I honestly can't believe I have had this thing for a year now. Who would have thought that a name that came to me after my (at the time) 8 month old daughter vomited on me for the umpteenth time would turn in to what you see today?
I have worked very hard to make this blog informative and I spend hours researching topics that I come across as my daughter goes about the business of growing up. And, as a first (and only) time parent it's an experience I wouldn't trade for the world.
To keep this fun, I thought I'd share some little glimmers of wisdom I have earned in my path to blogging. I hope you like them and find them at least a little humorous. ^_^
Things I have learned in creating this blog:
- Never let people get to you - it creates problems and letting them get to you doesn't solve them. Some people are opinionated and their opinion is different from yours. That doesn't (always) make it a bad opinion (except when it does).
- Don't expect miracles - if you expect a trough of people to amazingly "find" and love your blog, you are dreaming. People find blogs through you advertising your blog or from doing keyword searches. I have advertised via Google and FaceBook and gotten good results with traffic.
- Blog for you, not them - blogging is work and if you don't like it you will end up hating it. I always blog for myself (and my family) first and my readers second. When I finally got this blog to look the way I wanted it to (now I want to change it up but don't have time) it was such a HUGE sense of accomplishment. If you have money to blow, I recommend hiring someone to set it up for you. Otherwise there will be hair missing from your head because you will have pulled it out wondering where that obscure HTML tag that you have wrong or need is.
- If you think you will make a ton of money on your blog, think again - it costs money to make money and this is as true as ever with blogging. You may think you have taken hold of undiscovered country but I pretty much guarantee that there are a ton of blogs out there just like yours. That's why I blog more for fun than anything else. I have used Amazon and Google and FaceBook and made a grand total of ZERO dollars on this blog. Not that I am (really) complaining (overly much).
- There is no need to blog every day - I thought (wrongly) that I should blog every day at the beginning. I am now much happier (and slightly less insane) now that I write posts when I feel a need (mostly when something new happens with Willow like grinding her teeth or getting attacked by fireants) and not out of obligation to anyone.
- Always remember it's a mad mad mad mad world out there and that is even more true when it comes to the blogsphere.
I could go on and on, but I won't.
Happy Anniversary MVP. It's been a long (and oddly short) 12 months since we met, but I am so very glad we did because I can talk with other parents (armed with well researched information) about a myriad of topics that I hadn't a clue about a year ago. I love being able to help people and this blog has helped me to do that. And that makes me happy and a better parent.
