Recently I celebrated the one year anniversary of my blog. I can hardly believe it’s been a year since I starting maintaining my own soapbox. When I started blogging, I was not quite sure of the payoffs. Also, I didn’t know much about the platform, set up or what I wanted to write about.
After spending a little more than a year doing this, I feel as though I’ve learned some important lessons — and I want to share them in the hopes that the additional knowledge can help others.
(If you’ve been blogging for a while and have lessons you’ve learned, feel free to add them to the list I start here in the comments section.)
Be Consistent
This is a lesson I continue to learn over and over again. Although I don’t publish as much as I would like to, I do try to maintain consistency by publishing once a week. What ever publication schedule you decide to go with — just work diligently to maintain it.
Integration
I find the statistics quite useful on the WordPress platform. From regular review, I realize that a lot of traffic to my blog comes from other social media platforms. I’ve found the WordPress application on LinkedIn and Networked Blogs on Facebook to be great for increasing visibility. It’s pretty easy to do — I highly recommend you taking advantage of the opportunity.
Personal Branding
People have asked me: Do people still blog? I figure, since I’m still reading them all over the place, the answer is yes. Many people don’t actually realize they are reading blogs all the time. Regardless, if you are interested in doing some personal branding work, then I highly recommend getting on the blogging bandwagon. It’s a great way to get your thoughts and ideas out there. I have had many exciting opportunities come my way because of the content I continue to cover on my blog. Blogging is a great personal branding strategy and it’s free. I highly recommend!
Diverse Topics
The topics that I find most interesting, are not always most interesting to readers; therefore, when I’m viewing stats on what pieces are getting the most hits, I try to take that into consideration when developing article ideas. Writing about what’s getting read seems to make good sense.
K.I.S.S.
Keep It Short and Sweet — When I first started writing, my posts tended to be long and much more involved. Something I figured out speaking with others is that they don’t have to be. I can have multiple posts on a single topic or create series if I think there’s more to be said. Keep posts simple makes them easier to read on the go or quickly breeze through.
Do Some Research
Many blogs that I enjoy reading and I believe in turn what makes my pieces interesting to read, is the level or research involved. Admittedly, that’s my disposition and training, but anyone can do research and be a compelling source of relevant information. Research is also a great way to learn what’s happening in a particular field, while also keeping your readers informed.
Day-to-Day Life
I try to write about what I’m involved in reading or researching in my day-to-day life. What’s fortunate for me is that I spend a lot of time reading and writing about social media and technology. I encourage novice bloggers to write about the topics and interests you have in your daily life. Keep in mind there’s a lot of information that you can easily draw upon using this strategy too.
What are your blogging experiences? I would love to learn about your challenges and successes. Feel free to leave them in the comments section below.
Erika Pryor At Large 