The Joy and Pain of Starting a New Blog
It’s not a secret that I’m not as active on SEO 2.0 as in the early days anymore. I’ve turned out an “occasional blogger” over the years. I was publishing work related articles mostly over at the many client blogs I’ve written for.
Huge success with blogs I established
I have been hugely successful with an Oxford-based agency client blog. It became the number one and most popular UK SEO blog according to Google and the UK Search Awards of 2011.
It also had an impressive following on different social media sites and other parts of the blogosphere. Thus
some of my posts got shared by hundreds of people.
The SEO 2.0 blog is still modestly well known but not as widely acclaimed as it was once was.
I get still some substantial Google traffic and even social media brings me of casual visitors on an ongoing basis with creating new content.
Success can become routine and boring
Everything is alright isn’t it then? Well, it bored me a little. Thus I joined a completely new client blog over at a promising software startup from Eastern Europe.
Their blog was almost completely empty when I started to write for it. I had to build it up from scratch and it worked.
While blogging here and for the Oxford agency has become routine, both in a positive and negative sense on the startup blog I had to rediscover the art of blogging in a way. I had to
experiment and find a new unique writing style once again.
As this was actually my third flagship SEO blog I developed it was not as easy to become someone else for it. On the other hand I can’t just copy the blogging style I use on SEO 2.0.
I don’t want to use the same types of posts, the same headline formulas. I don’t even like to repeat myself all the time.
Can you repeat success over and over?
Who else could start a new successful blog? After all I’m the guy who explained how to achieve blogging success in 2007 and has proven ever since that it works.
It’s bizarre. It’s the same person writing, the same topics (search, social media and blogging) and even the same Internet.
My readers vary though. Surprisingly very different people seemed to read the three blogs I wrote for about the same topics.
- SEO 2.0
- the UK agency blog
- the startup blog
even though all three of them serve the search industry audience and cover very similar tools and techniques.
At least they appear to be different as other people share the posts on social media for instance.
You could think that the audience follows the author, like with books.
On the Web the publishing house, here the blog, seems to be much more important though. People know a particular source to be trustworthy and they return to it again and again.
A new source has to prove it’s worth it, even if the writer is already known from elsewhere.
Back to the future
Before starting to blog over at my startup client I considered writing again for Hubspot – by now a hugely popular marketing blog. I did a few times in 2007 but then lost touch with them.
Writing for the same blog after a pause of several years I felt a bit weird. I didn’t really know what to write about. Could I really use the same formula I used in the past in a different context?
That was strange because Hubspot’s inbound marketing is largely the same as my SEO 2.0 philosophy. That lack of inspiration doesn’t really happen with the new blog. I think I know why:
A new blog is like a new love. It’s full of insecurities but it’s also exciting.
A new blog exciting because not everything is routine and popular. You have to find out what works. You have to find your voice and audience. It’s trail and error and it’s fun!
I love it. Call me a serial blogger. I love blogging despite the hard work it takes to get just a few shares on social media. That’s the joy and pain of starting a new blog.
Last updated: March 6th, 2017.
Yes you are true.
i am on the same situation of not blogging continuously.
You just need to rekindle the old flame. I mean may be you missed the interactivity that’s why tend to lay low.
A new blog is like a new year at school – everythings different (classroom, teachers, subjects, routine etc) but you’re still in the same buidlings and still being a student.
It’s just that because everything is a fresh start, it re-egernises and helps the flow of ideas as there isn’t the bagadge that always builds up along the course of any project.
@Alex:very well said.
The toughest part I feel about blogging is that the most of the stuff we write about is already there on the web so it keeps us thinking of new ideas.
I agree with Akash. It’s difficult to find topics that haven’t already been written about and discussed. I keep a notebook specifically for blog post ideas and I find that about 75% of those ideas have already been done. It can be disheartening but at least those 25% of ideas are useable.
it is hard to think new ideas and strategy to catch readers attention to blog. people doesn’t care to read specially if your blogs are quite long.
I’ve always been reserved and reluctant to start a blog because although I read a lot, it’s hard to find the time to share thoughts. I’ve recently started my own blog with limited success because I always feel that small posts are not enough. I always want to write a monster post that adds value but this involves a lot of time invested time and time again. Still search for my flow…
I agree, one of the hardest parts is generating new ideas to blog about, as blogs that are full of dull or repetitive information just don’t work, so may as well not be published. From a business point of view, it just shows the importance of keeping new product development flowing, gaining good customer testimonials, and having great suggestion ideas (e.g. recipe ideas for a food company).
I think it’s painful to start a new blog. If you can make it through the first 3 months then it is much easier.
@Anndria,
Most of us do not like reading very long blog posts but as long as the posts are able to provide very useful information they can hold on the visitors.
Mark Mars: What can I say, you have a great blog there. +1!
Lewis Warren: I checked out your blog and the topics you cover are all right. You may want to spice the posts up with some images and maybe declutter your design a bit. You’re just a few inches away from creating a high quality blog.
Franklin: That’s true. 3 months seems to be some kind of magic number when it comes to blogging.
Akash: Most people scan instead of reading. So a long blog post that is scannable is great for both casual visitors and those few who take the time to read the full posting.
That is a good point Ted. But what I feel is that, it should not matter how long the post is, what is important is to look for whatever the post is about, is it able to do justice with the subject. One could right a 500 word post, still being very informative and one could right a 2000 words post. And, yes I agree that the longer the post is, it will be able to cover more things than a short one.
yes i agree. really hard to think of new ideas on blogging that people will be interested reading it.
I feel you. I’ve been blogging for fun since 2007 but I think (I’m sure) it’s about time I do something more with it.
A blog with good loyal users can fairly easily convert into an affiliate site or even ecommerce selling related items and services. I’ve seen a number of guys and gals do that. Not all successfully, but several have been. Seems to be a good way of ‘doing something with it’ as Ardham Jeanne said.