What I Wished I Knew When I Started Blogging ~ Advice from Meghan Tucker from The Tuckers Take Tennessee

How are you liking this series so far?

I’m learning so much from these great seasoned bloggers and hope you are too.

 

Meghan

This week I’m featuring my dear friend, Meghan.  We met on Twitter {of course} and have become great ‘virtual friends’.  She has a great blog called The Tuckers Take Tennessee in which she describes in her post below.

 

Blogging advice in Meghan’s words …

 

It was in 2006 that I really started to hear more about blogging. But what was it? Who knew. A place for people to journal online? For the world to see their dirtiest of secrets? Eh, not for me. In 2008, that I really started to look deeper and start reading blogs. Okay, people didn’t air their dirty laundry out for the whole world to read (and those who did, I didn’t go back to their blogs). I was wrong. I began to love reading. Reading blogs began quite the hobby (uh-hum addiction) for me. 

 

Then my husband gave me the idea to keep a blog for all of our family in Florida. Ok, that sounded great. So, I posted a few pictures here and there and videos. But that didn’t last long. To me, it was boring. I wanted my blog to be more. And for the Florida family members, they all could see the pictures and updates on Facebook, so I ventured out of the “family blog” scene and entered into the “mommy blog” scene. 

 

There are SO many mommy bloggers out there. But how do I distinguish myself and make my blog different from every other blog? That was the question I wrestled with for a while. In May of 2009, my blog took on a face-lift. We had decided to homeschool, so that was a passion of mine. I also loved blogging about my faith as well as what it takes to make a Home a “home” and being the Home Engineer of my household.

 

There were many things that I wish I had known when I started blogging. 

 

*Start off with WordPress instead of Blogger. So much more user friendly and customizable. (And thats WordPress.org instead of WordPress.com)

 

*Have a set schedule. If you aren’t careful, blogging can take over your life. Set office hours for yourself. For me? I blog when my boys are taking their rests in the afternoons or at night once they have gone to bed. Don’t let your family suffer because you’re blogging all the time. 

 

*Find your niche. Don’t blog about everything under the sun. Find what you love, what you’re passionate about, what you feel you’re good at and go for it. You’ll be surprised at your success!

 

*Don’t jump at every opportunity. Be someone who can say “No” and find balance. Know what you can handle. I have learned to become very picky about what I share on my blog as well as who I represent. 

 

*Don’t spend a lot of money on your blog at first. Once it grows, you can venture into to more technical and pricey things for your site. Nothing worse than spending a lot of money on your blog and you get frustrated or don’t find the time to blog and all that money has gone down the drain. 

 

*Set goals for yourself. There is nothing wrong with succeeding. Set smaller goals on traffic, subscriptions, and once you hit those goals, reward yourself w/ a new blog design, a new button, or a pedicure. 🙂

 

These are just a few things I wish I had known or learned early on. Maybe just one of these things will help you figure out which direction to take your blog. 

Happy Blogging!

 

Meghan describes herself as: Christian, Homeschooling Mom of 2, Adoption Advocate, and Photographer Wanna-be. She enjoys spending time with her family, traveling, blogging, and social media. You can find her at The Tuckers Take Tennessee, Twitter, and Facebook.  She is also the co-founder of  Hip Homeschool Moms.

 

Meghan has some pertinent points here, doesn’t she!  The one that I can completely identify with is which blogging platform to use first.  Yes, it’s free to use some platforms, however, you are very limited to what you can do with them as far as the look of them, etc.  You can easily run out of space if you post a lot of pictures {which I do and many of you do too, I’m sure}.  So, now I’m in the process of transferring everything over to my new blog … I could’ve saved a LOT of time just starting with wordpress.org in the FIRST place.  But, being a new blogger, I wanted something I could get right there and start up and I didn’t have the knowledge {and am still learning} to go with all the coding and getting a background I liked, etc, etc….  Okay, enough rambling from me….

What did you identify with in Meghan’s post?  Please let us know in the comments!!  We love to read your comments!!!

 

xo Tara

 

Please visit the past guest bloggers in this series….

Amy from The Idea Room

Stacy from Not Just a Housewife

Mark Montano {TV host}

Becca from Blue Cricket Design

 

 

 

What I Wished I Knew When I Started Blogging ~ Amy from The Idea Room

As promised, another FABULOUS blogger here to share her insight to blogging in the beginning

 

 

Amy from The Idea Room has graciously taken time out from her FIVE children to write a little something for us {THANK YOU!!!!!!}  You need to go over to her blog, The Idea Room, and read about her and see ALL of the AMAZING ideas she has!!!!

 

 

The beautiful AMY!!!!!

 

 

 

Amy and I met at the Creative Estates conference briefly.  All be it brief, I could tell that she is a sweet gal who has so much to offer {you’ll see in just a moment}.  I cannot wait till our paths cross again.

Here’s what Amy has to say…

I started blogging over at The Idea Room just over a couple of years ago.  I had a family blog that I began adding some of my home and DIY projects too.  Wanting to keep my family blog mainly about our family, I started The Idea Room.  It was just a place to keep track of what I had been doing and making for myself and for my family.  But a couple of months later one, of my projects was featured on Tip Junkie.  My site stats jumped from around 100 page views a day to over 3.000.  I was shocked and had no idea that there could be that many people out there interested in what I had to say or share.  Thanks to being featured by others who have shared my ideas on their own blogs, my site has continued to grow.

I had no idea that there was this entire crafting/DIY blogging community out there.  But I have loved getting to know so many great people through this amazing community.  I began to teach myself the blogging and html basics and really enjoyed digging deeper into blogging.  As I grew, I began to feel like I was becoming more disconnected with the readers who were commenting and interacting with me on my blog.  I have worked hard at trying to balance this steady growth with trying to remain passionate and connected to my readers and my content.  It has also been a big struggle to balance my blogging with motherhood.  So I have made motherhood first and foremost and have given myself a set working schedule so blogging does not take me away from my family.  If I am being 100% blogger, than I am not being 100% Mother and vice versa.

Balance is the key.  I love my readers, but ultimately it comes down to being there for and WITH your family.  I wish I had learned that lesson a bit earlier in my blogging career.  I struggled with this issue for several months before realizing that having set hours and a schedule were mandatory for my family life.  Now I don’t feel bad about not having a post.  I also feel that it is important to have a passion for what you are doing.  If you don’t have a passion for it and are willing to do it for free, your readers will be able to sense this.  Opportunities will come to you if you are patient.  And just because an opportunity comes along, doesn’t mean that it is a good fit for you and your blog.  I have learned to become very picky about what I share on my blog as I feel responsible to my readers for being true and honest to myself and them.

And finally…Have fun!  Love what you do and do what you love.  Be yourself and try not to compare yourself to others.  People identify with others when they recognize authenticity!  Thanks for having me Tara!

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE the candid-ness of her post!  Don’t you?

“Opportunities will come to you if you are patient”  This is what I’ve been telling myself, too!  Just being patient and not pushing things that aren’t supposed to happen right at this moment is hard concept to grasp and accept sometimes.  However, having other life experiences where things have fallen in to place and having things happen when they’re SUPPOSED to is so wonderful.  Pushing and not being patient will show through and then it’s not natural.  I don’t usually throw God or religion in to my posts, but ultimately He does have a plan for you and will put you where you NEED to be and WHEN you need to be there.  Can you attest to that?  I can.

You can follow Amy on twitter if you wish: @theidearoom

And, you can LIKE her on Facebook here

I hope you got something from Amy’s post.  Did something ‘click’ for you?  

Please leave her some love in the comments below.  What part did you identify with?

xo Tara

Don’t forget to visit the other posts in this series…

Stacy from Not JUST a Housewife 

Mark from Mark Montano {TV celeb}

Becca from Blue Cricket Design

What I Wished I Knew When I Started Blogging ~ MARK MONTANO!!!

Umm…  Personally, I am soooooo excited that Mark Montano is here today to share his thoughts and advice for this series!  I have watched him {and maybe you have too} on TLC’s “10 Years Younger” and “While You Were Out” and never in my wildest dreams thought we would ever connect.  BUT, I’ve said it before and I will say it again …  Twitter is a wonderful place, people!  TWITTER is where we connected!!

Mark Montano

Here are his words …

Wow, where to begin.  First, I’m not an internet person.  I know it looks like I am but I’ve had lots of help and many late phone calls with my younger brother who wished he was closer so he could slap me.  To begin with I’m a creative person who daily sits in front of a computer and does not like it (because I’d rather be creating).  However, it’s become very necessary to my work so I’m learning day by day to enjoy it a little bit more and really reach out to the people in my circle.  It’s been helping and I’ve made some good connections this way.  So, my first piece of advice before starting your blog is this:  Try to enjoy the time you’re spending at your computer because you are going to be there a lot!  

When I started my blog I went with Typepad because someone suggested it to me and convinced me that it was the way to go.  I’m not truly sure about that anymore, but sadly, it’s too late.  I have too much information up there already to move.  It’s like having lived in a house for 50 years and you decide it would probably kill you to have to pack boxes so you just decide to stay.  My mistake was not using a FREE blog service because now I’m stuck paying for Typepad when it really wasn’t necessary.

At first I wanted to promote my books on my blog which is what I still do, but I realized that after a while I was just giving away pages from my book and it may or may not encourage people to go out and buy my book which is ultimately what we authors want.  We do want to share knowledge, but we have to make a living, too.  That living is based on book sales and book sales are hard to come by these days.  I do have to say however, that The Big Ass Book of Crafts is the number one selling craft book in the US for 3 years running and I’m very proud of that.  It’s due to the internet for sure.  Maybe not my blog, but all of the other support I’ve managed to get these past few years.  I’m grateful for my Internet supporters to say the least.  Don’t be shy, ask people to sign up for you blog and get the word out about what you’re doing.  Shyness was also a mistake.

However, I think the biggest mistake I made with my blog was not giving people a real slice of who I am as a creative person.  There are tons of crafty blogs out there but what is it ultimately that people will relate to?  I am banking on them relating to me and my struggles daily to be creative and innovative.  So, with that realization I decided to start posting things that inspire me along with craft tutorials from my books to give them a real picture of who I am, what inspires me and how I create.  This is my angle and I’m sticking to it.  

Well, you asked for advice, here it is:

1. Let people know who you are.  Everyone may not love it but who cares!  Being true to yourself is more important.
2. Have a real reason for blogging.  If you don’t then you won’t be that motivated to do it.

3. Be persistent in asking people to sign up for your blog.

4. Promote your blog any way you can:  Facebook, Twitter, business cards, inviting friends, whatever you can do to get the word out.

5. Ask people to guest blog to mix things up a bit.

Mark has 3 books out:

    

       The Big Ass Book of Crafts            

                         

Pulp Fiction: Perfect Paper Projects  

                 

  The Big Ass Book of Home Decor

You can visit Mark Montano’s blog here and follow him on twitter here

This post is FULL of advice!!!  Hard to pull just a few things from it as I’d say it’s ALL important.  

I do like how he says to not be shy.  

We are all trying to find our place and how to get there in this ‘Blogging World’ and it is difficult to know who to ask or even to know how to go about asking.  Intimidation can be a factor in all realms.  One of my goals with this “What I Wished I Knew When I Started Blogging” series is to help with the intimidation factor.  To not eliminate it, because I know I cannot single handedly do this, but to dampen it.  To show you that you don’t need to be intimidated by other bloggers.  There are bloggers out there that are willing to help you out!  

I don’t know a whole lot about blogging {right now}, but I do know that I will NEVER turn my back or not try to help someone trying to learn.  

We all have to learn some where.

Thank you, Mark Montano, for saying YES and taking the time to put together this great guest blog post for us!!!  I {and my friends, I’m sure} appreciate it so much!

xo Tara

P.S. sorry for the funky layout … no matter what I tried, it just wanted to appear this way.  🙂

What I Wished I Knew When I Started Blogging –

Welcome to a new series on my blog!  

A long title, yes, but don’t you wished you knew a number of things when you first started out?  This series will hopefully help with some of the questions or concerns you might have whether you’re new to blogging or not.  We all have questions, right?

I have asked a number or AMAZING AMAZING AH-MAZING bloggers to share their insights to blogging.  

The response has been unreal and I’m so happy to share these Guest Bloggers with you!

I’ve wanted to do this series for a number of reasons:

~ to help others {like me} to understand that when starting a blog, it doesn’t have to be perfect.

~ everybody starts somewhere

~ to know that there are WONDERFUL bloggers out there willing to help

~ to SHARE tips and tricks of blogging

~ and many more reasons, but you get the point, right?

So, let’s get started, shall we?

My first Guest Blogger is Rebecca Dulgarian from Blue Cricket Designs.  We met in real life a few months ago at the Creative Estates conference in Arizona.  She’s so sweet and down to earth!  How about reading what she has to say?
Blogging! It’s a word in almost everyone’s vocabulary right now right! It’s hard to find someone who doesn’t have a blog! It’s funny for me to sit back and think about when I first started to blog…feels like a life time ago! 

I’ve had a family blog for over 6 years (but I’m embarrassed to admit that if you looked at it the most recent post would read “Charlie Bug turns 1!” and she’s two right now! YIKES!) so blogging has been apart of me for a while now! I loved the idea of capturing moments that made an impression on me and that you never wanted to forget! An online journal that was so much easier to use and share! I fell in love with the idea of blogging and jumped in head first! 

Blogging for me has evolved over the years. It started off as a place to share family moments and then personal thought and finally to a business. Did I know everything I do now from day one? Of course not but over the years I have learned some valuble lessons along the way…

• Blogging with a direction is always the best bet! I had a family blog first and as I started to see how great it was to have a place to share family news I knew I wanted a place just for me to share personal thoughts, rants and raves! Combining the two just wasn’t a good fit so I took my inner thought to their own place and kept the direction of my family blog just family oriented and my new personal blog just for me! It helped me to be more focused and gave my friends and family a dose of what they wanted not what I was forcing them to take part in! This is also when I created my creative blog!  Each blog had a definite direction!
• Blogger was the first and only blog site I had heard of! I will forever shout Bloggers praises! I think it’s the best blogging site for simple easy to use posting and is so user friendly! It wasn’t until recently that I made the switch to Word Press. I’ve learned over the years that if you are serious about growing a blog into a business that Word Press is the way to go. I wrote an entire post on why this is the case! If your intent is connect to family and friends and to share updates then Blogger is for you!
• In my case it has been detrimental to still inject a big dose of  my personality into my business/creative blog! People love to know the person behind the blog. Because my creative site was open to anyone who found it I had to make sure they were able to find ME in the blog as well as how to make something! Personality bring readers back just as much as a great project. That being said I also had to remember that I wanted to appeal to the masses so remembering to not be too sarcastic, too blunt and too over baring in a post was just as important! There is nothing worst then going to blog where a what could be taken as an “offensive” personality shines too brightly! It’s a total turn off and I hate to admit it but I can’t go to blogs where that is the case even if they are good friends of mine!
• As fun as it is to blog, blogging can’t be everything! I so often would be caught up in getting post done, getting projects photographed and making sure I had a post for tomorrow! In the mean time my kids would be in jammies till 3, we’d eat cereal for lunch and my home would get my left over attention! It caused contention in my home and stress that was almost unbearable! I remember when my grandmother passed away and I had to rush to California for a week to be with family and attend her funeral. I left everything and just went to be with my family. When I got home I had a wonderful realization hit me…. Life still went on! I didn’t post for days and guess what? The world didn’t stop spinning and all was well! I realized that blogging wasn’t the top priority in my life or the lives of my readers! It was a nice additive but not the main ingredient in my life! That experience has helped me keep my blogging in check! 
• Blogging comes easiest when your passionate about what your sharing! I’ve had lots of opportunities to share products, and other companies with my readers! There has only been once where I regretted sharing something and it came down to the fact that I would never use that product in real life! The post felt forces and totally not me! I Learned then to never get caught up in getting free products or paid to post! It’s just not worth it!
• It’s ok to take a break! I’m not so good at this but I’m learning it’s important! Don’t force a post just becasue you need one. Take a day off! Just think…Quality over Quantity!
• You get back what you put into it! I find just as much joy, if not more, in promoting others as I do promoting myself! I feel lucky to be able to toot someone elses horn! I’ve noticed over the years that when I promote others it always comes back to me with others returning the favor and promoting me! 
• Blogging has fulfilled so much for me! It was the high fives when I needed them! The prof that I was more then just a mom! It has become a way for me to tap into that creative person I have always been and it’s been a way for me to connect to others. There will come a time when blogging will have done what you needed it to do. I’m learning to be grateful for what blogging has giving me and to know how to walk away when I can, aware that I don’t need from blogging what I used to! 

It’s been a fun journey! I’m proud of the blogging paths I have taken and am for what each of them have taught me and given me! Never feel like you need to be like another blogger!  Don’t get caught up in the numbers! Grow organically! Be able to keep it in perspective and realize that blogging isn’t everything!  Roll with the punches and never forget….It’s just a blog!

Thank you so much, Becca!  

It’s so great to read what other established bloggers think and have experienced.  Sometimes people {like me} need to hear, “It’s just a blog”, to snap back in to reality.  Being so focused on numbers, statistics, and getting the next blog post done can take a toll on a person and families.  So, well said, Rebecca!

Stay tuned to read more from other Guest Bloggers!!!  

A VERY ELITE line up ahead!!!!

{and kicking it off with Blue Cricket Design says a LOT!!!!}

*squeal*

xo Tara