Blogging and especially travel blogging is seen as glam and hip way of life. Is it so?
It depends. I have traveled and taken notes for blog posts over a year. Just in last few months I have began working on a blog. It's been not what I expected, with bit different good and less good surprises. Am I enjoying it? More and more with every post.
I am quite familiar with WordPress and creating content. Have been doing it for clients for more than three years, mostly in Estonian.
However setting up a blog is a bit more personal than another content planning project where I am not that involved and can take a birds eye view to the topics. With a personal project there's more involvement. At times it can be an interesting challenge to balance being involved and seeing the larger picture.
So what have I learned from blogging so far?
Technical stuff
Finding perfect WordPress theme is not easy. On technical side I knew which features I wanted from a theme. In real life emotions and looks matter enough to second guess initial choice again and again.
Finally it's more about finding one that is good enough, in ways that matter to me. There are no perfect themes.
Coming up with good enough domain name took more time than expected.
Setting up a blog took about 20% of the time and previous two things took 80%.
Content
Writing takes time. A lot of time. More than expected. I used to think I can go somewhere and write for an hour. Hah, not a chance. Going somewhere to write takes 1,5 hours minimum, often 2 hours.
Choosing and editing photos takes time. It's better to do photo related tasks on a larger screen than laptop's.
Recalling English is good practice. I have not had tons of practice in last few years and at times writing feels like a challenge. But it's an interesting challenge.
Keyword and topic research. Finding the balance between stuff I want to write about and what people are actually looking and searching for.
This takes about 20% of total time needed to create a blog post after having notes and photos ready.
Altogether I'd say that about 30-40% of the time is the most fun part, going out. The part which makes blogger's or influencer's life seem like a fairy tale. Meeting new people, exploring new places and of course taking photos with notes.
60-70% of the time is actually sitting down and writing or editing photos. That part is crucial and also deeply focused work, preferably in solitude or in cafés. Sitting down and writing.
Other observations
Priorities!!! Should I go out and have experiences to blog about? It's bit more fun.
Or should I bring existing notes and topics to the blog? This means sitting down and hammering the text out.
This part helps to get new content out and without it going out doesn't matter from blogging perspective. Have to find ways to balance the two.
It's fun to create something! Seeing how post count rises and more people are reading posts, some even giving feedback, is fun!
Process shows next steps. My blog notes sheets are practically filling themselves when I search for inspiration or facts.
One day I'll make my bucketlist of places to visit into a post here.
The list has tripled in size since I started writing, with many interesting activities, sights to see and hotels to stay in.
Following inspiration helps. There have been at least 10 times when I have gone out with laptop and a single goal - to draft 1 post or to finish 1 post. And what happens?
Another topic feels more interesting in the moment, so I'll go with that unless I absolutely have to finish set goal on that day. Same story with this post. After it I'll write about two places in Tallinn, as I had planned an hour ago.
Let's get this blog to 100 posts in 2020!