When I first started my blogs, I just jumped into the deep end right away. An interesting learning experience, but I realized if I wanted a blog with staying power I should have established some steps first. Here are 5 things I learned I should have done before actual blogging and sharing with the world.
- Decide why YOU want to blog. This should be the most important piece when creating your blog. Although I don’t believe your blog should always stick to a certain “theme” or anything, I do think it is important to understand why you want to start a blog. This will be a great driving force when keeping up with your blog. It can be as broad as sharing your life or specific as a food blog. So many people create blogs, but don’t keep up with it. (Myself included.) When you don’t have that “goal” of why you want to blog established, you’re less likely to keep at it and put time and effort into your blog.
- Find inspiration. There are so many pieces of life to see and share, and a lot of times it stems from inspiration. You want to find things that inspire your blog as a whole, what you want your blog to look like, how you want it to flow, and more. I find that finding inspiration from others encourages you to step out of your comfort zone and try new things. Life is always changing and evolving, and you’ll see that happen with your blog(s) over a period of time.
- Find your own niche. It’s great to be inspired by others! However, you still need to stay true to yourself. You may have a certain style of writing, creating images, or connecting with others. Don’t lose sight of yourself when writing your blog. Others will recognize that personal touch and true readers will enjoy it. This way you don’t lose YOU in the blog. (And feel the desire to keep coming back to it.)
- Organize your thoughts. I had SO many ideas with my blog and wanted to start writing about it right away, without getting my foot off the ground. When I did that I didn’t establish setting up my blog properly. Ideas are going to flow to you like a flood at times. Take the time to explore those ideas thoroughly. I found writing down my ideas and then taking the time to expand each one was the best solution for me. Instead of presenting ideas with little thought, I was able to share in a way that dig into each idea to its full extent. A great help for me was to also map out my posts/ideas on a calendar.
- Share your idea with a friend. I was very shy sharing my blog with my friends in real life. However, once I started to talk about it I found out I had friends who either had a blog or was having thoughts creating one. Now we encourage each other to be consistent with our blogs and have adventures in blogging together. They have also been one of my biggest supporters! We share each other’s blogs with other friends. You should take a little pride in your blog and share it with others! This helped me become less timid about exploring more adventures for my blog.
What is something you wished you had learned/done before blogging?
Although now I'm quite skilled in it, I wish I'd learned more about the hosting aspect of having a self-hosted blog. Then, I wouldn't have struggled as much as I did to figure things out. Now I'm at a reseller, so obviously I have learned about it, but I still think it would have been quite beneficial to have known about beforehand.
ReplyDeleteBlogging with friends is honestly something I wish I could do. :p