I started blogging in 2010. Ten years ago, when people mostly used Blogger (the Google owned platform) and Facebook was in its infancy. The blogging community was smaller and very much a closed knit, somewhat incestuous affair and a lot of time was spent on comment hops and Sunday mornings were for Silent Sunday posts. So much has changed in this past decade, both online and off of it. We’ve had to pivot, learn new skills and at the same time, try and stay true to our own unique voices and missions.
Ten years ago, I was one child in, trying to balance forging a career path with new found motherhood and my other spinning plates. Since then I’ve gained a child, moved house three times and developed as a person in ways I’d not had foreseen.
If someone had told me ten years ago that the skills I picked up from blogging would lead me to quitting my International Banking role and lead to me working in magazines and later, for one of the world’s leading medical journals, I’d have laughed. Yet, I’ve accomplished that and so much more since then.
This year, at my 10 year anniversary, I decided to leave my original blog Circus Mums and strike out in a new direction. Featuring the kids less and hopefully, sharing more of myself as an individual because of it. I used to be a teacher and I love mentoring whenever I can. Maybe, because of this, I thought it would be nice to share some of what I’ve learned in my 10 years of blogging so that other bloggers can jump over hurdles that much faster than I did.
What's in this post
What 10 years of blogging has taught me
Know your worth
I put this first because it’s one of the most valuable lessons I want you to take from this post. If you don’t bother reading it until the very end, I hope you at least read this one.
Whether you are 3 months into blogging or 3 years into it, your finely curated slice of the internet hold value. If PRs or brands get in contact with you and ask you to share their products with your readers, then they see there is value in you too. It’s ok to have a price in mind for the services you offer. They are not doing you a favour by coming to you. I repeat, they are not doing you a favour and you owe them nothing.
If there is no money exchanging hands, you’re not obligated to post about their products, on your feeds or on your blog, it is a gifted item. Money exchanging hands equates to a contract and with that contract you should agree on deliverables. It could be a certain amount of social posts, maybe a blog post or perhaps a mixture of both.
Talk to people within the community that you can trust, join blogging groups or memberships where you feel comfortable sharing. That way you can find out if the person who reached out to you really doesn’t have a budget, and if they have offered you a fee, if it’s a reasonable one. There were times when I was thankful for someone offering me £50 for a blog post, now I’m wiser and realise that it probably doesn’t make sense to do all the work creating content entails for that amount.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand £50 is no small matter, that’s school dinner money or a new pair of shoes. But it’s better in the long run to turn down a few £50 offers and have one £500 offer instead.
Of course, there will be times when you decide to work with brands or PR companies without payment. That’s cool, I’m not judging. Ten years in and I still do from time to time, just know that you’re not obligated to and that you should enter into these collabs on your own terms.
Every voice holds value
It doesn’t matter whether you have 10,000 page views per day, per month or in a year. Your voice holds value. Your blog and your words hold value and will be important to someone. You will touch someone.
Some of my favourite bloggers of all time during the past 10 years of blogging are ones who write beautifully or are absolutely gifted creatives but for whatever reason, don’t have the crazy amount of readers their work deserves. Their creativity makes me laugh, cry, reach for the telephone or take whatever call to action they put at the end of their posts. Don’t chase the numbers. It isn’t that which will make your work valuable. It already is valuable because it is yours.
Your story is unique
When I’ve spoken about blogging in the past at events, people have always approached me afterwards to say that they’ve considered blogging but they didn’t think anyone would be interested in what they had to say. Maybe they wanted to share their story of parenting children with special needs. Or their love for vegan cooking. The fact that blogs already exist on those topics made them think there was no reason for them to write about their own experiences.
Yes, there are other black female lifestyle bloggers out there. Do they all talk about their love of plants? Share puff puff recipes? Host their own podcasts championing fellow Black UK creatives? Probably not, we all come at things from our own angles.
But nobody will experience the same situation in the exact same way. Your story is unique to you because it is tainted by your own experiences and thoughts. Imagine if hairdressers or bakers thought in the same way. Oh, there’s already a baker, there’s no need for two of them in the same city. Could you fathom such a thing? Nope. Well then, share your story in your own unique way that only you can write.
Have a mission statement
Now, I’m not expecting you to put this statement out anywhere, but it’s important for you to know what it is you stand for. What do you want from your blog? What direction are you taking it in? What will you do or not do?
Example mission statements:
- My blog will provide an uncensored view of parenting triplets
- My blog will be a highlight reel of our time travelling Asia so my family can follow my journey vicariously
- My blog will create a stream of income for my family as I share snippets of my lifestyle
By knowing what your blog stands for, it becomes easier to stay on the right path and not deviate too far. It also becomes much simpler to decide which collaborations or projects make sense and which you’d be doing but probably wouldn’t sit comfortably with you or your readers.
Collaboration is key
I’m not talking about brand collaborations, but collaborations with other bloggers and creatives. Collaborating is brilliant for so many reasons. It connects you with people with your space as well as gives you a chance to work with people from different but complementary industries. It also allows you to grow your audiences organically by putting you in front of readers who may not have heard of you yet.
The internet is a huge place and it’s hard for people to always find the content and voices out there. It might be that you’ve been creating amazing content for years and you’ve found it hard to grow your audience outside of your already loyal and engaged readership. By collaborating with different creatives on projects, you can tap into each other’s audiences and really grow in a meaningful way.
Not everyone is genuine
I say this not to be snarky or bitter, but rather to warn you and let you know that it’s to be expected. I’m proud that when I meet people in real life, they often comment that they’re pleased to see that I’m the same way that I come across online. This shouldn’t be a thing, but it is because a surprising amount of people aren’t the same in real life as they claim to be online.
In 10 years of blogging, I can’t tell you the amount of events I’ve been to where the same person who is commenting and giving me virtual high fives online, near on blanks me when we’re face to face. People are great at creating personas online and being the person they know will come across as likeable and marketable. But then, in person when they’re not in front of a camera or their platforms, it’s like a scene of Doctor Jekyll and Mr Hyde. It happens.
Pay attention to SEO
I didn’t really ‘get’ SEO when I started blogging. It’s one of the reasons I chose to start an entirely new blog. It was quicker to start from scratch and do things right from the very start than try and fix all the hundreds of blog posts already on the site.
There are so many free resources out there to learn how to do things correctly when it comes to SEO for blogs. Pay attention to SEO and make it easier for people to find your epic content. As I’m saying this, I’d also caveat it by mentioning that you shouldn’t allow yourself to become a slave to it either. Nothing beats well thought out content. Don’t stress about trying to add all the keywords you can think of hoping that the search engines will love you – they won’t! For artificial intelligence, they’re smart buggers!
