So you are thinking about starting a blog? Or maybe just are curious about maybe potentially starting a blog at some vague date in the very distant future? Maybe you decided you are absolutely 100% starting a blog, but you just have no idea where to even start. If any of these are you, keep reading. I have had several people contact me about why/how I started a blog and questions about how they could go about making their own. To kick this off I want to share with you guys how my blog came to be, and then I am going to share the secret (really not so secret) tool I used to help me launch my blog, get great content, and increase my views and grow my audience. This is by far the longest and in depth blog post I have made to date, and you can feel free to skip right down to the last section where I hid my secret sauce to blogging success and creation, but if you want to see the path I took and all the insecurities and struggles I had along the way and how I got to this point, go ahead and read it all.
*This post contains affiliate links meaning I receive a small commission, at no extra cost to you, when you purchase items through these links to help fund my costly yarn habits that allow me to keep posting patterns for you all. See my disclosure page for more information.*
My Blogging Journey
The Beginnings of the Idea
People ask me often if I just love writing, or if I majored in something that heavily involved writing. The answer is no. I majored in Accounting and Business. Neither of which had a huge amount of writing involved outside of office memos and business email etiquette. I also have always HATED writing in school. If I read on the syllabus that there was an essay (or multiple essays) due in that class I inwardly groaned and pouted completely dreading the hours of sitting and staring at my computer screen with nothing to say.
How did I go from dreading essays to writing a blog you ask? The answer is quite simple. When you talk about something you are passionate about, the words practically write themselves. I found in classes where I got to write about politics that I could whip up a paper in a quarter of the time. Because I was so passionate about my beliefs, the thoughts and ideas poured out of me onto the page. I would actually have to edit things out of my papers to make it fit within the maximum page cap the professors had.
While I wouldn’t say I am overly passionate about writing crochet patterns, I am extremely passionate about teaching others about crochet and making something completely new and unique. I think it is an extremely underrated hobby that most people assume is just for elderly women. I wanted to help shape peoples perspective and assumptions about crochet in general and the women (and men) who have this amazing hobby. It is not just for elderly women in nursing homes. It is for people with old souls in young bodies, and its for the young souls in old bodies. I really truly deeply believe that there is a style of crochet out there for almost everyone. When someone tells me I am “old” because I like to play with yarn, it just fuels my passion fire to open their eyes to all the wonderful youthful, unique, or vintage things that can be created in this amazing hobby. Hence the birth of my crochet blog.
Making my Vision a Reality
Yay! I decided to start a blog about crochet! But how? Well ladies and gents, it was a long tedious road filled with tons of confusing research and increasingly growing doubts about if I could even actually tackle this pipe dream of mine. I started reading other crochet blogs and I stumbled on a post that Ashleigh from Sewrella had made about starting a crochet or hobby blog. While her post was full of all kinds of great information about web hosting and buying a domain name, I was still hesitant and unsure if I was ready. I wasn’t ready to commit. Not ready to make a leap of the blogging cliff quite yet. I was at this “I’ll do it in a few more weeks… after I finish this… when I get more time…” stage for months. Probably almost a year honestly of me throwing this idea around in my head.
Then I got an email from my mom about Suzi who is the founder of startamomblog. Suzi is a young mom who helps people like you and me who want to start a blog. Her business was specifically made to help stay at home moms start a blog and potentially help increase their household income by working from home. So you may be thinking “wait.. Taylor you don’t have kids and you also have a day job..” well you’re right. While I am dog mom, I don’t actually have any human children, and that is okay. Her courses are applicable for any person, male or female, mom or nonmom, to start a blog. She posts her income reports of how and where she made her money as well as all the expenses she incurred in that month. In her latest income report her revenue was over $35,000. She made that much IN A SINGLE MONTH. Last year for the same month she made $3,500. She has increased her revenue tenfold in just a single year. Now you’re thinking, “I’ll never be that successful” and getting really discouraged. Well you may be half right…
We all may never reach Suzi’s level of success in the blogging world, but that doesn’t mean we wont have a good degree of success ourselves. We all may have different goals for our blogs. Maybe you want to quit your job and do this full time, maybe you want to blog part time while still working part time at a “real job”, and maybe this is just something you want to do on weekends or after hours and if you make a few extra bucks from it then great! Don’t fall into the comparison trap before you even start. Other bloggers are not our competitors, they are our friends, our people, our support group. It is amazing how many bloggers will respond to you and help you if you reach out to them. Bloggers have their own special little community full of amazing people willing to help. Don’t let amazing revenue numbers like Suzi’s scare you, let them inspire you. Let them show you all the possibilities of what could be, if you just start. Which brings me to my next point….
The Secret Sauce
At this point you are probably thinking “Taylor, just tell us the recipe to this damn sauce!”, so here it is! My blogging journey truly took off when I purchased Suzi’s Blog By Number ecourse. I purchased her course in the morning and by the end of the day I had my blog up and running with my first post published. Suzi has several different options ranging from an ebook, to the ebook + ecourse (which is what I purchased), and even a bundle of the ebook + ecourse + and a blog review where she personally checks out your blog and gives you helpful advice on what to do to improve it. What is so great about Suzi’s class that all of a sudden spurred me into action? I am glad you asked…
Suzi’s class tells you the benefits and perks of starting a blog, she helps you find your niche (blog topic), she walks you through step by step with a video of exactly where to click and how to set up your hosting, your theme, your plugins (I didn’t even know what a plugin was before this course), she helps you with picture editing for social media images, and so much more that I can’t even begin to list it all. Do you want to make money from your blog? Suzi will show you how. She will tell you what companies to contact for affiliate programs, she gives you scripts to follow to get into pinterest group boards, and how to create money making content for your blog. If you want just a glimpse into what this amazing woman can do for you and your blogging dreams check out her Free First Month Blog Plan for beginners. This is just a small picture of the helpful and insightful things you will get from her ebook or ecourse.
So trying to decide between the ebook and the ebook + ecourse bundle can be hard. If you are someone who likes to read and is willing to read the whole ebook to build their blog then by all means just purchase the ebook for a steal of a price at $18 (at least that was the price on my last check on Suzi’s site). It has all the information you need in the written form. BUT if you are someone who is a visual learner, and is like me and wanted their hand held and walked step by step with picture and videos on how to set up their blog, make great content, increase social media traffic, and tons of other money making tips she gives you, then the ecourse is definitely worth purchasing. It cost $97 for the ebook + ecourse bundle but after taking the class I would pay 3 times that just because of all the TIME and MONEY it saved me in the long run, not to mention my sanity.
I really cannot say enough good things about Suzi and her business. There is a reason she was able to rake in over $35,000 in a single month. It is because her products are absolutely worth the money, and she is a genuinely good-hearted woman looking to make a difference in peoples lives (pictured on the left with her two daughters). If you don’t want to take my word for it I highly encourage you to head over to her site and read all the amazing reviews she has gotten from other people who have taken her course. Reading the reviews is what really sold me on purchasing her ecourse. I was tight on cash at the time, but it was so absolutely worth it. I can’t believe how long I contemplated purchasing it before finally going through with it. My now future self would smack my past self on the head and yell “just do it already!”.
Do not hesitate to ask me any questions about my blogging journey or even anything about Suzi’s class. I highly suggest subscribing to her email list because she often offers deal or discounts and even occasionally free content specifically to her subscribers. I hope this post helped at least one person if not more. We all struggle with self doubt at times, but know you aren’t going through it alone! Best of luck to you loves!
