So I’ve still been looking for ways to attract more readers and I’ve come to a realisation. Blogging truly isn’t what it used to be when I first started several years ago. The very definition has changed.
My first blog began life back in 2001. It was simply a day-by-day account of what was going on in my life, how I was feeling etc. I’d have a few rants and raves about whatever peeved me off at the time. Essentially, that’s what I’m continuing to do here, it’s what I enjoy writing about. However, the difference this time around is that my posts no longer seem to fit the criteria for blogging. It seems that blogs these days consist mainly of useful articles, all the sites that tell you how to build traffic for your blog harp on about the importance of informative content if you want to build a good readership.
Now I know that there have been professional news blogs out there since the very beginning, but the personal ones were most frequently seen back then. You know, like the ones where whiny teenagers would, well, whine about school and/or their parents. I guess they’re still around, they’ve just migrated to MySpace instead.
There are areas I feel confident sharing information about, but that was not the point in creating this site. I wanted a place to jot down what is happening in my life. I ’d really like to attract readers and I’d love them to come back after their initial visit, but I’m not going to force myself to write about things I don’t want to. It would feel wrong and that would come across in my posts. I’m also not interested in gaining a high Google pagerank or making a profit – this isn’t a business and I’m not selling anything.
So, for all intents and purposes, this site is actually more like a journal. It’s a look inside my head, a slice of self-reflection and a place to vent my frustrations. Now I just need to know how to target the right audience, and that’s the tricky part. Surely there are still people out there who enjoy reading about the lives of others?