There's nothing like teaching to inspire you to research and understand a topic. I have a most wonderful role as the ‘Technology Mentor’ for THE Rural Woman community and in that role I facilitate a 1-hour webinar each week on a technical topic for members. For the first ½ hour of each session I focus on a tech topic and the second half I offer a Q&A session on any tech question - in the hope that I can answer the curly questions.
This week I'm focusing on Blogging (as it was a question that was raised in the discussion forums in THE Rural Woman Community) It's been a while since I have myself blogged as I have dabbled a few times over the years in blogging. In fact as I look at my blog page I can see that it's been well over a year since I last blogged.
What is Blogging?
“A blog (shortening of “weblog”) is an online journal or informational website displaying information in the reverse chronological order, with latest posts appearing first. It is a platform where a writer or even a group of writers share their views on an individual subject”
(Image Source: Pixabay 3D_Maennchen)
What application to use?
There are lots of options out there for different blogging platforms and if you 'google it' you'll find the top 10, or the top 15 etc on lots of other blog sites.
Website Set up - Best Blog Sites is one that offered quite a bit of background detail for each of the various sites they explored. What is a challenge is to filter through these sites as many of these may have an affiliate source from the websites they post up at the top of the list.
The question "To blog or not to blog?" is really quite funny and when you research and explore whether it's worth blogging in 2019 you discover of course it is and how do you discover it you discover it from ‘bloggers!’. (Who of course are going to tell you it's worth it!)
I think the very first question to consider is 'Are you are writer?' Do you enjoy the writing style of Blogging? Does it come easy to you or will it be a laborious process?
There are a variety of Challenges to face when creating a Blog such as:
Choosing the platform
Just GETTING STARTED (Battling perfectionism before posting it out there)
Keeping up with regular posting of content
Competition and saturation of information already on the web
How will you promote and share your blog? You can write it but will anyone read it???
I found this blog post by Mike Allton AKA the ‘Blogging Brute’ had some great tips to share on his post Should you start a blog in 2019?
Mike suggested considerations such as:
What are you going to write about?
Who is your target audience?
The big suggestion Mike had was to work on a Blogging Plan and I think that is great advice and perhaps the very point of where to start... all wrapped up with your Business Planning - if you are blogging for your business.
Do you want to make money & grow your business from it?
Reflection of whether it’s useful to Blog (Thanks for reflections from participants in THE RW Tech webinar)
To me even my past blogs serve as a valuable resource, especially when I want to share some book reviews that I have done or add content and additional resources to a webinar I am presenting. I’ve used 2 of my 2018 blog posts as support material in the past fortnight at various online webinars. (Win! Win!)
Other bloggers use their writing to build up content and turn it into a book. What a great way to hone your writing craft and focus on getting something done.
Blogging is one of the many ways you can tap into your audience for them to get to know you and your skills/expertise.
Your blog posts can be reworked or included in your Facebook, online newsletter subscriptions, could be printed in a newspaper article, linked to other social media such as twitter, instagram etc.
So as I am currently reflecting and working on my business directions for 2020 tapping into the resources and networking of the Thriving Healing Evolving Rural Woman Community. As part of my evolving business plan I think will include a Blogging plan for 2020, consider those big questions Mike Allton suggested, explore more and post more regularly… Watch this space!
So my answer to my question is 'To Blog!' (With a plan & purpose in place first)
If you are a woman in business or working towards that goal, living in rural or regional Australia or in fact the world why not come join our online community THE Rural Woman.
Join the community for free and if you want to step up your learning and personal growth then join through paid membership for a variety of weekly business and technology webinars facilitated by a variety of women who are working and thriving in their rural locations. It's great that we can learn together and from each other. Blooming right where we are planted!
