On September 9th, 2016 I celebrate my 1 year blogiversary! I know it’s cliche to say, but I cannot believe it’s been a year already!

In only 1 year’s time I’ve learned more than I ever dreamed I would! And I know there is so much more to learn! In honor of my blogiversary, here are 10 things I learned in my 1st year of blogging and at the end of this post there’s a mini review.

This post originally appeared on Anna’s 1st blog, Annamotion.

1. You don’t have to follow all the “rules.”

5 Things You MUST Do After Every Blog Post. How to Grow Your Social Media. 7 Mistakes You’re Making With Your Blog. The Best Time to Post to Facebook.

You’ve probably seen posts like this before. It can be quite overwhelming to be told a million things (even differing things) from a million different sources about what you should and should not do with your blog. A lot of it is helpful, but not all of it is necessary or even right for YOU and YOUR audience. What’s right for 1 blog may not be right for you. You can take in the information, but take it with a grain of salt and test it out. Figure out what works best for you.

2. Sometimes you’re having a bigger impact than you know.

1 of the scariest things after pressing “Publish” is the silence. Is no one reading this? Is it not good enough? Is it helping anyone? Several times when I started feeling discouraged by the silence, someone would happen to write to me to tell me thank you and that my blog really helped them. I would’ve had no idea I helped them had they not written to me. I know I’ve read many books and articles that had a lasting impact on my life but never wrote to the authors to tell them. Understanding now from being on the other end, I try to comment or write to authors more often. Just because there’s silence doesn’t necessarily mean it’s having no impact.

3. There are millions more bloggers in the world than I realized!

I had no idea there were so many! At first it kind of discouraged me. “What’s the point of me trying to create a blog when it’s all been said before by a million other people?” Well it may have been done before, but YOU’ve never done it before. That in itself makes it unique. Don’t underestimate the power of YOUR voice and YOUR story and the specific audience that YOU have easier access to.

4. Only YOU can decide how OFTEN you write.

Piggy-backing off of #1, many claim that their way is the ONLY way. It’s pretty ridiculous–like how can there be 5 different “right” answers to the question of “how often should I blog?” Don’t listen to any 1 person. Figure out what’s best for YOU and your audience. Will writing every day or even every week lessen the quality of your posts or make you HATE the very thing you once loved? Then just don’t do it. Easy as that. However, there is something to be said about consistency. You want to put your content out there often enough that people don’t forget about you and your traffic doesn’t lose momentum. Once you find what frequency of posting works best for you, stick with it for awhile. If you come to a different season of your life that changes things up, then it’s ok to experiment with a different posting schedule and then switch to consistently following that new plan.

5. Only YOU can decide how MUCH you write.

It needs to be long enough to be worth clicking, but sometimes short and sweet posts are just what people need. There’s also an audience and need for longer posts. Neither is right or wrong. Don’t add in useless filler or ramble on just to reach a word count. DON’T DO IT! This will hurt the quality of your writing. There is power in being concise. In The Elements of Style, William Strunk Jr. says, “Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.” On the other hand, if you have an abundance of expert information you can give and your audience needs, don’t cut yourself short to keep to a word count. Some of my favorite posts have been thorough, long guides.

6. I learned oodles of new words.

SEO. Infopreneur. CMS. Humanize. Monetize. Media kit. Affiliate link. PPV. CPV. Traffic. Bounce rate. Mailchimp campaign. Lifestyle blog. Reach. Landing Pages. Plugins.

Just to list a few! And I can say sentences that make my friends and family think I’m smart! Some have even thought me to be some kind of techie genius (when in reality sometimes I still can’t even figure out how to get a T.V. remote to work!). It’s amazing how immersing yourself in a subject can naturally add to your vocabulary. 1 year ago I had no idea what any of these words meant!

7. Number does NOT equal your worth.

It’s easy to cross the line of tracking your numbers to obsessing over your numbers, analyzing your data to overanalyzing yourself or even your very worth. It’s important to keep track and assess what is and isn’t working, but don’t ever forget that every number is a real, breathing human being with a soul. And if you can even help just one person, isn’t that enough? Isn’t that a “success”?

8. Your chapter 1 won’t look like someone else’s chapter 10.

I’ve said this quite a few times this year (like here), but I still I have to constantly remind myself of that! It’s easy for me to look at a “successful blogger” and get discouraged. I have to stop and tell myself “I only just started! I’m a baby in the blogging world. I need to take it 1 step at a time and celebrate my milestones along the way.” Just because your win is smaller than someone else’s win doesn’t mean it’s any less of a WIN.

9. You can’t do it all…at least not yet.

When you 1st start blogging, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and believe you need to work on improving all the different areas at once. But in reality, it’s better to focus on 1 thing at a time. Become an expert at 1 or a few things and then work on the next thing. Don’t try to be the best at everything right away! In the words of Cat Grant from CW’s Supergirl, “You learn to juggle two balls before you add a third.” Would you rather be a total beast in a few things or mediocre (or even failing) at everything?

10. I love doing this!

Like seriously LOVE doing this! I know that you only like something in theory until you try it out. And school gave me a false vision of what it’s like to blog (because since I jumped into blogging every week while being a full-time student, it felt like another homework assignment that I felt rushed to do), but now that I’ve experienced moments of actually having the time to dream and brainstorm and write and edit–I LOVE IT ! ! ! You can bet I’ll be blogging for a long time. 1 year down. Here’s to many more!

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Any other bloggers reading this? What are some of the lessons you learned in your 1st year of blogging? What do you wish you knew when you 1st began?

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My 1st Year Stats

In my 1st year of blogging I went from ZERO to:

• 53 posts
• 74 e-mail subscribers
• 259 Facebook likes
• 370 Twitter followers
• 274 Instagram followers
• 4835 views

High points of year 1:

• I hit my record number of 189 views on December 13th, 2015 (my 22nd birthday!)
• My record number for 1 of my own Pinterest pins is 90 repins
• I opened up guest posts in May 2016 and had the privilege of having 4 people guest post so far with others queued up to post in the next few months
• I started E.P.I.C. (Everyday People Inspiring Change) Stories and was honored to interview 5 lovely ladies so far. I will continue these interviews every 1st Monday of the month
• I created 9 free resources–most exclusive for subscribers and a few for all readers
• My blog has been viewed from over 60 different countries!

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