I can’t believe today is finally here, it’s been months in the making and a true labor of love but I am so incredibly excited to be sharing the new Her Life Sparkles with you! After years of considering starting a blog, I created Her Life Sparkles, on a whim during a social media fast in Jan 2018. While I had hopes of my blog becoming a “bigger deal” than most, things took off quicker than I could have ever imagined. Although my journey has been pretty successful thus far, I believe that there is always room for improvement.

Here are 5 things that I wish I knew before starting a blog of my own:

It’s okay to be you.

Not that I wanted to be anyone else …BUT when you walk down the blogger isle things start to get pretty cookie cutter. Nice house, adorable kids, perfect hair, perfect life and an orange-y preset… okay, you’re probably rolling your eyes at me right? LOL! I might be 3 of 5 on those but the point I’m trying to make is that thinking that you have to be perfect in every way to be a blogger is out. I can share the un-pretty parts of my life with you guys …and y’all love me anyway. You will have to find your tribe and it may take some time but the only way to do that is to be yourself.

You don’t have to spend a ton of money to be successful.

Not saying that I did spent a ton of money …but I’ve had impostor syndrome to some degree because I wasn’t going for broke over my blog. I built my first blog myself, on Wix in about a week or so. I used my good sis Google and my good bro YouTube to figure out everything I needed in terms of tech support. I don’t do professional photo shoots with all the popping photographers every week. My husband is photographer bae of the year and I self shoot if he isn’t in town. I don’t buy new clothes every week just to have a new look to shoot in. Y’all are gonna see these boots all fall long whether y’all like it or not.

While I am all for investing in yourself the investment has to make sense. Should you buy a $3000 camera in month one? Probably not …but you could upgrade once you land a good brand partnership. I’ve used the money I’ve made from brand deals to boss up my brand; I just made sure that all the purchases made sense for me and the direction I wanted to go.

The learning curve is never-ending.

There is a certain level of adaptability that comes with being a blogger. You have to be able to adapt to changes in your audience, social & fashion trends, algorithms, updates to your hosting platform and pretty much anything else that life can throw at you. If you are the person that is waiting to “learn everything” there is to know about blogging before starting …it’s not going to happy.

There is no way to learn everything about the blogging industry because it’s constantly evolving. I’m learning something new every single day. The more you learn the more confidence you’ll have in what you’re doing but you’ll never know all that there is to know about blogging. Just start!

No one owes you a page view.

You wrote a blog. Took the perfect pictures. Thought up a catchy title. But, no one is reading it. Why? Because no one owes you a page view. You have to earn it.

Is your content valuable? Is it creating a solution? Giving insight that isn’t easy to come by? Even if the answers to each of those questions is yes, the work doesn’t stop when you hit publish. You have to market your post to your subscribers and across your social channels. You have to go out and get your readers and convert them into loyal subscribers. It’s not just going to fall into your lap, the work is never-ending.

Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is a successful blog.

Do people still go viral? Yup …but it’s not as common as we might think. The bloggers that are truly killing it in their niche has been doing the work day after day, for years.

Going viral would be cool but there is no greater satisfaction than knowing that you put in the work. That you made the plan, sacrificed some free time and sleep and gave max effort to turn your passion into a paycheck.
Don’t gauge the success of your blog by comparing it to someone else’s. Did you publish more this month? Did you get more comments? More page views? More shares? All of those are reason enough to pat yourself on the back. Cheers to you sis!

To anyone that has been thinking of starting a blog but is afraid to put themselves out there, don’t let fear paralyze you. The greatest lesson I’ve learned through this journey is that those that are meant to support you always will.

Just start… and keep doing the work until it’s your turn!

Have you been thinking of starting a blog? If so, what’s been holding you back? I want to share more about my blogging/influencing journey with you guys, so if you have any specific questions please leave them in the comments…or share with a friend who may find these tips useful.

XOXO