Blogging comes in many shapes and forms and the best thing about blogging is it doesn’t discriminate absolutely anyone can blog. The technical knowledge level of entry to start a free blog is on par with setting up an email address.
There are so many pros for blogging which I will cover soon but what are some of the cons? Some of the cons could include not wanting to put yourself out there, not knowing exactly what you want to write about, trying to set up your own blog on a host with a domain and lacking technical knowledge. There can be some barriers to blogging but in all honesty they are barriers you are creating in your own mind. I could teach my Grandparents how to set up their own blog in a day.
My motivation behind blogging was to improve my writing ability for some other projects that I want to work on very soon and just to create that writing habit. If I was to say it has been easy I would be lying, I am only day 3 in and working 9am-5pm with sporting commitments most nights I sit down to start writing and its 9pm and I just think to myself – I have 3 hours to get this done! I will go into time management at a later time.
If you are thinking about blogging whether you are a business or individual there are so many pros and I will cover 19 of my favourites!
1. Improve Your Writing
This one is number one because it was my main motivation to blog. I have set a goal to blog every day for the next year. Which was a big step going from not writing at all to pumping out a blog post every day. But here I am and I am already noticing trends in writing style, some I like and some I don’t but the positive thing is it give me something to work on.
2. You Engage Your Brain
Sitting down here thinking about what I could possibly blog about, what I have to offer, what I could teach people I have so many ideas. Blogging is a perfect way to consolidate those ideas and some days you might feel like you have so much you want to write down there just isn’t time. Being able to blog is a great way to get your thoughts on paper.
3. Meeting New People
This is probably one of the aspects of blogging I am most excited about, I know over this 365 day blogging challenge I am going to meet some people and connect with people who enjoy reading my blog and have differing views and opinions to share and discuss.
4. Making Money
Blogging is a fantastic way to make money, which is another post I will also explore. You can put ads on your blog, do featured posts for products, learn about affiliate marketing the options to monetize a blog are endless. Do not get lured into the dream that you will start a blog and be worth millions in a year. It doesn’t work like that, you need to build an audience and more importantly an audience that trusts you and values your recommendations. Always be willing to help your audience whenever you can.
5. Inspire Others
Your writing has the ability to connect with people in ways you couldn’t even imagine the blog post they read on a particular day might be the post that sparks that inspiration and motivation to change their lives. I have already had some great feedback from my post on 9 Triggers to Increase Motivation and Improve Productivity.
6. It Can Be Your Personal Journal
This comes in many shapes and forms with many people blogging in this fashion using aliases. Tumblr is by far the biggest platform for this type of blogging. Those who haven’t used tumblr it is a platform you can easily set up and share your thoughts. It can be a great way to vent and just brain dump anything that is on your mind.
7. Blogging is a Challenge
Blogging is a challenge, so many blogs drop off after a small period of time. The challenge is to keep it current and keep the great content coming. Blogging has certainly become a challenge for me already. 365 days of blogging is going to be tough and I have already been met with sceptics saying ‘how are you going to blog every single day?’, ‘I’ll give you a week before you drop off.’ Nothing better than rising above and proving you can do anything you actually fully commit to doing.
8. You Learn New Things
Every post unless it is a personal journal entry requires some form of research. I often look for outside blogs I can link to with case studies and great examples of what I am talking about and during that process I learn a lot about the topic I am writing on. Not only that you learn a lot from your audience and what they have to share as well.
9. You Become An Expert
Most of the online experts out there you won’t hear them calling themselves that, it has become a very saturated term and every man and his dog thinks they are an ‘expert’ at something. If there is a topic you are genuinely passionate about and are very knowledgeable in the field I would personally regard you as an expert in that field if you were my go-to-resource for that topic. For example I would say Pat Flynn is an Expert in Podcasting because he is my go-to-resource for all things related to starting a blog.
10. Building an Online Brand
This can be both a personal brand and a business brand. To build a brand you need an audience. You might have the greatest product or the greatest service but if no-one knows about it then you don’t have anything. Use a blog to get out some amazing content that will reach and audience and has shareable qualities to increase your brand awareness.
11. Great Ideas Should Be Shared
Great ideas and great content deserved to be shared. You can read a larger audience online than you could reach in person in a much smaller amount of time. Don’t keep those golden nuggets to yourself. Find what you love, write about it and put in a structure to monetize it as well.
12. Create New Opportunities For Yourself Or Your Business
Having a blog can get you noticed by people you may never have thought would have noticed you. Simply putting yourself out there can open so many doors and opportunities for yourself in whatever niche you have chosen to blog about.
The opportunities for your business are typically customer related. The main reason a business blogs is to get seen by more clients. The more quality articles they have, the more keywords they rank for in search engines and the more organic traffic they have visiting their website.
13. Having An Audience, is Having Power
Having people reading what you are writing, visiting your site and getting involved in your journey online is extremely powerful. Internet Marketers often say ‘The Money Is In The List’ meaning the more email address you can collect on your site the more money you will make usually through auto-responders and sales funnels. It is pretty logical, the larger your audience the greater influence you have. The hard part is building that audience.
14. Promote Your Hobby/Art
It’s about time amazing photographers and artists really stood up and showed the world what they can do. I see so many amazingly talented people on Facebook posting their work that I wouldn’t hesitate for one moment buying and they are stuck in office jobs that they hate doing nothing about pursuing their passion because they think it is a dead end. Take a chance on yourself! Get a blog going and start building an audience. One of the best examples of this if my friend Andy who started Handy Andy Pandy and took on his on 365 day challenge of posting an amazingly edited photograph every day for a year. His work is incredible
15. Your Friends Can See What You’ve Been Up To
We all know those travel blogs that our friends always post and we only end up reading a few of their posts before feeling miserable about being stuck as home living vicariously through them. I even had a go at one of my own travel blogs when I was traveling which only ever made it as far as family and friend with my Youtube videos getting a few thousand hits. Blogging is a great way of keeping many people informed of what is happening not only with youself but in different industries.
16. Improves Creativity
To keep an audience engaged you have to think outside the box and that involves getting a little creative at times whether it be mixing up your other types of content such as videos, audio, infographics the list goes on and on. Make your posts fun and push yourself to the limits!
17. Blogging Makes You Happy
Just being able to write freely about any chosen topic is liberating. It makes me happy just being able to write and populate my own piece of internet real-estate with content that comes straight from the powerhouse upstairs known as the brain. The positive feedback about your articles makes it worth it as well.
18. You Learn New Skills
If you do take blogging a little more seriously you will need to learn about all the things I love which includes domains names, SEO, PPC, hosting, wordpress just to name a few. WordPress is the platform most website blogs are built on and there is definitely a learning curve involved in using it which is why some people run to platforms where they can drag and drop content on a website such as squarespace or wix. Learning wordpress is definitely a transferrable skill and I encourage you all to give it a shot.
19. Encouragement
Reading the comments and feedback gives so many bloggers the energy to write another post. I would love it if you took the time out to comment on any of my posts with your thoughts or words of encouragement. I read each and every post.
What made you start blogging or what is holding you back?
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