Tuesday

Help! This Blogging Thing is not Easy!

You could end up pulling your hair out over this thing called BLOGGING.

AT THE START
 you think it's all about getting a



set up and big query is


Blogger or Wordpress?


My decision was based on
1. My son's blog was on blogger and so he could help me.
2. Our Church Website (which I help with) is on Wordpress and it drove me demented about how when I typed something in and then looked at the page neither the spacing nor size of font ever seemed to be what I had intended and pictures just seemed to go where they wanted to go and not where I tried to place them.

So I chose Blogger.
Then now over a year and a half later my husband tells me that the blogging template in wordpress might be easier to work with than the website template.  Thank you Fred for helping me sooner!!!!

Then my son tells me that there are ads on Wordpress that the blogger will not see on their blogs, so I would not be happy with that.




NEXT
after you have the blog set up you only think you have to think about what content you will put in your posts. When you get settled in to that you have to decide how often you will post to your blog.

But you haven't really got to the main hurdles yet because if you wanted to start a blog you must have had a good idea as to what the content would be and how much inspiration you have leads to how often you post.  Not necessarily!  But let's say yes you know your content and have decided how many posts each week and you have the ideas.


Then you realize there are not very many people reading this blog because even though the "whole world" can get use of the internet not everyone has discovered your blog among the millions of others.

What do you have to do to get it seen out there?


THAT'S WHEN
we start posting on facebook and twitter, provided we already have accounts, if not we have to start learning to use these sites.  Lots will even make a page on facebook to get likes and hopefully blog followers through that as well.

Everyday you need to post and tweet your blog.

So your computer will never look like this!


NEXT
you hear people talking about "oh you need to be in circles and so that means you need to get on Google Plus and it you are like me you have held out for some time because you don't really want to have to learn something new at the moment because you are rather busy with everything else.

But eventually you give in and you are then hooked into gathering people up to be in your circles and getting offended if people do not put you in their circles.


AND THAT'S NOT ALL
you have to be pinning all the time because by now you have heard that everyone should know that Pinterest is the best place to get traffic to your blog.  So your nice little pinterest boards which you had set up for your own interest now have to not only cater to you but be attractive to others so that they will follow lots of your boards and then see the pins linking to your blog and start to visit your blog and then like it because it is as attractive as your pinterest boards and then they will come back often to your blog.



Oh and then you should gather Instagram followers as well - but I definitely drew the line here and Instagram is staying personal for me.


AND THAT IS STILL NOT ALL
there are communities on google plus, groups on facebook, special Pinterest boards for groups of bloggers, and then something called Stumble Upon which I have neither stumbled upon or went looking for (yet).


AND OF COURSE BY NOW
1. you have discovered that your blog post should be full of very good pictures so you need to go take masses of photos

#BigBlackWedding

and adapt them to use on your blog



or find places on the internet to get free pics.



or start learning to create your own pictures





2. you have heard of the words "blog hop" & "linky" and you decide to google this and then your life is never the same because not only do you have to join in with loads of these but you find all these other blog posts on these linkys that you want to read
     



  3. you have realised that you are getting more comments than you thought you would but that takes more of your time because you have to read them and answer them.


BY NOW
you have wondered why you started this in the first place because it looks like it could take over your life and you have to be careful in conversations with others or else you will talk about blogs you have read and what you are doing on your blog too much.




AND THAT IS WHEN
you find out that other blogs with less traffic than yours are making money and everyone in the groups etc. are talking about sponsorship and ads and promotion and you have to take the big decision

DO I MONETIZE MY BLOG?????

I never in all my life thought I would use the word 
MONETIZE







BUT