How I started my blog
This is what my blog first looked like in 2010. Yuck! 🤢😂
I started my blog when I was 19, back when Adsense was a thing. Remember those Google ad banners at would appear at the top, side, and bottom of websites?
Yeah, my original idea was to monetise my blog that way.
Boy was my strategy wildly unsuccessful.
My blog never ended up making more than a few pennies through Adsense, but that very same blog did eventually help me replace my pharmacist income - just in a different way. I started getting website leads with students and parents asking for tutoring help. At first, it was only a couple of students every other month. Then it gradually built to once a week, then eventually, multiple enquiries every day. Since I’m only one person with a finite amount of time, I hired my first tutor to help me look after some of the requests. 5 years later I have over 50 tutors working for me, and we’ve supported thousands of students through our private tutoring services!
I’m lucky because I was the first in the VCE/ATAR space to really buckle down on long-form, free educational content online. It definitely helped to cement my website as the go-to destination for high school English advice. The market is a lot more saturated now (in my space, but also in so many others), so competition is a lot tougher. Some of my pointers below should help give you a more competitive edge.
I don’t have too much time today to write a super detailed blog, but here are the main lessons and takeaways (I’ll add to this blog over time - if you want to stay updated, then subscribe to my mailing list 🥰):
Discoverability
There are two main ways people can discover your blog:
through searching on Google,
or sharing links to your blog on social media, through other people’s blogs (referral links) etc.
My main blog, on vcestudyguides.com relies on the first method. However, in order to do this well, you need to work hard at SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). Essentially, your goal is to be discovered online. Where do people look for information? On Google. But they’ll typically only find you on Google if you rank on the 1st page (and most ideally, rank 1st on the 1st page) because who really scrolls past the first 3 or 4 results these days?
There are plenty of websites that teach you how to do SEO, so I won’t bore you with the details here. I really like Neil Patel’s blog on SEO. It’s extremely thorough and takes you through the process step-by-step. What makes me feel that his blog is legit is that Neil Patel himself tends to rank #1st on Google for several keywords, including ‘SEO’.
My personal blog, this one you’re currently viewing (thank you 🥰) is delivered through the 2nd way - through sharing links on my socials. I don’t expect this website (imlisatran.com) to rank on Google for ‘How to start a blog’ because Google would prefer to direct you to a website that specialises in creating content for bloggers (like Neil Patel’s). Since this website is more of a compilation of my experiences, my goal isn’t to make it SEO-worthy (at least, not yet), but more of a space for new followers to get to know me.
2. Niche the freak down
If you do intend to rank well on Google, my one advice is to select a niche. Google needs to understand what your website is about, and if you’ve got one blog about cooking, another about martial arts, then another with relationship advice, it’s going to be all over the place.
Moreover, once someone is on your website, you want them to stay there. You want your visitor to click through to another related blog so that they spend longer times on your website. Why? Maybe you want to convert them to your mailing list, or perhaps you want to sell a product. Regardless, building that branding, rapport, and trust with a visitor can be achieved through something as simple as having them absorb as much of your content as possible. I know from personal experience that the longer I spend consuming a particular person or brand’s content, the more likely I am to become a customer of theirs in the future.
Consider having ‘pillars’ of topics so that you don’t just make a website medley. I like to think of my personal website as having these 2 pillars: entrepreneurship and money (I’ve done one about skincare too, but that’s a bit of an odd one out). This way, when people come to my site, they know what they’re in for. What will be your pillars?
3. Consistency is key
Blogging doesn’t just happen overnight. It takes months, if not years of consistent input. Heck, my blog didn’t start to get 40K visitors monthly until its 4th year running. It’s not just about the writing, it’s about learning SEO, website management, social sharing, and so much more. When you commit to blogging, you’re committing to all those aforementioned parts as well. Be kind to yourself on this journey, don’t give up too soon just because there’s always more than meets the eye when it comes to blogging (and just about anything else really)!
4. Squarespace, Wordpress, Webflow - which one?
To have a blog, you need a blogging platform! Squarespace is great because it’s super beginner friendly, however it’s not great for SEO. I don’t understand the mechanics of it, but from my limited knowledge the way that the platform is coded means that your website will have a harder time ranking on Google. So, if SEO is your game, I’d steer clear of Squarespace.
Most people start off with Wordpress (as I did). It’s good for SEO. It’s been around for so long that there’s plenty of support to help you build a website, and there are endless plugins to help you achieve the site you want. However, it’s not that customisable. If you’re not too fussed about user experience or web design, then Wordpress will be just fine for you.
However, if you want a platform that does allow more customisable functionality, then I’d recommend Webflow. It’s friendly for non-coders because you can build your site without code, but like a coder would. You can use animations and interactions throughout the site to create a better user experience. Moreover, its backend code is less clunky than a Wordpress site, which means faster site loading times and therefore potentially better SEO ranking (Google cares about how fast your website loads). This is what I use for my website.
If you’re interested in Webflow, here’s a cheeky affiliate link if you wanted to support me :)
Hope this helps!