My Top 5 Blogging Regrets
Hi there, and welcome back to the blog.
I'd like to take this opportunity to say a massive thank you for reading this week's post. Whether this is your first time to the blog or if you have been here before, I want you to know that I really appreciate you taking time out of your day to read what I have written for you this week.
I'll keep this one brief and just get straight into it. This week I will lay out my top 5 blogging regrets since I started using blog posts as a way of communicating with you since October 2015. Regrets are inevitable, but we can learn from them. So let's see if I've learned anything over the past six and a half years or so.
1. Not staying consistent
I noticed this trend, particularly on my first blog, where I could go months without an update on the blog, and it was just as frustrating for me as I'm sure it was for other people. I always aim for at least one post per week, and most of the time, recently, I have been hitting that target, though I know sometimes I can slip into that old pattern and miss the odd week here and there.
It does get hard to post consistently, though, especially when there is a post I work hard on that sees little engagement from the website. It feels a bit disheartening. But this is something I should be expecting; after all, I am still less than one year in with this blog post, so in those terms, I am still just starting again. Hopefully, things will continue to improve, and I'll be a lot more consistent with these updates in the coming months.
2. Large blocks of text
Another regret from my first blog was that I was focusing entirely on the text element of the blog and would include no pictures or other graphics to make the page more interesting.
Now I see this as a huge mistake and one that I have learned from as I try to make the post look as presentable and appealing as possible each time I post to the blog.
I realise now that people will not want to wade through 1,000+ words of text without a break, so now I am trying to add a small design element to each post, using my design skills, as limited as they are.
3. Not staying connected
This might seem similar to the first point, but I feel it is a point entirely of its own. When I stopped updating my old blogs regularly, I failed to keep active with the community I had built up (primarily inside Facebook and Twitter). So I would have found it hard to blame them for leaving for the period I was absent as it went from months into years.
The blogging aspect came back during lockdown, and I knew that I needed a site that I could update as often as possible that wasn't as tricky or technical as some of the others I tried, so I chose to develop my site using Wix.
If things retake a turn and I can't update the blog for whatever reason for weeks or months at a time, I need to be aware that I have to stay connected on social media and other platforms as often as I can to let people know why posts aren't going up. It's the only fair thing to do.
4. Not using email marketing
Monthly email newsletters are a great way to keep up to date with people you want to hear from every month. I like to receive monthly emails from some of my favourite writers as some of the stories included can be very funny and entertaining.
Email marketing is definitely something that scares many people since the introduction of GDPR, but as long as you do your research and stay on the right side of the law, there isn't anything to be afraid of.
I am still learning and looking to build up an email list so I can let those people be the first to know about exciting developments on the website, new things I am trying out in daily life, and letting them be the first to know about any new books that may be on the way soon!
It's something that I want to explore, but something I have to get right, and I definitely regret not doing something like this much sooner.
5. Not adapting quickly enough
This is a regret from the current blog that you are reading right now. I think it still takes me a while to take clues from the stats the website shows me about how many people are reading these posts.
Since the beginning of this website, I have always posted my blog at 2 pm on Friday afternoons. However, apart from one post where I announced the publication of Wednesday's Child, I haven't yet seen a post reach triple figure views across the lifetime of the website.
This tells me I need to adapt, so over the coming weeks and months, I will be playing around with the times and days of the post that best suits when people will be online and have the best opportunity to view my content. I think it is the only fair way of doing this as you get the best chance to see these posts, and I can write posts for more than ten people (don't get me wrong, I love those ten people for taking the time to view these posts, but I need to see more engagement on these posts to be worth the time!)
So there is a list of my top 5 blogging regrets and a list that I am working on changing very shortly, so keep an eye out for those very soon!
With all that being said, I would like to thank you once again for reading this week's article. I really appreciate it. If you would like to hear more from me and get the latest updates from the blog and more, you can follow me on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and TikTok on @MolloyWrites.
Until next time.
Warmest regards,
James.