{Be Successful} Starting a Blog
Hi everyone! My name is Annaliese, and I’m a college sophomore attending a private college in North Carolina. I’m originally from Maine, and I lived in the same small town until I moved to college. I love my new life in the South, and you’d probably guess that moving for school was the best decision of my life. Well, it’s actually the second best decision. I can tell all of you that without a doubt, the best decision of my life was one that I made on a random afternoon in January 2011:starting a blog.
I always enjoyed writing short fiction stories as a child, and I had tons of notebooks and journals in which I would let my imagination run loose. But as I got older and my only opportunities for writing became school related, I started to lose interest in it. I saw writing as a chore and something that I would be getting graded on- I certainly didn’t see it as a stress relief! During my first two years of high school, I never even followed blogs. I’m not even sure I really knew what they were.
My junior year of high school was a rough one for a variety of reasons, and for the second semester of it I stopped attending classes at my public high school and instead switched to dual enrollment at the local community college. During this time I also got back in touch with some old friends from my homeschooling days (I was homeschooled from grades 2-8). One of them had been writing a blog for a couple years, and one day I randomly discovered it. She didn’t have very many followers, and she blogged mostly for personal benefit. But her posts were amazing. Her blog allowed me to catch up with what had been going on in her life for the past few years, and I was amazed at how she used her blog in such a positive way. So many of her posts focused on being grateful for the little things in her life, and that inspired me. I decided that I wanted to start a blog after reading my friend’s. I started my first blog, Confessions of a Maine Teenager, in January 2011. The name just came to me… I was a teenager, I lived in Maine, and my posts would be my confessions. :)
Soon after I started blogging, I began following tons of other blogs. I had no idea that girls my own age could have blogs that had hundreds (or even thousands!) of followers, and that inspired me. The main mission of my blog was still to blog for myself, but I also started wanting more followers. I taught myself the basics (and I mean BASICS, I’m no graphic designer) of blog design, and through reading other blogs I learned about things like link-ups and giveaways. Slowly but surely I started getting more followers, and I began becoming braver what I shared on my blog. I was writing a lot about my high school experience, and how it hadn’t gone the way that I thought it would. Very few people in my personal life knew about my blog, so I didn’t have to worry about my peers reading it and making fun of me.
Blogging was also a way for me to feel affirmed about my Christian faith. There wasn’t really any sort of a Christian population in my high school, and I always felt like an outcast because I was raised by parents that had morals and standards and I was involved in my church. It was wonderful for me to find blogs by Christian girls who were sharing their faith and thanking the Lord for His blessings. (How wonderful it would have been if I’d known about Delight at the time!)
I decided to start a new blog in September 2012 to document my adventures in college. I didn’t think that my old blog applied to my life anymore, and I felt much more inspired to be starting over! My new blog has grown a fair amount in its first year. No, I don’t have tens of thousands of followers like some of the “big bloggers,” but I currently have just over 250 followers between GFC and Blog Lovin’ (which are the two main ways to follow Blogger blogs) and I think that’s pretty good! I have also gotten the opportunity to try a lot more types of posts on my new blog. I really enjoy doing fashion posts and sharing pictures of my outfits now, and I’ve also been blessed with the opportunity to make a little bit of money through blogging by doing a few sponsored posts for reputable companies! But definitely the best part of my blogging journey has been the friendships. I’ve now had the opportunity to meet one of my blogging friends in person, and I’ve skyped and become Facebook friends with several others! My blogging friends always encourage me with their sweet comments on my posts, and I know that they’re always there if I need someone to vent to! Fun fact: I never would have found Delight if it wasn’t for blogging!
I hope that I have encouraged any girls that have never thought about blogging before to perhaps give it a try! Building a blog is a slow process, but 100% worth it. Below are a couple of my tips for getting started!
