I have been keeping a family blog for 7 years now, and a blog for my Photography business for 5. So why start a new blog? Why now? What’s this all about?
This year I gave birth to my fifth child, and while she is an absolute joy, a wonderful addition to our family, she has officially given me a run for my money. During this time of overwhelming change, I realized, “hey, I’ve got more to say then my family/photography blogs allow.” I have a lot of interests, I enjoy sharing those with others, and I want to do that on my own fun blog just for me. Thus britainearl.com has begun.
There were a few important questions I asked when starting a blog.
1) Blogger vs. WordPress, what’s the difference?: soiguessiblog.blogspot.com and britainearlblog.com are both Blogger blogs. I have had a great time using Blogger. When I decided to start a blog of my own, I wasn’t sure why I would want to change, but noticed that the majority of the blogs I followed were self-hosted WordPress blogs. Why? I did some pretty extensive research, and found out why others preferred WordPress. Most didn’t really know why. Others were “techies” and had a preference based on reasons that were totally over my head. But one web developer I talked to said, if you are interested in blogging as a profession somewhere down the line, WordPress is your best option. So, I made the switch. I wanted the flexibility to grow my blog without needing to make a big change in the future.
2) What in the heck is a self-hosted blog?: As I eluded above, the “tech” stuff if not my forte. When I made the decision to go with WordPress, imagine my surprise that WordPress has two versions, wordpress.com, and wordpress.org. What the what? Let me just boil it down to my decision, I went with WordPress.org, the self-hosted platform. With this version you have many more options for customization, and monetization.
3) How to I self-host my blog?: there are only a million or so options for hosting, but this step was surprisingly simple for me. I already had my domain name through GoDaddy, so when I went to my dashboard and clicked hosting, GoDaddy installed WordPress and basically did all the work for me.
4) How do I start a blog that is pretty?: obviously, I wanted my blog to be pretty. There are SO, SO many options out there. I searched and searched for someone who shared my aesthetic and offered a wide range of services to fit my needs. My search ended when I discovered Lynsey of Shiny Magic. Her style spoke to me, and she was able to answer all my naïve questions in a way that made me feel heard and helped. And as you can see, she did a great job.
5) How do I start a blog that is interesting?: frankly, I don’t really know. My goal here is just to start. The process is going to be a bit, stream of consciousness. I intend to share my ideas and my life and see where it goes from there.
And that my friends, is how you start a blog. Or rather, how I started this blog.
I’m excited to share. What are your interests?