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Trudging Along
I don’t have much to report today. I was able to log in to my host’s site today. I haven’t figured out how to get rid of the static homepage for my site though. I thought I got rid of it awhile ago.
It confuses me that I click a preview of my page in one location and it shows me what I want the site to look like, but everywhere else I have this static page there. I don’t want that. I want the first thing people see when they come to the site are the posts. They’ll be all right without a welcome page.
I revised some of the writing for my first post today too. It’ll eventually come along.
In my last post I said I have 2-3 posts from the one long one I was working on. Well, it looks more like 2 posts. I have another document that I worked on before I changed the topic slightly that I might could use as well. I’d rather stick to the common theme first though.
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Getting the Ball Rolling
I haven’t worked on the blog much over the last few months. I picked up a new obligation that took some time to get used to and that simply required a lot of time and attention. I’ve had a break and it will pick back up soon, but I think I will be better to equipped to manage my time. I’m trying to get back into the swing of things now though.
Today, I wrote again. I think I need to go ahead and launch the site. Before I do that I need to polish up a post or two. I think I have a solid 2-3 posts to start off with. I think the advice I’ve seen before is to have at least 5 good long-form posts before you launch your blog. This will have to do for now because I’ve also seen the advice to just start; it doesn’t have to be perfect.
So today, I tried thinking of a better introduction to the first post. I think it is an improvement and a lot of it will be in the final version. So, in the next few days, I will get a solid draft of the first post.
I also tried to log in to my hosting company’s site, but to no avail. I always have a hard time logging into it. I’ll have to wait until I get home to figure it out.
Side note: I’ve also seen someone say that you should promote your blog before you launch it to have a successful launch. This sounds like decent enough advice though I honestly don’t want to follow it. I would much rather “build it and they will come.” It’s unlikely, but hey, that’s just how I feel. I’ll ruminate on it and maybe gather the energy to follow that advice.
Featured Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
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We’re Back!
I was supposed to update the world on the progress of my other blog every day. Let me tell you. I took on an additional obligation outside of my 9-5 and all of that fell by the wayside. I told a career coach that I would launch the blog by December 2022 at the latest. Instead, I let it languish.
I’m picking it back up! If for nothing else, I’m still getting charged for hosting. That reminds me that I received an email the other day about an annual renewal charge or something like that. I need to look into that.
Maybe I should at least launch something by the end of the month and in the meantime continue to post here every day-ish. Be on the lookout.
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Put Your Personality into Your Content via Darius Foroux
I got a nugget about blogging from The Darius Foroux Show podcast, episode titled Diversifying Income: Starting A Profitable Blog. This episode was published on June 26, 2018, about four years ago from the day I listened to this podcast. In this podcast, Foroux said he thinks he’s going to start a blog or a website about blogging. And it’s funny because I have seen his name before and read some of his articles. I did not intentionally seek out this podcast of his. I just wonder if this was the beginning of that career, which is interesting to see.
Foroux’s advice on starting your profitable blog though, was, basically, to insert your own personality and/or backstory into your content. His view is that you can probably find plenty of people writing about the same topic that you are, but what’s going to set you apart is a piece of you. That’s writing something that’s in your voice or has your perspective or literally your own personal story in it, I don’t think we need the backstories for recipes though. Just get straight to how to make the dish. At the very least, put it after all of the instructions, but that’s just my personal opinion.
Hopefully, people connect with what you have to offer and you’ll build an audience from there.
This transcript was generated by https://otter.ai on July 1, 2022.
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/collage-photo-of-woman-3812743/
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Where’s that Guide?: Daily Update
I finished the research paper I revisited yesterday and wrote some notes on that. I did not purchase the domain name for this site yet though.
I might listen to another podcast about building a profitable blog later on. I once found this guide that was a thorough step-by-step process for creating a profitable blog, but I could never find it since then. I would be interested in finding another one of those just to see what is says.
Originally written on 6/30/2022
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What’s in a Name Change?: Daily Update
Today, I listened to a podcast about how to build a profitable blog. It was about one woman’s story. The notes should be within this folder. The main takeaways were that she used ads from the beginning, then incorporated affiliate marketing in her second year, then sponsored posts, which she started off charging $200/post when she had 10,000 visitors a month, but started charging $2,0000 a post later on, and by her third year she started selling her own products starting off with a course telling how she turned her blog into a six figure blog.
Later, I finished the review paper for my first post or potential first post. I started on another paper, or returned to another research paper rather and wrote on that as well.
Later on today, I might actually purchase the domain name for this site, tolearnalot, the blog about the other blog I’m starting. (That did not end up being the name of this blog.)
Originally written on 6/29/2022
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Writing Schedule Continued: Daily Update
Today, I continued reading the review paper and made some more notes. I think today’s reading was insightful both personally and content-wise. I suspect that I will end up condensing a lot of it though in the final draft. This is a good start though to have to remove or edit down content rather than find information to add.
Also, to note, the first daily entry I made was on 6/27/2022, but that was not the start of this new blog. I should probably write a post summarizing the work I have done before that date. (I probably will not. I do not remember at this point)
Originally written on 6/28/2022
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New Writing Schedule: Daily Update
Today, I started my new writing schedule/blog work schedule. Spending an hour after work to work on content or whatever else needs to be done.
I continued reading a research paper that will inform a blog post. Perhaps that section will be in the first post. Maybe or maybe not. This paper is a little bit lengthy, 25 pages, 20 not including references.
I remembered a piece of advice I came across once for reading research papers that I try to practice often; first, read the Introduction, then Discussion/Conclusion, and next, results (preview it by checking the subheadings and figures, if the paper contains any), last, methods. I stopped reading the middle section or the equivalent of the results section and read the discussion and conclusion. Tomorrow, I’ll pick back up at the “results” section.
Originally written 6/27/2022
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Freelance Journalist Turns Health Problems Into 6-Figure Blog
I am recording a few thoughts on the podcast Untapped with Natalie Sisson, episode 46 Six Figure Steps to Building a Profitable Blog. So, this episode was published on December 4, 2019. In this episode, Natalie Sisson has a conversation with the blogger Kate Kordsmeier of the blog Root + Revel.
Kate first started off as a full-time freelance journalist about 10 years ago. After confronting her biases and assumptions about blogging and bloggers she found her way into the blog space. Around his time she started to have some health complications dealing with symptoms of polycystic ovarian syndrome, leaky gut syndrome and hypothyroidism which she managed to leverage into a six-figure business.
Place Ads on Your Blog from the Beginning
Kate didn’t really get into her content creation strategy, other than she wrote about health related to what she was going through, but she did discuss her different ways of monetizing her blog. From the very start, she monetized her blog by adding ads. Partially into the first year or maybe in the second year started affiliate marketing. She started off with Amazon, then reached out directly to brands to start working with them. She recommends that if you go into affiliate marketing, it’s best to work with brands, whose products you’ve actually tried and trust. So that increased her income.
Reach Out to Brands to Write Sponsored Posts
Kate’s next monetization strategy was to write sponsored posts once she got around 10,000 views per month. She reached out to companies directly and charged them $200 per post. She had an ephipany though; she knew of other bloggers who had only 2,000 views per month, but were $100 per post. Knowing that, that gave her confidence that she could charge what she was charging. At the time of the podcast publication (December 2019), I think she said she was charging, maybe $2,000 per post or something like that.
Create Your Own Products
In her third year, she began creating her own products and she just recently launched an online course. The course consists of her talking about how she built her blog, and how she was able to build into a six-figure blog and she proposes to help people reach that number much faster than she did.
Final Notes
Though Kate placed ads on her first blog, on another one, she chose not to in order to preserve the look of the blog. She also invested in her education by taking courses from other people and learned different blogging strategies from them. If her course exists, it may be worth checking out.
Thoughts originally recorded on June 29, 2022 and transcribed using https://otter.ai
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Start a blog, why not?
If I’m going to blog and maybe try to monetize it, I should see what advice is out there. I sure could use the money.
You know what? Why not share that information with other people as well. It’s what I already do. No harm, no foul.
That’s my thinking for my other blog. Eventually, I tried doing just that, sharing the advice I came across on starting and running a blog. Then guess what?
People actually liked it! Yeah, those posts about blogging were/are some of my most popular posts. Still no money from them though.
I figured I should make more of those and…AND…other blogging experts recommended niching down on your blog so, why not make my own blog about blogging? I’m no expert, but hey, why not let other people learn as I learn and I’ll share my experiences as I start another blog with the intent to monetize it.
May all who pass gain something from their time here.
Odd Example 