Today marks 6 years since I hit PUBLISH on my first ever post. Many things have changed in my life since then with many of those milestones shared on these pages. Long time followers watched me become a fiancé then a wife, announce our pregnancy and arrival of our first daughter and eventually grow our family further with the arrival of her birthday twin. I’ve been blogging it all!
While I’ve learned TONS of things over the last 6 years, I decided to celebrate today and document 6 BIG things I learned in my 6 years of blogging. Even if you’re not a blogger, these lessons can be put into good use for everyday life! (and PS don’t forget to enter my giveaway for a personalize Wall Decal from Name Bubbles from my last post!)
- Never say never. I started this blog to document the creative things that I handmade or digitally designed and never intended to showcase my face and become a lifestyle blog. But here I am, making sure to get IN the photo to capture my body helping to make masterpieces, growing (and hopefully shrinking) to build a family, and showcasing products I want to share with other people!
- Find your niche. This is something I’m still trying to figure out as every few years it seemed to change. I was a creative girl making things of our house, then a bride working on wedding crafts and now a mom doing all things motherly in our home. But really as the core of it all is a creative person who likes to try new creative projects for me and those around me. I guess that puts me in the crafty mom/lifestyle blogger category.
- Be social. If you enjoyed something you read online, don’t just pin it, leave the author a comment and tell them so. Give something special attention with a shout out on your social media. If an idea or project inspired you to make or do something, mention and link to it in your post about it. Sorry if I’m speaking on behalf of all bloggers, but we like to know that our posts, projects and content are enjoyed by readers, not matter who is telling us so.
- Don’t set and forget it. Just because you put a post out there in the world, doesn’t mean it needs to stay that way forever. I go back and optimize my older posts ALL THE TIME! I add new relevant content to older posts, provide an update to showcase something happened when I mentioned it would or turn some posts as the ultimate guides to certain topics.
- You can learn something from everyone. I’ve been to big social events like Blogher and more intimate ones like that with the NJ Blogger network. I’ve enjoyed little tidbits of knowledge from email communications with friends (Hi Darice!) and even workshops I’ve taught. You’ll learn that while most of us follow the same pattern: type a post, add photos and hit publish, there are many parts people do differently and it never hurts to learn from everyone’s style!
- It’s ok to fail. I’ve had craft projects that weren’t going as planned and I stopped them mid-way through. I’ve had posts that I thought would take off that had less views than I expected. I’ve tried affiliate or influencer networks that didn’t speak to my audience. But each one of these fails has made me critically think of another solution, take another angle in future post writing or concentrate on what I want to share on these pages. I’ve come to realize that failing (even publicly on the internet!) is OK and part of the process.
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