Why do hundreds of millions of people around the world blog? Why do they publish millions of new blog posts every single day?
The answer is simple: blogging is one of the best ways to express your ideas and share it with the world. What’s more, if you get superb at it, you could even build a prosperous home-based business.
Still, not all blogs survive. It’s not because blogs are expensive to run, but because they are labor-intensive. In addition to staying consistent with your publishing schedule and regularly generating novel ideas, bloggers also have to make sure they update their blog, maintain their social media presence, and consistently generate website traffic.
When it comes to blogging–as is true for many other things in life–those who stay the distance are people who love what they do. If you don’t love what you do, any excuse is enough to stop you, while if you love what you do, any constraint is enough to motivate you to improve your performance.
Choose the Right Blogging Platform for You
You’ve listened to your heart and are ready to start your own blog. The first question that comes up is what type of blogging platform should you use?
The good news is that you don’t need to learn HTML anymore to code your own blog. The bad news is that there are plenty of excellent blogging platforms.
One platform that many experienced bloggers love is Kirby, whose founders were backed by The Chernin Group. This file-based content marketing system (CMS) has a charming web interface. Kirby is easy to set up. It’s easy to use straight “out-of-the-box.” And it’s incredibly inflexible.
Blog About Your Passion
The best way to develop a fantastic blog is to follow your passion. Passion will push you past your inertia, fatigue, and confusion. It will give you the courage to persist when you feel like giving up. It will attract more like-minded and like-hearted people better than any clever marketing hack you might discover.
Let’s suppose, you love to travel. You enjoy experiencing unfamiliar things, acquiring experiential knowledge, and learning new skills. If you love exploring the world, it only makes sense to start your own travel blog. Imagine the fun you’ll have sharing adventures with other people who resonate with your wanderlust! You can share your projected plans about your next destination with your readers…then, when you get there, you can rhapsodize about immersing yourself in unique cultural experiences.
Learn by Doing
While taking an online blogging course is helpful, all it can do is teach you the basics, such as how to set up your blog, design your layout, and structure your editorial calendar. But, you’ll soon discover that there’s far more to blogging than any online course, no matter how well-organized, can cover in their curriculum. So, once you’ve got everything set up, focus on learning how to blog by jumping right in, making all kinds of mistakes, and learning from each one of them.
Push Past Self-Doubt
One of the biggest obstacles to blogging is the negative bias of your own mind. You might, for example, experience intense anxiety after you publish your first blog post and ask yourself a plethora of self-defeating questions. “Will anyone read what I have to say?” “If they do, will they find it valuable?” “How should I respond if I receive mean comments?” “Does my message contribute to the world of ideas or am I just adding to the babble of content?”
The way to get over this self-doubt is to push past it. While you may not be able to stop yourself from catastrophizing, you still have the power of choice. You can decide not to take your inner dialogue seriously. You’re not obligated to believe your own thoughts. Act boldly. Ignore your ego’s warning to fight, freeze, feign, or flee.
To sum up, if you decide to blog, choose the most suitable blogging platform for your needs, focus on blogging about your passion, learn about the nuances of blogging through experience, and push past your nagging doubts when reinventing yourself as a blogger.