It was the year 2014 when I first thought of starting a blog. More than anything, I wanted to write, express my thoughts, and have people from every part of the world find my articles online and read my content. I had no money to purchase a domain name or pay for hosting back then, so I resorted to using WordPress’ free hosting platform.

Prior to starting the blog, I only wrote in a journal I kept to myself. But with the blog, I was able to reach a vast audience who commented not just on the opinions expressed in my blog posts, but the way I wrote.

Most of the content I published on the blog weren’t SEO optimized. I didn’t even know what SEO was all about back then, but I was a heavy promoter of my posts. After publishing a post, I wasted no time to share it on Twitter and Facebook. I also pleaded with friends to do same on their timelines. It didn’t end there as I moved to submit the article on sites with a high DA and PA for the sake of getting high quality backlinks.

I recall a few times when I had like over a thousand folks visiting my blog in a single day thanks to social media clicks, backlinks and the WordPress community. There were also days when I got no more than five visitors on the blog regardless of how much hard work I put into promoting each article. So it was the case of working extra hard only to get little.

If only I knew about SEO and keyword research back then, I would have just created an SEO optimized post, promoted it a bit and still have Google send me free traffic not just during the period the article was published, but for months and even years to come. Now that’s the beauty of SEO;-)

For a free hosted blog, it was doing pretty well and had almost 2000 subscribers. But regardless of how much hits and clicks it was getting, most people attached no value to the blog because it was built on free hosting platform. I was asked questions like: what serious blogger creates their blog on a free hosting platform?

And then this happened.

In no time, job offers began rolling in. Offers like “we would like you to write for us.” I was really amazed at the offers. I was unemployed back then and to have had someone offer me a job that required me doing something I loved was astonishing. I took one of the writing jobs and was tasked with creating several well researched articles a week.

With the new commitment, I had no time to churn out blog posts as much as I used to. It was really hard juggling both tasks of writing for my blog and my client’s. At that point, I made the sad decision to delete the blog. Why keep a blog if you’re not going to have it frequently updated? I asked myself.

The years after I took my hands off blogging saw me work with several foreign agencies as a freelance content writer and copywriter. I also took online courses on social media marketing, search engine optimization and other areas of digital marketing. This was indeed a period of growth for me.

I knew I’d one day bounce back to share the knowledge of all I’d learnt so far on my incredible journey of working and earning online. I never gave up on the dream of one day setting up my own website, and adding value to the life of those who found my content online.

I’m mighty glad the dream is become a reality today...


https://markandwrite.com/2019/02/20/welcome-to-mark-and-writes-blog/

Wow. Nice story and a great site too. It's good to see people move on up!!!

AngelUriel:
Wow. Nice story and a great site too. It's good to see people move on up!!!

Thanks a bunch!

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