I am sure that some of you have noticed that I am not posting as often as I was in the past. This was on purpose. For a while I felt that I was pushing out blog posts in order to be able to keep up with all of the other bloggers I was following. I needed to try and stay relevant. I needed to hustle more. As I was reading over and over again from all of my bloggers companions resolutions for the new year, I just kept seeing that they were to get their blog bigger and bigger, I really started thinking. Why? Why the hell was I doing all of this?
Was I doing it for the money? Meh. I thought it would be a nice additional source of income. But I have a good day job already and we are very content so the money was not needed.
Was I doing it for the recognition? I don’t have the personality to be the HBIC of some big blog and having to put on a face or go places. I don’t even put real clothes on most of the day.
Was I doing it for fun? I was at first. I absolutely adored the process of getting the blog designed and put up and the posts I was making I really felt strongly about. It was meant to be a creative outlet for me. The first big post was my Danish Christmas post and I almost teared up with how happy that post made people. I wanted readers to enjoy what I was writing.
But after a while, the fun started to wear off.
I wrote about this in my post about My First Week Of Blogging. I said you have to hustle yourself and your blog. At that point in time, I was excited and happy to get my hustle going and post in 20 different Facebook groups or threads with my new posts and go through hundreds of other blogger’s posts and like them or share them. Mind you, this was taking almost 2 hours of my night every night having to do this.
Then I just stopped. I wasn’t getting the views that I felt was worth the senseless work that I was putting in above my already 9 hour work day and my 3.5 yr old sasquatch. I felt like all of my views were just coming from the blogger’s sharing or liking my posts because they had to. It was so much tedious work for such little reward and it was making the process no longer enjoyable.
That is the other thing I have chosen to start easing up on. Affiliates, Affiliates, Affiliates. My world was surrounded by affiliate marketing and peddling sales and websites and go here go here and I might make a penny. I never made a dime with my affiliate links or codes.
I want people to read my posts or click on my links because they find what I write interesting or thought provoking. Not because some Facebook group says they need to like it and retweet it or because my affiliate network says I need share this.
I created my Keto Spinach and Artichoke Chicken and I never even shared that in those Facebook groups. That post has been shared 28,000 times on Pinterest and over 500 times on Facebook. If people like your content, they will share it. They will use it. Have I made any money off of it. No not really. But like I said above, that was not my main intention for starting the blog.
I decided that I will create blog posts when I find a topic that really intrigues me. Not just because I need to pump something out for the sake of staying relevant because to be honest, I don’t really give a hoot about being relevant. I just want to write sarcastic, snarky, and sometimes positive content that makes a reader smile or laugh.
-Karen
2 Comments
Leave your reply.