I’m back for my monthly ‘things I’ve learnt’ article! Somehow I’m now half a year into launching my blog and to be honest, I’ve spent half of it taking a break from blogging haha. Thankfully my readership is still great. Not as good as when I pumped all my energy and posted often, but it’s growing more and more every month from all the work I put into my SEO. So thank you to my readers (you confirm to me that I must have been doing something right).

I’ve made a promise to myself to get back into it now, so I’ll be back posting weekly from now on – yay!

The First Year of Blogging: What Have I Learnt 6 Months In?

So, what have I learnt six months in?

1. Once You’ve Fallen off the Wagon, It’s Really Hard to Get Back On

When you take a break from blogging it’s really, really hard to get yourself back into the routine. Not just blogging, but even keeping up on your social media channels – especially Instagram. If you want great pics you usually have to take loads of versions of the picture and then start editing which can take forever. I’ve been so bad with keeping up with it and it overwhelms me just thinking about it! But just do it. Don’t do what I did.

2. Routine and Planning Is Key

Having a plan in place for when you’re going to write and what, along with when you’re going to post and share it is really important. It does help prevent issues like I just stated in #1. What I do is I have a notebook with a list of different ideas, when I’m going to write and when the article will go out. It worked very well at the beginning before I took a break at least. 😉 Planning can seem like a chore in itself, but trust me, it really does work.

3. Bots Ruin Your Ability to Decode Viewing Numbers

I’ve taken a waaay too long break from blogging by complete accident recently and my viewing numbers have climbed. Many of them have been from legitimate sources as my SEO articles have climbed to higher ranks on the first page, but some of them are bots.

Google Analytics and my WordPress stats aren’t the same at all and it’s getting worse. Mainly because Google is better at filtering out the bot clicks. Still, it’s so hard to tell who real and who isn’t. The longer the time that goes on, the worse it can be and it’s one of the things to get used to when you have a blog – it sucks.

4. Spam Is EVERYWHERE (And It’s Super Annoying)

The more your articles are spread all over the internet and the more articles you have, the more bots and spam will appear on your page. Every day I get a load of spam comments and it’s so irritating. Some of them are really convincing and it’s really hard to tell if it’s a spam comment or not (the trick is to look at the email address). If there’s a link or something, don’t accept it. It’s either spam or someone trying to link their website to your page, which is just so bait and rude.

Be careful with spam as if you accept one spam comment, then they all start coming. It makes your website less credible too. You can get a decent plugin that will move your spam to your spam inbox automatically which can also help you from falling into the trap. Make sure you put your comments on ‘pending approval’ or else you will be inundated with spam comments all over your page!

5. Article ideas come to you no matter where you are or what you’re doing

Even though I’ve taken a break, I still constantly have ideas about what I’m going to write about as I’m going about my daily life. They do say that if you have the ability to do that then you really have picked the right niche and passion. My phone is actually full of different article ideas I have because as soon as something comes to mind I write it down. I also have a notebook of at least 50 different article ideas written in there. Sadly time is not on my side – but I’m spending all summer festival-ing and travelling, so I’m definitely going to be able to fit writing in between then (plus, there will be a lot to write about).

I’ll be back next month for my 7th edition!

Like what you read? Here are my previous articles on what I’ve learnt on my blogging journey:

• Starting a Blog for the First Time: 5 Things I’ve Learnt in My First Month of Blogging
• Blogging for the First Time: 5 Things I’ve Learnt in My Second Month of Blogging
• Beginner Blogger: 5 Things I’ve Learnt in My Third Month of Blogging
• Blogging Journey: 5 Things I’ve Learnt in My Forth Month of Blogging
• Blogging Experience: 5 Things I’ve Learnt in My Fifth Month of Blogging

How long have you been blogging for? What have you learnt? Drop it in the comments!