{"id":432,"date":"2015-08-24T11:21:00","date_gmt":"2015-08-24T11:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/2015\/08\/24\/things-i-wish-i-had-known-about\/"},"modified":"2020-10-28T18:03:45","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T18:03:45","slug":"things-i-wish-i-had-known-about","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/2015\/08\/24\/things-i-wish-i-had-known-about\/","title":{"rendered":"Things I wish I had known about starting a blog"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"country<\/a><\/div>\n
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  1. \n
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    1. You can spend a lot of time researching the differences between blogging platforms but really, at this point, it doesn’t matter. \u00a0Just pick one and get started. Otherwise, you will emerge from the depths of the internet a year from now, still without a blog and still confused. \u00a0It is the same with a name. \u00a0Just pick one, don’t over-analyze. \u00a0Or is that just me?<\/li>\n
    2. Photographs are hard. \u00a0All those effortless-looking photos of a coffee mug, a flower, and a plate of food, a book, a purse, whatever? \u00a0Not so effortless.<\/li>\n
    3. “If you build it they will come” is not necessarily true. \u00a0You can create a blog and write some posts but there is no guarantee anyone will read it. It is a bit of a shock when you publish your first post and no one reads it. \u00a0Plus, all the information about getting traffic for your blog assumes you have at least some traffic already. \u00a0What if you are really completely new at this?<\/li>\n
    4. Which brings me to social media. \u00a0Apparently, you need social media to get readers. \u00a0I am going to have to figure that one out. \u00a0I am a bit scared of social media. \u00a0I know. Yes, I am from the dark ages.<\/li>\n
    5. Also, you are supposed to connect with other bloggers in order to promote your blog. \u00a0What?! But I started a blog because I am not good at connecting with people!<\/li>\n
    6. Once you start a blog, no matter how new it is, your brain will start analyzing everything in order to determine if it can be turned into a blog post. And then you will lie in bed at night writing the post in your head, but you will be too lazy to get up and write it down. \u00a0So when you get up in the morning it will be gone. \u00a0The post you come up with will never be as good as the one you wrote in your head at one in the morning. Maybe a notebook on my bedside table would be a good idea.<\/li>\n
    7. One of the best pieces of advice I read was to go back into the archives of your favorite blogs and read their first posts. It is very reassuring. \u00a0They didn’t magically appear as a polished blogger so don’t compare yourself to the polished blogger.<\/li>\n
    8. It is strangely satisfying to publish blog posts, even if you don’t have many readers. \u00a0Maybe it is because you are creating something? \u00a0I am not sure, but I think it could get addictive.<\/li>\n
    9. People are very opinionated. \u00a0Don’t believe every article you read about how to blog. \u00a0For example, take everything I have just said with a grain of salt.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      You can spend a lot of time researching the differences between blogging platforms but really, at this point, it doesn’t matter. \u00a0Just pick one and get started. Otherwise, you will emerge from the depths of the internet a year from now, still without a blog and still confused. \u00a0It is the same with a name. \u00a0Just pick one, don’t over-analyze. \u00a0Or is that just me? Photographs are hard. \u00a0All those effortless-looking photos of a coffee mug, a flower, and a plate of food, a book, a purse, whatever? \u00a0Not so effortless. “If you build it they will come” is not necessarily true. \u00a0You can create a blog and write some posts but there is no guarantee anyone will read it. It is a bit of a shock when you publish your first post and no one reads it. \u00a0Plus, all the information about getting traffic for your blog assumes you have at least some traffic already. \u00a0What if you are really completely new at this? Which brings me to social media. \u00a0Apparently, you need social media to get readers. \u00a0I am going to have to figure that one out. \u00a0I am a bit scared of social media. \u00a0I know. Yes, I am from the dark ages. Also, you are supposed to connect with other bloggers in order to promote your blog. \u00a0What?! But I started a blog because I am not good at connecting with people! Once you start a blog, no matter how new it is, your brain will start analyzing everything in order to determine if it can be turned into a blog post. And then you will lie in bed at night writing the post in your head, but you will be too lazy to get up and write it down. \u00a0So when you get up in the morning it will be gone. \u00a0The post you come up with will never be as good as the one you wrote in your head at one in the morning. Maybe a notebook on my bedside table would be a good idea. One of the best pieces of advice I read was to go back into the archives of your favorite blogs and read their first posts. It is very reassuring. \u00a0They didn’t magically appear as a polished blogger so don’t compare yourself to the polished blogger. It is strangely satisfying to publish blog posts, even if you don’t have many readers. \u00a0Maybe it is because you are creating something? \u00a0I am not sure, but I think it could get addictive. People are very opinionated. \u00a0Don’t believe every article you read about how to blog. \u00a0For example, take everything I have just said with a grain of salt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,6,71],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogging","category-thoughts","category-tips"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2954,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432\/revisions\/2954"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holdsuponhappiness.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}