What I learned in my 1st year of vegan blogging & some tips for starting your own.

That’s right y’all, 1 year ago today I launched my vegan blog and my very first article. I’ve come a long way from that first article, a simple review on a vegan skincare product, Tata Harper’s Floral Hydrating Essence, which you can checkout here if you like.

As I was brainstorming this article, I began to realize that this isn’t my first blog, nor my second nor third, but my FOURTH! Yup, my fourth blog. My very first blog was a hilarious, weird, raunchy fiction style blog based off of true events from my life. Oddly enough, that was my most popular blog but I was writing it when I was quite young & it was more of a fun hobby at that time. 

My second blog was super brief haha. I partnered with a fellow makeup artist/colleague & we were doing some makeup tutorials & reviews. It was short-lived & pretty blah. The third blog was a very ambitious blog for me. I was essentially writing a monthly vegan magazine and I just couldn’t keep up with the load.

That’s where my current & final blog comes in, A Blog About Stuff. I have always been into writing. In fact, when I was 13 I started to write a few children’s stories. 😹

Writing has always been a wonderful way for me to express myself and to have a creative outlet. I guess with being a Makeup Artist I lost touch or lost the need to express myself through writing. Insert COVID and no longer working and having that creative outlet, I decided I wanted to revisit that old friend of mine. 

So, I thought, if I’m going to do this for real, well then I need to do things differently this time and I need to take some courses. I need people who have been doing this for years and years consistently, to show me their ways! There is no shame in learning from others and admitting you need help. Sure it might cost you some money upfront, but if you believe in yourself and in your blog, you’ll make it all back and then some.

Not to mention, when you start to explore these other courses, you’ll also start to find a community of people who are in the exact same position as you. People who are asking the same questions that you have and who are willing and eager to learn too.

What I’ve Learned?

One thing I really underestimated was how important Social Media plays in today’s age of blogging. It’s not just about your blog posts anymore, it’s about your presence on social platforms and how you can drive that traffic to your blog.

Initially when I was starting A Blog About Stuff, I thought I could remain somewhat anonymous and just share my vegan beauty, wellness, & travel reviews. Well boy was I wrong. People want to connect with you, they want to know the person behind the reviews, they want to become online friends. So I decided I was going to start building a vegan community of online friends, not fans, not followers, but FRIENDS!

And you can be my friend too, I always follow back & I like to be as engaged with my friends as humanly possible.

• IG: @ablogaboutstuff_
• Twitter: @ABlogAboutStuff
• Pinterest: @ABlogAboutStuff
• FB: @ablogaboutstuff
• Email: keirst@ablogaboutstuff.com

Shoutout to some vegan blogger friends to give you Inspo:

1. Chelsea @mamahashermindful
2. Cindy @journeywithhealthyme
3. Stephanie @vegxblog
4. Anyka @plantfulfilled

Where do I see this going?

Well, I’ll be honest with you, I still have A LOT to learn & A LONG way to go but I’m excited to see it grow and to see myself truly pursue this. I’ve been back to work on 2 shows/pilots since I started this blog and I was able to keep it up. It’s not easy, and it requires me working on my blog while I’m on a break or have a bit of down time on set. The saying, “hurry up and wait” became popular because of production life 😹. 

I’d really love for this blog to help inspire and influence people into embracing and enjoying a vegan lifestyle. A lifestyle that chooses compassion over convenience & empathy over traditions. And I’d love to help share my experiences and thoughts with my fellow vegan brothers and sisters. If I can stop a friend from wasting their money on a crappy product, or give a shoutout to an underrated vegan restaurant, well then I feel good about that haha. 

Since the goal is to make money through a blog and since this isn’t my only “job”, I would love to be able to use any extra income from this blog to help support other vegan communities like animal rescue sanctuaries and/or small vegan businesses.

Where should you start?

Honestly, sign up for this course right here! That is an affiliate link but if you know me, then you know I would never recommend something that I don’t believe in AND this course is FREE! This is a 5 Day Free Crash Course into Blogging and in this free course you learn a ton of information to get your blog up and running right away! And they have some affiliate links to a hosting site that allows you to get it for waaaaaayyyyy cheaper! 

I took that course offered by Heather & Pete Reese from It’s A Lovely Life and I had my blog up and running within the first day or two. And then, if you want to take it a step further and really invest in yourself and your blog, I do also recommend one of their paid courses, Blogging Blastoff 2.0. 

Again, that is an affiliate link and if you purchase this course I will make a commission, but do you know why I’ll make that commission? Because I took the course! I took that course and I learned even more and you will too. And then, once you take the course and are up and running you’ll also get an affiliate link so if you ever recommend one of their courses you’ll get an affiliate commission, isn’t that cool?

Once you’ve signed up you will also gain access to their private Facebook groups which I will say have been a HUGE help with answering questions, getting traffic to your site & socials, and keeping you accountable to do the work. 

One of the Facebook groups is actually a blog sharing group which I learned 1 year ago, that is a group where a bunch of bloggers share a thread for the day and they will like, comment, share each others blog posts, pins, tweets, and more. 

Blog share groups are the best for many reasons like getting all of the post love but for me, I enjoy feeling like I’m a part of a little community as well. There are other blog share groups to join on Facebook as well. 

1. Blogging for New Bloggers 
2. Becoming a Blogger

Both of these groups also post a ton of useful information.

I also created my own blog share group for vegan bloggers. If you’re a vegan blogger I would love to have you join our group. The more people you can get in a blog share group the better because it’s all about getting the max exposure to each of our sites and spreading that vegan love right? 

Now that you’ve started blogging you’ve probably started to notice ads on social media geared to blogging and blogging secrets right? Well those are ads that usually have a lead a magnet (something to entice you to give them your email basically). 

Sign up for all of those! I’m not kidding, the lead magnets are usually packed with a ton of juicy free tidbits to teach you how to do this better, faster, & more efficiently. I don’t doubt that I couldn’t learn a lot of this stuff on my own but it would take me sooooooo much more time. Why would I do that to myself?

People I’ve given my email to in exchange for their lead magnet?

1. 10K Challenge (Heather & Pete Reese)
2. Bucketlist Bombshells
3. Pinterest
4. Tailwind
5. SEM Rush seminars/courses
6. Kate Kordsmeier
7. Introvertpreneur
8. Carla Biesinger
9. Marie Forleo 
10. Tracy Harris
11. Susie Moore
12. Sue B. Zimmerman
13. Jenna Kutcher
14. Christina Galbato

Those were all just people/companies that showed up in Instagram or Facebook ads after I had searched for a blogging course. If you search it, the internet will provide. 

Alright y’all I have gone on and on for too long, but I would like to close this post by thanking myself for doing it, again… 

I’ve found IG to have a very supportive & encouraging community. Twitter is fun but there’s definitely a lot more arguments & aggression on there. I’m also grateful for the blogger friends I’ve started to make. It’s nice having someone to reach out to when you need to vent and they know exactly what you’re talking about haha. If you’re thinking of starting a blog I highly recommend taking the 5 day blogging crash course first to see if it’s something you think you’d enjoy. 

But also I really want to thank my fellow vegans. You people are all so wonderful and special and unique. Your compassion and empathy keep me inspired and hopeful for our planet, so thank you 🙏.

Happy 1 Year Blogaversary – And What I’ve Learned Along The Way – A Blog About Stuff