Blog Evolution

It’s been almost five years since I began blogging in an effort to document our winding path through the beginnings of our urban farming adventures.  At first it was just fun.  I could take some pictures (with my crappy camera), chat a bit about what we were up to, and shoot it out into Internet Land with no worries or wants except to maybe offer some insights to others who may want to journey down a similar path.

About three years ago, though, I realized that my blogging was taking up a ton of my time and began thinking about how I might earn a bit of cash to help offset the time I as putting in.  In poking around I found some bloggers adding Tip Jars to their blogs for donations from readers, I found some blogs offering advertising spaces on their sidebars, and I was beginning to see some affiliate links in the posts of some of the blogs I followed at the time.

I tried offering ad space with limited results (and just more work on my part), then joined a not-to-be-mentioned wannabe-green blog network that told me all of the things I was doing wrong, showed me how to do all kinds of things with Facebook and Pinterest and told me I had to pick a niche and stick to it.  It was an interesting and stressful couple of months that ended in explosions (though none of the explosions were my own, they were crazy to watch from afar) but that also gave me the kick in the pants to move from Blogger to WordPress.

Which is where this nifty little notification comes into play today:

Two years, ha?  Yes, but that’s only part of the story (as you’v already read about those other first two and half years).

The move to WordPress came about with the help of a good friend who helped me build my site to my liking and left me with hundreds of posts that were moved over from Blogger with wonky formatting issues due to my new template (yes, if you search back far enough, you’ll see the madness).

I started adding affiliate links to some of my posts while pushing the Facebook game (oh those analytics!) and building my Pinterest following in an effort to drive traffic to my site in an effort to raise a few pennies here and there.

I participated in webinars to learn more about what has worked for other bloggers to make a living from their blogs and invested lots more time and money than will ever be “paid back” and wound up feeling incredibly frustrated with the whole process.

I did, however, meet some phenomenal bloggers and join some fun Facebook groups with similarly niched bloggers where we could chat, share tips, share each other’s posts, and get to know each other a bit in the process of helping each other grow our blogs by sharing them with wider audiences than we ever could have reached on our own.  There were group giveaways and round ups and link ups and very strategic sharing and we built communities around ourselves despite our physical distances built on the foundation of shared interests and shared experiences.

It was fun, and it was a lot of work.

A lot of work.

And so I tried and tried to build a following, but the truth is, blogging has changed in the face of social media…as have our reading habits, which isn’t exactly conducive to community building.  Readers (on a larger scale) don’t tend to actually read like they used to…they see a title and either decide to “like” it or pin it for later…and maybe…maybe if you’re lucky, they’ll actually click through to your site and skim your post for a few seconds before bouncing off to the next thing.

And so, hours and hours of effort were definitely met with more and more traffic to this space…but there was zero sense of community left, which left me feeling sad and frustrated and questioning why I was playing this whole game anymore.

See, in the process of trying to appeal to more people, less of those who actually cared about what I was writing about were showing up which meant there was very little engagement (comments, following, liking) in this space which left me feeling like I was talking to a wall 95% of the time and really, really wasting my time, effort and intention.

So, in an effort to find my way back to a place of community…of comments and likes and finding blogs that resonate with me that I actually want to keep track of (and of creating a blog that resonates with others!), I made the decision to step back from all the Facebooking and Pinning and general time-consuming chaos to focus on this space and on the community I want to build and be a part of in a real and intentional way.

And so, this brings us back up to present time…where I’m actively working at finding my true voice again while posting about what I want to post about, not what others might Pin or share on Facebook, and I couldn’t be happier.

The truth is, I want to write and share in this space because it feels good and real and true…and none of that other stuff I tried ever did.

I’m really not a salesperson at heart.

Now, that’s not to say that the pinning and sharing doesn’t work…I have good friends who are making good money that way…but it never worked for me and it never felt authentic.

Plus, I have a job that pays my bills and that I enjoy (more days than not), so…that’s a helpful piece of the puzzle.

And so, here I am…finding my very own niche…building my very own community…and participating in yours…and this is exactly where I want to be.

(And yes, I still post to Facebook and pin on Pinterest, but because at want to, not because I feel like I have to.)

So, if you’ve been around for a while, thanks for sticking it out while I’ve tried it all out before come back around.

And, if you’re new here, I’m so very glad you’ve found me and I hope I’ll give you plenty of reasons to stick just by being me.

Onward!

xoxo,
M

P.S. What’s your blog evolution look like? I’d love to read about it!