So I’m currently reading “The Million Dollar Blog” by Natasha Courtenay-Smith, a British media expert and a successful blogger, focusing on digital strategy and marketing.
Picked up the book purely with the intention of understanding better the world of blogging and perhaps gain more courage to launch this blog. I’m happy to say that I’m already doing some of the things she highlighted, such as
- Write for at least 30 days consecutively to make it a habit (as advised by one of the UK’s leading blogger expert, Sarah Arrow)
I’m already doing it for 60 days! Today is my 60th post for the year. And yes I’ve to say that it’s becoming a habit – wake up every morning and blog. Like Sarah said, don’t worry if you don’t have idea what to write, just need to sit down, put your fingers to the keyboard, type and press publish. And that’s exactly what I’ve done. Most of the time the idea came only in the morning.
- Before launching, you need to have some content instead of just introductory pages or the first 2 posts. Have at least 10 posts.
Like I said above, I have at least 60 posts already so by right, I’m good to go. But, I personally feel it’s not ready yet. I haven’t updated my About section. I know I told myself I should probably do it when I hit 30 posts but I’m going to make a new target which is 100. So 40 more days to go. Natasha kept emphasising the importance of having a niche. I guess I’m still figuring out what’s my niche. And that will determine the domain name that I will acquire.
I initially thought of just sticking to dayanaomar.wordpress.com but her study shows that having a domain name shows more professionalism, it shows that you are serious about it. Once you have a domain name you will also get your own email address, so you don’t have to use X@gmail.com for people to contact you. Based on her survey, 27% people are more connected to the blogger if they use @owndomainname than @gmail.com.
One thing that she said is important to have which I’m not sure I agree 100%, is to have good quality pictures, action shots of what I’m pushing for here. If you notice, my blog is full of words simply because having pictures will take up more of my time and I don’t have the luxury of time to do that. My goal is to just keep writing.
Oh well, let’s see how it goes. Let’s see how and where this blog will take me. At this point in time I’m just happy that I have created a new habit and been doing it consistently. Hope I can keep up with the momentum!
Dayana Omar 