Unexpected lessons from 6 months of blogging

Unexpected lessons from 6 months of blogging

It took 6 months of blogging to answer 2 important questions.
Do I enjoy the process of blogging?
Do other people find value in my blog?

I’ve made many mistakes in the 6 months since I made this website. I will make more. But I keep coming back with a willingness to learn and improve.

Reflection is an important part of learning. As is talking about our experiences.
It’s how we feel connected to the world. It’s how we find the magic of community.
Sharing knowledge is the heart of this blog.

Let’s explores the unexcepted lessons from 6 months of blogging.

Blogging is a lot of work

There’s a lot to learn about SEO and backlinks and domain authority and authoritative content and…it’s easy to get overwhelmed.

People want to help you understand all this, right? They want to convince you that blogging is an easy way to make money. It’s not. These people are trying to sell you something. Even if they are not asking for your money right away, they want your time.

The goal of a blog is to convert your time into money. This is known as a sales funnel. It is part of the blogging business model. It will start with signing up to a newsletter. Or some other seemingly innocent micro-commitment.

It might be worth spending the money for help. It might not. Figuring out who to trust takes time. I’ve fallen for the wrong advice. I’ve spent time and money on courses that didn’t deliver value.

The amount of people offering help only compounds the main problem. Blogging is a lot of work. This is a hard lesson that I’m still learning: if a blog isn’t built like a business, it becomes a job. It can also be a fun hobby and that’s okay too.

Being clear on the intentions of your blog will change the amount and type of work required.

In the first 6 months of blogging, every single aspect takes longer than it reasonably should. In my experience, spending money on shortcuts doesn’t work. Especially when you are still learning the best places to ask for help.

Be prepared to make mistakes and treat each one as a learning experience. Blogging will get easier with practice.

Good practice

The best practice of blogging is to show up for practice. Let me explain. Athletes practice before a game. Bloggers practice on the internet. Before optimizing, monetizing and spending money on your website. It’s important to know why you want to blog.

Something isn’t best practice if it doesn’t work for you. If something is stopping you from blogging, it isn’t worth spending the time on. For example, I need to feel extroverted to promote my content. I’ve let many things stop me from finishing articles. Like my lack of motivation for marketing. My toxic thoughts went something like this: what’s the point in blogging, if no one is going to read my writing?

But sometimes, I enjoy marketing. It took me 6 months of blogging to figure out my cycles of motivation. Now, I know to time block my marketing efforts. I batch create content and schedule it to post.

The most important thing about practice is showing up. Knowing your why and remembering your why will keep you showing up when the work gets hard.

Remember, blogging is a lot of work.

I went through a period of not writing for my website. Because it wasn’t a priority. I wasn’t enjoying it. My why wasn’t important enough. I had to redefine my purpose for being here.

I encourage you to keep showing up to write. Reflect on your own motivation and energy cycles. If you are struggling, dig beneath the surface and find out why.

It 6 months of blogging to figure out that I enjoy helping people. It makes me feel more like myself. This is why I blog.

Offer support to your readers without the expectation of anything in return. Don’t trick them. Be honest with the value your time provides. We do this all the time in real life. A favour for a friend. Helping a stranger on the street. It is no different on the internet. There are real people behind the screens.

Practical tips:
Write down who your ideal readers are. Use archetypes.
Where do they spend time on the internet?
What do they want, is there a problem they are trying to solve?
If you are unsure, try asking your readers with sincerity.

Where to find inspiration

Ideas are easy. Working on them, day after day after day is the hard part. Especially after the initial enthusiasm runs out. If you don’t have a sustainable working practice, energy will inevitably run dry.

Burnout, dry spells, writer’s block can all happen from working hard on your blog.

I’ve experimented with different types of content. Some have worked, some haven’t. That’s okay. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to find what resonates. It took me awhile to find content I enjoy writing that also provides unique value to the reader.

I live a rather unusual life. How many nature poets do you know? This used to make me feel weird. But is that very weirdness that makes my perspective valuable.

Identity is a core pillar between the internal landscape of the writer and the public realm of the reader.

What type of blogger do you want to be? I don’t mean your writing niche. But the person you want to become while blogging?
Knowing your identity will help figure out where to find inspiration and energy.

I seek inspiration when I don’t have anything important to write. Inspiration is what connects the deeper parts of myself to the page. This is the type of blogger I want to be. I want to tell the truth to my readers, always. Otherwise, my blog runs the danger of becoming a soulless business. I will talk about soul led business in another article.

If I feel like I’m writing content that doesn’t align with my identity. Then I don’t feel like myself. This spills into other aspects of my life. Integrity is another important core to the internal identity of the writer. If I feel myself straying, I utilize a technique known as pattern interruption.

A pattern interruption is an action that reminds us there are other ways of being. Like meditating to calm our stress.

Writing can be done from anywhere. There are parts of the process that don’t need a computer or internet. I take my notebook for a walk in nature. Wherein ideas can be plucked from the air.

This was an unexpected lesson. I didn’t expect blogging to require self-work. I didn’t expect my internal landscape to enter the equation of business and blogging. But listening to the deeper parts of myself is what allows my blog to have meaning.

There is always more to do

A website is like a rabbit warren. There are always new tunnels to dig. Old ones need attention. You will become exhausted if you try to do everything at once.

But rabbits, like humans want more than a patch of dirt. We want a home.

Homes require attention. Imagine yours is leaking. The immediate solution is to close the windows when it rains. But there’s a hole in the roof.

I just wrote a mixed metaphor. I want to fix it. But I wanted to show you what my writing looks like before I edit. There is always more to do.

I currently have 12 articles to write after this one. I will get them done if I work on one thing at a time. A website always has lists and more lists of things to do.

Plans will change

It’s okay to change directions. But when you do, update your plans.

When you feel like you have too much to do, go back to your strategy. A strategy is a living document. It is a map to guide you through the unknown to reach your destination. Your goals are the destination. But a good strategy needs attention to be effective. It’s not a document you should create once and forget about in a desk drawer. Will the tasks on your list move you closer to your goals?

I am easily distracted by the green spaces beyond my window. But this is exactly why I need a good strategy. It is the map that guides me back to my path.

Practical tips:
Revisit and revise old content. Give it a new coat of paint.
Is your old content still relevant and filled with the best advice?
Do all the links still work?
Have you learnt more about the subject that could strengthen the article?
Update it or allow it to compost. This is known as the content life cycle.

Get organized and stay organized

This was a big lesson for me. I recently made a Notion board. Wherein I wrote everything I was working on. This is how I figured out I was writing 12 articles at once. Don’t be like me. Get organized and stay organized.

Make time to make plans.

It can feel like an investment in the beginning. But spend time to make more time in the future.

Quality takes time

Writing good content takes longer than you think. Be patient. Excessively patient. Life gets in the way. Consistency is hard. But hard is where growth happens.

This is my main lesson from 6 months of blogging. If you spend time to work on your blog then your blog will grow. If you don’t, it won’t. It’s that simple and that hard.

Keep coming back.

Remind yourself of the reasons you are on this journey.

It took 6 months of blogging to answer 2 important questions.
Do I enjoy the process of blogging?
Do other people find value in my blog?
The first answer is yes. The second is up to you.
I would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

Thank you for reading,
Harley.