I cannot believe this! Time flies!! Back in 2012, I’ve registered this little blog of mine and I had no idea where it’s going to take me.  I definitely didn’t know that it’s going to become my full-time work and how many awesome opportunities it’s going to bring my way. 

Don’t get me wrong- I don’t believe in regrets. I feel like everything that I did or didn’t do made my business into what it is today and I’m pretty damn proud of it!

Of course, if I knew everything that I know now back when I started my business, I might have done a few things differently and I wanted to share some tips with you all in this post.

Thus, if you’re currently planning to start a blog and hopefully turn it into a business, here are some mistakes I made that you shouldn’t repeat.

I’d Start A Newsletter Straight Away

I’ve only started building my newsletter three years into my business and I really have no real answer what took me so long. I guess I wasn’t ready to commit to sending weekly newsletters, but that was a huge mistake!

Starting a newsletter can be the next step in turning your blog from hobby to business. Despite all the changes in the online world, we’re still using e-mails on the daily basis and creating a list of engaged newsletter subscribers is the best thing you can do for your growing online business.

I currently use my newsletter a lot to catch up with my audience, send out latest offers and brands I get to work with for sponsored content always ask if I have an active newsletter. That’s a big deal!

Mailerlite is an awesome tool to use if you’re just starting out and starting your newsletter with them is SO simple, you can start one in minutes, really!

I’d Invest In My Business Sooner

First months of running an online business weren’t really all rainbows and unicorns. In fact, I haven’t made a single penny for the first few months and I think my first paycheck was around $40 for a month of work. Thus, once I’ve finally started to make money online, I basically spent it all on new shoes and takeaways.

Of course, I was still a student back then, a bit lost and more interested in having fun than getting serious about my business. That’s easy to understand, huh?

It wasn’t a couple of years of running my online business when I realised how important it is to invest back into it in order to keep growing.

I now invest in social media scheduling tools, online courses and happily pay to keep my websites secure through best web-hosting services. The hard thing to admit is that my blog would have grown a lot quicker if I was serious about it from the early beginning.

I’d Be More Consistent With Publishing

I was so random with my posts back when I started. I would go and post a few posts in a day and then would completely neglect my blog for a month or two.

For example, I travelled in New Zealand for six weeks in 2014 and have only posted once during this time. Don’t get me wrong, I had the best time ever there and I loved focussing on the present while down there instead of worrying about getting that content published. However, I now understand that I can always prepare my content in advance, haha!

Also, I finally realised that writing a blog post up doesn’t have to take ages. I used to overthink my every word, every topic and that brings me to another point…

I’d Stop Worrying About What Others Are Doing

Seriously, I used to follow blogging trends way too much. I blogged about food, I shared my outfits, I talked about beauty products and that was all fun, but… that’s not really me!

While I love mentioning products I love as part of my lifestyle content, I don’t really get joy in creating yet another lipstick review. However, back when I started my blog, I kind of looked at what others were doing and tried to follow their path… The truth is- it only took me further away from finding my own niche.

You don’t have to blog about things that other bloggers seem to talk a lot about if you don’t feel it. We all have our own interests and fields of expertise. If you feel like you can’t find your own voice on your blog, make sure to read How to Find the Right Niche for Your Blog.

I’d Focus On Bringing More Income Streams

For the first couple of years, my blog design services and occasional sponsored posts were the only ways I’d monetise my blog. This all changed once my fiance Tomas joined me in the business and we were able to share the workload between the two of us and start considering new income streams.

This is how I finally started focussing on affiliate marketing and it’s currently our second biggest stream of income which we hope to grow even further in 2018. You see, having multiple streams of income allows us to sleep better at night.

Freelancing can be a bit stressful. When you have at least a few different ways to make money, losing one is not that big a deal. Thus, if we’re having a slow month in one area, other ones kind of balance it all out. This takes off loads of stress from running an online business!

I’d Learn To Say “No”

This was a life-changing lesson. Back when I started I went for everything. I’d accept all sponsored offers, all gifts, all invites. I soon started to lose joy in blogging simply because I felt like I was doing it for all the wrong reasons… I now understand that it’s ok to write back saying that the campaign doesn’t interest you at this point. I had companies coming back to me with better proposals once I turn them down the first time. Be honest with yourself and only accept the offers you truly believe in. This would turn out so much better in a long way!

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I know you will learn from your own mistakes along the way, but learning from others can be less harmful, haha! Hope you’ll find this post useful! Let me know when you’ve started your blog and if there’s anything you’d do differently at all!