About a week or two ago I asked you guys on Instagram what kinds of blogging questions you guys had so I thought today I’d dive in deep and answer some of them! Blogging has definitely been my passion for years and I’ll be honest, it took me quite a while to figure out what my purpose in life was and well, once I found what I loved to do everything just fell into place. Regardless what it is in life that makes you happy this is just a little reminder to always push through and make it happen for yourself because truthfully, we only have one life and we better make it worth it!
How do you find your niche or do you think that someone can over ALL sorts of things?
I always say it’s important to find something that is your true passion. What do you LOVE to talk about? What do you get excited to talk about? For me, I am a licensed esthetician so I have had a LOVE for beauty and skincare my whole life and I felt like I had so much knowledge on the subject that I could share. I also loved sharing outfits and clothing and such. As it developed I kept my “niche” in beauty/fashion but I wanted to incorporate more of my life so I find myself talking about other things as well like my dogs, my home etc.. I think it’s important to just share what you are the most passionate and happy about because then it always appears organic and your readers will love it.
What was your source to learning everything blogging related when you first started?
This is a tough one. I tried SO hard at the beginning to contact more established bloggers back in the day and get “advice” since I literally had no idea where to begin. I’ll be honest — no one would respond back to me or try to help in any form which I thought was always so ridiculous. It’s not like I was trying to steal business from anyone but I admired certain bloggers and was hoping they could prove to me they were down to earth and kind. But sadly, not everyone in this world is.
So what did I do? I went to my source for all the things — Google! I literally Googled everything about blogging. How to start a blog, how to take photos, how to use HTML and so on.. Trust me, when you have a will and dedication to do something, you just need to put your mind to it and DO IT. There are so many free sources online that can help you and of course if you ever need any additional advice, I’m always here!
When you first started, did you have a system for monitoring google analytics?
To be honest, I never really got too concerned with google analytics at the beginning. I’m not one of those people that gets crazy obsessed over those things. I used to find that the more I looked and compared my numbers, the worse I would do. It would drive me crazy, give me anxiety and make me depressed. So I decided that I would just take a back seat, create content and check once in a while.
Also, a lot of these blogging platforms like blogger and WordPress have tools built in to monitor your page views and such so you don’t always have to go to google analytics unless you want very in depth analytics.
What services do you pay for? Tailwind? Chloe digital?
I’ll let you guys in on one secret. I never have nor do currently pay for any types of services!
How have you changed in your blogging methods since starting? Where are your priorities?
That’s a good question. I think I now put a little more effort into the “topics” that I choose to write about than before. I used to always just let photos do the talking but then I wanted to be a “style/beauty” blogger that talked about “real” topics as well that we all seem to struggle with on a daily basis. Of course I love clothing but instead of having a style post solely dedicated to my clothing, I thought to also write about some topics that people could really relate to. Just basically wanted to be more transparent with who I am and things that I struggle with on a daily basis as well. I feel that people end up getting invested in the lives of some bloggers so it’s important to be transparent with who you are and that life isn’t always as perfect as instagram make it out to be. So I would say my priorities are on creating thoughtful engaging content here that I want others to relate to.
Shop the Look:
Shorts: Wrangler // Top: All in Favor // Sunglasses: Ray Ban
Thank you for this Q & A! It’s always nice to see these posts as there is so much information out there. I agree too that Google has become my best friend. Although there is so much information out there, it does become hard to sort through.
Maureen | http://www.littlemisscasual.com