One month of blogging – Five things i have learned so far

So i started my blogging journey a month ago now. So i thought i would recap on where i started and what i have learned to date. Maybe this will assist some of you out there who are just starting out like me. In the first few days i read alot of things online about tips for starting out, some good, some really not applicable to me. I wasted time thinking about things i don’t really need to, just yet. This might save you some time. 🙂

I am not sure what a ‘successful’ blog is meant to look like at this point, but i am pretty proud of myself. A month ago i had an idea, and month on i have this blog. I have been lucky enough to now have 33 followers and i am averaging about 40 views a day. Thank yo to everyone who has been following and reading so far! (to be honest i expected 0 from what i had read online…. 🙂 )

I don’t know if this is good or bad, but it is better than a month ago! 😛 Let me know how you are going with your new blog, also feel free to link it in the comments. 🙂

1. Quality over quantity
I read somewhere online that posting regularly is important. So when i started i was trying to post something every day. While i agree that it is important to post often, i am finding that posting something of value less often is far better than throwing something up just because you have not posted anything that day. The goal is for your message to get out there right? Personally, i stopped setting a daily or weekly goal for posting in my first week. I now just try to post something when it comes to mind.

2. Tags, SEO etc
I read ALOT about SEO during my first days. I also tried to adopt a little of it to try and get some traffic to my blog. So far i have little success with this one. I found i have spent too much time worrying about it, and now put that to one side. I figure if i am creating something of value, people will find it. Probably not the fastest way to go about getting readers and traffic, but slow and steady seems to be working ok for now.

3. Read other blogs like yours and comment when you like something!
Seems like a no brainer, but i cant stress this enough. I have met some awesome people through this activity already, also found some really cool ideas and thoughts on things. Spend some time on this, well worth it! 🙂

4. What is your message?
To be perfectly honest, i still don’t really have one. Reading online about this in the beginning got a little overwelming. I kept thinking to myself, ‘shit, i need to have a theme, or a message for my readers’…. i stewed on it for a while, and i have still come up empty. For now, i have forgotten about this and i am just posting what i feel like, when i feel like it. I have a pretty wide scope of things on this blog already, and i am kind of enjoying the no direction thing. Not suggesting you do this too, but if you are still scratching your head about a theme, then don’t worry about it. My assumption is that this blog will take its own shape eventually as long as i give it time. Likely i will turn out to be wrong, but who knows. (not me, that is for sure)

5. Have fun
Above all else, have fun with your blog. I know i am. I found it a little daunting at first just throwing my thoughts up here for the world to see, but i am not so worried now. I kind of like it. I was a bit tentative at first, really careful not to offend anyone etc. But, i have found that my more contrversial posts have been the most popular. Makes sense to me, i know i don’t enjoy reading monotone dribble, do you? So my advice is to be daring, if you offend someone so be it. At least that means someone has engaged with what you are saying. That is your goal right?