6 Months a Blogger

I’m 6 months in to being a blogger (read my first post here!) so here’s some reflections of what I’ve learnt so far…

Photographs

This has been my biggest bug bear – my photography skills aren’t bad BUT when you compare it to other bloggers out there, they are terrible!  We have a DSLR and I’ve bought a book to help us learn how to use it more whilst we’re away in Spain.

A LOT of bloggers have marble or white backgrounds for their flatlay photos…I do have a white background I can use so maybe I’m halfway there!  Don’t even get me started on creating the perfect flatlay photo!!  It can take me ages to take about 50 photos and then I use one or two of those!

Consistency

Frequency of blog posts going up has been great, I’ve posted twice a week (apart from when I was on holiday) and I’m yet to fall into a gap where I’m lacking ideas for content.  I know what my readers are enjoying and the posts that haven’t had as many hits as I thought would.

One thing I haven’t done in a long time is my Saturday Story – I went full steam ahead for the first 10 weeks and published every Saturday without fail.  I know you shouldn’t write for others and just write for yourself but most short stories I’ve written recently I haven’t felt were worthy of publishing for the world to see.

When I started my blog, I used my own personal twitter handle…I then started doing a couple of product reviews and people made the assumption that my twitter name was the same as my blog name.  I realised the error of my ways and about a month ago I made the switch and am now back to building my followers.  I REALLY wish I had done this 6 months ago!  Ah well, you live and learn!

Support

There is a whole host of blogger groups out there and I’ve found them to be really helpful over the last 6 months – weekly chats on a whole host of topics (I haven’t really participated in them too much, just watched from the side lines)…recommendations of websites to use for editing your photos, making the most of your blog layout (I’m using WordPress.com and a free theme at the moment).

Future

There’s SO many bloggers out there and I’ve seen a few people receive nasty comments on their hardwork and it’s quite uncalled for.  We may not all be the best at everything, but we’re all here having a go.

I’ve decided to advertise my blog a little more and have some interviews / adverts coming up on other people blogs in the coming weeks.  If these go well, then I’d like to do a few more and see how that helps grow and develop my audience.

I certainly don’t see myself earning a living from the blog, there is MUCH to learn if you want to do this and at the moment I’m just doing this for me and see where it takes me without worrying / stressing about it.

I’d really like to do more travel blogging and perhaps move into this niche area but again I’m not going to stress about changing yet!

So, lets see where the next few months takes me and see if I can make it to a first birthday!

 

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