Blog Life and SEO

I started thinking, it was only about a year and a half ago that I didn't even know what a blogger was. Now, I can't stop brainstorming, writing, typing, and learning new SEO tricks to gain more visibility for my blog on the web. It took me until the age of 35 to know that I wanted to write. I didn't plan it. I didn't intend to gain popularity, or help anyone by giving relationship advice, etc. I merely decided one day, "Wouldn't it be cool to have my picture on Google more?" I know, that's kind of ridiculous. I just wanted to figure out how so many people had so many pictures of themselves on Google images. It wasn't that I wanted to be the face of Google images, but that I wanted to know how to be, if I wanted to be. Then I realized that one way to do that would be to start a blog. So I started a blog on Blogspot, because it was free, and hey, why not. I didn't really know what I was doing or how the darn thing worked, but I tried, I explored, and eventually I figured it out. 

I started out writing my first blog, brainstorming something that I've always been into, which was medicine, natural herbs, increasing memory, and improving my chess rating. I started getting really into juicing at the time as well. So I wrote a couple of blogs about those things. Then I stopped writing for a short while, but soon got reintroduced to blogging by one of my best friends. Then I started writing about the Lakers, and I was like, "Wow, this feels right!" I was truly enjoying that tomboyish, post Lakers game writing, despite the fact that I had (and have) yet a great deal to learn about basketball. Shortly after, I got into writing about love and relationships, as well as self help, and that's when I really knew that I wanted to be a writer. My writing just started flowing, and I couldn't stop. It was and is the best feeling.

This morning I woke up maintaining my drive and momentum from last night to write, and work on my blog. As I was doing so, my grandmother called, and I just adore her so much. She's one of my best friends, but still, if I picked up the call when I was working, she'd ask the thing I wasn't ready to speak about yet. Yep, you guessed it; my dating life. I feel like I've been avoiding my phone, and that particular call for too long (some best friend I am, I know!), and so I picked up. We started talking a way, and yes, of course she asked if I have much of a dating life. I'm like, "Yes Grams, yes, but I don't want to talk about it right now." She's like, but just answer this one question, "Is he Jewish?" Ay yay yay! So we kept talking a bit, and she started saying, "How's the writing going?" As well as insisting about 8 times, "You should write a book!" She started asking me if I make a good income from my blog. I told her that it takes time, and I'm headed in the right direction. She kept insisting for me to write a book, and not just a blog, to the point where I'm like, "Grams! I'm not just a blogger, I'm an entrepreneur!" She let it go after that, and either thought I was cute, crazy, or a little of both. 

Blogging (writing) is fun, but she's right, as grandmothers usually are. If you're going to blog as your job, you need to make money. If you're going to blog as a hobby, then it might not be as big of a deal. However, when you're writing day and night, learning the ins and outs of SEO, social media, and how to gain more of a following, build more traffic, develop and improve your Alexa, MOZ, and other rankings, it can be completely time consuming. To be a blogger and half ass it, is one thing. But, to be a blogger that writes from their heart, has an entrepreneur mentality, the desire to help others, and has an immense creative side, it takes effort, drive, time, and persistence. Like anything that you want in life, it takes hard work and motivation to achieve your goals.

Many people don't understand blog life. Bloggers need to do certain things in order to turn their blog into a business. This is where SEO (Search Engine Optimization) comes in. This is also where a blogger turns into an entrepreneur. Making money from your blog doesn't happen overnight. You have to do many things in order to turn your everyday lifestyle, fashion, relationship, sports, or medical blog (or website), etc. into a business. 

When a person gets extremely involved and passionate about what they're doing, they end up becoming not only consumed, but motivated, and driven to succeed at it. At times, there will be sleepless nights, endless worrying, as well as feeling deflated some days from not getting enough love, traffic, or attention from all of the hard work that they put in. What you need to remember is that no one snaps their fingers and becomes a billionaire, and even if and when that one person that you might be thinking of to prove me wrong did become incredibly successful overnight, it's not something that you'll ever get the same type of accomplished feeling from. 

This is a new section on my blog, and I hope to share my personal feelings on blog life, and some tips on SEO that I've learned along the way. I hope to share things about SEO in which people that don't live a blog life, and don't even know what SEO is, can start to understand, and develop an appreciation for what a blogger does, the hard work it takes, and that it can in fact turn into a career, and bring in a decent income. As well, I hope that Blog Life and SEO will be a way for family, friends, and networking buddies to start supporting their blogging friends by doing things that I'll be mentioning in this section.