Hiii!
I don’t know how you got here, but I’m sure glad you did.
I can’t tell you how long I’ve been festering on this laptop, trying desperately to write my first blog post, only to delete it again and stare at a blinking cursor for hours on end.
So!
I’m going to tell you how I was able to finally launch this blog in spite of blog overwhelm.
Here are 5 straight-forward answers that we’ll cover in this post:
- Know that blogging is not saturated, and certainly not dead!
- Stop DIY-ing and find a mentor or invest in an online course
- If you want to earn money from blogging, find your niche!
- Create a list of SEO-friendly topic posts within your niche
- Create an editorial calendar and a writing schedule
But but but…
Before I proceed, let me tell you a bit about my blog attempts that’s been going on now for more than 12 years!
(Scroll down further if you’d rather get on with the juicy parts. ^_^)
Because.. 12 years…argh!
How I got started blogging
I started blogging back in 2004 when blogs were still unheard of (or at least it was in my case). Back then, we didn’t write for search engines or company sponsors…
We didn’t lose our minds about page views and social media followers….
We didn’t know what it felt like to have someone unsubscribe from our newsletters or have someone unfollow our Instagram (since social media was basically non-existent).
The Personal Blog
Things back then were easy. We simply blogged for the love of telling stories and getting creative. We blogged about our daily lives, our experiences, and whatever train of thought we had at the moment.
I loved it.
It was a virtual journal of some sort…and a far cry from the blogs we read today. Although there are still personal blogs that exist today, they are rare and are mostly reserved for the entertainment of family and friends.
When I learned about blogging, I had zero knowledge that I could be earning money from it.
And I’m not even sure if the concept existed back then. Because if it did, very few people knew about it (the computer gurus, i bet.).
Blogging was just this other thing we did aside from school or work.
Anyway, here is a screenshot of my first blog with blogger:
I can’t help but realize how dark and poetic I was. ^_^
Yes, it’s totally embarrassing. I’m both a geek and a romantic.
*heavy sigh*
I also didn’t know what I was doing back then, so please excuse the theme.
I was sooo into the color black! (I think just about everyone goes through the emo/dark phase).
Believe it or not, I consider my site theme design “advanced” in those days because I was messing with the HTML code of my site!
We didn’t have all these amazing templates or plug-ins that we could readily install to customize our blogs. We pretty much just had to work with was available on the blogging platform.
Anyway, this blog didn’t last long, because, in 2007, I put up another blog.
The Travel Blog
This blog documented my journey to become a flight attendant and how I finally got that dream career with Emirates Airlines.
It was fun because a lot of aspiring flight attendants were finding my blog and enjoying the content I put up for them. But halfway through my flying career, I stopped writing because I was so busy with organizing my wedding while traveling the globe.
Blogging became more of a task than a hobby, so it got put on the backburner. There even came a time when I deleted the entire blog!
But some of my readers emailed me to put it back up because they wanted to reference it for their own career journey. It was only then that I realized that my writing was truly resonating with my readers. They were not just reading my stories but learning from them!
^___^ <– the smug look of a toad!
And yet, I still didn’t know that I could be making money from blogging.
Moving on…
The DIY Crafts Blog
In 2011, I found that I just had too much time on my hands.
I was a new housewife and unemployed.
At that time, I was devouring a lot of blogs, discovering unique interests and trying to learn new skills from them.
This birthed yet another blog.
I wanted this blog to document my crafting and DIY projects. I wanted to mingle with like-minded housewives and celebrate the joy of handmade things.
It was difficult to maintain this blog because aside from the actual projects that I had to complete, I had to take pictures of each step of the process and upload the images in the correct order (with the right descriptions). And then I still had to write content.
It was with this blog that I realized how much work and effort is put into every single blog post. And this was even before the rise of social media!
Shamefully, I had to abandon the blog yet again. And it isn’t for the reason that you might be thinking.
See, I couldn’t complete all the pending projects for this blog because I became pregnant with our first child. This meant that I couldn’t hold another can of spray paint until who knows when!
So I let this blog die a natural death and opted to do some freelance work writing for other bloggers.
I questioned why my clients would pay someone like me to write blog articles. I mean, it’s suppose to be a fun hobby, right?
That’s when I learned that people do make money from blogging!
And you bet I wanted a piece of that pie! I mean.. you’ll earn money! For keeping a fun hobby! Who wouldn’t want that!
Ok, so talking to myself then,
How do I start earning money from a blog?
After 3 failed blogs, you’d think that I’d have given up blogging altogether…
and…
I almost did.
There were too many moving parts to a blog. It gets overwhelming to even think about writing just one post… again!
And just think of the millions of amazing blogs out there! How can mine even compete?
I started asking myself,
Is blogging still relevant or is it overly saturated?
Questions like this kept me from ever starting again, because i always felt that I had nothing good left to contribute. There was nothing I could write about that hasn’t already been answered by the web!
Then I realized I was thinking of all the wrong things.
There were plenty of news outlets that cover the same stories at almost the same time, and I still watch all of them.
There are plenty of fashion brands that sell the same dresses, but I still buy from either of them.
There are plenty of talk shows that invite the same celebrities, but I’m still entertained by any of them.
I realized, we do things in different seasons for different reasons and for different outcomes.
We do not follow something because of the answer that it gives us, but the kind of journey it takes us to get to the answer.
I think that’s how we should view blogging.
There is a wealth of free information floating around the internet, but how is it delivered?
By who?
What is this person’s story?
Can i relate to him/her ?
Am i on the same journey?
One blog, or one person cannot be the sole answer for everything or everyone.
Some will love what you write about, and some will find their answers elsewhere.
But blogging will always have room for more ideas, more experiences, and more personalities that will create unique valuable information for others.
Stop DIY-ing and find a mentor or invest in an online course
I was lost; but eventually, I realized that If I wanted to really support my love of blogging, I needed some guided education.
So, I invested in several ebooks and courses on blogging.
But you see, I’m usually stingy with money.
I’m the type who will always look for a “free” method of doing things.
And there are loads of quality information out there, but the problem is, I wanted to have all the instructions for building a successful blog all in one place and not have to fumble through the internet to find the information I was looking for.
I didn’t want to waste any more time hoping that I can put two and two together.
I wanted a step-by-step guide for a completely non-techie person like myself to learn how to blog, share my knowledge, help people, and earn income from it.
Take a look at how I learned how to start a profitable blog.
I hope that you found my experience helpful. I’m just glad you found me and my brand new, and hopefully, stationery-scented-in-your-mind blog!
Today, I’m joining millions of bloggers in the blogging world!
I never thought this day would come because I was really feeling overwhelmed and intimidated— especially with three blog failures in the past.
I thought it would only be apt that my first post will be what finally equipped me with the skills that I needed to take control of my blog overwhelm and finally blog about the things that I love!
Thanks for dropping by!
