Never when I started my blog back in 2021 did I think I would end up blogging for this long. It may not seem like that long to commit to something but there is quite a lot more to this blog than just writing and then uploading an article.
Every article I post requires a graphic too, sometimes this can take an hour to come up with. This graphic then needs to be created so it suits the relevant social media platforms, adding to the time.
Once I’ve done this, I then need to add any affiliate links to the post that may be relevant, this requires going through the post and adding these where relevant.
I then need to go through and sort all of the SEO too.
Once I’ve sorted this out, I can hit publish and then spend the next 15 minutes or so posting to my different social platforms, rewriting each post to be bespoke for each platform.
So there’s a lot to it.
However, I love it. I love writing the article as this is why I got into blogging and, 90% of the time I’m writing about books and writing book reviews so I love what I’m writing about too.
However, I have to say that the social media side of owning a blog has become one of my favourite things about all of this. It’s such good fun, posting out questions, putting out books, posting articles and receiving all of the interaction that I do.
So what have I actually learned over the past two years then?
Well, below I have listed just a few of the tips that I’ve picked up that if you’re now getting into blogging you could well use.
Enjoy what you write about
So I’ve been blogging for two years now but that’s only because I enjoy it. I knew that when I started my blog I wanted to write. Initially, it was focused on offering blog tips with the odd book review. Since then my blog has become part of my habit: I read a book, and I write a review of said book a few days or a week later.
But I wouldn’t be able to keep writing these reviews if I didn’t enjoy reading in the first place. I also wouldn’t be able to write blog posts like this if I didn’t enjoy it.
Therefore, if I was going to give you some tips I’d say to make sure you start off by writing about something you genuinely enjoy talking about and you love to give your opinion on. Then only write as much as you feel comfortable writing.
Be consistent
If you’re going to keep a website up to date and you want it to have any modicum of success then you’ll need to keep writing and uploading content consistently.
Now this doesn’t mean you have to post regularly or a lot, it simply means consistently. If you want to post 5 times a week, do that regularly, if you want to post three times a week, try to do that consistently, if you want to post once a month, just do it consistently, it’s as simple as that.
This is also massive for when you post to your social media channels. Not only does Google promote websites with regular and high-quality content but when you’re regularly posting to your channels, these also love this. Therefore, if you’re posting regularly to your blog and then instantly popping them up on social media, you’ll have much more chance of success.
If you want to go one step above me and post on consistent days too, social media channels love this. I can’t often manage this as as time has gone on it becomes more of a rush to get posts published than any sort of consistency to the days I can post.
Build a social media following
As I mentioned earlier, I love the amount of interaction and the following I’ve gathered from social media. It doesn’t directly relate to the number of views I receive and because my following is growing on there hasn’t resulted in my blog blowing up. In fact, based on my analytics, the vast majority of my blog views come directly from Google Searches.
However, having built a following on social media has resulted in me being able to ask out a question and receive responses from real people. It also means there are nearly always people online who are wanting to listen to my opinion on something.
As your following grows too, you’ll get people who regularly comment on and interact when you upload your blog posts which helps build confidence that the content you’re posting is of interest to people.
Also, who knows, you may end up building such a following that it can be the sole reason your blog becomes a massive success.
Some quick tips to build a social media following: ask a lot of questions and do giveaways where and when you can. Both of these get people to comment and interact with your content; they encourage people to repost your content across their platforms, putting you in front of new eyes and possibly gaining new followers. It’s the quickest way I’ve managed to gain followers on Twitter for sure. Instagram is another story – that one requires a lot of dedication, posting every day and I just can’t deal with that so I post more there just to keep up some consistency.
So what do I have planned for the future?
Realistically, I can’t think of any large goals for this blog over the coming year. The one thing that constantly pops up on my mind though is that it is no longer really a blog and that it is more of a website.
I wouldn’t say I’m exactly blogging anymore. With the large number of reviews I’m doing, there’s a lot more to these than there are actual blog posts discussing anything less formal. Yes, this is a blog post, so that’s a little hypocritical but there aren’t as many of these as there used to be.
Going forward, I want to keep up some consistency though. If I can carry this on for another year, we’ll see where I am from then on and then just keep going. As I said near the start, I’m still enjoying it and so I can’t see a time where I won’t keep on doing it.
