The chronicles a new blogger (since June 2013).
Feel free to make comments and criticisms, I’ll take them as constructively as possible.
A street scene in London 1989. Photo: Challen Yee
My first blog, starting in June 2013, bestbuckbuck.com, launched with my making several blog entries per week. It’s really exciting putting ones self out on the internet. My subjects moved back and forth between health issues and personal development.
After a couple of months, I figured out I did not want to mix the two categories, I realized this is a bad thing to do, making subscribers or followers pay the price for my bipolar nature of presenting subjects. Needing time to think about my approach, I scaled back to posting one time per week and finally decided to focus that site on “daily detoxification” for better health. Being focused on a tight subject helps with choosing material, but I still had an unfulfilled urge to write largely on personal development and life experiences.
In September, I restarted my personal development posting in the form of ChallenYee.com.
I know from several sources, the best thing you can do to gather attention is to be consistent. Be consistent in two ways:
1) Subject matter – Instead of focusing on no group in particular, I chose to write to a group that I identify with, who are unfulfilled cubicle dwelling professionals. The Cubicially Oppressed.
2) The frequency of posts (i.e. daily, weekly, every other day, weekdays, weekends, etc). It doesn’t matter, just be consistent. However, I’m under the impression that if you can do a daily post (and provide valuable information) you stand to create more of an impact over time.
Blogging every day except for Saturday, I do struggle with what I think my post content ought to be, since personal development is a pretty wide swipe. The needs of a “cubically oppressed” person may be pretty wide in scope also.
But that’s where I have been in my life, and perhaps you are too. When you are stuck in a rut, your sense of direction is not focused compared to when you are not.
Before I started ChallenYee.com, I decided I wanted to make an impact and go for posting 5 days per week plus one day on the weekend on bestbuckbuck. I like millions of others like the idea that a blog can be a vehicle to ultimately create a tribe of followers. I know there is a lot for me to learn still as I juggle priorities in life. I’ll probably spend some time searching for a few other bloggers to provide inter-blog support since no one I know closely is a blogger on a regular basis.
(About a month ago, I joined SocialAdr using a mid grade plan. It’s hard to tell how well it’s helping my traffic).
Before I launched ChallenYee.com, I had created a super long list of personal development stories to write about, a list of little and large experience from my life. Once I started the new blog, I began to feel the pressure, the feeling that not everything I have on my list is a blog-grade story nor consistent with being cubically oppressed. I’m pretty sure most of my experiences can link to a personal development theme, however, I am influenced by the stats and trying to stay focused on who I chose as a primary target audience.
It may take some more inspiration to transform, for example, a childhood experience to something relevant to for a tied up professional. I think it’s possible, just takes some additional creativity and inspiration.
Some people suggest writing whatever your heart delights in while others strongly consider the traffic your posts generate (I figure most of us look at the daily statistics to see how many hits and views our articles get). I think I’ve considered both sides. I think I’ve written some good articles that didn’t get much traffic, and so I tell myself, “In the future, someone will be interested, not just now.”
The biggest thing that has impacted me and I’ve had to adapt to, based on the way I write, is how much time it takes me to create, correct, and launch a post. It takes me at least an hour and a half each day to maintain my blog. After a few months, it is becoming a routine, but I know that it is costing me in other areas, like sleep.
The time I take to write would take less time if I always went with excerpts from popular writing. That’s something that I keep in reserve in case I need to bail out of creativity, and I know it can work because that is what I often do on bestbuckbuck. That form of blogging is still satisfying because I feel I am offering a service to others interested in daily detoxifying, whether it is a personal story or not. What is most relevant is that I am (or you are) providing something of value to readers who do not have access to that information.
But I do love writing and that’s why I take the time out of my evenings after the kids go to sleep to write this blog.
Some very popular bloggers are great at making things simple and my hat goes off to them. I think, it goes hand in hand with the desire of most people to get a message quickly. But it is really a credit to those who can do it simply and be effective. Love it. It is not for me though, yet.
Michael Hyatt . source: ligconference.com
I do try to limit my posts to not more than 500 words (right now this one is over 1000… whoops!), as suggested by Michael Hyatt and give it a good title to attract attention. That is really important also, having a great title. Nevertheless, some of my posts exceed 700-800 and my titles sometimes seem great at first but are not so great at attracting views.
Ha! 1033 words, Maybe a record! Yikes.
I would enjoy your comments, helpful tips, based on my notes. Like & share if you please.
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I’ll see you… on the next page when I’ll write shorter blog about how I add a video to my blog.
