What’s Your Deal?
Someone asked me a question today and I thought the answer might be good for a post. The question?
“How long have you been blogging?”
The earliest record available right not is 3 years (January 4). That’s when I stopped deleting blogs and started taking it a little more seriously. I originally started blogging on *gulp* LiveJournal in 2003. I would write a few posts then delete them then write some more- it was a vicious cycle with me. I joined a few groups, pointed and laughed, and that continued for a while. At that time I was more into the forum thing and was constantly on Beliefnet and Delphi forums. I also participated in some email groups.
Then in 2004 I went to Blogger. It wasn’t as lively as LJ, which suited me fine. I was a little shy back then and didn’t really want anyone reading what I wrote. And I wrote a lot. This was before my little girl was born, so I had lots of time to reflect. It was a lot of very personal stuff, which wasn’t very Earth shattering, but I kept at it for a good while. After my daughter was born in June of that year I didn’t have a lot of time for blogging so I deleted my account. But I was sucked into the big blackhole that is blogging. I had to do it. So a couple of months later I opened another account and started all over.
That’s when I started doing political blogging. I was all over U.S. politics. I did research, linked out, made humongous posts and suddenly I was discovered! When people started linking to me I started getting self-conscious (being the shy little bird that I was), but I kept on truckin’. No more deleting for me. This was before I knew what PR was, before Technorati had their authority thingy, and before people started doing paid posting (I think, if it wasn’t I had never heard of it before). Before long I was out and about all over the political blogosphere and eventually I ventured outside of that arena. I found all kinds of fun and interesting people and really, really started to love blogging. Shoot, I was the bees knees when Slate linked to me. You would’ve thought I had been on Oprah or something! Sheesh!
In April of 2006 something happened and I had to quit that blog. But I had another one which I was using purely for personal rants and such. So I built that one up using a new name. I had quite a few fans then and it became fun. I was still addicted to political blogging though, so I went back to that (under my new name) on my very own domain. Then I went ahead and dug through the WayBack Machine for some of my old stuff. Unfortunately it wasn’t all there, but there was enough and I copied a few hundred posts from there into my WordPress. I was having a ball. Then a couple of my blog pals said I should combine my two blogs, so I did and I kept the name of my political blog.
I then just concentrated on the little community to which I had become a part. We found new sites and blogged about them for the benefit of the other members of the group. Then I decided I would try to work from home and try to find an online job. I joined a forum for just that purpose and actually did find a couple of odd jobs that paid better than I expected. I was becoming very interested in other online venues and discovered I could write and make a couple of dollars and not have to leave the house. Well, shoot! Where ya been all my life?
Of course, part of that was learning how to optimize the articles for keyword search and better ad. That’s when I first stepped foot into the SEO/SEM area of the blogosphere. It was like a whole other world for me. Before I knew it my articles were getting decent upfront payments, but then I decided to do the ad thing. Boy, oh boy! I stepped into up to my eyeballs with that bright idea. It got to be a little bit exhausting after a while. I started Chipped Polish to flesh my goal out a little and try something different. Then I stumbled upon PayPerPost and thought “Why not?” Then I started to feel a little constricted there. The paid posts were nice money, but I felt kind of strange. Keep in mind that I’m coming from a blogging purist background. The first time I saw someone say that they didn’t even want someone with less than a PR 3 linking to their blog my eyes almost popped straight out of my head! I needed another outlet for my goofy rants and strange observations, so I started this blog.
Then the Great Google Smackdown happened. Then I understood about PR and how important it was- though it still irritated me to think a search engine could dictate what I did on my site. For a little bit I even chuckled because some people were brought down a peg or two. But I understood that most people don’t want to fall into a paid post when looking for a home remedy for their arthritis, too, so the slap made a little more sense to me. I started to rethink my priorities. When I read that someone didn’t want to link to my other site because it was affiliated with PPP, I decided that stuff wasn’t my cup of tea.
So, that’s my history. All the way until now. Aren’t you glad you asked?;)
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Well, I don’t know if the guy or gal who asked the question is glad, but I sure am glad to have read something about your blogging journey!
costa’s last blog post..Jim Kukral Cheated Me!