Friends, the title on this one says it all. Two weeks ago, I was playing around with WordPress because that’s what had been recommended from several sources, and I hit the “publish” button thinking it would give me a preview. It did not give me a preview. It was the Publish, publish button; as in…..*BOOM* Blast off, here we gooooooooo and now everything is publically visible. Determined not to panic, I rationalized that no one would see it anyway in the sea of free blogs, so I went for a bike ride. When I came back, MUCH to my surprise, I actually had a “like”. (Thank you to Sylvia Mar at smilesandhugs.com ) That first “like” lit a fire and inspired me like nothing else.
I had been doing research before, but now I REALLY started digging into it. There are some things that I want to do differently. You can see at the moment that my site is contentmentquesting.wordpress.com. Yes, I have the free plan at the moment, and that is one of the things that need to change. I think I will go with Bluehost when I decided to do the “real” launch because that seems to be the recommended one from most of the successful bloggers that I have read. You see, when I hit that publish button, I only had about 5 posts that were really ready to be seen. I had wanted between 10-25 so that my site would actually have some “meat” to it when people started reading it. So for now, my first goal is to generate some more quality content. People need something to read, and to be honest, I have been having a ball writing! I love writing uplifting blog articles, if for no other reason than they lift ME up. Since I started the blog, my focus has shifted and I am starting to feel more like my old vibrant, enthusiastic self. Before, life had started dragging me down. I think that happens to all of us from time to time. I had to find something that would boost me up. I found blogging and I love it.
I will share with you the MOST helpful blogs that I have found so far. They are:
Nick is one of the first people that I stumbled on to and he has some really great podcasts that allowed me to find my other blogging heroes. He comes across as incredibly humble and willing to learn in his podcast episodes. The biggest thing I like is that I can listen to his podcasts while I do other things. He has been blogging since 2009, and he does have a free video course. If you are going to visit his site about blogging, start here. His site is how I found the other bloggers that I am going to talk about.
This site belongs to Silas and Grace and I LOVE it. I love the visuals, I love that they blog about a variety of things, and I love that they have pictures that are easily pinnable that are connected to each of their posts. They also have a free blogging course, but theirs is email. It can be found here.
Rosemarie was the person that I heard interviewed on one of the previously mentioned side hustle podcasts. She has some really good concrete ideas on how to help generate traffic that I intend to follow once I get my site off the free plan and on to the paid one.
Michelle is another person that I heard interviewed on the side hustle nation podcast. Oh. My. Goodness. Talk about goals! She also has a “how to blog” section on her site. The MOST impressive thing in my mind is that she is a full-time blogger and she makes $100k+ PER MONTH! Wow!!! I had no idea that the earning potential was so high for blogging. I didn’t even know that was POSSIBLE! That is definitely inspiring! She also has an affiliate marketing course, that I plan to sign up for once I get contentment questing up and running a bit better. For now, I have her “How to Start a Blog” post bookmarked. You can find it here.
These people have helped me to define my goals for the blog. They are:
- Content – I need to generate more quality content with pinnable images attached to each one so that they can be pinned more easily on Pinterest. I think I’m doing pretty well on that, I just need more.
- Secure independent hosting (I am thinking through Bluehost) and get my own domain name. Contentmentquesting.com sounds really nice, don’t you think?
- Generate traffic – for this one, I am going to first focus on Pinterest and then facebook and twitter. Hopefully, I will get some followers. This is the step that I am the most apprehensive about, and that seems the most difficult.
- Advertising – Sign up for Google Adsense or another advertising service. Rosemarie had some really good ideas on that one, so I will likely re-visit her and see what her advice is. This way I can earn a bit of income on the side as I get some traffic. This is probably going to be at the same time as step #3
- Affiliate marketing – I really want to take Michelle’s course. It has proven results and I think I could learn a lot from it. I want to do affiliate marketing, but I want to do it the RIGHT way. I don’t want to be really sales-y. That is not the goal of the blog. The goal of the blog is to help and inspire people and I don’t want to compromise that.
- Email list – Once I get up and going, I would really love to do a newsletter for my followers. (Shout out here to my 3 followers that I already have – Thank YOU!!) I would really love to know what people want to see more of and what is most helpful.
Currently, as I write this, I am right at the 10-day mark for my blog. I really like the looks of it and I think I am off to a good start. If you are thinking of starting a blog, then do it. I have thought about blogging for years and I had no idea how happy it would make me. I have not earned a penny off of it (yet), but I am reaping the rewards already in contentment for myself. I hope that maybe, just maybe, I can help someone else along the way too.
Leave me a comment! I would love to hear from you!