So, you’ve been thinking about starting a blog on parenting, but you’ve never quite gotten around to it. Sure, you’ve got a couple ideas for posts. Maybe even thought of a good domain name and found internet providers Dallas. But you just aren’t sure if you’re cut out for it. Besides, what good is going to do you, spending all your time just writing and posting about parenting. Here’s a few of the things that blogging can bring you, just to help motivate you into taking the leap.
Get Good Advice
That’s right, by starting a blog you could actually get advice, not just give it. Ever leave a comment on someone else’s blog? Did it include your take on the subject, maybe even a bit of advice from hard won experience? When you start writing the articles, you’ll get others posting their thoughts, their advice, in your comments section. Sure, there will be some bad advice mixed in with the good.
But even if you don’t get a piece of perfect knowledge handed to you, the comment might spark ideas from your fertile brain sending you along a new path and giving you some shiny insight you’d missed before. Which you can write a new blog on! And since you get to pick the topic in the first place, you channel all that creativity from others into thinking about your chosen topic. Harness the power of the Internet!
Connect with Other Parents
Sure, you meet other parents, and probably their kids, everywhere you go. Shopping, playgrounds, schools, everywhere. But maybe you’re a little shy in public. You might find it hard to strike up that deeper conversation than “Sure glad it’s nice so the kids can play outside.” And maybe you have a special circumstance that most parents you run into can’t understand. Not unless they have a similar experience. Your blog will certainly talk about your situation, your challenges, and will likely draw parents in similar circumstances to read about your problems and solutions. You’ve just screened the internet to find people who can understand how you feel.
Another great way to connect is talking with fellow bloggers. You can go find parenting blogs with a similar outlook to yours and talk with them. Would you be surprised if other bloggers don’t see you as competition, but as a community and as partners? Ever see those guest blogs on a site? If you write an interesting article for someone else’s blog, and list your blog at the end, you will get some people reading it from their audience and coming to see your site. And they will get another great article on their site. And any of your readers who find out you’ve written a guest blog can go to their site to see who it is you are willing to write for. Both of you win. How’s that for a partnership?
Learn by Teaching
Have you ever heard the best way to learn a subject is to teach someone else? Think about some of the topics you might write a blog post on. Do you already know everything about that topic? No? Do some research on it. Oh, did you learn something new while doing the research? You’re welcome. You already know practically everything about a subject? Great, now explain it to someone who doesn’t. It’s a great way to clarify your thinking and really understand what you thought you already knew. Want to bet there won’t be some research involved even when you know it inside and out?
Give the Gift of Knowledge
Here’s where the sheer altruism comes in. Doing good things for people you have never met. Maybe will never meet. Helping people by sharing your experience, your knowledge, your insights. Does it give you a warm feeling? Think about it the other way if it doesn’t. Have you ever benefited from something a total stranger who owed you nothing told you? Found some advice or a how to out on the internet that you used? Someone wrote that and put it out there for you to find and benefit from. Give some back, pass it on. It’s a good feeling to see that comment thanking you for making someone’s life a little less difficult, a little easier to deal with.
Make Some Money
Here’s the one everyone thinks it is all about. The big benefit that all bloggers are looking for. But not really. Sure, it’s nice when a company contacts you and asks if you’ll review one of their products if they send you a free sample. Or offers to contribute some articles to your site that mention them. Or let you set up an affiliate link your readers can use to purchase something from them and they send you a tiny percentage of the money they make.
These are all nice things and can even turn into an income stream all of its own. But don’t bet on being able to quit your job and retire just yet. The level of traffic required for a steady income means you will spending as much time tending your blog as you ever did in a steady job. That’s if you are lucky enough to gain that big an audience. Be realistic, you’ll get a few perks, a little bit of spending money, and perhaps a few articles written for you instead of doing it all yourself. Remember, that’s in addition to all the rest of the good writing your blog is doing you.
Are you convinced? Ready to take the plunge? Check out some of the fine articles on how to start and remember, it isn’t all give, give, give. You get some back, and the more you give, the more you’ll get. You could end up wondering why you waited so long in the first place.
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