Your First Year Blogging - What You Should Expect!

READ LATER - DOWNLOAD THIS POST AS PDF >> CLICK HERE <<

Spread the love

Your First Year Blogging – What You Should Expect?… Generally speaking.

For anyone that has maybe been recommended to start a blog/website, as a framework for a new business, or side hustle you likely have a few questions, if not more. I know that I did when I started, and of course, you will too if you are new.

Like, when you first start a blog “what kind of money can you make?”

Or, not only this but “how fast can you actually start making money?”

I mean it is nice to think that your motivation is not just financial but let’s be real about this. The World SUCKS! ? It is true that you don’t always need money to enjoy yourselves. Maybe you have friends and family that will look after you, or it might be an activity you don’t need any money for, but MOST OF THE TIME – this is not true at all ?

This is a nice thought but you need money for food, bills, clothes etc. and that is before you even consider your leisure time and external activities outside of work. The system can be very cruel in this respect. Money is integral to everyday life. THIS is a simple fact!

So, of course, if you are going to become involved in something as time-consuming as blogging you are going to want to earn some money for your time. Even if it is something you enjoy doing (as do I). Except I would say there are a few things you need to know about first!

Exactly, why I have written this blog post…

Your First Year Blogging – What To Expect

Table of Contents

Now, Blogging can be a very rewarding experience but it takes time, patience, and perseverance.

Like any new venture though, there will be some bumps along the road. Of course, you will have to overcome these on your way to creating a successful blog/website. It can be intimidating at first seeing what you are up against but don’t let this put you off.

We’ve written this article to help you with getting started and knowing what to expect on your journey!

If you find this post today helpful please bookmark this page, share it on social media and let us know all about it in the comments section.

We would love to hear from all of you.

Now, let’s dive in and we will first tackle the main question.

What Can You Expect From Your First Year Blogging – If You Do It Right!

When you first start a blog one of the big questions is “what can I expect from blogging?” This is a much broader question than the headline I know, but I expect most people will actually look beyond the 1st-Year if their heart is really in it. ❤

I don’t want to stray away from the main question above but generally speaking…

if you manage to set up a successful blog you can expect certain things to happen.

Earnings from Advertising
Earnings from Affiliate Marketing
Networking with Other Bloggers
Selling Your Own Products / Courses
Building An Email List
Publishing Your Own EBook(s)
Having a Growing Number of Visitors Reading Your Blog

The sky really is the limit! Blogging can be very rewarding but it takes time, patience, and perseverance.

Like any new venture, it is one where there will be some bumps along the road. Things you will have to overcome on your way to Blogging Success! but as you progress much of this will become a distant memory.

Each new post you write you should find yourself learning new things along the way. A process that will eventually begin to start producing results. Something that will grow prevalent the more content you publish!

So The First Year…

You must keep working. Don’t expect to just publish a few posts with affiliate links and for people to start using them right away. Sure it happens but typically speaking you might not receive your first commission till maybe the 2nd or 3rd month.

Even longer it can take. it all depends. In my view, the two main things are quantity and quality. You must find the right balance. As well this YOU of course need to monetize your content. If you do not do this you will not get paid simple.

In any case, do not worry too much if you don’t earn any money early on. Not everyone does but certainly consider this – you will have more chance of this happening if you publish more content. So keep writing as much as you can.

How To Make Your 1st Earnings

Try to get to a threshold of 25 posts as soon as you can. Then apply for Adsense.

You likely will not make much in the beginning but it’s a start. Plus you never know there might be days that might surprise you.

In my experience, there are days when you make pennies and others where you might make pounds. It depends on your traffic and CTR.

However, just make sure to understand this – NEVER click on your own ads! Adsense is notorious for banning people!

Also, Signing up with Amazon Associates early on might be a good idea as well. I am far from a fan of Jeff Bezos and the Amazon company but still, I think this is a good idea. Pennys make pounds. Plus many with new blogs make their first commissions with Amazon. So this is at least OK, to begin with (I would say).

Even, on this tip, eBay Partner Network is fairly easy to use. I’ve only started using it recently but definitely is ideal for beginners.

Just bear in mind neither eBay nor Amazon pays very much for their commissions. They can be a nice little top up though and in the beginning, even if you only make say $0.50 in the first or second month this can still feel like a big achievement.

Plus what this will show you is one of your affiliate links is converting. Once this happens this has the chance to pay you again and again.

If you can replicate this with affiliate links that pay better commissions you are definitely on to a winner.

So, that’s the First Three Months

Really you should give yourself at least a year to get a blog up and running. In this time you must produce content that your readers will love. This will ultimately be how you can continue to grow from strength to strength.

You should notice small things happen though in the meantime. In your first 3 months, you may receive 1-2 commissions from say Amazon and maybe a small amount from Adsense. If you are lucky you might receive a commission from Clickbank or another approved affiliate vendor. [Check some of these out here].

Not considering the bigger commissions here is what you might typically expect to earn in the first 6 months.

	Traffic	Earnings
January	10	0
February	25	$0.50
March	50
April	100	$1.00
May	250	$2.00
June	375	£4.25

It’s not much but the key here is these amounts are going up ?

You should see in the 3-6 month period you still probably won’t earn very much. However, if done right you will start to see the momentum start to build. So say February you make $0.50, March you might make $1.00, April $2.00 and May $4.25.

Nothing to scream from the rooftops about but if this is happening you are on the right track.

Think of the amounts of money like a snowball that is getting bigger and bigger.

Then Beyond Your First 6 Months…

Of Your First Year Blogging

It’s going to take at least a year before you have a steady readership of people visiting your blog. The more traffic the more earnings – it’s a numbers game. However, from 6 to 9 months you should hopefully start making more impressive amounts.

Your first $10, $20 even $50! It might not seem like much for 9 months of work but this is realistic.

You might make more or you could make less. IF everything is done properly though and your traffic is increasing more and more every month you should expect to earn more money.

See this table below. It is by no means accurate but it probably is realistic for earning potential.

	Traffic	Earnings
July	750	$10.50
August	1250	$22.50
September	3000	$57.50
October	4750	$125.00
November	8500	$175.00
December	12500	$255.00

I can not guarantee you will make these amounts. Really these are guesstimates based on my research from similar blog posts to this one. I probably made a bit less than this myself in my 1st year and this is without AdSense, Amazon and less traffic. You can definitely make more than this but my friendly advice is STICK to one website at a time.

It’s good to be ambitious but put your other ideas for websites on hold until you reach 100-150 posts. Putting your sole focus on one project at a time will help you produce more content and build more traffic. You can spend the time that you are not spending on another project promoting your posts on platforms such as Pinterest and Tailwind.

I mean I never did it this way myself but I think It definitely made my job much harder as a result. I started 5 websites in my first 6 months lol DO NOT DO THIS!

Now, so, just try to think of this post as a blueprint for just one post.

The following tips for your first year blogging should also come in handy!

i.) Blog Posting Frequency Will Vary and That’s OK!

At first, you can expect the frequency of your blog posts to be all over the place. You likely will not be able to keep up with a steady stream of publishing blog posts at first and this is ok. To a certain degree.

This is how everything begins and there is nothing wrong with that. With your readership growing, your knowledge and experience will increase, so feel free to keep blogging as much as you can. As long as you do not give up.

ii.) Don’t Feel Like You Have To Blog Every Day!

It is better if you do but Blogging is not a job or something that has to be done every single day.

When it comes to blogging, there are no rules and you really can work at your own pace. Some say it is better to treat it as a 9-5 job. Of course, this is true but don’t force yourself so much that you no longer enjoy doing it. It should be something you feel passionate about. The more you can enjoy it the more chance you have of making it work.

As long as you are doing something. This is what matters but ultimately the very least you should publish is 1-2 blog posts a week. If you can afford it pay a freelancer on Fiverr for a few extra articles a month. This will help you publish more content.

Ultimately, something like 150-175 posts in your first year is good progress and a very realistic goal. it works out as one new post every 2 days. Definitely achievable and let’s say you hire a free $25 a month for 5 articles that is 60 articles.

If you do 120 articles and they write 60 this gives you 3 days to write one article of your own and to finish off one article of the 5 you bought. You should be able to do this with no problems.

iii.) Stop Waiting For Inspiration To Strike

You’ll Have More Content and Readers Will Love You For It!

In your first year of blogging one of the first things to learn is how everything works. WordPress should really be the only option here. It’s very easy to use and lets you install many different cool plugins.

For me personally, I found the free training with Wealthy Affiliate was very easy to follow for setting up my first website. It can be a bit of a drag after this because you have to pay $47 a month. However, at the very least it is worth paying at least for the $19 offer for the first month of Premium. Just be sure to save a backup if you don’t intend to continue.

Now, so when you are just starting out? You wait for inspiration to strike! right?

You get to work writing and try to get this information down as good as possible. Many of your posts will come to you this way but when they don’t – what do you do? Do you stop? Well, I say DON’T!

Ideas for blog posts are everywhere.

On Facebook, Twitter, Quora, and Reddit etc. The list is endless. So stop waiting for the perfect idea and start blogging with any other topics you find that interest YOU!

iv.) Ask For Feedback

Blogging is about sharing your opinions and knowledge with others in your niche. So, you should take some time to learn about something you do not know much about before you attempt to blog about it. Getting content out there is definitely important but any mistakes you make will be immediately spotted by people who are experts on the subject.

A good blog post should contain accurate and helpful information. One of the main reasons bloggers enjoy sharing their blog posts is that they can exchange tips and advice with their fellow bloggers.

Taking this approach may help you to make corrections, later on, to help improve the overall quality of your content.

You will want to do this as your ultimate goal is to offer value and assistance to your general audience.

But don’t worry about this too much…

iv.) Expect To Make Mistakes

Blogging works the same way as traditional publishing does, you don’t write a bestselling novel on your first try – do you?
You might (if you’re lucky) but the majority of the time these things take a good amount of practice and time.

So you must be patient with yourself in a lot of ways. Most of the time when something doesn’t work out there is often a good reason why. Perhaps it will be because you haven’t done enough research or given yourself enough time before writing your new post to actually really understand the topic.

Either way, getting to work needs to happen sooner or later. Even if you do your research at the same time as writing. If you are stating something as a fact then look it up on google to double-check. If you make mistakes well don’t beat yourself up about it – you can always edit your posts later on.

Expect to make these mistakes they will happen.

My Verdict

In your first year blogging, you should accept that this is a long journey. Your first 12 months is only just the beginning. To be a real success you must be prepared to commit your time further. It can take some people years but of course many in just this ONE YEAR can develop a successful business.

What You Can Do Working 8 Hours A Day – This is what’s possible!

However, here is a more realistic article about another bloggers experience of how long it took them to really start earning good money from their blogging efforts. This is from just over 2 years of starting a new blog.

$3 Dollars Short of $8k. My Best Month after 2 years of Blogging!

So, what are you waiting for?

You’ve got lots of blogging to do! Begin your blogging journey by following bloggers who know what they’re doing.

Also, check out some of my other blog posts that will help you get started if you haven’t done so already xx

Also, here are my other tips for new bloggers.

Hyperlink to at least one High DA website in your blog post. Wikipedia etc.
Share 1 or 2 Youtube videos within your content.
Submit your new posts to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools.
Use Rankmath SEO Plugin (It’s free)
Learn how to use Pinterest and even better if you can Tailwind
Keep an eye on your Site speed with GTMetrix (Try to keep it under 2 seconds)
Reach out for help if you need it – I use Wealthy Affiliate and Reddit

In Conclusion – Final Words

At the time of writing this article according to statistics around 2.75 MILLION blog posts are published EVERY DAY. 4.09 Million blog posts are read each month and there are over 450 Million websites just on WordPress alone!

So in terms of how lucrative this business is well, it’s lucrative. It is just that it might not happen as quickly as you would like it to. On average a new blogger/website owner might only make $500-$1000 in their first year. This might cover your outgoings or it might not.

Truthfully speaking you must be prepared to at first work for nothing. Financially speaking this is a long term investment plan. For it to really work you must look at the bigger picture.

The longer you stick at it and the more work you do the more chance you have of being successful.

Enough said. I hope today’s advice has been successful and if you are interested in making a go of blogging and earning money online from your efforts – sign up to my email list for more information on how you can make this happen!

Also, check out some of our related posts here…