So, I’m starting another blog.
To be honest, I’m not sure if there is any “right” way to get these things rolling. I was told not to think too hard about it by the professionals. Well, here I am. Does this post have proper SEO and keywords assigned to it? No. Do I have pretty art assigned to this post or eye-catching graphics? Certainly not. You’ve got to start somewhere. Here, I figured I’d take the time to give you a brief history of my adventures in blogging.
My First Blogs
I don’t even remember who hosted my first blog, or if blog hosting was a legit thing. The internet at that time was relatively new, and I was about eleven. I’d certainly be interested to know what sort of things I put on that website, but can’t remember. What I can remember is that I had a light gray background, bright neon icons, .midi music, and a scrolling marquee. What can I say? It was the ’90s.
My next two blogs were on MySpace and BlogSpot/Blogger. I’m fairly certain there was a Tumblr in there too, but can’t remember specifics. The blog I created on MySpace gave me the first taste of popularity with my writing. At the time, I’d written poems and short stories—most of which weren’t published anywhere else. Yet, in writing about work and familiar customer service issues that others could relate to, I found an audience.
However, when MySpace started to lose popularity to a new platform (Facebook), my blog died. I tried to rekindle the flame by starting another blog with BlogSpot, but soon found that I was merely recycling my old content and not producing anything new or exciting. No one cared about some article I wrote about a fellow student throwing the basketball into the opponent’s hoop during a high school game. And since the blogging world wasn’t nearly as developed as it is today, there weren’t as many tools to drive traffic to my site. I quickly shut it down.
For years, I retained the itch to write more than fiction. I mean, I just love writing! There were things I wanted to discuss outside of my stories—and so many things at that! So without further ado, I launched a blog in 2015 through WordPress. This was my most professional blog to date. I had a personalized domain. I had a small mailing list. However, I had no theme, no marketing strategy, and no editorial plan. What is that familiar saying? “If you write a blog for everyone, it will appeal to no one.” And that was my biggest mistake.
I had a lot of trouble finding the purpose of a target audience. I wanted to be read by all. Yet, my material ranged from fiction to poetry, minimalism, and fitness. There were far too many things I wanted to discuss, and that doesn’t attract a readership. My second biggest mistake was my lack of consistency. I posted when I wanted to. I also participated in a one-month challenge to write a post every day. Needless to say, I produced sub-par posts that month. Eventually, I saw that I wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped and couldn’t figure out what I was doing wrong.
My most recent blog, LETS (Leadership, Engagement, Teamwork, and Self-Development) can only be found on my workplace’s intranet. While I don’t update it as regularly as I used to, it’s still up and running. Here, I had a theme and a purpose. I recognized that a lot of the people I worked with hated reading. And I loved reading! I formed the LETS blog with the intention of helping my colleagues out. I devoured books on the topics listed above, then reviewed them and provided a brief summary that could be digested in less than six minutes. This provided an opportunity for those intimidated by 500-page tomes to get a taste of what each book was about and decide if they wanted to invest any further time into it.
Why write a blog now? Aren’t there enough already?
Flash forward to now. I am starting my sixth (or seventh) blog. I have a clear theme and content list developed, I know my target audience, I’ve started a public Instagram page that represents my brand, and I’m dabbling with a mailing list! But why now? Certainly, there is already an ocean of blogs out there, but the thing is, they aren’t going away any time soon.
Blogs, web content, news media sites—it’s the way of the world. From a reader’s perspective, that’s how we learn new things, stay abreast on current topics, and connect with our favorite creators. From a creator’s viewpoint, that’s how we connect with our audience, grow a readership, promote our brand or business, and share ideas. Whether you’re a writer, photographer, graphic artist, fitness coach, or independent consultant, you need a platform to connect with the outside world.
Speaking of the outside world, things are finally opening back up. Masks are coming off. Border restrictions are lifting. There is no better time than now to connect! This is a new beginning and I thank all of you for joining me on my journey.
Stay safe out there!
-Eliza
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