What would I do differently if I started blogging now?
Monday, 12 September 2011 
12 Comments
BritMums Blog is asking this week what would you do differently/the same if you could start your blog over… Since I love reminiscing, here are my thoughts.
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I wrote my first blog post on 26th of February 2005, it was Oskar’s birth story, written a week after he was born. I’m thinking that I’m not the only one for whom a birth of a baby equals a birth of a blog.
That first post wasn’t actually even a “blog post”. I had made a static website in 2000 to post photos and once Oskar came on the scene, I started adding text of what we were up to, so it turns out that I didn’t even know I was blogging when I started blogging :)
Sometime in the months that followed I moved over to Blogger. If I’d start blogging now, I would not bother with Blogger, the templates are not my style and the interface is not intuitive for me. I would start with WordPress straight away, self hosted, if possible.
I blogged for only a closed group of friends and family for several years before I decided to let the search engines find me. That was definitely a good decision – I have made so many blog friends and that would never have happened if I had stayed hidden.
The one thing I would definitely change if I’d start a blog is the name. I chose crankymonkeys just because I needed to register a domain name and I thought I’d just use it for photos, so didn’t really think much about it. Now I’m stuck with it and as many times as I’ve asked my readers whether I should change it, no one thinks that that it’s a good idea. People do not seem to think that crankymonkeys is as terrible as I think it is :) (I just am not that keen and how could this be the boy whom I labelled the original cranky monkey???)
As far as mastheads go – I love when they change, so I wouldn’t change anything. Just like my blog journey has evolved from static site to Blogger to WordPress.com to WordPress.org, so have my mastheads evolved and I love seeing the journey.
Other things I’d do differently if I’d start blogging now:
- Write an About Me page straight away, it’s the first page people look for when they end up on a new blog
- Include an image with every post (it’s especially nice with themes that have thumbnails)
- Write shorter sentences and use bullet points to make it easier for your readers to read – some of my earlier posts are a bit difficult to digest :)
As a closing thought – Blogging is great for self-therapy, for making new friends, for staying in touch with old friends and for letting out some of that creativity that we all have inside. I wish I had started blogging as soon as I moved to Australia in 2000 and maybe even before then, but I’m not sure blogging had been invented yet :)
The original Cranky Monkey being very uncranky :)
Hi, I have only been blogging for a few things and wish I had used a less specific name, didn’t think about it and now wish I hadn’t promoted where I live, a friend found me on Google whilst searching for things to do locally! Interesting about changing the host, do you have to pay to self host & what ate the benefits? X cute cranky monkey btw x
You do have to pay for hosting and for the registration of the domain name, but for me it feels more secure – I can have a local copy of my entire blog at any time and don’t have to worry about the Internet swallowing up 6 years worth of my life :) Also, if you have a self hosted WP blog, you can choose from a lot more templates and play with your own CSS, etc. It’s definitely more fun for IT geeks like me :)
Well, if I may and not very much to the topic…I’m glad you decided to come out of the private sphere and start blogging publicly. I have said it once or twice and will say again – I absolutley love your blog and I like your style. So yupiiiii, cranky mom, thanks for blogging!
:)
What a wonderful evaluation of where you’ve come from! Thanks so much for taking part in the BritMums Weekly Blog Prompt! Great insight…hope to see you each week!
:) Karin @ BritMums
Hindsight is 20/20, right?! What I love about blogs is that everyone accepts that they can be ‘in development’ all the time–they change, grow, try out new things all the time. We are forgiven for trying something new, which is fab! Now you’ve got me thinking about what I would change…(now that’s a long list!).
I like the name – probably because I have 4 of them myself so I can identify ;-) I think blogging is a journey and you learn as you go through it…i’m at the very start of mine and its bloggers like you that give me the inspiration x
Oh my goodness – 4!!!!! It’s YOU I need to seek inspiration from :)
I like the name too, so I hope you don’t change it.
I knew I liked you…I just spotted your Instagram Gallery with your favorite flats. I’m looking at the exact same shoes on my feet right now! LOL
Tere. Avastasin ka su blogi tikri blogist, hehee.
Igatahes sa kirjutad väga hästi ja eks ma saan sinu pealt nüüd inglise keelt harjutada kuna ise hakkasin ka just inglise keeles kirjutama enda blogi ja ei ole nii vilunud veel. :)
Teretulemast :)