You should not.
To be honest, it used to be the best way to post your thoughts, ideas, and stories online.
In the early days of the Internet, the only way to publish anything online was to create your own website (blog) or to write on someone's website (blog). #39;other. And for a good ten years, that was a good way to do things.
But today, starting your writing journey on a blog is the biggest mistake you can make.
And here's why.
The new generation of editors
Blogging has one major flaw, and it's something that most writers aren't aware of until they're much further along in their careers.
Your blog does not have a distribution mechanism.
A blog is just a website. So the big question is how people will find out about your website.
- You're going to have to tell them about it on social media.
- You are going to have to send it to your friends and family members via email.
- You're going to have to build an audience elsewhere and then say, "Hey, come see what's here!"
The metaphor we like to use to illustrate how difficult it is to create a successful blog (and get people to read your writing) is: Imagine you're downtown. A big city. Restaurants are full, bars have people coming in and out. Everyone is having fun.
And you arrive, with your overalls and your straw hat (the writers of the past, you have to love them) with a large sign.
PARTY AT MY HOME. LOCATED 5 KM FROM HERE, IN A CORN FIELD.
Thousands of people pass in front of you. "A party at your house? 5 km from here? In a cornfield? For what ? There are dozens of restaurants and bars, and thousands of people right here?"
Long story short: no one is going to move.
It's like starting a blog, then asking your social media readers to come over for a drink.
That's why it's so much better to start your web writing journey by writing on social media.
- Quora
- Medium
- YouTube (video)
- TikTok (video)
Basically, wherever readers already are.
When you write and post content on social media, you remove the biggest obstacle to starting your own blog: finding readers! In fact, these social platforms are designed to, literally, serve your content to as many people as possible who might be interested in what you have to say.
Of course, the big question people always ask is: "What if I have no followers?"
Ah, I'm glad you asked.
How these social networks work actually has a lot less to do with how many followers you CURRENTLY have, and a lot more to do with how many people the platform thinks are interested in your content.
For example, let's say you start writing about marketing, or copywriting tips, or how to grow a vegetable garden. Well, every time you hit 'publish', the algorithm is going to serve your content to readers that it thinks might be interested in the topic you just wrote about. And if readers start to engage - read, like, comment, etc. - he will suggest it to other readers. And even more readers.
This is how some people with only a few hundred followers "go viral" and end up getting hundreds of thousands of views (sometimes even millions of views) on their content.
Because the algorithm saw that people liked what they wrote, and decided to spread it to more people.
The chances of this happening with your website/blog are slim to none.
"But what if I still want a blog because I want a place to store all my content?".
Ah, another excellent question.
If you really like the idea of having one centralized place for all your content, then what we recommend is to still create a blog, but not make it the main pillar of your business.
Don't bother with Wordpress, and instead use platforms like Ghost which allow you to have a blog quickly and easily.
Otherwise, your goal should always be to write and publish where readers already are.
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