Blogging 101 {Pt. 2}

It’s time for Blogging 101 Pt. 2 and today’s post is one that I really wish I had read when I first started blogging.  For a little background, I’ve been blogging for 4 1/2 years now, but didn’t really get serious about blogging until April of last year. It’s been a wild journey of trial, error and some embarrassing mistakes. If I had known back when I started what I know now, oh my, things would be different on my blog. Alas, I went into all of this “blindfolded” and hopefully speaking about some of my mistakes will help you from making the same ones.

Disclaimer: I am NOT an expert on blogging- I have so much more to learn myself. Throughout the years that I’ve been blogging, I have learned a lot, seen so many things and gained a lot from this world. I’ll share the good, bad and ugly {okay, there really isn’t too much ugly, but just thought I’d throw that in}.

Today’s topics: be a friendly blog neighbor, being authentic & transparent and having blog goals.

I cannot express the importance of this truth, particularly when you’re a new blogger. The blog community, especially a special category one such as crafting, is smaller than some believe. I am still amazed at how some of my blog friends, from different walks of life, know each other and have built friendships outside of the circles I met them through. I’ve interacted with a large gambit of bloggers and craft designers through the years, and something that I wish I did more of was be a better blog neighbor when I was a new blogger that didn’t have much on her “plate”. I wish I had left more comments for others {especially since I know how I appreciate them} and built better relationships with fellow bloggers. Granted, yes, I did build a large amount that I still maintain, but I could have done better. For me, it’s not just with the intention of networking, but rather building friendships with those in the same circles I am in. Having those personal & working relationships are vital to encourage and keep the blog community healthy and thriving.

This may be a phrase that you hear or see in other posts about starting a blog, but it’s a big one. The way you write and convey your thoughts, emotions in posts should be in a way that YOU actually communicate. If you aren’t dynamic in real life, but in your posts you use a lot of “amazing”, “fantastic”, “gorgeous” type words, that’s not really being true to yourself. Do you see me using these words in my posts? YES! Why? Because I actually do talk like this in real life. I would like to think that I’m expressive and using these words help me to convey in writing how I’m really thinking and feeling.

In the same way, like I mentioned in the Blogging 101 Pt. 1 post last Friday, write about things YOU enjoy and are interested in. If you pair that with writing how you communicate in real life, this will translate to your blog and really reflect who YOU are. After all, your blog is your “online home” and you don’t want phony or fair-weathered readers. If you are being true to who you are, people will sense that and want to visit you often. {Isn’t that true of the blogs you enjoy most? I know it is for me!}

Whether it’s in school, your career, or even life, it’s good to have goals for yourself. If you want a promotion, you need to start planning on how you’ll get one. If you want to get better grades in school, you need to think of the steps that will help ensure you get them. In the same way, if you want to have a successful blog, it’s important to have some goals for yourself. If you want to see ___ amount of unique viewers in a month, most likely, it won’t just land in your lap. You have to provide posts that will encourage your readers to share your blog, keep them wanting to return and stay engaged and of course with social media, it can spread quickly. One could have several different types of blog goals: wanting to post ___ amount of times per week, achieving a winning card on a challenge or link up, driving up a certain number in viewers, or if you are really serious, getting a specific number of sponsors each month. Whatever direction you take your blog, it’s important to have some sort of goal for yourself.

Can I be honest? When I started blogging, it didn’t even occur to me to have goals for my blog. I never researched how to be a better blogger, or how to run a successful blog, so it didn’t cross my mind in my starting stages. Now, I would say that having goals for my blog is definitely one of the things in the forefront of my mind. I’m a person that sets goals and likes to achieve them, it is SO very rewarding when something you worked hard for gets achieved. With all of this in mind, you must also stay realistic. If you have 10 followers, you can’t set a goal of getting 1000 followers within a month- that’s just not realistic. I suggest starting out with smaller goals and as you get more comfortable and achieve those goals, you can start gearing up for the bigger ones.

Well, sweet readers, that is going to conclude this second installment of Blogging 101. I hope I left you with some food for thought today. Was there a particular point in either post that you plan on trying out? Feel free to leave a comment {or send me an email}- I’d love to hear about it!