10 Things You Should Know Before You Start A Blog

Last updated on 16 January 2026

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I wish I had a post like this that just laid out some of the things I needed to know before starting a blog. If you’re thinking about taking the step or you’ve been thinking about it for a while now, there are some things you should know before you start a blog.

In the early 2000s blogging really started to see a surge in popularity. By the time I started my blog in 2009, there were tonnes of great blogs out there doing amazing things.

But there wasn’t much information about how to blog or things you needed to know before you start a blog. I went in blind, I stumbled around blind, and I remained blind to all things blog for several years.

When I started taking my blogging more seriously, I quickly became overwhelmed with all 👏the 👏 things👏 that I didn’t know I needed to do.

• Domain name? (Welcome the Auckland Domain, Dogs Must Be On a Leash)
• Get a host? (Like a paranormal possession thing or … ?)
• HTML? (Hello There Mighty Lemurs)

Starting a blog might not be like you expected. At least it wasn’t for me.

When I first started I was just doing what I wanted when I wanted. I didn’t have any expectations. I didn’t know anything about blogging at all.

But when I wanted to start seeing results, when I wanted to engage with people and share helpful things (as opposed to what I ate for dinner and providing no recipe), then I realised that nobody told me what to expect. No one had told me the things I needed to know before starting a blog.

Because no one else told me, I’m going to share just 5 things with you in the hopes that you can remember them before you start a blog.

What you need to know before you start a blog

1. Blog posts will flop
2. There’s more to blogging than just writing
3. You’re going to run out of ideas
4. You’ll work on your blog on weeknights and weekends
5. You have to be consistent
6. (See more details below!)

Blog posts will flop

Yup! They will! You can spend hours on a blog post and do all the ‘right things’, structure your blog post like a pro, add all the correct images, all the good links to relevant sources and internal pages … and it might do really ‘badly’.

Sometimes posts that we think are going to really well and be really popular and hit the roof with traffic, just don’t. The best thing we can do? Learn from it. Take a look at your post and see if there is anything you can do to improve it. Make those improvements if you can, and if you can’t, try again next time.

It’s okay to have blog posts flop.

There’s more to blogging than just writing

Oh jeepers, if I had known this before I started a blog it might have gone a lot differently!

There’s so much more to having a blog than just writing. Yes, it involves all the words and the words are important (you’re reading something I’ve written right now and I hope that it’s hitting home with you), but it’s more than that.

Having a blog involves research into topics, and market research to figure out if you’re writing the things that are going to educate, inspire and encourage your readers. It’s about learning how to set out blog posts well, find images, using social media to share your blog posts with the world. It’s about rocking Pinterest (if you’re on this platform) and maybe even platforms such as LinkedIn.

You don’t have to be on all the platforms, definitely not, but it pays to be on a couple that is relevant to your blog. And that’s not something ‘they’ told me when I started my blog. Blogging is so much more than writing.

You’re going to run out of ideas and get writer’s block

Yikes! It’s true! Not all the time of course, and if you’ve got a good content strategy in place then the chance of you running out of ideas is slim to none.

But before you start your blog it’s good to recognise that writer’s block is very real, and it’s not just for authors. Bloggers get writer’s block too.

Take the opportunity during those times to reassess what your blog is about, why you’re blogging, and setting up some ways to decrease the chances of your running out of ideas in the future.

And don’t be disheartened.

You’ll probably work on your blog on weeknights and weekends

Especially if you work full-time or even part-time!

There might be nights when you’re up late working on your blog content, and there will definitely be weekends when your laptop is open to a fresh blog draft. There might even be times when you need to learn new things, and while you might not spend your evenings and weekends working on blog posts, you might be taking a course or attending a master class.

Knowing that you’ll be working on your blog at times you’d rather be doing something else helps going forward.

You have to be consistent

You could add this into the ‘blogging is more than just writing’ category, because being consistent in your content and having a really good plan and sticking to it is key when it comes to blogging.

Create a blogging content planner and make sure you stick to it. If you’re blogging once a month, great! If you can manage once a week, even better! Whatever you decide for your blogging plan, that’s how you’re going to be consistent. Set yourself up to win from the beginning.

Those are just 5 things that I wanted to share with you before you start a blog. There are, of course, more than that.

And they’re all very down in mood. They’re a bit hard-hitting and perhaps they’ve put off starting a blog.

But I also wanted to share some of the other things that ‘they’ didn’t tell me when starting a blog.

5 other things they didn’t tell me when it comes to starting a blog

1. Starting a blog is one of the best things I’ve ever done
2. It’s opened so many doors and windows and air ducts in which to connect and grow and learn
3. I’ve been able to work with so many people across the globe on various projects
4. It’s been a constant source of creativity
5. It has taught me so much about the online world, but also about the world in general and my place in it

If you’ve wanted to start a blog for a while now or perhaps you’ve started one in the past and you let it go…Can I encourage you that firstly, that’s okay, but secondly, if you want to start it again, if you want to create and write … do it.

Before you start a blog:

• Know it’s hard at times.
• Know that it can be rough.
• Know that it’s a learning curve.
• Know that it’s wonderful.
• And remember all those things we’ve just covered in this blog post.

What’s something you wish you knew before you started your blog?

Drop it below in the comments and let’s help each other out!