How My Blog Grew My Brand And A Huge Following

The Change In My Blog That Grew My Brand And A Huge Following

  I want to share with you how my blog grew my brand and a huge following. I’ve been blogging for 7 years now. Actual consistent blogging has been about 2 years. I never thought I would stick with it. There were ups and downs along the way. Sometimes I look back over the hundreds of posts I have written and wonder why I kept blogging. I have really been seriously blogging for about 2 years. I was not consistent the first several years.

First, I want to let you know that starting out I was not a good writer. When I first started blogging, I imagined my blog having a ton of followers and appearing on the first page of Google.

But I was wrong. That did not happen. Well, it did happen, but certainly not right away. Ultimately, my blog did grow and so did my brand, and my following on the web.

I finally feel like I have reached the point that my blog is getting noticed, and I mean noticed big time. I am talking about being on the first page of Google under my keywords and terms.  I am getting noticed by readers, other top blogging platforms, websites, and most importantly, by Google!

 

So, what did I do to make this change happen? 

How did I go from absolutely zero attention, zero viewers, zero visibility on the web, and Google to growing my business and get a huge following over the past 6 months?

Well, let’s take a look. I know exactly what happened and let me tell you, it has been life-changing.

As I share my mistakes, I hope you will finish reading this post. Please don’t exit out or click the red X at the top right corner, because I am going to tell you how you can totally grow and personally engage with tens of thousands of people online with your blog. I will share with you how you can get them to love you, crave you, and want to see every post, video, and photo you post.

But before I give you those golden nuggets for blog success that I am seeing now, I want to share how it took me years of hard work, discouragement, starting over, and finding inspiration to keep my blog going.

You are going to find some important information at the end of this blog.

MY MISTAKES AS A BEGINNER BLOGGER

 

I was a real newbie when I began blogging. I had no clue what I was doing. I did every little thing exactly the opposite of what a blogger should do. I had no guidebook. Like most people who read and search online, I didn’t even do that. I just up and created a blog and started spewing out content.

I’m going to be totally honest here. I did not have my own type or style or content, I didn’t have any magical hocus pocus stuff to use for success. I had nothing. All I had was this desire to be a blogger. A passionate desire to write things people would read.

I wasn’t sure I had content that would be interesting to read. One thing I learned… none of that mattered. What I had to share did matter to readers. My subject and content were interesting and blog-worthy.

I had great topics and content. My problem was me! My real problem was how I thought about my blog and my writings, and what I thought of other people who would read my blog.

You see, I thought that if I kept pushing out blog posts people would read and love the stuff and love me and keep coming back.  

There was a time I was afraid to share the mistakes that I made in my content creation. Especially if it had anything to do with me personally. You see, because commenting was turned off on my blog, I was forcing people to only read. What a huge mistake! Was I so arrogant that I wasn’t willing to listen to my readers?

Yes! I was.

I was afraid to let people comment and talk back to me. I was also afraid they would come and go, and I would never hear from them again.

I wanted to personally connect with them and respond to their thoughts and comments about my blog.

Because I was a social media manager as a profession, I believed I knew everything about blogging. I thought I was a writing expert and a blog marketing expert. Wow! I was so wrong.  

I knew I was treating my blog readers kind of like I treated some people in my life over the years. I just shut people out because I was afraid of their comments. I had to stop shutting people out of my life and let them respond.

I was never good at that. You can ask anyone who knows me.

I took a few personal development courses, read a few personal development books, and it helped, but it didn’t fix the problem. What I needed was a heart change. I needed to change my heart and my attitude towards other people.

I realized that connecting with people, allowing people to comment and ask me questions was vital!

Did I really care about this? YES!

HERE IS WHAT I DID!!

I TURNED ON COMMENTING ON MY BLOG!

THE FIVE CHANGES I MADE WITH MY BLOG

The changes I made are in bold and underlined. I don’t want you to miss one of them. If you ever read another one of my blogs, or if you don’t, let the words in this post echo in your mind every time you write a blog post.

I always wondered how bloggers and influencers got thousands of followers and loyal loving fans online.

I also wondered how they made so much money doing the thing I wanted to do the most, write and earn money doing it.

I knew to succeed I had to make monumental changes, and fast. It was then that my entire mind and attitude changed.

So, the first thing I did was TURNED ON COMMENTING ON MY BLOG! I started reading the comments on my blog posts. What an eye-opening experience. Some were thoughtful, uplifting, nice, and affirmative compliments about my content. I had several spammers and deleted their comments. I had one or two haters, but for the most part, it was extremely rewarding. I answered back to some readers and we carried on a two-way conversation. I began talking to people in my blog and treated them like humans.

Why did I think this was so abnormal? Why was I afraid of this?

Now, I love it. Blog post after blog post I began communicating with people. I was humbled by the experience and learned how I had to change my attitude towards readers of my work. I also learned that my blog could not be one big piece of information or technical data. I had no idea, I thought that’s what readers wanted.

I learned the difference between an article and a blog. Nowadays I see so many bloggers writing an article on their blog, or an instructional piece of content instead of a blog.

Next, I RELEASED MY NEW BLOG POSTS ON A REGULAR SCHEDULE I wanted to get ahead so I wasn’t pressed for time and rushing. I really wanted to say what I wanted to say, and I wanted to do it well. I wanted to talk to my readers, not at my readers. Blogs were often months apart, maybe longer. I was not disciplined to stay consistent. Scheduling my blog keeps me accountable to the calendar.

Excuse me for a moment, I need to interrupt. Did you know that scheduling a blog post on WordPress was even a thing? I had no idea. I have talked to many WordPress Bloggers who don’t know about the scheduling option on WordPress.

The best change I made was to schedule my blog posts ahead of time. By scheduling my blog before the release date, I can have a link for preview prior to release. I can market my upcoming post with more excitement which in turn, generated more readers. Blog traffic really picked up. I went to my blog post prior to the release time and started conversing with the people. Can you believe they were sitting there waiting on my blog? How cool is that?!

I gained so much confidence. I loved my newfound audience and friends. My confidence as a writer grew as did my brand and my business.

Next, I SUBMITTED MY BLOGS TO WEBSITES TAKING GUEST POSTS. I found a few article submission sites and revised a few old blogs using my new changes and submitted posts. Surprisingly, many of them were published. I did not submit my stuff to cheesy article sites, I sought out Tech sites, Women’s Business Sites, etc. I looked for extremely high-profile and well-known blogs and sites to submit my content. I valued the integrity of my content.

I did this to keep practicing my writing and improving my writing skills. You don’t need a college degree; you just need to have something to write that will attract people. To keep your reader interested, you should think about the topic and information in your content and keep it enjoyable. If people like and understand a blog post, they will be much more inclined to return every time you schedule a post and share it with others. When your audience shares your blog your traffic increases. The more your blog traffic increases so will your rankings. So, if you want to get higher rankings, grow a large blog audience, improve your writing skills. 

For me, my blog writing is two-way focused. While I am always concerned with my writing, grammar and content, I am also focused on writing to attract and captivate my readers. 

I gained enough confidence to write my very first book, which became a #1 International Best Seller. My editor did a lot of the work, but after all the hard work, it turned out fantastic. It was a small book with humble beginnings. Then, I wrote a second one, then a third which was a compilation of stories that I published.

Next, I INVITED MY READERS TO FOLLOW ME ON FACEBOOK AND INSTAGRAM AND INVITED THEM TO SUBSCRIBE TO MY EMAIL LIST

Wow!

Things really kicked into high gear. One day I put out a Facebook post asking everyone who was not receiving my emails to sign up. To my amazement, over a hundred people were answering and ask for me to “Please” add them so they could receive my messages.

Finally, the last thing I did was SEND OUT AN EMAIL CAMPAIGN to everyone, but I only did it bi-monthly. I wanted to tread lightly and not over email my new friends that fell in love with me. As I worked slowly on that, I saw my list begin to grow. In each email campaign, I talked about my blog and shared the link to the next post. My email campaigns became vital in getting blog visitors.

THE RESULTS ARE IN

Now the results are in. My 2 years of blogging finally paid off. I am not talking just about business growth and financial rewards, I am talking about personal rewards. The personal growth in myself as a person and how I looked at others was a great reward. I can’t believe how close I came to quitting along the journey. My readers started following me on my other social media channels and engaging there, too. I must say that was the most satisfying feeling ever.

I felt so fulfilled and humbled that these people loved me. They asked for more. They craved my content.

They began asking me questions, requesting help, and even digging in asking a few personal questions. This is where I learned how to really communicate with people. Over my life in business, I read a lot of books on communication, but nothing can teach you like a real-life experience.

My content became more relatable and authentic.

My audience grew exponentially.

I started changing up the content on my other channels.

HOW TO START AND GROW A BLOG FOR REVENUE AND GROW YOUR BRAND ACROSS ALL CHANNELS.

I AM SO EXCITED TO SHARE THIS. Here are my exact steps as a new blogger, you want to rekindle your blog, or if you are a blogger and are open to learn a few things.

First Pick a Niche or your Name for your blog (or use your own name as a brand) If you already have a blog this may not apply unless you want to rebrand your blog. Once you’ve clearly defined your niche for your blog, then you need to pick the perfect domain.

If your blog is about you and the services you offer, then it can be a good idea to choose your name. People who use their name as their brand use their name.

If your blog is about your business and the services or products you offer, then choosing a domain that identifies your business would be a great choice.

When selecting the appropriate domain for your blog. Keep in mind SEO when picking domains.

Second Select hosting – when thinking about hosting your blog, if you want a simple setup to post and go, you may want a Google hosted blog like Blogger that you login, post, and go. Or if you want a more customizable blog such as WordPress. You can always set up a blog on Squarespace, Wix, and other free sites.

Our recommendation is WordPress. I have a full tutorial on beginners WordPress complete set up from picking a name to posting your first post on WordPress. It’s super simple, so chill and let me help you. Just click here to watch this step-by-step tutorial.

I recommend Blue Host. Why? Well, for one, BlueHost costs about the same as HostGator, about $9.99 for the shared plan. It is less expensive than GoDaddy which is about $14.99 per month for WordPress hosting. Let me give you another important reason. One is a lot of hosting sites do not have great customer service. If you use my BlueHost affiliate link I get a very small affiliate token, but I will give you a free Zoom one-on-one blog setup session. You can use GoDaddy, HostGator, or any other hosting service, but I highly recommend Bluehost. Bluehost has the best customer service ever. 

Third Pick a theme or visual look. Get an idea of what look and feel you want your blog to have. There are thousands of free WordPress Themes out there. You can find them on WordPress.org, and many other sites. Just Google “Free WordPress Themes” and you will see them in all categories.  

Once you have your hosting the rest of the process is super simple. Again, watch my tutorial and step-by-step instructions to set up a WordPress Blog. You will see how to go to your hosting, install WordPress (latest version) and install your chosen theme. Then you get a login to your Admin blog and you can activate your beautiful new theme and start blogging.

Oh and… here is another step-by-step blog on how to use your WordPress Dashboard and install some super amazing plugins that will let you do tons of brilliant things. You can add SEO plugins, list-building plugins, video plugins, and so much more! The possibilities are limitless with WordPress.

For the finishing touches on your blog be sure to find images that you love. Look for stock photos online that tell the story of your blog and that aligns with your authentic message, brand message, and soul’s truth. You don’t have to pay big money for stock photos, either. I put tother this list of nearly 90 FREE stock photo sites that offer free images and videos, and some of these images are breathtaking. Many of these photographs are free from copyright restrictions or licensed under creative commons public domain dedication. You can copy, modify, distribute, and perform the work, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission.

Fourth -Last by not least, my friend, and blog reader… Let me share the most important thing about your blog. In WordPress in the settings under communications, you have the option to turn off comments or turn them on. Please turn them on and be on your blog to talk to your readers when your post goes up.

You can set spam filters, so you do not get the creepy spam comments. Read my Blog about setting your WordPress settings by clicking here.

 I have an entire library of how to use WordPress and use your blog to grow your brand, grow your social media accounts, grow your business and earn an income, and most of all, connect with people on your blog in a real authentic way.

Do not make the mistakes I did. Learn from this post. Blogging is more than just writing an article and giving information. It is a blog, not an article.

Happy Blogging.

Remember I am right here below in the comments waiting to speak with you.

Ask me anything.

Shelley