The short version: Choose your platform (WordPress or Medium), publish your first post within 48 hours, then commit to 30 consecutive days of writing before you measure anything or worry about traffic. The difference between people who succeed and people who don't is that one group starts before they're ready, and the other never starts at all.
Why you're reading this instead of starting
You're here because you want to start a blog, but you're not sure where to begin. That's honest, and it's the right place to be. What I'm going to give you is not the dreamland version. I'm going to give you the version I've lived through: the false starts, the platform paralysis, the three months of planning before a single published word, and then the decision to just write.
I've been writing online in public for nearly fifteen years. I've done it when I had an audience and when I had none. I've done it for money and for nothing. I've had weeks where I got 40,000 readers and weeks where I got 40. What I know is this: the platform doesn't matter as much as you think. The strategy doesn't matter as much as you think. What matters is that you hit publish.
Choose your platform: WordPress or Medium, nothing else
Here's the thing nobody tells you. There are 500 blogging platforms. You don't need them. You need two options, and you need to pick one today.
WordPress.com (not self-hosted WordPress.org): If you want to own everything, have full control, and don't mind paying, use WordPress.com. It costs GBP 4 per month for a basic blog. You get a custom domain, SEO basics built in, and no ads. This is what I run lilachbullock.com on. It's straightforward. It works. It grows with you. The trade-off is you have to manage it, and there's a learning curve. Set aside two hours to understand the backend.
Medium: If you want to write and nothing else, use Medium. Free to start. No setup. No maintenance. You can publish your first post in six minutes. The limitation is that you don't own your audience; Medium does. But Medium has an audience of millions looking for content, and if you're starting from zero followers, that matters. Medium's Partner Program also pays writers based on reader engagement. I've seen people earn GBP 200 to GBP 2,000 per month on Medium once they build momentum. That's real money for a side project.
That's it. Pick one. If you're paralyzed, pick Medium. You can always move to WordPress later. I know people who've done both directions. The worst choice is to spend two weeks researching Substack, Ghost, Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly. You're not differing on those platforms. You're delaying.
Your first post: publish it this week
Here's the concrete truth: your first post will be bad. I mean that kindly and plainly. My first blog post in 2010 was 400 words of rambling nonsense about why Twitter was going to change business. It got 8 views, and 6 of them were me.
That's fine. That post taught me more about what I wanted to write than any planning document would have.
Write your first post on something you know. Not something you want to learn. Something you already know. If you're a project manager who's tired of bad spreadsheets, write about that. If you're a parent who's figured out a better school-run system, write that. If you've tried seventeen different productivity apps and found the winner, write that.
The post should be 1,000 to 1,500 words. That's long enough to be useful and short enough that you won't spend a week on it. Write it in one sitting. Don't edit for two days. Then do one pass. Then publish.
The title format that works: "[Thing you figured out]: [How or why it matters]." Examples: "Email is dying, and here's what replaces it in 2026." "Why your to-do list isn't working and what I use instead." "How to write a sales page that doesn't make people uncomfortable."
Publish your first post this week. Not next month. This week.
The 30-day rule: show up daily, measure nothing
This is where most blogs die. People write one post, get no traffic, and assume blogging doesn't work.
It doesn't work after one post. It works after you've built a habit and you have 30 to 50 posts in the world.
Here's what I tell people: commit to 30 consecutive days of writing. One post every single day, or five posts one week and nothing the next. The rhythm is yours. But do it 30 times in a row.
During those 30 days, do not check your traffic. Do not check how many people read your posts. Do not check if you got followers or comments. That is a trap. You will get discouraged and quit.
What you do instead: write. Notice what you enjoy writing about. Notice which topics you have the most thoughts on. Notice which posts took you 45 minutes and which took three hours. That data is more valuable than traffic data.
By day 30, you'll have 30 pieces of writing in the world. You'll be a different writer than you were on day 1. You'll have figured out your voice. You'll have discovered what you want to say.
Then, and only then, look at the numbers.
Where does traffic come from in 2026?
This is the honest bit that other guides skip. Traffic doesn't come from the blog itself for the first six months. It comes from you sharing the blog.
That's why everyone quits. They think once you publish, people magically find it. They don't. Google takes months to rank a new site. Social media algorithms don't push unknown writers. Your blog sits there, and unless you send people there, nobody reads it.
So here's what works. After you've published 10 posts, share them.
Take your three best posts. Post them on LinkedIn if you're in business. Post them on Instagram if you're in lifestyle or creative work. Post them on Twitter if you're in tech. Post them on Facebook if your audience is there. The choice depends on where your audience is, not where you think it should be.
You'll get your first 100 readers from your personal network. Not because the blog is perfect. Because they know you. This is why so many guides tell you to "build an audience first." That's not wrong. Your first readers are your existing network.
By month three or four, if you have 30 to 50 good posts and you've been consistent with sharing, Google starts to notice. You start to rank for keywords. Real strangers start to arrive. That's when the blog becomes a channel instead of a project.
The money question: when can you earn?
Let me be specific. You cannot earn money from a blog until you have consistent traffic. Consistent traffic is generally 1,000 visitors per month minimum, but ideally 5,000 or more.
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At 1,000 visitors per month, you might earn GBP 20 to GBP 100 from ads, depending on your topic and audience. At 10,000 visitors per month, you're looking at GBP 200 to GBP 500 per month from ads alone.
But ads are the slowest money. Faster money comes from selling something. A digital product. A service. A course. Sponsorships. Affiliate income.
If you want to start a blog and make money, that changes the strategy. You need a product or a service before you even start the blog, ideally. The blog then drives traffic to that thing. That's how you make real money.
The alternative is to build the blog first, build an audience, and then figure out what to sell them. Both work. The first is faster. The second is more natural.
The thing nobody says out loud
Most people quit blogging. Most blogs that are started are abandoned within three months. The statistics are depressing. But here's why that's useful information.
If you just show up and keep going, you've already beaten 90% of people who started. That's your real advantage.
The blog that works isn't the one that's the smartest or the most beautifully designed. It's the one that's still publishing when the author is 50 years old. The one that's accumulated 500 posts. The one that has become a resource.
I've watched people with huge platforms fail because they quit. I've watched people with no followers succeed because they stuck around.
There's no secret. There's just consistency.
Your first week action list
- Today: choose WordPress.com or Medium and create your account. Spend no more than 30 minutes on setup.
- Tomorrow: write your first blog post. 1,000 to 1,500 words. Publish before you overthink it.
- Days 3 to 7: write and publish six more posts. Same length. Topics you know. No editing hell.
- By end of week: you have 7 published posts and a blog that exists. That puts you ahead of 95% of people who say they want to start a blog.
What comes next
After 30 days, you reassess. You look at which topics got engagement. You look at which writing style felt natural. Then you adjust. This is where 4 things you need to know about starting a blog come in handy: consistency, quality, distribution, and audience feedback.
You're not trying to go viral. You're not trying to be famous. You're trying to build a thing that lasts. That means you show up, you write, you share, and you improve based on feedback.
That's how a blog becomes real.
I have written more around this on the site: How to Start a Blog in 2026 (Without Wasting Six Months Getting It Wrong), How to Start a Blog and Make Money (What Works in 2026), 4 Things You Need Know About Starting a Blog.
The First 90 Days: What My Analytics Showed
Everyone tells you to "be patient" with a new blog, but nobody shows you the real numbers. When I launched a niche blog focused on LinkedIn marketing tips as an experiment in 2022, I tracked everything from day one. Month one: 214 visitors, almost all from social shares I posted manually. Month two: 189 visitors, a slight dip that scared me until I realised it coincided with a two week gap where I did not publish anything new. Month three, after I committed to two posts a week and started replying to every comment within 24 hours: 1,340 visitors, with 60 percent of that traffic coming from Google for the first time.
The lesson buried in those numbers is that search engines took roughly 70 to 80 days to start trusting the site enough to rank anything, even for low competition long tail phrases like "how to write a LinkedIn headline for consultants." Before that point, every visitor came from somewhere I pushed them to directly: Twitter threads, LinkedIn posts, and one guest comment on a marketing forum that alone brought in 40 visits over a weekend. If you are checking Google Search Console daily in week two wondering why nothing is happening, this is normal and not a sign of failure.
What changed the trajectory was not volume of content but one specific post: a 1,800 word breakdown of LinkedIn's algorithm changes that I wrote after reading a leaked internal memo referenced in a Business Insider article. That single post still brings in around 300 visits a month, almost two years later, because I updated it three times as the platform changed. Compare that to the 40 other posts from that period, most of which get under 10 visits a month combined.
My honest opinion, which contradicts most "start a blog" advice, is that publishing frequency matters far less than most guides claim. I would rather see a new blogger write one researched, source backed post a month than four rushed 500 word opinion pieces. Search engines and readers both reward the post that answers a specific question completely. If I were starting again, I would spend the first 90 days on five posts total, each built around a question I could answer with a number, a screenshot, or a document nobody else had bothered to read.
Frequently asked questions
How long does it take to get your first 1,000 readers?
Between three and nine months, depending on your topic, how often you publish, and how actively you share. If you publish five times a week and share consistently on social, you could hit 1,000 in three months. If you publish once a week and don't share, you're looking at a year or more. It depends on your effort, not the blog.
Should I start with WordPress or Medium?
If you're starting today and you're unsure, Medium. It's free, it has built-in traffic through its platform, and you can always move later. WordPress is better long-term, but Medium is better for beginners who want to write first and worry about infrastructure second.
What if my first posts get no traffic?
That's normal. Your first 10 posts will likely get very little traffic. The blog needs volume before Google notices it, and you need time to find your voice. Don't quit. This is the part where most people fail, which is why it's your biggest advantage if you keep going.
Can I make money from a blog in the first six months?
Not from ads. Possibly from sponsorships if you have an audience already, or from selling a product or service. The money comes from traffic and authority and having something to sell. If you have none of those, focus on building traffic first. The money comes later.
Related reading: How to Get Paid Writing for Marketing Blogs (And Land the Gig) and Sites That Accept Guest Posts: Real Lists, Real Pay, and What Gets You Published.
For the bigger picture, see my full guide to content marketing.
Once your blog is live, a guest post can grow your reach fast. You can write for our digital marketing blog.
