Krishnan's Personal Website

I first learned about blogging in 2007 and since then I have been fascinated by writing my articles and publishing it on the internet. 

Blogging democratices the whole internet and makes it a level playing field for a random person’s blog competes with a journalist's blog for eyeballs and visits and at times a random blog article has the power to go viral than a carefully crafted article. 

Despite being in love with blogging I have never taken it as a medium to earn an income. To be honest I have never understood how a blog can make money. Hence I have made some serious mistakes over the years that catapulted my blogging efforts downhill. 

It is only after learning things the hard way did I realize my mistakes. Now that I am wiser I have set out to rebuild my blog that people find useful. 

So with that being said let’s now look into my plan/strategies to build this blog. 

Choosing Blogging Platform

When starting a blog one important thing that we all have in common is what platform to choose. Should be medium or wordpress.com or build your own blogging platform etc. 

The best practice here is to go with a platform where we have full control on all aspects of the platform. A self hosted wordpress blog is the ideal platform. For this blog I am using a simple blogging application that I built with Laravel. The goal is to control the platform and not to demonstrate technical prowess so do not waste your time building the next big blogging platform. 

Starting blogging with  wordpress.org or in my case a Laravel powered blogging platform might not attract traffic in the short term. However it will be very beneficial in the long run as I will have full and exclusive control over the future of the platform. By doing so I will not face the problem of the blogging platform getting shut down or changing algorithms that might affect the traffic. 

Upon research I found out that the  blog need not have an amazing user interface or an expensive theme. As long as the fonts are clear and the links are accessible and the overall blog is responsive we are good. 

I went with Laravel as I feel comfortable with it and did not have to learn to program and customize Wordpress. I have left a link below if you want to use the blogging platform that I am using for this blog. 

Laravel Blog Source Code

 

Have Laser Sharp Focus

This is another mistake that we all make and I am no exception. There are instances in the past where I have run three to four blogs simultaneously. At the beginning I would manage to write and publish articles on all of them but in the longer run it became really difficult to manage all the blogs at the same time. 

Managing multiple blogs also negatively impacts the quality of the articles published. Spending time and energy to research and write one good blog post is always better than being stressed out and writing four average articles. 

Building a blog is like a marathon. Running it like a 100 meter dash will only wear you out. Managing multiple blogs will stress you out and also cause burn out in the longer run. 

Building a blog that has a good amount of traffic and audience is good but your mental health and well being is also equally important. 

So my plan here is to not repeat the mistakes and instead focus on one blog and on one platform. 

 

Write On Passionate Topics

It is important to choose topics that I am passionate about and love to share. This will keep my interest levels high while choosing the topics and writing the articles.

By choosing areas of interest we by default have a level of motivation to write about them. 

In my case I love writing about business, side hustle and personal growth. Though I love to code, writing about it does not intrigue me. So for this blog the main topics on which I will publish posts will be on the topics that interest me. 

By choosing topics that interest us we will naturally be inclined towards researching and learning more about it. So the outcome will be very beneficial as in addition to producing good posts we would have also increased our knowledge on these topics. 

 

Create Value

I am not starting this blog to earn money. Starting a blog with the purpose of earning money will not take us far. Though it might sound philosophical. But it’s the fact. 

The ideal way to build a blog that has a real audience is to focus on providing value through high quality content that readers find helpful. All decisions related to the blog should be made with that primary principle in mind. Publish posts or articles that people find interesting and useful. 

This will create value in the longer run and revenue being generated will just be a byproduct of a good blog. 

Starting a blog to earn money will prompt us to make wrong decisions like writing paid marketing posts which in the longer run will be called out by the audiences. 

Creating value through this blog will be difficult as I have to spend hours researching and taking notes to write a single good quality content. However this is what creating a good blog demands and if you are not up for it then it is best to not start a blog. 

 

Be Consistent

This where a lot of us including me have fallen short. Without consistency none of the strategies discussed above will yield results. 

Growing a blog is about posting good quality content consistently for a long period of time. 

The moment you lose consistency the search engines will start demoting you in their search results. So to stay relevant and to show up in search results it is important to consistently publish good quality content. 

Creating and sticking to a schedule is important to be consistent. 

For this blog I will be publishing two articles every weekend. This helps me in sticking to a schedule without affecting my day job. 

At the start of the blogging journey sticking to a schedule is very easy. The motivation is very high so you by default sit down and write articles. However the motivation wiens off in a couple of weeks. 

This is when discipline matters the most. Sticking to a schedule and doing the hard work required discipline more than motivation. 

So have some discipline and stick to the schedule. 

My goal is to write two posts every weekend for the next two months. 

 

Share New Posts

Growing a blog requires a lot of effort and is usually much more than just publishing good quality content. However in the initial days the focus should be on publishing content and not to get distracted by engaging with social media and other influencers. 

So for now I will be sharing my new blog posts on Twitter and leave it at that. If someone replies to my tweet I will respond to it. I will not go beyond my way to promote the blog. 

Promoting a blog or content on social media is time consuming. Though it is important in the longer run for now my focus and energy will be on publishing good quality content consistently and sharing them. Nothing more and nothing less. 

This way I will be able to stay consistent with producing high quality content and distributing it without the distraction of the social media platform as a whole. In the longer run I will revisit this strategy and will change it but for now I will just share my articles on Twitter and not go beyond that. 

 

Be Patient

Rome was not built in a day. 

Building anything substantial takes time. Building and growing a blog will take time. Mr.Beast uploaded 100 videos before his channel got noticed. 

Many blog authors have published hundreds of articles before they ever got noticed. 

However it is not difficult. The strategy here is to not expect quick results and stick to a schedule for a period of time. For example if I continue writing two articles every weekend I will have published 100 blog posts in 12 months. 

Human psychology always over estimates what could be done in one day but underestimates what could be accomplished in one year. 

Building a blog is like running a marathon so be patient and disciplined and put in the hard work, and one day like Mike Hussey once said the butterfly called success will come and sit on your shoulder.