May I be honest with you?
I haven’t had a web presence for long. I am still learning what a blog is and what it means to be a blogger. I’m still learning how the entire process comes together. Let’s not even get into the photography process. I am terrible at taking pictures. Again, I am learning, just not fast enough for my taste.
Everyday I go online reading blogs. Marvelling at their author’s brilliance. I wonder “How can I go beyond what I perceive as difficult in order to create a web presence that I love?” That question is on my mind all the time. As with others like:
- What do I need to make my blog work and be a success for my standards?
- Do I immediately try to get ads?
- Where do I get all the bells and whistles and how do I place them into my blog?
- Do I post everyday, every other day, or once a week?
- Is there a book, website, video, or a combination of it all to teach and help me with everything?
- How do these bloggers continue to create recipes with ease?
- Why am I not comprehending this? What is wrong with me?
I have been freaking out over this since I started my blog. The act of trying to write down the recipe of what I make as I make it is challenging considering that I don’t measure anything unless I am baking and I’m not a baker. Unless I am making biscuits, cobbler, or pie.
The ideas for dishes are plentiful. Yet when I get in the spotlight – the stove to create said masterpiece, I choke and then just about all my meals end up looking the same or have the same color palette. I keep hearing Gillian McKeith in my head speaking of bland brown. However, in my case it’s a green orange curry color or tomato based. How do all the bloggers do it?!
My pictures. Oh my gosh, let’s not go there. I have blurry, angled, too bright, too dark. the list goes on and on pictures. And none of the patients to keep taking pictures of the same thing until I get it right before I move on to thee next project.
The bottom line is I have been blogging for a few months and already I feel lost and alone in this. I am not going beyond what I perceive to be difficult or even being my best. I feel as though I am trying really hard to get the hang of this blogging thing without getting anywhere. Maybe one day the switch will flip for me to finally connecting the dots and create a beautiful picture and seriously good site.
These thoughts are normal. I’ve been blogging on different platforms for over 16 years and still have them from time to time. I recently went to a blogger convention and it was all “be yourself and traffic/fame/money will come” and so on. Which is complete BS. What they were really saying (the big bloggers) is that they don’t want to share their secrets. I was a developer/designer and now am in internet marketing and know most of their “secrets”. Yet I don’t use the tools they use for traffic/profitability because it’s not my goal for my current blog.
You need to come up with a set of reasons why you blog. Then goals to get to where you want to be. I blog just to keep track of things I bake or hiking, and occasionally share recipes with my friends far away so really I only spend about 7-15 hours a week on my blog (that includes the cooking). The bigger the goal, the more hours you have to put in to get there. It could take you a year in hours and a lot of cash to get some quality photos if that is what you are going for. It could take you 20 hours a week starting out to come up with 2 good tested recipes to post on your blog. It takes time, but if you want to do it you’ll make time for it 🙂
Thank you for your words of wisdom, Shannon. I have asked for help from quite a few who, in my opinion are doing very well. It is as if I will take what I’m told then turn around and become more successful than them. I just want a great foundation and then I’ll take it from there. I’m not trying to overshadow anyone, I just a place for myself on the web.
A little each day, I’ve been reading and teaching myself about blogging whenever I find information. I’m learning more and more of the amount of time that I truly need to put in. One of the things I’m learning is that when I make my post, I tend to have sort of a stage fright kind of thing. I begin to write my post and all of a sudden, I’m back in school with a teacher over my should telling me that I shouldn’t something or that something is wrong. It’s an issue that I know I need to work on. Now, I take pictures when I remember. Sometimes I get so excited about a meal that I forget to document it only to remember once it has been consumed. Oh the joys of cooking and eating!