My First Month Blogging Experience (30 days blogging!)
Wow! It’s been over a month since I started this blog, and with it began to learn so many new things and to meet inspiring people from all over the world. Let us dive into my first month blogging experience and see how many curious things, I hope, we find.
As most newbie bloggers, I am planning on documenting my experience and journey along the way. With hopes that it might serve as an inspiration for me, as well as for those who will start their blogging journeys after me.
Why I started my Blog? And What did I expect my first month blogging experience to be like?
I was at a point of change in my life, changing jobs, and industry. I thought to myself, there are so many things I learned throughout my life as an engineer, as a team leader, a project manager, keynote speaker and as a human. I am sure someone out there may benefit from such experiences.
I like to read and talk, and I read every day about topics such as leadership, management, social sciences, relationship, and obviously science and technology.
Associating my love for learning and sharing, plus trying to find a medium to convey such tips. Blogging seemed like the best way to do it.
My Biggest Fears & Hopes
I created Ace the Presentation to share relevant tips and counsel with all those seeking to improve their public speaking & presentation skills, soft skills, and quickly grow as entrepreneurs, managers, pretty much those who will become leaders of the next generation.
I hope to support the ambition of those aiming to become the next generation of leaders and entrepreneurs to be more emotionally intelligent and effective communicators.
Being able to inspire action towards pursuing a vision is the job of every leader, and having polished public speaking and communication skills, knowing how to leverage technology and inspire trust in people are just a few of the ingredients that make up the leaders I want to help nurture.
Like every new blogger, I am afraid of writing to a ghost town, of not having enough people to read and appreciate my content. And that is not because I feel that I am lacking in experience or willingness to teach, but due to the language and cultural gap.
You see, I am not an English native speaker, and almost everything I know of English comes from watching Movies and TV Series. Therefore, I am also afraid of not writing to the liking of my readers.
When I started blogging I immediately purchased the premium version of Grammarly. it’s a tool that helps by pointing out contextual spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structuring, vocabulary, and plagiarism. I think every writer could benefit from using Grammarly.
Deciding on the Niche/Topic
Initially, I wasn’t sure of what Niche I should focus my Blog on.
There are many giant websites out there discussing business, management, and leadership tips, as well as, public speaking skills.
I wanted to be relevant and write on something that I am experienced, passionate about and would love to keep learning and sharing over time.
I love to deliver speeches, to help other people ace their speech gigs, and to engage with my teams in a meaningful way.
I am an IT and Telecoms engineer, a project manager, a speaker, and a business strategy student, so I decided to mingle it all together.
The main questions behind my blog are:
1. How to develop the next generation leader?
2. Who are the Next Generation Leaders?
3. What Challenges will they have, and which skills will be key in helping them navigate the Digital society?
He must be versed in delivering speeches, tech-savvy, humane, and emotionally intelligent. Someone people can admire and go to the extra mile for. That’s what my Blog would be about I thought to myself.
AceThePresentation.com is not just about powerpoint presentations, it’s about how you as a person can give a memorable impression on people wherever you go. To become the kind of leader everyone wants to follow and support.
Choosing my Web Hosting Provider
I am working on this blog to share my experience, to inspire people to want to better themselves (myself included), and also as a gateway to my ambition of becoming an Online business entrepreneur and marketer.
By reading about the top bloggers, I learned that If you want to own your content, to ensure you have speed, security, and deliver a great experience to your readers, and customers (for those who buy the products you sell or refer them to), then you have got to go for a web hosting provider.
Since I was really new to all this, I took the advice of those who came before me and are currently thriving in the world of blogging and selected BLUEHOST as my provider (and they even gave me the domain and WordPress free of charge).
And yes, Bluehost is affordable, makes choosing your domain name, setting up your blog on WordPress super easy, where no technical background is required.
I got a deal from them by becoming their affiliate, which means that if you are reading this and thinking of having your own web hosting, domain name, and a fantastic service, you can click on my Link and get a discount.
Instead of the regular $7.99 per month, you pay only $3.95 per month (I paid for 24 months, but you can go for 12 months initially).
Building my Site on WordPress with No Previous Experience
There were two moments in building my site. The first one was me trying to do it all by myself, since everywhere else I kept reading that you can have your site ready within 10 min using Bluehost. Which for the most part it’s true, you can have it ready within 10 min and start writing your first post.
The first moment, I followed all the steps Bluehost gave to allow you to have your domain name, your WordPress blog, and theme (10 min). Then, I decided to try and customize the theme to look more unique, and that went sideways, I messed up all the standard design and didn’t know how to turn back (3 hours lost).
The second moment, after three hours trying to do something I had no idea about, I read about how bloggers get support from freelancers, and I ended up on Fiverr.
That’s where I met a guy who turned it all back and did the design of the site as per my instructions and only charged me $40, how amazing is that?
Deciding to make it my Online Business
I decided to do Online businesses and to become a full-time online entrepreneur eventually.
I am fully aware that it takes time and a LOT of effort, investing in education, tools, and producing valuable content and help my customers in ways that they feel great about paying for it.
I am not going to say that I hate my day job, of course, like everything else in life there are pros and cons. I enjoy the company of some of my co-workers, I learn from them and their experiences, and everyday struggles.
I purchased the Genius Bloggers Kit, and am still working around studying the tons of material that they have there. From the comments that I saw, by the time I implement the knowledge I get from it, my blog will jump to the next level.
Creating my Social Media Accounts
There are many new things I have to learn now that I have embarked in this journey of becoming a Blogger and online-preneur, and one of them is becoming active on social media.
Just to give an idea, the only two social media I used were Facebook and LinkedIn, but as I went through many pieces of advice from top bloggers, Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter would often come up, so I opened my accounts there.
The first couple of weeks were crazy, and I was trying to be in all of them with no success. I took a few Pinterest courses and found Tailwind being always praised. To my pleasant surprise, I had 2 months-freeTailwind as a bonus from purchasing the Genious Blogger Kit.
I tested it, learned how to use and saw my time on Pinterest, and Instagram reduced from 1-2hrs every day, to 2hrs a week, and with Tailwind tribes, the impressions and engagement on my posts increased more than 1000% in just a few days.
I purchased the premium version after a week of using it. You can click on this Link to test it for free.
The Tools that are Supporting my Journey so Far
BlueHost my web host provider, so far I am happy with the service, and continuous support and report on my site performance.
Grammarly my trusted proofreader, and editing companion.
Tailwind so far has saved me tons of time lost in trying to make multiple pins every day and increased my exposure from 400 impressions to over 2K in only two weeks.
Fiverr (Invitation link) where I got help to design my site, and create my logo (all for a very affordable price)
Convertkit email marketing tool, I am still learning how to use it, but based on reviews it’s one of the best in class.
Canva this free tool helps me edit and publish my photos to my blog and Pinterest without any graphic designing skills.
My First Freebie (eBook)
I have managed to complete the first eBook to share with all my readers. For those interested in polishing their public speaking and presentation skills, and hopefully be remembered long after they deliver speeches or oral presentation in public.
It’s a list (with details) of 6 Proven tips to deliver engaging presentations and make sure that your audience will love the experience of listening and attending your speech.
To download it, you can go to this landing page.
Falling in Love with the Online Community
I could never have imagined finding such a supporting community, there are lots of people out there in this online business world.
They are giving out so much valuable data free of charge and are genuinely willing to help out other bloggers.
I am humbled and fascinated by this, and happy of now being part of this great community of people who are bettering their lives and that of millions across the globe with their support and by being an inspiration to others.
It can be really daunting to start a blog knowing absolutely nothing about the challenges ahead, and dreaming about becoming the number one blogger on the niche that you selected.
I came across a Youtube channel called Income School, and these guys made me realize with evidence, that like any other business it takes time to start seeing some good traffic coming your way.
My Facebook | Pinterest Groups
My Blog’s Facebook Page, please stop by and hit the like button.
Facebook Groups I Recommend to new Bloggers
Cate Rosales Becoming a Blogger
Amira Law ASelfGuru – Biz Blog Community
Monique IrieDiva Bloggers Supporting Each Other
My Pinterest Page (I have a Group board there)
Pinterest GROUP Boards I am currently on
CONCLUSION
For those of you intending to become Bloggers, know this: Blogging is no Joke! If you truly intend to make yourself a serious Blogger, then be prepared to learn, work hard on understanding the basics, and producing valuable content.
There is so much more I wanted to say, such as the frustration of not knowing things, making tons of mistakes, feeling like you have close to zero chance of success, being impatient and anxious for seeing results on your Google analytics every day.
I would like to also discuss the time wasters, and how I now understand that I should be focusing on producing valuable content, and how to make sure your content is relevant and can rank on Google, keyword search, and so on.
I will come back to update this post later on, after three months, or perhaps after I publish my upcoming eBook. (Yes, you read it right!) 🙂
