9 Things I learned In 4 Years Of Shadow Blogging

If you’re wondering if there is such thing as shadow blogging, the answer is…

It is! I mean, I don’t know if it’s a thing, but that’s what I was starting with February 2016. I wrote the content and a friend of mine posted it as it was his. We both interacted with the readers, but under his account. Basically, no one knew I existed. Given my social anxiety, this was awesome!

I learn a lot from doing that. It’s basically the full experience, but without the pressure of doing everything.

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1) Patience is required

A website is like a tree: you need to water it and wait for it to grow. You cannot force it. And the niche you have (I wrote about the importance of having a specific niche) will influence the speed of the growth. Just like different species of trees grow with different speeds.

2) If you are a reader, you will grow faster

This is important if you care about having readers. Most writers need readers, and if you are one of them, then you need to be a reader yourself.

With “reader” I refer to reading other blogs. This blogging thing is all about interactions and community. So, if you are a reader and you interact with other content creators, they will be inclined to come and check out your content. Firstly, it might be out of curiosity, but in time, some of them will become fans of your work. It’s like free marketing. But if you don’t interact with anyone, how can they find out about your website?

3) If you’re bored, your readers are bored

Once you settle to your blogging style, you might tend to keep it forever. The thing is that nowadays diversity runs the world (together with Covid and money). So, if you get old of your own style, your readers will sense that and they will quickly move to something more interesting. They have alternatives, but you cannot switch to writing on another blog (you can, but you will still be you).

Solution? Don’t be afraid of trying new things. Add a video, add a joke, add something so you don’t feel bored. Like this funny cat.

Photo by Tranmautritam on Pexels.com

4) Consistency is important

If you write once in a while, you will get readers once in a while. If you check your stats, you’ll see that the most views you have in the day you publish things. No writing, little to no views. This is because while you don’t write, others do. So, their content is fresh while yours is old. It’s that simple.

You cannot expect to publish something today and have readers for the whole week. Just like you don’t eat once on Monday and you expect to have a full belly until Sunday.

5) Readers are people

While watching the stats you might end up only caring about them and you forget that those numbers and bars are made of people. Readers are people. They have needs and feelings. Just like you writing brings you some benefit, your writing needs to bring a benefit for those readers too. The higher the benefit, the more people will come to read your work.

Of course, if you don’t care about if you have readers or not, this is not a problem. It is enough for your writings to bring benefits only to you.

6) People love attention

Yes! Every person on this earth loves attention, but not all love it the same way. Some love public attention, while others love private attention, the one that only they know about it.

This is because attention makes them feel good and appreciated. If they do something for you, show your appreciation. If someone spends a little time writing a comment or an email for you, show your appreciation by answering to that person. That’s how your connection with your readers gets more personal, therefore, stronger.

7) WordPress ads don’t pay that much

Actually, I wrote a separate post about the money from displaying ads. And honestly, unless you have tons of traffic, you cannot rely on this as a significant source of income.

8) Providing value for free is towards monetization

If blog monetization is your long-term goal, then you need to prove yourself. You need to show you know what you’re doing and that what you’re providing has more value than cost.

In the beginning, when you don’t sell anything, the cost is your reader’s time. They pay with time to go through your posts. If you provide enough value for them, then they will return again and again because the value they get is better than the cost they pay. And meeting their expectations lead to building trust and when the time comes, some of them will be willing to pay with money in exchange for something you provide (and of course, the things you’ll be selling need to bring value for your readers).

9) A schedule keeps you on track

As I shown in my post regarding why a schedule is useful, having a blog involves many things and it can be a challenge to do all of them. And it gets even harder in time when you have more and more things to deal with in your real life as well.

In the end, it’s all about what you would like to achieve. Some people’s work might look easy, but there is a lot of work involved, work that no one sees it.

Let’s put it this way:

Would the future you thank the present you for all the actions you’re doing right now? Or the future you would like for the present you to do some more?

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