Along with information overload, I think that new bloggers also feel the pressure to be amazing from the get-go. And you know what? You probably won’t be.
And that’s ok!
Blogging, like most forms of learning anything, takes time and practice. You get experience by doing it. Sometimes that is how you learn the best.
We All Suck When We Start Blogging
I’m going to showcase my personal blog here to show off what it was like. I started my personal blog in February 2012 with the goal of teaching myself WordPress. It wasn’t my first experience writing online (I’ve been doing that in various forms since 2002) but it was my introduction to blogging how it is today.
My very first post was just me introducing myself to the no one who was reading, almost like a letter to a new pen pal. If you remember when pen pals were a thing.
At first my personal blog was just an exercise and weight log (Day 14). It was really boring. I gave barely any context to the exercise and didn’t use photos. This went on for a few months.
Then I realised that it was in fact incredibly boring and I wanted to write about other things too. So, as any blogger would do, I announced it to the world. I have no idea how many people were reading my blog back then – probably about three? (If I was lucky!)
I finally started incorporating photos into posts around this time. Yay! It got marginally less boring. I did my first post where I attempted to help others (instead of just talking about myself) in May 2012 – my fourth month of blogging!
My next strange habit started – I wouldn’t post for a while, no one would miss me and then I would post about how I wasn’t posting. I think I did that for about a year, off and on. Sadly, my advice here is that people will probably not notice, so don’t do it. Because when people come back to your blog they probably won’t notice the dates on posts (if you even have dates on posts). Which means that you’re now drawing their attention to the fact you are unrelaibly blogging, and you risk putting the reader off.
None of this is meant to be discouraging, but more to note that there is a learning curve to anything new, and that most definitely applies to blogging. Feel your way through it, find other newbie bloggers to talk to, join communities for bloggers, and – most importantly – have fun doing it! And remember, you’ll only get to be an expert by doing something. It’s ok to be a beginner and learn from your own mistakes.
Do you feel your blog sucked when it was new? Do you feel that now? What do you think the main issue with your blog is if you feel this way?
What’s interesting in this, is you point out what you think you ‘need’ to blog about, and what interests you are probably two different things….
Probably, yes. And it’s something I need to re-rant about with “lifestyle” blogs that literally resemble no ones life ever haha. I’m sure that I break a lot of blogging “shoulds” by not having a niche but this is how I’m happiest writing, which counts more to me.
I blogged in many forms on and off for years before I found my happy place at my current blog! I used terrible looking layouts, I didn’t have the guts to tell anyone my blog existed, I took forever to utilise social media in conjunction with my blogs once it became a thing. I actually think I did some good writing back then – I just had NO idea how to sell it so to speak.
I’ve really done well since I started to blog without overthinking everything! I just write what I want to write about, when I want to write about it! That’s the beauty of having a personal blog – it’s my life as it evolves!
That’s what I love about personal blogging too – and I don’t understand why it’s so under-rated by the marketing types.
Oh I thought I was going to be the ‘next best thing’ for women Over 50 LOL:) I’ve been blogging 3 years this month and I have seen my blog evolve. It certainly can take over and we all feel that we have to do this or that, because we are bombarded with posts on ‘How to be a Successful Blogger’ or ‘How to make money from blogging’. I just love the connections and I do love my blog which makes me happy. I’ve met some wonderful women and have great virtual friendships through blogging.
And that’s why I keep writing about blogging too, because I hope people always understand from my posts that it’s use what suits you, not what suits others.
My personal blog is a fun hobby for me. I don’t have any goal to become a ‘successful blogger’. If readers like what I write to leave a comment or come back, I appreciate it. I’ve been posting consistently from the get go, and have made wonderful virtual friendships.
Friendships have been the best part about blogging for me too.
Blogging has changed so much over the years I have been writing my website. I started out more personal to begin with but with brands approaching, I am more of a parenting review website now. For me it’s a way to combine my experience of parenting with stuff we like. I am enjoying myself still so – all good.
You do so many parenting reviews, it’s great! I never have much to say on it seeing as I don’t have kids but it seem to chug along really nicely for you.
Haha, well my blog is still kind of new, and it still kind of sucks! But each post I feel I’m improving. Actually it’s not so much the posts, it’s the organisation, the scheduling and the sharing that gets me in a flap!!
It’s all practice 🙂 And you find what works for you with scheduling in time.
Oh my blog totally sucked when it was new! When I was rebranding, I deleted a whole bunch of posts which were just brief updates on life that were not relevant. I still have to put pictures for a lot of my old posts but haven’t had the time or dedication to invest in that.
It takes a lot of time to update old posts.
Oh how I wish I had my first post. I sure do know it was an introduction and at that stage I began blogging about Memories by Denyse – both to make them via photos and so on and to write about how we thought my husband’s memory was being lost to dementia. WRONG oh so WRONG..and it was all about medical people giving him far too many drugs for his pain that made him like that. It is something I can barely think about anymore as it appeared so tragic and yet it WAS NOT found to be true once he took himself off every drug with a new GPs’ support.
Anyway, where was I? I deleted so much of my original blog post because I did want to save space at my host AND I really did not want people seeing what I was writing back then. When I moved to blogging more personally with just my name as the blog, I moved some of the education posts over and keep them in drafts but got rid of stuff that was no longer part of what and who I am as a blogger.
Glad to read your post! Now I know what you degree is!
Thanks for linking up for #lifethisweek 5/52. Next week’s optional prompt is “Starting School Memories”.
Haha. I’ve posted before about not posting. Finally in a survey for my newsletter someone said stop apologising, if you can’t post, it’s fine, just stop saying sorry about it. She had a point, I’ve tried to resist the urge to assume people’s world will fall apart without me ever since. 😉
And yeah, we all suck. That’s the point. Great post, Ness.
I think we literally all have posted about not posting haha. It’s like a rite of passage for bloggers.