I am passionate about travel, photography and personal finance and started this blog in late 2017 to document my experience, share my ideas and to hopefully inspire and help others to follow their dreams. About six months after I had started the blog, I hit writers block and then slacked off from creating new content. I did not publish even a single blog for the next few months.
Any reader who would have inadvertently strayed into my blog in the initial months, would have subsequently dropped off by my lack of consistency in publishing new content.
Three months back, I decided to restart publishing on my blog and resolved to be more consistent this time around. I did have some content around my travel and finance topics and was more successful this time in publishing consistently for the next few months . Blogs take months or years of consistently publishing quality content in order to attract traffic.
After four months of consistently publishing articles on my blog, out of curiosity I signed into Google analytics and was pleasantly surprised by the visitor data. My blog has crossed 500 visitors for the month of February. Popular blogs have thousands of visitors per day , so from that context, these numbers are insignificant , but for me these are important baby steps in order to keep me self motivated and to validate my assumption that the content is valuable or interesting to at least a small percentage of people.
Visitor data for Feb 2019
Where are my blog readers coming from?
Predominantly my readers are from the US, with a small number checking out from Canada, Russia and UK and a few friends from India.
How is the blog being accessed?
This one is not a big surprise. Three fourth of the readers are checking out the blog from a mobile phone and the rest one fourth from desktop or tablet. It is however significant as traditionally the web pages were designed for the desktop and hence care has to be taken in blog design to ensure that the user experience for searching and navigating content should be as seamless as possible on a mobile device.
And while there are many articles about why you should blog to grow your business or become an expert —I feel the main benefit of blogging is that it enriches the blogger.
1. You will inspire others. Blogging not only changes your life, it also changes the life of the reader. And because blogs are free for the audience , it is also an act of giving. To invest your time and energy into publishing content which offers help to readers who may benefit from it. Others may find inspiration in your ideas and knowledge… and that’s a wonderful feeling.
2. You will become a better communicator. At its core, writing is communication. It is about recording thoughts on paper and presenting your point of view to the world and supporting that point of view with factual data and logic. Writing like other skills will improve with practice and the quality of your content will improve as you maintain consistency.
3. It does not cost anything – You can publish your blog today without spending a whole lot of money. You can use a web software like WordPress to create websites easily and quickly. For just a few dollars/month, you can use your very own domain name . For securing your domain name and for hosting I use and recommend Bluehost.
4. You will live a more intentional life. Once you start writing about your passions and the thoughts that shape it, you will start thinking more intentionally about who you are and what you want to become or aspire for. And that just may be reason enough to get started. Blogging will help you gain more confidence. You will realize that you do have a unique point of view and experience and may have something to offer to help others.
Remember, you don’t need to blog as a means to get rich or as a means to gather a huge following. The change that a blog will cause in your life is reason enough. Give it a chance, and you may be surprised.
For more stories on personal finance read Trade war and falling markets. Should I move into bonds?