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7 things I’ve learned from starting a new blog in 2026
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This email contains affiliate links. If you click on a link and make a purchase, I may get a commission. Hi Reader, As you probably know, if you’ve been here for a while, I started a brand new blog in 2026 called The Spiritual Habits Project. (A huge thank you to all of you who have visited it, shared it, signed up for my newsletter or followed me on Instagram!) It’s crazy to think that my new blog wasn’t even on my radar this time last year… (Missed the dramatic story of how TSHP came about? You can read the whole back story here!) Anyway, it’s been a few months now since I launched TSHP and it’s been really interesting to start a brand new blog in 2026. In some ways it has been very similar to when I launched Productive Blogging back in 2018… and in some ways it has been very different. So today I want to share some of the insights and helpful tips I’ve gleaned along the way. Here are 7 things I’ve learned from starting a new blog in 2026… 1. Growth is slow and that’s OKOK, so this first one I 100% expected, but it’s still kind of weird when it happens. The first few days were great – I got a nice little boost to my traffic because I shared my new blog to both my Productive Blogging and my Easy Peasy Foodie email lists. But then it was *crickets* for a while… and then, little by little, my traffic began to increase – but veeerrrry sloooowly 😂 This didn’t surprise me in the slightest. Research has shown over and over again that the first year of blogging is like a ghost town! Blogging is a long game. If you’ve started a new blog recently, you should EXPECT very few pageviews in the first few months – that’s totally normal. Hang on in there! Research also shows that the longer you hang on in there, the more it pays off! 2. Getting Google traffic is slow… but getting INTO Google is fastAgain, I knew it was going to be a long time until I got significant Google traffic. But what genuinely surprised me was how fast my new blog got INDEXED by Google! (I now rank for 353 keywords and all my posts are indexed.) In fact, Google is ALREADY my biggest traffic source. This is no accident! Despite what the AI “gurus” like to shout loudly, SEO is not dead. While others have been chasing the latest AI / AEO / GEO fashions, I’ve been quietly been plugging away at the boring, unglamourous, unfashionable but highly effective SEO strategies that have worked for my other two websites… …and I now have proof that those SEO strategies still work on a new blog in 2026! My new blog is 4 months old. In the last 30 days, I got 1,189 pageviews. That's 186.5% up on last month! 3. The more content you write, the more traffic you getWant to know the #1 thing I’ve done to accelerate my Google traffic growth? I have written lots of blog posts. I mean, could you get more boring than that? 😂 Well, it might be boring, but it’s still highly effective. The logic is painfully simple. The more blog posts you write, the more opportunities you have to rank. And this is especially true with new blogs. You cannot hope to rank for lots of search terms if you’ve only written 10 posts! In fact, if you have a small / new blog, writing lots of blog posts is pretty much the #1 thing you can do to accelerate your blog traffic growth. Don’t believe me? Take a look at this graph >>> 4. Keyword research still works – really well!It blows my mind that some people have written off keyword research as “old hat” or somehow irrelevant in this brave new world of AI. That has not at all been my experience. Keyword research is still as effective as ever. Especially Gold Nugget Keyword Mining And when combined with “write lots of blog posts” and good baseline SEO, it’s dynamite. READ MORE >>> How to find Gold Nugget Keywords 5. Starting out with 5 lead magnets was a smart moveMy second biggest traffic source is email. Why? Because I prioritized growing my email list from the get-go. I did a number of simple, but highly strategic things to achieve this. #1 - I created 5 strong lead magnets I bang on about this all the time… and for good reason! If you want to grow your email list fast, you need to create lots of really good lead magnets. That means great content, great design… and lots of them! #2 - I made it really easy to find those lead magnets It’s no good creating lots of really good lead magnets if no one can find them! I’ve put my new lead magnets EVERYWHERE!
#3 - I made it really easy to sign up for those lead magnets Finally, it’s no good having lots of great lead magnets all over your website… if the signup process is slow, clunky and annoying. That’s why I paid for a decent ESP right from the get-go. It’s an investment that I know will pay off big-time in the long run. (The AVERAGE ROI from email marketing is $40 for every $1 you put in!) 6. Instagram can drive a surprising amount of trafficWant to hear something really crazy? My third biggest traffic source is Instagram! 😂 So, this has been my “wildcard” experiment this year. Basically, since September, I’ve been experimenting with doing Instagram “properly”. For example…
And I’ve used Manychat to drive that traffic to my website and grow my email list. 7. Money accelerates growthThere is so much truth in that old adage “you’ve got to speculate to accumulate”. You *can* start a blog with $0 – but if you do, your chances of making any money ever from your blog is also about 0! If you want to be successful in blogging you have to think like an investor. An investor doesn’t skimp and scrimp, trying to spend the smallest amount of money possible. Instead they make strategic investments based on what will give them the biggest ROI. And that’s exactly what I’ve done with TSHP… The great thing about blogging is you don’t need to invest anywhere near as much as a brick and mortar business. But you do need to invest something! Here’s what I have invested in to accelerate my new blog’s growth: Good hosting Hosting is not something I’m willing to risk doing on the cheap. (I learned my lesson the hard way!) My new blog, like my other two blogs, is hosted by BigScoots. A professional theme This really is a non-negotiable in 2026! For TSHP, I used the Harper theme by Restored316 (One thing I love about their themes is how adaptable they are! Take a look at The Spiritual Habits Project and then take a look at the Harper Demo and you’ll see what I mean!) A keyword research tool I use KeySearch – it’s my #1 tool to help me find all those Gold Nugget Keywords! A really good ESP from the get-go This for me is another non-negotiable. Even before I launched my new blog I signed up for Kit, so I could have top-notch email marketing from Day 1. Yes, I know that $39 a month is a lot to spend when your blog is new and not earning anything yet, but it’s one of those examples where you really need to “think like an investor” – email marketing has one of the highest ROIs in the business – for every $1 invested, you can expect to get $40 back! Professionally designed lead magnets Professionally designed lead magnets was easily one of my biggest investments, but I know it will be so worth it in the long run! Manychat Manychat has been the #1 reason why Instagram is my third biggest traffic source. And because so many of my automations lead to my lead magnets, it’s also been a big driver of my email list growth. See it in action HERE! Over to you!I’d love to hear from you if you’ve started a new blog in 2026… what have you learned? Or maybe you've got an established blog, but you've learned a really good lesson this year... I'd love to hear that too. Hit REPLY and let me know! Happy blogging! Eb 😊 Psst. Not got $$$$ to spend on professionally designed lead magnets? I have the BEST solution! You can get access to dozens of professionally designed Canva templates in the Digital Product Success Academy AND Canva tutorials to teach you how to adapt them. Better still, you can sign up for ONE month, use all my templates and then cancel. (Honestly, I am being serious… I give you my full permission to do that, if you want too!) |
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