Hey you! Are you a person? Can you string a sentence together? Do you have talents, or interests, or observations in life? If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, then you are someone that can benefit from starting a blog of your own. So yes, you got that right. I’m talking about basically everyone. I feel so strongly about this that I went ahead and wrote out a full step-by-step tutorial to hold your hand and take you through the quick, 10 minute process of starting your own blog. Once you’re up and running, it’s really pretty easy to just start typing. Pretty soon, you’ve published your first post and you’re on your way!
So why do I think you should have a blog? Well, the reasons and benefits are endless, but below are some of my very favorites.
It’s fun
Of course it’s fun! The best way to be successful with your blog is to write about something that you really enjoy! Imagine getting to do that everyday! Once you start to see your blog as a job, of course there’s a bit of paper work, and some other tedious things like that, that just have to get done, but overall it’s still fun! And you have to do the fun stuff too in order to be able to create great content for your readers! It’s great to have your own little online world that you can escape into every once in awhile that’s all about you and all the things that you like. And it’s even more fun when you start to meet other people who love the same stuff too!
It can (and probably will) make you some money
Blogging has basically changed my entire family’s life. In fact, our everyday life would probably sound like a dream or at least a pretty amazing vacation to a lot of people. My blog and other things related to my blog now completely support our little family of four and we’re basically free to do whatever we like with our time every single day. Of course, the kids still have to go to school, but Chris (my husband) and I get to spend our days at home, working on the house, or going for a run, or sharing some of the fun projects that we get to do on the blog with you! We make most of our blogging income these days through a number of different channels (which I’ll go into in detail in a future post!), but the truth is that there are a lot of different channels of blogging income available that we still have yet to explore. And actually, there are more and more popping up everyday! If you write good quality blog posts, brands you love will want to work with you. And pay you. If you have a special talent, your readers will want to know just how you did it and what supplies they can buy through your affiliate links to help learn how to do that too! Shopping through affiliate links doesn’t cost your readers anything extra and it’s helpful to them too! It’s a win win! So if you start blogging, and you start playing around with a few of the different methods of earning an income with blogging, you will start to make money. And the more consistent you are with it, the more consistent your blogging income will become!
It can (and probably will) lead to your dream career
When you start to write about things that you enjoy, over and over again, and you start to have people reading those things you write, over and over again, you start to be seen as a bit of an expert in the subject. And truthfully, after while, you really are! You’ve put in the time to think things over and put those thoughts into words, you’ve done the experiments and the projects that have given you the experience to actually have something to say about that subject, and you have witnesses! I never would have known that a few years ago, when I started writing blog posts about cleaning things around my house, that eventually that would lead to me getting to write a whole book on that subject. I was just writing those posts because I felt like it! I kind of liked cleaning my house and I didn’t really realize that others did too, but I thought I would write some blog posts on the subject anyway, just for fun. After hundreds of cleaning projects and experiments, and tons of blog posts on the subject, suddenly I was one of the go-to gals for a publisher looking for someone to write a cleaning book! But it doesn’t always have to lead to writing a book. It could be a TV show, or a magazine article, or a business partnership, or an endorsement deal. You just never know what opportunities are out there, but bloggers are given amazing “pinch me” types of opportunities everyday. It can (and probably will) happen to you too if you keep at it! 🙂
It gives you a place where people can always find you
If you’re going to make yourself available for amazing opportunities to just come knocking at your door, then you need somewhere that those opportunity-givers can find you. What’s even better, is that a blog allows you to show that you’re active, interested, and engaged in the world around you. It really shows that you’re a real person and you have more to offer than what can be shown on just a one page resume, or even a basic resume-type of webpage. It’s a snapshot of you over time and it makes it clear that you’re a real person who does quality work repeatedly, not just a semi-spammy webpage owner full of random click-bait “trying to be viral” stolen content, which there’s so much of on the internet. There can be a lot of that to wade through when opportunity-givers are looking for someone who’s an expert on a certain subject and they will be so refreshed to see a real person with real thoughts with a blog like yours!
You never know who’s watching
And those opportunity-givers? You’re going to think they’re never there. You’re going to think that only a handful of people are ever looking at your site and that most of them are probably just your mom. Until one day you get an email… and then another one. And you see that people with amazing opportunities and offers for someone like you have been popping into your site all along! It’s happening all the time, and the sooner you get that blog up, the sooner people will be looking for you too!
It lets people engage further with your business
Whether you have an online business, a brick and mortar store, are a supplier of goods to other companies, or whether your blog itself is your business, there will be people who get a piece of you and want more. They’ll love their first experience with you and they’ll want to know more about you. They’ll want to see how they can make the experience that your business offers a part of their everyday lives. They’ll want to know more about the next product that they’ll buy from you and they’ll even want you to convince them to buy 10 more, because they love buying from you! It’s fun for them! It brings value to their lives and they love you for it! If you have a blog, you give them more of that same experience that they so enjoyed and you keep them coming back. You show them that you can absolutely provide that engagement they’re looking for and they don’t need to look any further! If someone loves your company/blog/product/etc., gets excited about it, and wants to connect with you more about it and then they find that you have nothing else to give, well then that’s pretty much the end of the line for your relationship with that person. You’ve made them realize that they’re looking for something that you can’t provide and they’ll start to look elsewhere. So start that blog already and keep those customers!
It makes you smarter, sharpens your skills, and helps you learn to use your language properly
OK, I have something to rant about here. Get ready for it. 🙂
We hear so much everyday about how the digital age and the popularity of all kinds of digital devices are leading to the downfall of the art of writing, and the end the need for anyone to really learn how to express themselves properly with their language. The fact that people are saying this drives me crazy! It’s so true that there are so many shockingly terrible spelling and grammar mistakes in facebook comments. I see it all the time too. BUT, it’s also true that these people end up looking like they don’t know what in the world they’re talking about whenever they’re trying to make a point. I think it’s clear that in an age where so much of our communication is done in writing through text messages, social media, and email that perhaps proper writing skills are more important than ever! You can’t hide the fact that you don’t know how to spell by just picking up the phone and calling someone anymore. And not being able to spell really does make people second-guess any opinion you express or idea you suggest. It just does. I love that blogging keeps the art of writing and expressing ones self with the written word alive and well, even if we do take some artistic liberties with the language for emphasis every once in awhile :). I love that blogging makes writing a skill that is so clearly rewarded through money, but also through public popularity with so many of us reading blogs on a regular basis. Whoever thought that would happen?:) And I love that I can tell my kids how important it is to be able to express yourself in writing because it’s a skill you can depend on to open so many real-life doors for you, no matter who you are or where you’re from.
OK. Rant over.
The point is that blogging keeps your writing skills alive, and even sharpens them when you sit down and write on a daily basis. It keeps your mind sharp too as you’re trying to figure out just the right way to tell people about an idea, or what photos to use to best explain how to do something that you know a lot of people may find difficult. Actually, you’ll be amazed at how smart and savvy you’ve become about so many different things after just a few months of blogging. And gaining confidence in your own intelligence may be the very best benefit of all. 🙂
If I’ve convinced you to at least consider starting that blog that you’ve been thinking about, you can check out my easy step-by-step tutorial for blog starting and you could be on your way in less than 10 minutes! Woohoo!
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Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.