoming weeks..

The other option is to have a couple of pre-written posts saved so if you’re ever not up to it, want to guest post, or life gets in the way of your writing schedule, then you’re already good to go!

The key is consistency and posting regularly. 

This doesn’t mean every day if that’s not a schedule that suits you.

 

You Can’t Make Money In A Small Niche

I’m a firm believer that you can make money in pretty much any niche you choose.

Choosing a niche because you are passionate about it and love learning/talking about it is what will keep you consistent. Consistency is KEY to growing a successful blog.

Some niches may be a little tricker to monetise, but there is always a way.

There are so many different affiliate programs to join, nearly every single blogger can utilise these.

You have adverts. (assuming you aren’t on a free blogging platform as often advertisers don’t prefer this.) Adverts are a good way to start earning something from your blog, especially if you aren’t sure how else to monetise!

A very small/specific niche may never get the traffic that a broader topic may get. The advantage there though is that the readers on your blog you can pretty much guarantee are interested in all things you are talking about within that niche. They will also be aware that there aren’t many others talking about topics in that niche.

Recommendations of products, services or courses via your blog and email marketing could be the ideal way to make an income.

You need a good strategy, but nearly any niche is possible to make money from.

You Need To Have A Huge Audience To Make Money Blogging

This one has an element of truth to it, but not fully.

So realistically you aren’t going to make money with no audience.

You do not, however, need millions of readers to make money from your blog!

Some things are done on more of a numbers game. But when it comes to building an audience, it’s quality over quantity.

What I mean by that is that you are MUCH better off with a smaller but more loyal and more engaged audience, than a huge following just because the numbers look better.

When it comes to affiliate marketing and the likes, you want your audience to be interested in what you are recommending. You want them to trust you. And you want them to have belief that your recommendation is solid.

You can absolutely make money with a smaller audience!

 

So those are the top common blogging myths and why they are (on the whole), things to ignore!

There are exceptions to every rule but for most of us, they don’t stand true.

 

What myths did you hear of before you started your blogging journey?

Did any of the above blogging myths take you by surprise?

Let me know in the comments below!

Speak soon!

 

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