Hello my dear readers,
I have started my blogging journey with 2 things in my mind, no, actually 3:
1.To share some of my hobbies like cooking and traveling
2. To bring a smile on readers’s faces
3. And to take it at a certain level and be able to monetize something from it
Now, what I have learned from this journey so far?
I have learned that:
One
I did not expect it to be easy and I am a very organized person but honestly with a full time job for living, I have struggled to find time to share my hobbies.
I don’t know you, but in my case, I have realized that is not so easy to write a post. Is not just that I sit down in front of my computer and start writing. For me writing a post means finding first the topic, then start the research, then start writing, taking the pictures when possible, preparing the graphics, review and then finally hit the button Publish.
In all it takes me minimum 3-4 days, as I only have maybe around 1 hour per day but not every day.
Two
If I want to grow, I need to be consistent.
I have noticed that if I don’t publish everyday, my views are dropping pretty much. Now, there are bloggers that publish maybe once per week, or once per month and they are just fine like this. Maybe their views don’t drop or maybe even if they do, they don’t care but in my case, since I have this intention to grow my blog, views are important.
Three
Don’t just publish posts for the sake of publishing them. It will not work. To engage people I need to give them quality.
I know, if you’ve ever read any blogging advising posts, you’ve definitely heard this pretty often and I do agree.
But what quality blogs means?
Maybe what is quality for me, is not quality for you…so how do I know?
I always do my research and make sure I give informative and useful content, something that can help others. No matter the subject, important is to be useful! If it’s an advice of how to grow a plant, a recipe, a trick in cleaning the house, an advice how to stay healthy, how to be happy, how to take care of a pet, no matter the subject, important is to be useful!
Engaging means growing! Beside engaging, nowadays a lot of bloggers just click the button like without even reading the post. As much as I like, I welcome and I appreciate genuine and constructive comments from my fellow bloggers, it doesn’t bother me either only the likes… remember? I want to grow my blog…how do I grow it? For sure I can’t grow it if I don’t have any likes…
Four
In 1.5 years I have passed 2,000 followers. Is this number good? Is it too low? I don’t honestly know. What I know is that I appreciate each and one of them.
Again, my intention is to grow this blog. But is it by growing the number of followers that we grow our blog? I think yes!
And how do I grow my followers? One of the most important things that I have learned is that I can write wonderful quality posts, very useful, but if I don’t go around and check, read and interact with my fellow bloggers, my posts will never be seen, will never be read.
Remember interaction and engagement means growing.
Five
I have learned that if I want to monetize this blog I need to be a seller.
I have 2,000 over followers and you know how much I have earned so far? The wonderful amount of 8$. I don’t know how much you earn with 5,000, 10,000 or more followers but so far this is what I have achieved from displaying ads and having a WordPress Premium plan.
If you read the bloggers that blogging is their way of living, they will give you same advices: write quality content and interact with the others, but how do they actually make the money for living? For sure not like me, sitting here and just trying my best to give quality content and wait for someone to find me and offer to pay me for writing my posts. They make money by being a seller! By going out there and ask for collaborations, sponsorship, guest blogs…meaning you need to be a seller, to sell your blog, to sell you.
Well, for this, I still need to work on myself…think that I have also did an online shop but guess what? Do you think is selling something? Nope…because I need to be a seller to sell something! I need to promote and sell the products… yes, definitely I need to work on myself for this part, as I’m really bad at it.
Well, this is my experience so far. I’m sure each of you have different experiences, depending also on what’s the purpose of you blogging.
However, I have learned that is always a work in progress, is always a learning experience and we never stop learning.
As Einstein was saying: “Once you stop learning, you start dying.”
And what I like from this experience is that if my blog is growing, I grow with him! And I like growing!
Important is also to take it seriously but also enjoy it! If we don’t enjoy it, it will just become a second job for which we are even not paid, so guess how long will take us to shut down everything and waste all the time that we have invested so far?
So in conclusion and in short, after 1.5 years of blogging I have learned:
- Time is of essence in blogging.
- Consistency is the key but keep it fun!
- Quality goes hand in hand with quantity in my case.
- Interaction with other bloggers is a major factor for growing a blog.
- Be a seller and monetize your blog, of course only if you are interested.
I may be wrong but this is my experience so far.
What is your experience? How is your journey? I would love to know. Let me know in the comments below. Sharing is caring 😉
Oh but there are also satisfactions of blogging, maybe I’ll cover them in a different post 😉
Bye Bye for now
Have a wonderful Sunday!