100 Days of Blogging: 10 Lessons Learned

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Congratulations The Wallet Moth, you’re 100 days old! I’ve officially been running this blog for 100 days – check out my first post here (has much changed since I first posted?!).

Many successful bloggers say one of the biggest keys to success is to simply keep going. A huge number of bloggers stop before they’re even a year in, and while I’m not even a third of the way in and definitely not considering quitting, I can sympathise. Blogging is a big commitment! It’s also so rewarding, and what I’ve learned, and the people I’ve come to know entirely though this blog has been invaluable.

I wanted to commemorate my first 100 days as a blogger. In the past, I’ve started blogs and out of embarrassment, not knowing what to do, or, admittedly, sheer laziness, I’ve given up. Not this time!

Here are the top things I’ve learned from my first 100 days of blogging:

1.Blogging is so much more than just writing

When you think of a blogger, you think of someone who writes about a certain topic, and shares it on the internet. I’ve learnt that blogging is about so much more than just the writing. As a copywriter by trade, I’ve got that bit down – writing a blog post? No problem.

Where the time and effort comes in, for me, is creating images and graphics for my site, making everything look nice, and then sharing my posts regularly on social media. I’m not a natural sharer on social media – I never use Twitter personally, I remain silent on Facebook, and my Instagram is only updated on a ‘when I feel like it’ basis. Not sharing your blog on social media is fine, but no one will get to read it. When I’m putting this much time into something, I want to get my work out there, so marketing is essential – but it’s not easy!

2. You must be passionate about your topic

It’s easy to understand why many people give up blogging – if you pick a subject that you think will get a lot of readers, or that you could make money from quickly rather than picking something you’re actually passionate about, that enthusiasm will burn out quickly. I love that my blogs theme is slowly adapting as it grows – from covering budgeting in broader terms to honing in on the areas I’m most passionate about: working independently, travelling, and lifestyle changes that give people the freedom to choose how they want to live.

If I wasn’t passionate about my chosen topic, this 100 day mark may never have arrived…

3.Travelling and Blogging is tough

As I’ve shared in many of my posts, I’m now travelling the world full-time with my boyfriend, and we’re working while we do it. However, this blog started before that major life transition – I was working 9-5 in an office in Nottingham. Although I now control my working hours, keeping up with this blog has become so much harder.

Between working for clients who actually pay me (this blog is not monetised) and exploring the new cities we’re in, keeping up a blog as a passion project is tough to fit in. My blog posts have dropped from 2 – 3 times a week to once a week, maybe once in every 10 days. I’m putting this down to adjusting to my new reality, and am aiming to get ahead on posting within a few months, but the fact still remains that with a shift in lifestyles, the time and effort I can put into the blog currently has also changed.

4.The blogging community is insanely supportive

One of the top things I always read when getting advice from other bloggers on running a successful blog is not to regard your fellow bloggers as competition, but as friends. This has massively shifted my perspective, and by just reaching out to a few bloggers I’ve seen how supportive this community can be.

Whether it’s a follow-back on social media, or offering some thoughtful comments on a similar post, I couldn’t do without my fellow personal finance bloggers for their inspiring posts, stories, and comments!

5. Securing work through a blog is 100% possible

I’ve mentioned that I’m a copywriter by trade in the past on this blog, but I never gave much thought to using this site as a platform for securing paid work. However, in less than 100 days of starting this site, I’ve been contacted by several people with offers of work!

It’s been amazing to have people reach out to me based on the articles I post here, and just shows that the opportunities you can find by just putting yourself out there are endless! I hope to continue this trend and will use my blog to reach out to others who could benefit from my copywriting services (they’re excellent, by the way ?) in future.

6. Sharing on too many social media platforms means burn out

As I’ve said, marketing yourself on social media is essential as a blogger if you want your work to be read. By sharing my posts on Pinterest and Twitter, I’ve had larger sites re-tweet my work and received massive boosts in the number of visitors I get to the site in return. However, I’ve quickly learned that spreading yourself too thin by using multiple social media platforms is a bad idea.

In my first 100 days of blogging, I’ve started Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest accounts. My blog is also linked on my personal Instagram, but I focus promoting mainly on Twitter and Pinterest. This has allowed me to really focus on the number of followers I have, without taking too much of my time away from the actual blog.

7. You’ll learn more as you go

Being a newbie blogger can be a scary time – everyone seems to know what they’re doing and how to promote their blog so much better than you, and even if people do come to your blog, you’ve only got 1 or 2 posts to show off! If I’ve learned anything in my first 100 days of blogging, it’s this:

Every blog has a beginning. Keep going, and you’ll move past this stage. Read other blogs, keep writing, keep sharing, and keep networking – soon enough, you’ll feel like a bona-fide blogger as much as anyone else.

8. You don’t need to be an expert, you just need a new perspective

I was worried when I first choose personal finance as my blogging topic. I’d read stories about people who have paid off all their student debt in just months, or people who have saved thousands of dollars towards their retirement and I’d think, what can I offer that these people can’t?

Well, you can offer a new perspective. Just because other people have done amazing things, doesn’t mean you won’t. If you’re passionate and enthusiastic about something and have a new point of view to offer, I can guarantee that people want to read it.

9. Getting a premium WordPress theme is a must

I caved after about a month of blogging and purchased a premium WordPress theme for my blog. I got mine from PipDig and it’s absolutely the best decision I could have made for my blog. Going from a free theme to paid gave my blog a personality – I could customise almost every element to suit me, and now my blog looks professional, neat, and has the exact look I want for it.

10. Blogging isn’t easy, but it is worth it

You have to be more than enthusiastic to keep up blogging – you have to be disciplined. It would be so easy to let the weeks slip by and for this blog to disappear while I focus on travelling and working, but I wouldn’t want to do that. Why? This blog gives me a voice. It gives me a reason to keep reading about remote working, about minimalism, about alternative living, and it lets me share my thoughts and experience on those subjects.

The time and effort that blogging demands is always worth it for the voice it gives back.

Thanks for staying with me for 100 days! I can’t wait to see what the next 100 will bring…