Needless to say the weekly updates on my blog lasted 2 weeks.
No, I have not given up and I will not. Hopefully back on course now.
Two factors are in play.
- I have been poorly
- Myself and my wife are in a legal situation with Lewes FC, which is going very well but is an absolute pain and taking up much time and head space.
- A huge growing pain/conundrum has materialised with my new blogging ambitions.
There has been progress over the last few weeks. Actually a big leap forward. I have signed up to Grammerly. Just the basic one, but I am going to upgrade. Obviously, it is of prime importance, my grammar, which as I have alluded to before is not that good. For blogging purposes it is essential and the advanced grammerly will help with my flow and cut down on my habit of verbose prose.
I have not posted a new blog for two weeks so the views have declined. But interestingly, normally when I go through a barren patch I will go days without views, but now some days I am getting 35 views on old blogs which is incredibly encouraging and is beginning to show me how a lot of blogs over years will always attract readers, as some of my blogs being viewed are 5 years old. Therefore, when I have a large collection of blogs rather than the hundred or so I currently I will be getting lots of views. The new viewers are beginning to come in through Google and other channels, so when the blog is more organised and accessible viewers will begin looking around the blog for other posts.
But I have hit my first big conundrum.
As I have said in earlier blogs, becoming a regular blogger has only ever really been for my own satisfaction. But as I have got more and more into it, I actually would like it to be successful. Or at least I think I do!
I have to really think through what I want to do and what I want from it.
The original idea was just to write lots of blogs about my various interests, vintage, non-league football, current affairs and general eclectic stories.
But I just can’t shake that part of me that is competitive and what I have realised over the last few weeks, since I’ve started, is the easiest way to have a successful blog is to focus on one subject.
Of course, there are lots of ways to bring traffic to your blog other than through Google, but let’s face it Google is king.
The principle is simple, if you weite on one subject all of your links and traffic etc are all connected together in the same niche and Google soon recognises exactly what you’re all about and will send traffic your way.
If your blog is on various different subjects then all of your links, traffic etc are frankly all over the place and from all sorts of different genres and frankly Google hasn’t got a clue what you’re doing and so will not send traffic your way.
Now, I have been dealing in vintage items since I was 18, 40 years this summer, and to be honest with you I know a hell of a lot about it and I think I can build up a very successful vintage blog.
I can keep my existing blog and focus on the general items that I’m interested in.
So sessentially I’m considering having a vintage blog which I’m going to try and really make something of commercially. It is something that I can very much link to my business so I have the double whammy of not only driving traffic to my business but using my business to drive traffic to my blog.
My personal blog will literally just be a hobby blog and I don’t need to make any effort with promoting it other than just shoving links into Facebook because that will literally be for my own enjoyment.
So that is what I think I’m going to do. So just over a month in we hit a brick wall, but really gone one step back and maybe five steps forward, so actually it is a conundrum but a conundrum that has emerged simply because I’m beginning to understand it more.
Before I set another blog up I’ve really got to give some further thought as to what I want to do, but obviously I can continue writing and posting blogs on my site and if, or rather when I set up a second blog I can just move all the vintage items over. These are all blogs that are timeless and informative and not up to date blogs dealing with breaking stories and events.
This has all left me even more enthusiastic and positive about taking up blogging. As I said in earlier blogs I’ve always been aware that it’s going to take a couple of years to really get things organised, and certainly reading up about becoming more of a professional blogger, the general consensus is it will take one or two years to get really established and as I have a busy business to run as well I think it’s going be more like two.
The Rights of Fans. 