Being a blogger seems very easy to the outside world. We open our laptops, purge a few words, then sit back and watch the money churn in. What a brilliant life, don’t you think? And on top of that, you live the luxury of an influencer without having to get out of your pajamas! Talk about a win! If you had asked me before I started my blog, I would have said that it is basically the dream. That is, until I discovered the frustrating side of blogging.
Fellow bloggers know that it isn’t as easy as it appears. If anything, it is a very frustrating hobby to make an income from. And with so many blogs already saturating the web, how much value can a ‘Growing With Spawn’ add?
If you aren’t already a blogger, I thought I would share with you the not-so-perfect aspects of blogging. But please do take it with a pinch of salt. After all, everyone’s journey is different!

Improving your DA is harder than losing weight
Have you ever wondered why some websites always appear at the top of your web searches? You know, the likes of Wikipedia, Amazon, etc. It’s not because they paid a pretty penny to be there – although some might’ve. It is that five-headed best called Domain Authority (DA).
When I first found out about DA and how it affects the opportunities you can get from having a good one, I was determined to grow mine to as close to 100 as possible. Now, I’m not trying to be a negative Nancy, but trying to grow your DA is probably harder than losing a few pounds… literally! With nearly a year to my domain, we have only crept up from a DA of zero to eight. Let that sink in… One whole year!
But why is this relevant?
I bet you’re wondering why I care about my DA so much. Well, if you have never heard of GetBlogged, you should shuffle your blogger butt over to their site and sign up today. As much as I am not being paid to recommend them, I was lucky enough to have heard about them through a fellow blogger and have been a convert ever since!
When it comes to making money from your blog, there are many ways to do it. The easiest way is, of course, to sell a product of your own to your dedicated readers. However, if like me, you struggle to come up with ideas of what to sell, there are many sites that offer jobs to bloggers. On blogger outreach sites such as this one, they offer paid opportunities for bloggers looking to make a quick buck. The only catch is that your DA has to be good enough to qualify!
Oh, and before I forget, the biggest key to improving your DA is to get as many ‘do follow’ backlinks as possible. Simple enough right? *Scoffs*
Let me know if you want the intel on DA, and I will dedicate an entire post to it. But for now, on with the struggles.
Finding ways to support other bloggers without it being a tit for tat
If you don’t know by now, I am a mom, wife, and hard-working employee. I also have a family and friends that I need to interact with every now and then before they disown me. Add blogging to that mix and the twenty-four hours each day has to offer is not nearly enough to keep up with every blogger’s site who supports mine. And the worst part is that I really want to. However, adding more blogging hours means debiting it from a different pillar of my life. Spoiler alert – that is not an option!
And yet, we all know that if you become part of the blogging community, you need to support your fellow bloggers. So how does one juggle the pieces of the puzzle? Wait, is that even possible to do? You know, juggle puzzle pieces? Anyways, back to managing blogging and real life, it essentially becomes tiring. As a result, I have witnessed quite a few unfollows, and a significant drop in engagement on my blog.
Do I hate it? Yes. Can I do anything to change it? Not that I can tell… If there is anyone who has mastered the formula, please, help a sister out!
But to my ride or dies, I really appreciate every like, comment, and retweet you do. I see you, I appreciate you and I will do everything to support you too!
Related: Why bloggers should have blogger friends
The expenses
When I first started out my blog, I was not aware that I would be paying as much as I do just to keep it afloat. While there are free options on WordPress, none of them allowed me to customise my site to my liking. So onto the premium plan we went… only to find that it was limiting as well. Now, here we are on the Business plan, subscribed to a paid email generating thingy and paying an annual fee for this domain name. Let’s also throw in the paid theme that has now become a GWS signature, the time factor (yes – my time is worth money), and the internet and office fees (ie. mortgage).
Here’s the thing, no one forced me into this commitment, but had I known how it would’ve panned out, I most likely would’ve made different decisions. So my fellow bloggers, if you plan on changing out from a personal or premium plan, rather go self-hosted! And tell your friends too.
The most frustrating side of blogging: Ranking on search engines
I wrote an entire piece on this but decided against adding it because we all know how saturated the internet is. If you forgot, refer to point one. However, ranking on search engines is indeed possible, but staying on page one is the hard part. With many people using the same keywords and optimising their sites for SEO, it is only expected that one’s reign on the front page would be very short-lived. I remember how excited I was to have found that my humble site ranked on Google’s first page. But by the next morning, I had nothing to show for it. If that isn’t such a frustrating side of blogging, I don’t know what is!
So fellow blogger, if you make it to the coveted slot, make sure to take a picture because it will most likely be short-lived.
Check out: A simple SEO guide for bloggers
It’s been a year on here and I hadn’t even heard of DA before this post – so well that should tell you how well I’m doing on this while blogging front. 🙈 So yeah – please do a whole post on it to educate us lost kids.
I totally get how frustrating it is when engagement falls – after an amazing March – where my engagement doubled from February – I had an abysmal April where it went back to February stats. I wasn’t around a lot in April due to work commitments so yeah but still. 😓
I get the frustration but you’re doing good – I love your blog and I hope you achieve all your goals in the coming year. ❤️
Lol thanks for making me laugh! But honestly watching everyone else’s growth gives me hope but then I look at mine and wonder what I’ve done wrong. Just one of those frustrations I conveniently left off this post 😅
Sorry about your stats dropping… your readers might’ve gone for Covid shots or something 🥴 they should be back on their feet now!
i really just write mine for the pleasure of writing and know it must be a challenge to monetize and keep it going. here’s to you and making it work.
Ha ha. I’m with you on the SEO. Almost 2 years in and mine is sitting at 10. I also find it hard to keep up with all the blogs that I follow. I have my favourites that I read faithfully – like yours, but I scroll past many others. I guess that reinforces the importance of an attention-grabbing title.
Wow never knew about the DA thing, thanks for sharing 👍😀
Also what do you suggest “Buisness plan” or “self hosted”
Thanks for reading!
Self hosted! The business plan is way more expensive, and you can get plugins on the self hosted version that would do everything the business plan does!
Such a good, informative post! Thank you! Yes, I’d love another in-depth post about DA (I’ve never heard of this 😱), I’m such an amateur!
I totally feel you about staying relevant in the community. It’s so dang hard to stay afloat… I want to support others who are starting their blog who have less following but I also want to support those who have helped me grow but there’s only so much time in a day and I also need to work on my own blog lol it’s tough! You hit the nail on the head!
Great post! It is frustrating to me that I can’t tell which of my followers are reading my posts (since many don’t like or comment). I would love to remove the people who just followed me in hopes of getting a follow but then never actually read anything. You know how I love to remove clutter!😀
Yes, yes and yes to all that! I struggle with the falseness of it, as well.
DA is so foreign to me. My domain authority is completely different on the different sites I’ve checked. Ahrefs gives me 2.8, Moz gives me 11 and Semrush gives me 16. I don’t know if this number is really as important as people make it out to be, just something made up by these sites to rank you.
I get how frustrating these sides can be. But I suppose it is more pressing the more professional our approach to our blog is. Ours is very relaxed as you know. We do not even have a clue about the things that you mentioned. But I hope you reach your targets seeing that you put a lot of work into your blog!
I can so relate with you on all of these. The DA things is annoying and I have some bad news for you- your DA is probably not going to go above 10 unless you move to a self-hosted site. I don’t know why that is but multiple bloggers including myself have experienced this. On my self-hosted blog my DA changed from 8 to 17 even though it’s the EXACT SAME content as this one. I even got emails from people who want to work with me even though I don’t use that blog anymore because of the increase in my DA. The whole DA thing is so bizarre to me. Everything like that including SEO etc is bizarre- it’s like your blogging to impress machines instead of the actual people who read your work.
Nooooo! That makes me so sad 😩
I know some bloggers on the business plan that have made it past the annoying 10 mark though. Really praying I’ll be one of them too 😅
The best way to increase your DA is to better your SEO- that’s what I’ve found. Another thing is that your blog needs to get older- yours is still relatively new but you will notice that as you blog consistently it will increase just because it’s old. My original domain with .wordpress in it is at like 23 even though it technically doesn’t even exist anymore. Unfortunately, for some of these things you just have to wait. Good luck with your DA though I’m sure it will increase over time!
I also had no idea what DA is till this post. I guess i still have a long way to go. I got the advice to go for self-hosting…indeed I find it more easier and cheaper.
I also find is a bit difficult to keep up with all the blogs i follow, I so wish u ciyldnjnteract with alm of them but its not possible..
I love that you keep it real! Especially about the blogging support. I would never want you to take away time from your family or other priorities just to engage with me. I know we support each other the best we can given our circumstances and life events. Much love to you my blogging friend 💕