If you’ve followed me from the beginning, you’d know by now that I have been an on-and-off blogger for the best part of ten years. It’s part of my story. Thankfully it has been more on than off in the last three years.
Despite my long experience as a blogger, I can’t help but feel that there are some things I could have done to earn me more success. In fact, I have packed everything I have learned as a blogger into The Blogger’s Companion, so you can grasp in a day, what it took me 12 years to learn.
Anyway, in as much as I love doing this thing, I haven’t always put my all into it. This is probably the most transparent I have been with you so far, but I think it’s time I shared my biggest blogging regrets.
Here goes.
Giving Up
I first started blogging back in March 2009. At the time, the blogosphere was small and blogging was new! My three girlfriends and I began creating content for Life and Living It. Named after a popular Ghanaian film at the time, our platform documented everyday life through the prism of our lived British Ghanaian experience. If I think about it, even then our little blog was quite popular. But we knew nothing of the prevalence blogging would have years later. Gradually, our posts became further apart until they ground to a halt altogether in 2012.
Doing “follow-follow”
I really enjoyed writing for Life and Living It, but it was no longer any fun creating content by myself when we had begun as a four-some. Being a blogger had sparked my interest in reading the blogs of others who were just starting out. At the time, I had a penchant for fashion blogs. I’d always liked clothes, and as a plus-sized woman, loved proving to the world that big girls had it going on too! So what did I do? I started J’adore Plus More. (Yes, I know it doesn’t make grammatical sense but it had a nice ring to it, right?) Well. Keeping up with trends and doing outfit shoots on the regular proved to be both a financial and logistical burden. So in order to stick to my posting schedule without the stress, I started to diversify my content, until – yes you got it – I lost interest.
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Being Inconsistent
Months later, with the failure of my previous blogs behind me, I was ready to give this thing another shot. This time I had the support of a friend – a colleague who would partner with me on creating content. With the burden of posting shared between two people, sticking to a schedule shoudn’t have been too hard right? As we were both Londoners who loved our city we decided that would be the theme of our blog. The Leaping Londonista was born. It was going to be the number one platform documenting all the happenings in London city, from concerts to restaurants, museums, special gigs and events. Unfortuantely it died an early death. Ha! We both worked gruelling shifts which clashed with most of the events on our radar, and left us too tired to attend anything else.
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Being Unfocused
Right. So where did I go from there? I knew I still wanted to blog, but I didn’t know what I wanted to blog about. After much thinking, I started SoulJourner’s Story. If I’m honest I made up the name before I’d decided on what I was going to write about. But determined to keep my new blog name, I began creating content and just forced it to fit. I must say, this was my most successful venture yet as a solo blogger in terms of longevity, although I definitely could have posted more frequently. Eventually, the lack of a blogging niche got to me. Besides, having gotten married in the latter part of 2016 I wanted my new identity to reflect itself in all parts of my life, including my so far on-and-off blogging journey. So what did I do?
Lacking Confidence
That’s right, you got it. I started a new blog! This is the most focused and most consistent I have been. But don’t get me wrong, Madeline Wilson-Ojo was more than just part of my blog hopping journey. I had begun an online copywriting course, which required setting up a blog, and it was enough motivation to start afresh. I’m so happy to be combining my ten years of blogging experience with my love for something I genuinely love – books! We’ve been at it for two and a half years now – enough time to fully establish myself in this game.
I hope you have enjoyed this honest account of my blogging life. Let me know what your biggest blogging regrets are. Before you go, download your free writing resources:
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Hi Madeline! It was interesting reading about your experiences. I think some of us bloggers have been there at some point through the shifting of identities. In terms of pitching brands, I think a media kit that showcases your blog's purpose, readership and impact would come in very useful. The process of creating one might also boost your confidence as you become more familiar with what you have to offer the world. Hope this helps! – http://www.jamilakyari.com
Hi Jamila, as always I am ever so grateful for your support. It's good to know I am not the only one. Thank you so much for your advice. I made a media kit, but then just left it there to gather dust! I will shake off the cobwebs and revamp it. I have set myself a target to send the first pitch by the end of the month. That gives me ten days!
I identified with much of what you said. I still have blogs that never really got beyond the first post and others with over 500 posts that I haven't posted to since starting to write at Medium, which I got serious about last November. I've never taken a blog down yet, but plan to eliminate a couple soon. About four years ago I started contributing to Review This! with a group of women I've known since Squidoo days. Just like you, I discovered sharing the burden makes it easier to be consistent with quality posts. I give my bimonthly posts there priority over any others, and because together we have a great blog, it gets much more traffic than any one of mine, and it's also a great place to make backlinks to my own blog posts. It looks like we've been traveling the same path in different places. I'm glad we both seem to be finding ourselves.
Hi BarbRad. Thank you so much for sharing your own expereince. I believe sharing with others always generates more traffic. It could be because you're more likely to be consistent, and also the level of social media promotion is multiplied! Heading over to Review This! to see what it's all about!
This was such a fascinating post to read through Madeline – and unique as I've never read a post on the topic before! I'm sure many of us can relate to at least a couple of your points shared in this post :)aglassofice.com x
It's interesting to read through your 'evolution' as a blogger and I checked out all the blogs. Surprised (in a good way) to see they're still up. I had a blog once before I started my current one but I took it down after a while and didn't start my current blog until years after.In terms of confidence when it comes to pitching yourself to brands – Like Jamila mentioned, a media kit is important and focus on getting the first one out. Just do it. The worst that can happen is that the brand says 'No' but you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. So, write a killer pitch, get a list of brands that fit your profile, in your city, small brands, big brands and just send it!
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