How to fail at blogging until you get it right
Why you just need to keep experimenting and taking notes
Often I hear people say that they are not sure if they should launch a blog. They are not sure if anyone will read it, if it will make money, or anyone will like it, etc.
But who cares? Just do it anyways because it can be a very valuable experience. There is no way to really “fail at blogging.” You only get better and faster over time if you focus on building good habits.
In my most disastrous I learned what I needed to learn for making other more successful blogs. Here is my story about it:
CSS Button Gallery
The site was a collection of open source code snippets to make buttons using only CSS and no images.
Wow this this was a nightmare. I have rebuilt it at least 5 times. I tried out a static site with Bootstrap, static site with Foundation, tested it with Nesta (built with Sinatra), Wordpress(PHP), I built it from scratch with Rails, and I last had it deployed with Ghost (built with Node.js). when I say “5 times” i actually mean 5 different platforms. But I rebuilt the project at least 20 times.
This site is actually pretty pointless, to be honest. I had the idea 2 years ago that I would collect code snippets to make CSS only buttons. But I have yet to actually start collecting snippets. I forced out my only post just so the site was not bare.
This was however the best blog that I worked on. and it was worth it because i thought that it would come in handy. It therefore motivated me to learn more about blogging platforms, I got familiarized with various hosting solutions such as Media Temple, GoDaddy, Heroku, Digital Ocean, and AWS (Amazon Web Services). Most of my hosting is now done with AWS.
And I can deploy any blog very fast because of that experience.
In a more recent example, I have my own personal blog zubliminal.net
I first used the name when I was gaming. Then started signing up to sites like instagram with it.
Finally I created on of my first websites with the name. Back in my startup days when .ly and .al domains were the cool thing. So in 2012 I bought zublimin.al
All I had on it was a few pages built in pure HTML using Twitter Bootstrap. And it was terrible, just a amateur pic of myself with a crappy instagram filter. No content but just “page coming soon.”
Most of my writing was taking place over Quora, various forums, and specialized blogs that I created. I had no established voice, i had no dominant platform, and I kept building and destroying.
Finally over years, I have a better feel for what I enjoy writing about, what my audience loves to read about, where the most receptive audience is, etc.
My own blog is just a collection of things that I share. But the millions of views that I get are on Quora. So since not much of my blog gets viewed, I decided to just keep it simple and use Tumblr. But of course I bought my own custom domain.
Another lesson I learned is segregating various parts of your identity. It is not being dishonest, it is about catering to what your audience segments expect to see. For example, someone who wants to view my pics of urban exploration can visit my Facebook page for that, the people that want to view things about tech can view my professional blog or one of the forums that I use.
But I realize that the audience that wants to see my pics of indie art would not want to see pics of archaic technology like this
So I keep indie art, music, coffee, etc on my own personal blog away from my professional life.
Even my activity here on Medium is focused. Here I only blog about blogging.
This is what works best for me. But it took me years of experimentation. I found my platforms where I can express myself, where to find my audience, where to find the people that seek my services. They vary and will likely change in the next few years. But I will know how to adapt.
This is why I am urging you to just experiment with technology, design and content.
What ideas are you considering?
