Getting into Month 5 – My Journey so far in the world of blogging about men's style

Hi everyone,
my name is <name> and in the 6th of June <year>. I got my first job as an engineer back in November <year> and I have now been promoted to a project manager. Before that I used to dress really casual with whatever I could find, for the sole reason I could not afford anything better.
After my first paycheck I started doing research and realized I must update my wardrobe and skills, thing that many young people lack. Which is my niche of the blog, targeted towards more younger people I would say between 20-35
The first obstacle was making all this happen. Many have the idea, more do not know how to start or what to do with it. Here is what I did and my tips:
• Decide on a name that is easy to remember, catchy, hopefully shows the topic and means something to you. Choosing mine was quite easy as I said, but I feel it is quite catchy, rolls out the tongue easy and is not so hard to remember.
• How to start? I knew jack about coding, web design and Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Start with google, learn the basics about SEO, find a good reputable host (discounts are available all the time) and buy a premium theme. One time purchase, if you are serious about blogging get a theme. I do not want to look at a rubbish design, nor you would want to read from it, at least on desktop. Additionally, for a very small fee you can get your website hosted instead of being on the limited free platform. It is worth it. But only if you are serious. If you think you are going to make a quick buck or have tons of traffic like those ignorant people on the web and the Facebook groups, please save your money and do something else. TLDR: Stop talking and start doing.

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• What to expect: Not much in the beginning. You need to build some quality content, some cornerstone content. Pick up a pace, write 1/2 times a week or whatever suits you and be consistent. Google loves consistency. You want to play with the big boys in the future. If you have long quality frequent posts, your organic traffic will start picking up after the 3rd-4th month. This is a marathon, not a sprint.
• Get the necessary plugins. Don't you dare not use things like Akismet, Yoast SEO, some kind of Cache plugin etc. Find what you need and use it, they are mostly free.
• Have a plan: The moment you publish an article, start thinking about the next topic, or have a list. It doesn't just come to your mind (at least for the most of us). Try to look around you, search the web, see what others are talking about. Find cues that could be something!
• Foster relationships: For me that was talking to a couple of big brands and getting noticed and building rapport with them. I have fostered a great relationship with the local guys at suitsupply Stockholm and Carlos Santos from Portugal. Amazing people, amazing service, amazing products. And they gave me a backlink, just because I reviewed their product positively (but it was totally worth it, not just some shitshow).
• Stay true to your word: Don't you dare sugarcoat a shitty item if you review just because they paid you to. I hesitated at no moment to bury that shitty Vincero watch both on Reddit and in my blog. Just Google vincero watch review on the 1-2 pages of Google and see how rubbish it is. Don't let anyone taint who you are and what you believe. If you put some gold dust on shit, it will still remain shit.
• Publish and crawl to Google: The moment you publish, crawl the link to google. You write well but nobody can find it? it is as good as not writing.
These were from the top of my head. Now on to the actual results.
I am in a highly saturated niche, mostly by "the big boys". Some of those are HeSpokeStyle, Realmenrealstyle (don't buy anything he sells, especially that shitty watch), effortlessgent, modestman, artofmanliness etc.
This means being a little tiny blog that wants to grow, I had to make it count.
So my first post had to be good, at least to kickstart things. I wrote one of the basics, "how to buy your first suit". Fast forward now, I am ranking second for keywords like "buy first suit", "first suit guide" etc.
Try to use good long tail keywords that will always attract the kind of traffic you want, not just randoms. I have managed to rank many of my pages in the first pages of google, and a few of these results are ranked 1. I am proud of myself.
Now a quick recap of what happened:
Month 1: Launched on a free template, started to learn what works and what not. Not much traffic apart from social media and friends clicking. Less than 10 organic searches. I focused on keeping my schedule, writing 4 important posts that would serve as cornerstone content and set the pace. 2-3k words each.
Decided that I am moving to paid theme. Had some problems in the transition, spent countless hours fixing everything. Plugins. Just disable and see what is the problem.
Make a nice logo. Ask that artist friend to make you one.
Month 2: Started to feel weird about writing more things, had to rely on friends to photoshoot me. Decided I can write how to guides and reviews. Wrote my highest performing post to date "suitsupply mtm review".
Traffic went up slightly, I finally realised none of my friends care and they are not my audience and moved on. Organic search started very slowly.
Month 3: Things on paper remained the same, though with more users per month but the real difference was organic search. It started picking up! I started fostering that relationship with Carlos Santos and realised that reviews of products are performing best. It is a cue on where to focus in the end. I want to try and have at least one review per month.
Month 4: I got my backlink from Carlos Santos, wrote a great Reddit post on 2 subs and I am on over 1000 users per month already. Approximately 9000 views or something. 3/4 of my daily traffic (30-60) per day on average comes from organic search which is what I want to see.
Goal: My goal is to overtake with my first post the RMRS guy (buy first suit). My goal is to try and reach 100 users per day on average by the end of the year. My goal is to keep writing every week. 52 weeks, 52 posts. I am almost halfway. I have prepared 90% of my post about Chinos tomorrow. Lastly, to start monetising it with affiliate marketing and brand partnership until June next year.
I have to eat my soup now as I wrote too much, and I am really hungry! I hope you get something from reading this my friends and never give up. If you really want something do it. Action beats words.

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