Why You Should Start A Blog This Year

If you’ve been sitting on the idea of starting a blog, looking for goog enough reasons to start a blog, wondering if blogging is for you, I put this post together to share with you

Have you been wondering whether you should start a blog? Chances are you read lots of blogs every day and follow some fantastic bloggers on Instagram and you already have some inkling of the freedom that comes with blogging.

Blogging is so much more than that.

Some people blog just for fun as a creative hobby, while others blog as a way to make money online. Blogging is something that anyone can do!

I started my first blog as a complete novice. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as “blogging” until a friend encouraged me to start one. My first few years as a blogger, I was just exploring the world of blogging, with no intention of making money from it.

But as I got deeper into it and began interacting with bloggers who were making a consistent income from their blogs, I decided to make the switch. By this time, I had 2 failed businesses, I was broke, frustrated, depressed and struggling to make a regular income with me new baking business

I think the most important thing you can understand about my story is that there is nothing inherently special about my backgrounds.

Other than being pretty motivated and hard-working, I am your average girl. There is nothing that I have that you don’t.

And now I make an “okay” income from this blog (even though it’s just 3 months old at the time of writing this post) and I want help all kinds of people start and find success in blogging.

Anyone can succeed in blogging as long as they are committed to their goals, want it badly enough, and put in the work to get there.

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DISCLOSURE: This post may contain affiliate links to products or services I use and recommend. I may make a small commission on any purchases you make using these links, at no extra cost to you. Read my Disclaimer for more information.

Here Are seven Compelling Reasons Why You Should Start A Blog (along with Two Reasons Blogging May Not Be Right For You!)

1. To Have A Creative Outlet

Although writing for a blog is completely different from creative writing.

But blogging is a great creative outlet. It allows you to get creative in so many ways: writing, photography, graphic design, web design, business, and more.

Before it became a business, Blogging allowed me to have a place to express my creative side as I published my poems and other fictional stories I used to write when I was younger.

If you’re looking for a fun activity to express your creativity and learn some new skills along the way, blogging is a great choice.

2. You Learn New, Transferrable Skills

Condensing thoughts and ideas down into actionable information others can use will sharpen your mind.

You become a better writer even if writing doesn’t come easily to you.

You learn a completely new set of hands-on skills that you wouldn’t have learned otherwise.

WordPress. SEO. Email marketing. Graphics Designing. Photo editing. Pinterest marketing. Social Media Marketing. Copywriting. Affiliate marketing. Product creation. Sales funnels. Web Design.

These are just a sampling of the skills I’ve learned since starting my blog that I had little to no experience with before.

Not to mention, the hands-on experience of starting, setting up and running a profitable blog and online business and teaching it to others beats everything I learned in business school.

Starting a blog is an awesome way to learn new and valuable skills. If not for anything else, you should start a blog for this reason alone. Because you can quickly make money from these in-demand skills.

3 You Get To Make A Difference In The Lives Of Others

I first started this blog as a personal growth blog and I’ve helped women around the world learn how to manage self-sabotaging behaviours like self-doubt, perfectionism, procrastination, People-pleasing etc and learn how to create and experience a life they are proud of.

Every day I get messages on Instagram and Facebook from women who resonate with the things I share and who as a result of my vulnerability found the courage to be open to themselves about their struggles and figure out how to overcome them.

When I started, other than the fact that I got many criticism from nay-sayers, I had no idea that what I was sharing about my struggles, failures and how I was working through them would end up having such an incredible impact on others.

On this blog, I have now helped people quit their jobs, begin blogging, start earning money and coached something out of mental health issues like negative self-talk, self-doubt, indecision, limiting beliefs etc.

While you may blog to make an income or for any of the reasons that I outline in this post, the purpose of your blog should be to serve OTHERS.

THIS is how you find true success as a blogger.

4. To Share Your Knowledge Or Passion

Maybe you’re a crafter, artist, coach, fashion designer, baker, knitter, or gardener with years of experience.

Maybe you love going to Disney World with your family and want to help other families plan their own magical vacations.

Maybe you have a good eye for fashion and are exceptionally good at styling, home decor.

May you have a knack for organization, planning and all,

Maybe you have a good knowledge of the Scriptures that could encourage others.

Maybe you are a movie freak, book worm and friends come to you for movie and book recommendations.

Maybe you are a photographer.

Maybe you are a lawyer, you can teach people about the law.

Or maybe all your friends come to you with money questions because you’re a budgeting and personal finance guru.

Whatever your area of expertise or passion, I can almost guarantee that other people are interested in it too. You can share your knowledge or passion through your blog, and even make money from it!

You can teach people what you already know and are good.

If you are passionate about helping people, you should start a blog and use it to educate them on about your expertise, profession or passion.

5. You Control Your Income

As a blogger, you decide when you want to work and how much you want to work. At some point, the more you work, the more money you can make.

It does take work to set up, but once you have created the products, eBooks and courses that you want to sell, written the emails that help sell them, designed the sales pages, etc., most of the work is done.

All you HAVE to do is write a couple of new articles, send a few emails, and do some customer service support to maintain your income from your blog.

6. You Make Money

This should have preceded number 5. But lets just leave it here.

Are you surprised to see this one on the list?

So many bloggers like to say you should NEVER start a blog in order to make money. That you should only do it because you’re passionate about it.

Well, I’m passionate about what I do and I really enjoy every aspect of blogging, but I wouldn’t be putting in all this effort if I wasn’t making money from it!

I covered the whole “don’t blog for money, but blog for passion talk” in this post: how to choose a blog niche. I recommend you check it out.

I’m not afraid to admit that I wouldn’t be putting in all this work and investment if I wasn’t earning from this blog, and it’s totally okay. There’s nothing wrong with starting a blog with the intention of turning it into a business.

Blogging is a really smart way to make money online. The startup cost for blogging is very low (you can easily get your blog up and running for under $100) but the potential for profit is quite high.

7. You Will Be Challenged (In a Good Way Though)

Starting and running a profitable blog isn’t all sunshine, roses, and pretty photos, and I have tried to convey this message in the post: Harsh Truths About Blogging That You Should Know Before Getting Started.

There have been some serious highs AND some serious lows and a LOT of blogging failures and mistakes along the way.

Blogging will help you overcome your fears of failure, judgement (what will people say) and continually challenge you to be a better person. I have grown a tremendous amount – both personally and professionally.

There is no growth in the easy-going. True growth comes from facing challenges and learning how to overcome those challenges.

• Some of the challenges that I faced in my blogging journey…
  • My first 2 blogs failed.
  • I was too afraid to monetize because I didn’t think anyone would buy from me.
  • Spent thousands of dollars taking courses, buying books, signing for coaching programs, webinars that didn’t work because I either didn’t implement them or I tried to replicate what the creators were doing without figuring out what worked with my audience.
  • I deleted a blog that was seeing 25-30k traffic monthly with an email list of 6000 plus, a Facebook page of about 19k followers because I was depressed and frustrated that nothing was working.
  • I abandoned my blogs and lists for months (not posts, no emails) until I lost quite a number of my subscribers, experienced a terrible decrease in traffic.
  • I gave up my social life, on a typical day I’m a class A introvert, but I disconnected from friends for many months (because I wanted to get my blogging business off the ground and make money from it before reconnecting just so that I could stop feeling like a total failure) until they got fed up of waiting around for me
  • And so many more…

I am STILL challenged all the time, and that is part of the reason why I LOVE what I do

The thrill of the challenge is trying to make all of the pieces of the puzzle work together, and it is actually quite a rush when it does!

8. To Build Your Personal Brand

Many people start blogging because they want to grow an already-existing business or build their personal brand online.

This is a great idea!

If you already have a business, whether it’s a brick-and-mortar or online business, starting a blog can be a great way to reach new customers and make sales.

It’s also a smart way to build your personal brand for authors, speakers, coaches, industry professionals, and more.

9. You Can Completely Design Your Days

It can really be hard to try to justify spending time with friends or working on personal projects when you feel like you have to go to bed at 9 pm every night to get adequate sleep to enable you to function properly at work.

You know the feeling of waking up early in the morning to go to work, spend the day neck deep in tasks that keep piling up, return home to a cluttered house with no food in the fridge, order take out and repeating the cycle the next day, and you have only the weekend to declutter, clean up and prep for the coming week. You barely have time for yourself or your loved ones. You are burned out, stressed, yet there is no evidence of all that work in your bank account.

This doesn’t exist in the blogging world.

Now, we wake up whenever our bodies feel good and ready to. And for those of you who are moms or have other early morning obligations, having a blog will allow you some time to nap too!

• This is just a little taste of what it means to be able to “design your days:”
  • Wake up when you want to
  • Go to bed when you want to (or not go to bed at all– for chronic night owls like myself)
  • Workout when the gym is empty
  • Shop when the stores are empty
  • Live the laptop life
  • Stay home all day (my kind of default setting)
  • Work when you want to
  • Etc.
  • You get the idea! It’s something that VERY few people in this world get to do and it makes ALL of the long, lonely hours that we put into our blog worth it.

10. To connect with others Around The World

Honestly, for most people, blogging can feel like a lonely job since it’s just you sitting in front of your laptop most of the time. But it doesn’t have to be that way!

There are so many online communities out there for bloggers. I have made some great friends and acquaintances in the blogging community. It’s nice to connect with readers and fellow bloggers who are interested in the same things as you!

Blogging allows you to connect and collaborate with people outside your sphere of influence and location that wouldn’t normally have known or met otherwise.

I come from and live in Nigeria. But through my blog, I have had people from US, UK, CANADA, INDIA etc pay for one or more of my services. As a Pinterest Manager, I have had the pleasure of working with global clients and this wouldn’t have been possible if I wasn’t a blogger.

11. Blogging Will Help You Build Confidence And Make Better Decisions

Publishing your thoughts and feelings about something to the world is vulnerable and a little scary the first time you do it.

At least it was for me, and you WILL have nay-sayers trying to bring you down along the way. There will be ignorant people calling you names and nasty things because it’s the Internet.

But you ignore them because 99% of people will THANK YOU for what you do and how much you changed their lives.

This is definitely one of the cooler “bonus benefits” of blogging that I noticed over the last couple of years.

Both the positive AND the negative feedback that you receive as a blogger will help boost your confidence and self-esteem over time.

You begin to adjust to the feeling and have more confidence in your decisions because of it. This will have both an impact on how you write but also in your day to day life as well!

The Added Benefits of Blogging

12. Fame

A successful blog has the potential to get you noticed and help you build a more visible profile in your business market, pastime, or community.

13. Contacts

Blogs are excellent ways to get to know people and network. Because blogs naturally lead to conversation, a well-read blog will put you in contact with a wide variety of people.

14. Traffic

Attracting highly targeted visitors alone could be a big draw, especially if you have products or services to sell. Website owners are always looking for new sources of traffic, and blogs are a proven way to generate more visits and increased loyalty.

Reasons You Should NOT Start a Blog

Now I’ve told you some of the reasons to start a blog, but what about the reasons why you SHOULDN’T start a blog?

Here are three of the signs that blogging may not be for you:

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1. You want to make money fast

Blogging is not a “get rich quick” scheme.

It took me my 8 months (this blog is new, but I’ve been around for 4 years plus) to consistently earn $1,000+ a month from my third blog (the one I deleted).

Some bloggers experience success faster than I did, but for the vast majority of bloggers, it takes even longer than that.

If you want to make money blogging, you need to be committed to playing the long-term game. In fact, many bloggers never earn any money because they get discouraged and burnt out too soon.

The longer you stick around, the more successful you will be!

2. You Need A Steady Paycheck

Even when you do start making money blogging, it can be inconsistent.

It’s not a regular paycheck like you would get from a normal job.

As a blogger, I earn money from various different sources. I make money from affiliate marketing, selling my own digital products, and working with brands on sponsored posts.

Earnings from my affiliate partners can take 60-90 days to be paid out. One month I might make $1,000 and the next month I might make $500. It really just depends.

Of course, some bloggers do have consistently high earnings, but the money can be unpredictable, especially when you’re a newer blogger.

3. You’re not willing to learn and adapt

I don’t find blogging particularly difficult. It’s not rocket science, after all!

But it DOES take a commitment to learning new skills and following best practices. Blogging is an industry that’s constantly changing and evolving.

Something that worked six months ago might not work now. Google and Pinterest algorithms change. Affiliate programs may abruptly change their terms or shut down. New laws and regulations affecting bloggers are passed.

If you want to be a successful blogger, you need to be willing to learn and adapt.

How can I get started?

If you already know what you want to blog about, this is my step-by-step process of how to get started: → How to Start a Blog (Step-by-Step Beginners Guide)

Get hosted with Bluehost at $3.65/month or

Get hosted with Hostgator at $2.75/month (This is the company my blog is hosted with and so far I have no complains at all.)

P.s: If you enjoyed this article or have any questions for me, please leave them in the comment section below!