It took 6 months of blogging to answer 2 important questions.
Do I enjoy the process of blogging?
Do other people find value in my blog?
I’ve made many mistakes in the 6 months since I made this website. I will make more. But I keep coming back with a willingness to learn and improve.
Reflection is an important part of learning. As is talking about our experiences.
It’s how we feel connected to the world. It’s how we find the magic of community.
Blogging is a lot of work
There’s a lot to learn about SEO and backlinks and domain authority and authoritative content and…it’s easy to get overwhelmed.
People want to convince you that blogging is an easy way to make money. It’s not. These people are trying to sell you something. Even if they are not asking for your money right away, they want your time.
One goal of a blog is to convert your time into money. This is known as a sales funnel. It will start with signing up to a newsletter. Or some other seemingly innocent micro-commitment.
The amount of people offering help only compounds the main problem. It might be worth spending the money for help. It might not. Figuring out who to trust takes time. I’ve fallen for the wrong advice. Blogging is a lot of work. This is a hard lesson that I’m still learning: if a blog isn’t built like a business, it becomes a job.
Be prepared to make mistakes and treat each one as a learning experience. It will get easier with practice.
Good practice
The best practice is to show up for practice. Let me explain. Athletes practice before a game. Bloggers practice on the internet. Before optimising, monetising and spending money on your website. It’s important to know why you want to blog.
Something isn’t best practice if it doesn’t work for you. If something is stopping you from blogging, it isn’t worth spending the time on. For example, I need to feel extroverted to promote my content. I’ve let many things stop me from finishing articles. My toxic thoughts went something like this: what’s the point, if no one is going to read my writing?
The most important thing about practice is showing up. Knowing your why and remembering your why will keep you showing up when the work gets hard.
Remember, blogging is a lot of work.
I went through a period of not writing for my website. Because it wasn’t a priority. I wasn’t enjoying it. My why wasn’t important enough. I had to redefine my purpose for being here.
I encourage you to keep showing up to write. Reflect on your own motivation and energy cycles. If you are struggling, dig beneath the surface and find out why.
It 6 months of blogging to figure out that I enjoy helping people. It makes me feel more like myself. This is why I write
Offer support to your readers without the expectation of anything in return. Don’t trick them. Be honest with the value your time provides. We do this all the time in real life. A favour for a friend. Helping a stranger on the street. It is no different on the internet. There are real people behind the screens.
Where to find inspiration
Ideas are easy. Working on them, day after day after day is the hard part. Especially after the initial enthusiasm runs out. If you don’t have a sustainable working practice, energy will inevitably run dry.
Burnout, dry spells, writer’s block can all happen from working hard.
I’ve experimented with different types of content. Some have worked, some haven’t. That’s okay. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to find what resonates. It took me awhile to find content I enjoy writing that also provides unique value to the reader.
I live a rather unusual life. How many nature poets do you know? This used to make me feel weird. But is that very weirdness that makes my perspective valuable.
Identity is a core pillar between the internal landscape of the writer and the public realm of the reader.
What type of blogger do you want to be? I don’t mean your writing niche. But the person you want to become while blogging?
Knowing your identity will help figure out where to find inspiration and energy.
I seek inspiration when I don’t have anything important to write. Inspiration is what connects the deeper parts of myself to the page. I want to tell the truth to my readers, always.
There is always more to do
A website is a rabbit warren. There are always new tunnels to dig. Old ones need attention. You will become exhausted if you try to do everything at once.
But rabbits, like humans want more than a patch of dirt. We want a home.
Homes require attention. Imagine yours is leaking. The immediate solution is to close the windows when it rains. But there’s a hole in the roof.
I just wrote a mixed metaphor. I want to fix it. But I wanted to show you what my writing looks like before I edit. There is always more to do.
Plans will change
It’s okay to change directions. But when you do, update your plans.
When you feel like you have too much to do, go back to your strategy. A strategy is a living document. It is a map to guide you through the unknown to reach your destination. Your goals are the destination. But a good strategy needs attention to be effective. It’s not a document you should create once and forget about in a desk drawer. Will the tasks on your list move you closer to your goals?
I am easily distracted by the green spaces beyond my window. But this is exactly why I need a good strategy. It is the map that guides me back to my path.
Practical tips:
Revisit and revise old content. Give it a new coat of paint.
Is your old content still relevant and filled with the best advice?
Do all the links still work?
Have you learnt more about the subject that could strengthen the article?
Update it or allow it to compost. This is known as the content life cycle.
Quality takes time
Writing good content takes longer than you think. Be patient. Excessively patient. Life gets in the way. Consistency is hard. But hard is where growth happens.
If you spend time to work on your writing then your writing will grow. If you don’t, it won’t. It’s that simple and that hard.
Keep coming back to the reasons you are on this journey.
It took 6 months to answer 2 important questions.
Do I enjoy the process of blogging?
Do other people find value in my blog?
The first answer is yes. The second is up to you.