Friday, September 02, 2022

So You Want to Start a Blog?


This blog has been around for more than 17 years, has about 15,000 published posts, and has had over 13 million page views.  

These are “blogger” stats alone — Facebook is many millions more views.

This blog is produced by one person who has (or had, until retirement) a full-time job a lot of divergent interests, as well as a wife, two kids, a small pack of dogs, and a yard that needs constant maintenance.

This blog makes no money, and it accepts no advertising. 

It went for years without allowing comments as most comments were actually spam or people who wanted to waste my time in endless pointless debate. The spam has (mostly) gone away, and this blog has adopted a policy designed to keep trolls, zombies, and time wasters at bay.

I bring this up because someone on a list asked what was the best platform for blogging -- Blogger, Word Press, or something else.

Here's the short answer there: the HTML platform you choose may be the least important part of a blog. 

The real question is closer to home:  Who the hell are you, how well can you think, and can you REALLY keep up the research and writing game for so little reward?

The failure of most blogs is not a failure of hardware or software; it's a failure of discipline, creativity, tenacity, and ability.

A blog is supposed to be a continuing thing ... a "Web Log" of ideas and actions, debates and information, pictures, links, and tips.

Most people are not very good at the continuing part of a blog.  Instead, they start off like people who go to the gym or who start training their puppy -- they sign up for the package and never follow through to a strong positive result.  No disciplineNo Kung Fu.  Since there is no quick and immediate reward (cash, praise, or fame), they almost always quit after a few days or a few weeks or a few months.  Not many bloggers have 30 posts, much less 300, or 3,000.

Some folks gather up several people to produce very good blogs.  This is a good plan of attack.  If you do it this way, the energy and focus needed to create content on a regular basis is spread out. Many hands make light work 

That said, to be successful, a blog also has to have a voice, a topic, and a point of view, and if there are several people writing, everyone has to hold up their end while tolerating a fair amount of nonsense or poor craft from the others on the team.  It's hard enough to get one knowledgeable person to work for free without cash, fame, praise, or audience.

Getting 5 people to do it and sustain the effort for two, three, or more years? 

Good luck with that!

1 comment:

lucypup2009@gmail.com said...

I'm certainly glad you're still posting! I've learned a lot of interesting things over the years here and always appreciate the point of view from a person who at least reads a bit before they pontificate, no matter the subject.