Lessons from 10 years of blogging

Hello,

This fall, I will have been blogging on Goinswriter.com for ten years. That’s a long time. Before that, I had been writing on the Internet on and off for about five years. But this latest blog has allowed me to earn an income while working from home and supporting my family for nearly a decade now.

I recently taught a live webinar on how to build a powerful blog (you can still watch the replay here), but I thought it’d be fun to share a handful of key lessons I’ve learned over the years on blogging.

Show up. The best way to build trust is to be consistent by practicing in public. Do your best work not because people are paying attention, but because it is work worth doing. This is how you attract attention: by showing up when no one is noticing. Eventually, people will. Write what you’re curious about. It’s okay to explore what you don’t know and learn through the writing process. To paraphrase Flannery O’Connor, I never know what I think until I read what I write. Be relentlessly helpful. Always ask “what’s in it for the reader?” And when in doubt, be generous. Give, give, give—it has a way of coming back to you. I have never regretted being too generous, but I have often regretted holding back. Don’t be afraid to evolve. Start with a topic that people are interested in, but let your interests broad over time. Worldview trumps topic. People will be more attracted to how you think than what you know. Be stubborn on vision but flexible on details. Say yes until you have to say no. Have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish with your blog, but be open to how you get there. On my journey, I agreed to all kinds of unusual opportunities, all of which created the winding path that brought me here. You just never know. Use your platform to elevate others. Whenever possible, find ways to help your peers. Be another blogger’s cheerleader, sidekick, fan. A rising tide raises all ships and all that—plus, it’s just way more fun than being selfish. Write from scars, not from wounds. Writing can be cathartic, but pain needs to be processed before it’s narrated. Try to write from a place of tender wholeness, not bloody gashes. Listen to your audience but trust your gut. Pay attention to what people want from you, but don’t just give them what they ask for. If they knew what they needed, they probably wouldn’t be listening to you. What’s obvious to you is amazing to others, as Derek Sivers says. Have a pulse on where people are at, but trust your intuition on where you want to lead them. To grow your audience, go where people are. Partner with other bloggers in sharing your work with their audience (through guest posting, webinars, or even exchanging lead magnets with each other). The best way to get more readers is to share your writing in places where people already are. Don’t quit. This is, perhaps, the most obvious but least-practiced piece of advice on writing and blogging there is. Before Goinswriter.com, I had nine other blogs—all of which I quit at some point, usually within a matter of months after starting. What made this blog different was the simple but intentional choice to not quit. A decade later, that decision has served me well. There have been ups and downs, setbacks and breakthroughs, but the commitment to continue, to outlast almost everyone else, has been a good one.

If you’d like to learn more about starting a blog and making a part-time or full-time income off of your ideas, stories, and words, check out my course Intentional Blog (registration closes tonight!).

Best,

Jeff

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