No One Said It Would Be Easy

Posted by Barbara Swafford on Wednesday, March 5th 2008   
Filed in: Archives, Blogging, Blogging Lessons    Tags: ,

Photo Credit woodleywonderworks’ photos
2281262906_838555268d.jpgIf you are a new blogger, or even a blogger who has been consistently posting for a long time, you may ask yourself, “when will I have success?”

Your definition of success determines how long it takes to get “there”.

Today’s Lesson

Getting a blog found, reminds me of when I was on a search for my ancestors. Three had come to the US from Finland, and one from Russia.

I dug through online genealogy records, first finding two grandparents from Finland.

The person I had problems with, was my favorite Grandmother, from Finland. The relatives I turned to said she came over the same year the Titanic sunk. I knew that was 1912. Another relative said she arrived around Christmas. That narrowed my search. Several of the relatives said she came into Ellis Island, but when I combed through Ellis Island’s ships manifests, line by line, no Gramma was there to be found..

I then started looking at other ports…Boston…Philadelphia…………No Gramma

I reversed my search and found her leaving from Finland early December of 1912. From Hango (often spelled Hanko Finland), she traveled to Liverpool. It was there where I “lost her”.

The Finnish records stated that her ticket was issued by a Canadian company.

I asked myself, could she have come in through Canada? But I had no luck with the Canadian records.

I spent hours of my free time looking for Gramma. My husband’s advice was, “I don’t think your Gramma wants to be found.” “Let it go.”

Months passed and I finally put my search for Gramma on hold.

Then one day, I went back online. The Canadian records were now updated. I began searching again.

Within ten minutes I found Gramma. She had come in through St. John, New Brunswick.

What a happy day that was. My search was over.

Blogging is similar to this.

We post and we post. We try SEO (search engine optimization), keyword phrases, and commenting. We get a few visitors. We get Stumbled and Dugg. We get huge spikes in our traffic.

But we still don’t feel successful. We ask ourselves, what will it take?

Just as it took me over a year to find Gramma, I believe the answer is “time”.

In time…… success will be ours.

In the meantime….enjoy the journey.

Today’s Assignment

Do you get frustrated with blogging, anxious for success?

Have you defined what success in blogging means to you?

Are you enjoying the journey? No One Said It Would Be Easy

Comments

CatherineLNo Gravatar said on March 5th, 2008     

Hi Barbara. You were certainly persistent in finding your Gramma and I bet you had fun doing it.

The journey is far more important than the destination isn’t it? And if you’re not enjoying it, sometimes it’s best to get on a different boat. This definitely applies to blogging.

I just can’t understand why anyone would do it if they didn’t enjoy writing. But many do, because they think it’s a way to make a fast buck and that really shows through in their content.

In the past, I’ve spent a huge sum of my earnings on travel. And while I’ve really enjoyed all those great vacations, knowing that I’ve worked hard and made great progress to pay for those vacations has been far more satisfying.

As for blogging – I really am enjoying it. I do have a destination in mind – or, more a serious of mini destinations, but I’m not in a massive rush to get there, as I know from past experience that rushing can be dangerous too.

I think that what I was finding difficult was the fact that people often seemed to enjoy what I considered my least favourite posts, as my better ones. And often, those were the ones I’d written off the top of my head, instead of using a planned post.

But, that has turned out to be rewarding – because I do enjoy writing those unplanned posts and the fact that people seem to enjoy them encourages me to do it more.

I must admit – I enjoy it best when people tell me they’ve benefited from reading something I’ve written, or they discuss the topic in the comments section and find a way to apply it to their own lives.

CatherineL’s last blog post..Business Success Is Only A Deathbed Away

[Reply]

BarbaraNo Gravatar said on March 5th, 2008     

Hi Catherine,

Finding Gramma almost became an obsession, but the process was a ton of fun.

Yes, the journey is the most important part. Often we have a destination in mind, but life often has another plan for us, and we end up somewhere else. If we concentrate too much on the destination, we can miss out on a whole lot.

Many do enter into blogging to “make a fast buck”, but if you don’t like to write, you could become disillusioned fast.

With blogging, we need to remember to ask ourselves, “when we get to our destination, then what?”

As bloggers we never know which posts our readers will like the most. It’s really a gamble, and I think that’s what drives me to keep writing. Like you said, the popular ones are “written off the top of your head”. Too often we can over analyze, and stunt our creativity.

If a post helps someone, you know your writing was a success.

Barbara’s last blog post..No One Said It Would Be Easy

[Reply]

Ian DennyNo Gravatar said on March 5th, 2008     

I agree with Cath – if you’re enjoying the journey, then any success you want can wait. And I think we all want success. And that can be defined in many ways.

I suspect many people consciously think that money will define their blogging as successful. Others will keep going because at a less conscious level they enjoy the social interaction.

I still believe we are in early adoption stages for blogging. The vast majority of commenters on virtually every blog I visit have links to their own blog.

At least in the UK! Some know what I’m talking about when I mention blogs but still don’t seem to get the interactive nature. “You mean people from all over the world comment? Wow, I didn’t know blogs could do that.”

Others stare blankly at me.

I have a feeling that the majority of probloggers are making their money from other bloggers. The percentage of non-bloggers engaging I feel is lower than we think. Especially proportionally.

For example, what percentage of active blog authors comment on other blogs – 90%+ wouldn’t be an outrageous guess I suppose.

Now what percentage of comments are from blog authors? Would 90% be outrageous?

Blog authors still comprise a tiny proportion of the online community. I could be very wrong, but the comcept of waiting and having patience for that break or leap into what we would personally define as success may really arrive if a tipping point is reached in awareness in the non-blogging world.

What would fascinate me is an analysis (if it were possible) is what percentage non-authors contribute to advertising/affilliate income?

If my guess is correct, non-bloggers take a smaller proportion. And out of those, they are probably mainly “get rich quick” people looking for a short-cut.

Ian Denny’s last blog post..Blog Authors – How To Get More Comments Per Visitor

[Reply]

Hunter NuttallNo Gravatar said on March 5th, 2008     

Isn’t it nice of Canada to update their records once a century? :)

@ Catherine, you mentioned people who don’t like writing, but try to make a fast buck with blogging. I think if these people had done just a bit of research, they’d see that it just doesn’t work out like that. People see that a handful of people are making a lot of money with blogging, and for some reason they conclude that it’s easy.

@ Ian, I think you’re right about those estimates. It makes me wonder what’s going to happen when the non-blogging world discovers blogging. The blogging landscape might change, but people who are putting time into their blogging now will probably be thankful they didn’t wait until later.

Hunter Nuttall’s last blog post..Lessons From The 2008 Congress Of Jugglers

[Reply]

JodithNo Gravatar said on March 5th, 2008     

Am I anxious for success? Oh, my, yes *laughs*.

My definition of success, long term, is being able to make enough money to do this full time.

Short term, I have a few more manageable goals. At the moment, my initial goals are towards pure traffic. My first goal will be to get 100 unique visitors in a month. Once I achieve that (which may be this month, as a matter of fact, I will shoot for 500 uniques in a month.

After that, I will probably start looking at including subscriptions into my goals, but I haven’t looked that far ahead yet. Right now, I’m just trying to get the blog on people’s radar screen and start driving a bit of traffic there. I’m concentrating on regular, quality updates targeted at my chosen audience, and SEO optimization, since a good bit of my content will appeal to persons in other populations besides my targeted audience.

This particular project is too new for me to be frustrated with it yet, and I still have quite a few ideas on marketing the website.

Jodith’s last blog post..For Beginners: Receptionist Tips I

[Reply]

BarbaraNo Gravatar said on March 5th, 2008     

Hi Ian,

I agree we are in the early stages of blogging. Many people do go online to get the news, or to find an answer, but millions are still dependent on TV, books, magazines and the newspaper. Won’t they be surprised when they realize they can have a conversation with the author of the “story”?

At this point in time, I agree most commenters are other bloggers, commenting to bring exposure to their own blog. But getting comments also depends on the subject of the blog. e.g. If a blog supplies recipes, many will print off a recipe, move on, not taking time to comment.

Hi Hunter,

It did take awhile for Canada to get all of their records online. The biggest problem is most genealogy records are translated by volunteers, and after reading thousands of lines of information (of ships manifests), I don’t know how they are/were able to decipher some of the handwritten records. I’m just thankful I found Gramma.

I agree with what you said in reply to Ian’s comment. we will be glad we didn’t wait.

Hi Jodith,

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to be able to blog full time?

Your goals are very realistic, and doable. Isn’t it fun when you meet or beat a short term goal, and then set your sights a little higher. That way, they are more attainable.

With your knowledge about Administrative Assistants, I could see you writing a book…maybe an e-book, or teaching classes at your local community college, or even doing some type of YouTube tutorials. I’ll be following your progress, so it will be fun watching what direction your blog takes you.

Barbara’s last blog post..No One Said It Would Be Easy

[Reply]

Natural WomanNo Gravatar said on March 5th, 2008     

Do you get frustrated with blogging, anxious for success? No I don’t. If it frustrates me one bit, I won’t do it because it no longer serves the purpose I intended for it.

Have you defined what success in blogging means to you? I have not written it down, but in my mind it would have to be a blog that is popping (one that has regular readers that participate).

Are you enjoying the journey? Absolutely!

Natural Woman’s last blog post..Love is?

[Reply]

NezNo Gravatar said on March 6th, 2008     

I find blogging quite enjoyable, but also quite time consuming, and it’s time I’m not getting paid for.

As someone who is self-employed, I then have to ask myself is what I’m doing detrimental to my business (as in taking time away from business-related tasks), or is it eating into my time with my family.

The answer usually is it’s eating into my sleep time :-)

And no, it’s not easy — I admire someone who can post high quality content on a regular basis for a long period of time.

I hope to be one of those one day.

Nez’s last blog post..The Wonders of Bread

[Reply]

BarbaraNo Gravatar said on March 6th, 2008     

Hi Natural Woman,

Having visited visited your blog many times (not always commenting), I can tell by your writings that blogging is a passion of yours. You interact with your commenters and through your words, show much joy.

Another A :)

Hi Nez,

Adding blogging to family life and self employment can get tricky. Isn’t it amazing how we find time for it, even though it eats into our sleep time. All of a sudden, we find ourselves surviving on an hour or two less sleep each night.

You will be one of “those” one day. It’s just a matter of patience, perseverance, dedication, and the belief you can do it.

Barbara’s last blog post..Your First Line Can Sink You

[Reply]



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