It’s that time of the year when most individuals and cooperate bodies take a break to reflect on the quality of their achievements in the outgoing year, Good or Bad? I really think that’s what motivates individuals and cooperate bodies to make resolutions and targets for every new year at the opening of a new year. A year-end review of accomplishment can afterall help you set goals for the year ahead.

I kicked off blogging on the 11th day of June, 2016 at around 6:00pm, ever since then it’s really been an interesting journey, not saying it’s been smooth all the way. By the way, my blog is of the music niche. I made my first blog post on that same day, the day I launched the blog, and it was a news on the shooting of Teenage music star Christina Alum while she was in a concert. Being a new blog on the block I wasn’t expecting much backlink traffic on that post. As time went by my blog began building itself an audience, very little in number though, but an audience anyway. At least at that point I could comfortably look at my blog’s stats at the end of each blessed day and flash that sought of smile broad enough to convey 10 persons across the Niger River.

My blog’s first major breakthrough in terms of being indexed by Google came around August. The blog post that fetched me such staggering amount of traffic was an article I published here and went about submitting on a high page ranking site in Nigeria known as Nairaland, with the aim of building quality backlinks to the said post’s original source. (Links that go from another site to yours are called backlinks because they point back to your pages.) I had no idea Nigerian bloggers around every nook and cranny of the world would be interested in such an article. I later understood why. The post was quite informative and bloggers most especially from the Nigerian community could empathize with everything I wrote, because it was basically about the struggle of a newbie blogger. It quite resonated with the struggles they had during their early stages of blogging too.

I recall waking up on a Friday morning to check my blog’s stats, what I saw almost knocked me out. Thousands of folks from Nairaland had flooded this very blog just to read the blog post. As one would expect I got reviews, good and bad. I wasn’t too concerned with the positive reviews and feedbacks i got as much as I was with the negative reviews. I enjoyed reading every criticism because it opened my eyes to my many shortcomings as a blogger and made me realize there still was more than enough work to be done. First of all, my Writing Style was heavily criticized, Was I even writing in accordance with SEO? Maybe, I wasn’t. Now that was something I had to work on; Secondly, my blog’s theme was frowned at. I was told to work on that. Did I just hear you ask if Your Blog Design Matters? Well it does.

“Put your best foot forward.”

“First impressions count.”

“Are you wearing clean underwear? What happens if you get hit by a bus and have to be taken to the hospital?”

Aside from the fact that your mother most likely uttered all of these to you at some point in your life, what else are these phrases telling us? Simply put, Your blog is an extension of you. It’s your most powerful personal branding tool (short of yourself.) It says a ton about who you are, what you’re passionate about, what you believe in, etc. In the world of blogging, content might be king, but design is at least the court jester. And we all know the court jester is really the one keeping things together. My blog’s theme aint perfect yet, but I’m currently working on bringing it close to perfection; Lastly, I was scolded for launching my blog on a free hosted platform. Some even said I wasn’t a serious individual for making such a move. But it was wisdom on my path, as initially launching this blog on a free hosted platform was more like initiating a test drive.

My blog’s success in terms of traffic and publicity ever since I launched the blog six months ago has been in the style of a Merry-Go-Round, Up and Down, Round and Round. You know. Some months are just exceedingly great while other months see me struggling to accept the fact that all the hard work I put into researching, writing and publishing numerous blog posts could earn me just a handful of readers and visitors. I should be in despair during such times, right? But I’m not.

My blog might fall short of being inducted into the Hall of Thriving Blogs, but it did get me a job in 2016. A freelance writing job where I only have to sit back at home, write, publish articles and get paid weekly. Within the span of four months my blog has fetched me three job offers. I’ve been offered jobs on three huge blogs. Two of which are Nigerian, the other being a foreign blog. I could only take one so I wisely chose the best. The act of juggling both tasks, I mean minding my blog and the blog that pays me has negatively affected the growth and productivity of my blog, but that would be fixed in 2017. There’s so much I plan on executing come next year: Like purchasing a domain and setting up a proper music blog.

I also want to use this medium to shout out and shower appreciation to all my readers from Nairaland. And most importantly I would also like to reach out to fellow bloggers from whichever platform your blog operates on WordPress or Blogger. Iron sharpeneth Iron, one way or another you guys have inspired and enlightened me with some of your blog posts. I sincerely appreciate everyone of you guys out there. Some of y’all might be struggling in terms of driving readers to your blog like me but not too worry there’s light at the end of the tunnel for all of us. Don’t ever give in to the temptation of being someone else. The fact your blogging niche isn’t as lucrative as some other blogger’s niche doesn’t mean you should try and be like that other blogger and blog on what he/she blogs on. Months ago if anyone had told me someone could have so much potential for success as a blogger with a blog from the Creative Writing Niche, precisely Poetry I would have doubted. Until I discovered a blog of that nature by a young Nigerian.

Regardless of your blogging niche, be it beauty, fashion, short stories, religion, food, movie, lifestyle, football, sports, photography, games, music, dance, poetry, radio, television, crafts, blogging, internet marketing, programming, finance, etc. I strongly believe you can succeed and standout if and only if you work hard enough, write captivating posts and promote each of your posts on adequate channels where you’re sure your blog’s niche isn’t lacking in audience. Plus please don’t expect success to come overnight!!!

Never blog about something you’re not passionate about. If you don’t love the topic, if you don’t feel passionate about it, eventually you’ll want to chew off your own foot to escape the boredom. You can’t sustain that amount of work around a subject that doesn’t make you froth at the mouth with enthusiasm.

Thank you so much for reading through.

Source:
https://blarckbillboard./2016/12/20/a-quick-look-at-how-my-blog-fared-in-2016/