Five Years of Advice

January 03, 2018

to Read (

Words)

Oh my word y’all, I cannot believe this is the start of six years blogging. 💜 Crazy amounts of stuff has happened in the past five years. Word of advice for anyone just starting out - do not give up. It might take a while before anyone starts noticing and leaving comments, but in the end it is worth the effort.

The first three years (2013-2015) I was mainly writing completely random things and was jumping around subjects. I am still writing a pretty broad spectrum, but honestly, it fits my personality. Finally, towards the end of '15, I knew I wanted to go a different route for my blog and started working on getting it ready for the beginning of '16. That was the first year I jumped from once a month, to once a week, on Saturday's. Then last year (2017) I switched to twice a week - trying to post every Wednesday and Saturday.

You do want to post consistently, whether it is once a month, or three times a week. Try to post on the same day of the week and if possibly, same time of day. One does want to avoid over posting - posting multiple times a day or every single day of the week (no one has time to keep up with that much content and if it is so frequent, it is probably not that great quality of content).

Do not fall into the old trick of you need to start out with a fancy blog. No, I did and it was the biggest mistake, so after a few months, I canceled and switched to blogger and left it for years as a very very plain and simple template. Not very appealing, but efficient and great for a trial run. Early last year, after six months of on and off researching templates, I found a very nice small company, that has the goal of quality and affordable designs. Because they believe that people should not be spending $3,000 or $500 on a new layout and design. I spent a total of $... to up grade my blog to what you see now.

Branding is important. It is important for several reasons. The first one is to truly establish what your purposes is and what area/topics you are focusing on. You want the readers to be able to look around your blog and leave the first time knowing what you are about. You want them to come away with a knowledge of what you will be talking about. If they cannot figure it out, and they do not see anything that interest them, they will not come back.

Most people will say quality photograph is super important. But then they go on to say for starting out it is great just to use your phone camera, because most of them are actually really good. And I agree. Most of the photos from my first three and a half years were taken on an iPhone, iPad or a point &a shoot camera. BUT when I finally got a DSLR in the beginning of 2016, I noticed a huge, I repeat HUGE, difference. All the sudden it all came together, the content that I loved and photos to match it. Because one has to remember that the pictures are what catches ones eye and in some cases, makes one click on a link to read more.

Lastly authenticity is crucial. It you are not authentic or honest, how do you expect people to like and follow you? Follow your heart and and really focus on what you are passionate about. Do not let your mind get tangled with the thoughts of following some of the big name bloggers. Because when you look at them, really look at them, you will find that each one has a different niche that they have discovered and are working in areas that they truly love. So do not be a follower, rather a leader and you will find your way much quicker .