Before I started blogging with WordPress, I knew nothing about plug-ins, themes, HTML, etc. Now, I know everything a little about blogging on WordPress. Some of the things I learned really threw me for a loop, because I had no idea what to expect. If you’re thinking about starting a WordPress blog, recently started one, or just want a good laugh at my dumb blogger mistakes, read on. I’ve got some things to tell you.

Choosing the Right WordPress Theme Is Vital

I thought WordPress themes were just window-dressing when I first began. All themes seemed pretty much alike anyway. I was very wrong.

Your theme is the foundation of your blog, just like a foundation for your home. You can’t build a skyscraper on a bungalow’s foundation. Nor can you build the right blog on the wrong theme.

Your theme decides what plugins you can use, how visitors will navigate your site, how fast your pages load, how you edit your site, and so much more. You need to do research and find the WordPress theme that will best accommodate all the things you want your blog to do.

Maybe you need a built-in store, image carousels, music players, or even more. Whatever you need, find the right theme now, before you run into a pile of technical issues. Find a WordPress theme that is regularly updated and easily customized. It can be paid or free to use. Don’t just copy the theme a friend recommended or you saw on another site you liked. You’ve got to pick the right one for your needs.

You Need to Ensure Your Blog Has All the Basics

When I first launched my site, it was missing a few things. For example, a form to subscribe to new posts and social media sharing buttons. Don’t take for granted your new blog has all the things you expect in other websites.

I learned you actually need to install the right plugins to get all these fancy features. And I needed a lot of them. You might find you want a subscription form, sharing buttons, a legal page, a cookie banner, a form maker, an image manager, a caching service—the list goes on.

I only figured out what I was missing as kind readers gave me feedback and as I poked around my own website. You need user testing to tell you all the stuff you might have forgotten about. Whether it’s another friendly blogger, a kind reader, or you, someone has got to explore your website and check off all the basic features your blog should have.

Poke around yourself, ask a friend, or get on social media and find a thread of bloggers looking to swap user testing. I found help in a FaceBook blogging group. Get a fresh pair of eyes looking over your website for missing buttons and forms that don’t exist (but should). And when you find these missing features, get ready to plug ‘em with a good plug-in.

Learn the Technical Stuff (or Hire an Expert Who Already Has)

When you are getting your WordPress blog ready or fixing an issue, it’s inevitable—you will need to alter some code. And secondly—you will break your website.

You will need a little bit of technical expertise to get things running right. This might mean learning a bit of code. I’d highly suggest you learn some HTML basics to help you understand blog posts a little better.

Or you can hire a web-savvy person to help you. I promise it’s not cheating. It’s just business. Hiring people to handle the aspects of blogging you aren’t good as is good business management. Getting a freelance website developer can help you build and repair your website in less time than becoming one yourself.

I was nearly on the verge of tears navigating WordPress for the first few times with no luck and no idea how to actually construct my site. It wasn’t as easy as all the tutorials boasting “build your blog in under an hour” promised. Getting a functional website together was hard—but hiring someone who knew what they were doing was easy and not as expensive as I feared. I got the help of a website designer and got a beautiful, functional blog.

I’ve also had to turn to the helpful tech support that came with my hosting service more than once. They helped me diagnose problems and fix my blog when I couldn’t. So don’t be afraid to turn to any tech support resources you have for your blog to help you keep things running smoothly.

Prepare to tackle technical issues. Be ready to diagnose the problem when you first break your website. And be ready to call in an expert if you’d rather.

Photo by Content Pixie from Pexels

Nobody Will Visit Your Blog… At First

This is the biggest downer in WordPress blogging. You launch the site. You hit publish on new posts. You wait for readers to stream in. And no one shows up.

You wrote great posts. You SEO-optimized. You shared them on social media. Why did no one come? Why does your blog have a measly twenty views?

When you first start out blogging, no one knows your blog. No one is just waiting to read your posts. Most importantly, no one is following you.

It takes time to build an audience.

You need to be patient. Sure, it sucks knowing only three people even looked at the blog post you spent five hours writing. You’ll only get a couple dozen views on your first several posts, if that. But as you blog more and more, share your writing more and more, as you grow your audience and connect with other readers and bloggers, your numbers will rise.

You’ll get followers and page views. They just are slow to come. It’s disappointing to throw a party and have no one show up, and it’s disappointing to launch a blog and get no readers. But unlike a party, your blog will last if you keep at it, and you’ll get all those visitors your blog deserves.

Blogging With WordPress Involves More Work than It Appears

This is probably a misconception every blog-reader-turned-blogger sees through—blogging is way harder than it looks. Bloggers always say how it takes hours, even days to make a single post, but I didn’t buy it. It’s only a couple hundred words and a few photos. How hard could it be to create that? And then I learned, making a blog post is hard work.

It takes hours to research keywords, vital info, backlinks, and other things that go into each post. It takes hours to take good photographs, edit them, and get them into a post (and using stock photos still takes a little time). It takes so many hours to diagnose all the technical issues that go wrong with posts and with the entire blog.

It really is hard work to blog, even if it doesn’t look like it. So keep that in mind when you start blogging on WordPress.

You Really Ought to Read Other Bloggers

To learn, you really should observe others. Watching other bloggers will show you how a good blog runs, how a bad blog runs, and everything in between.

You can see what a good blog post sounds like. You can observe what colors, design elements, and themes look good. You can learn so much about blogging by watching other bloggers.

Photo by Adrienne Andersen from Pexels

I’ve found Facebook groups with other bloggers a helpful place to talk to other bloggers with more experience. I’ve also found threads with bloggers swapping critiques. They’ll look at your site if you look at theirs. This isn’t great just because you get feedback on your website—it’s also an opportunity for you to build your critical eye by observing other imperfect blogs. Spotting flaws in their blogs will help you spot your own mistakes.

Finally, reading other blogs in your own niche is so important for learning what important discussions are going on in your community, what topics are popular with readers, and how to improve your own blog. There’s really no substitute for reading blogs like your own. They’re a jackpot of important information and inspiration.

You Can Change Everything About Your Blog Later (And You Will! For the Better!)

One final thing: It’s okay to change everything about your website later. You’ll probably want to. You may be paralyzed by fear, afraid to hit “publish” because your website isn’t very good yet or your blog isn’t ready.

But your blog will never be perfect, and it will always be changing. That’s just fine! Put your not-so-great blog into the world know that you can always change and edit it later.

Trends will change, themes will change—it all changes. You’ll redecide your blog’s color scheme, change your logo twenty times, and delete half your old posts.

And that’s fine, because it all changes really easily! It’s easy to go back and update all your old posts. It’s not hard to reorganize your blog. I’ve already gone and altered a ton of things here on my blog. You can even rebrand your whole website with a little effort. So it’s just fine if you’re not quite done, everything’s a little unfinished, and the whole site is pretty imperfect, because you can always change it for the better—later.

So there are all the things somebody should tell you before you start your WordPress blog and the things I wish somebody had explained to me. Blogging with WordPress is a challenge, but once you get past all the surprises, it’s also a really rewarding pursuit. It’s a platform that connects you with readers and sets you up with a blog that will outlast all your misconceptions about blogging.

Mint Miller

Mint is a writer and digital marketing pro who lives in coastal Virginia with her family and one lovable pitbull. Her passions include helping people and businesses display their best side through the power of communication, buying her dog costumes he doesn’t want to wear, and talking all day about Batman.