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I’ve been blogging for just a little under four years, and mostly I love it. It gives me a creative outlet, I’ve learned new skills and it’s given me the opportunity to meet new people. However I definitely have a love/hate relationship with running a blog and sometimes the reasons why I hate blogging overwhelm the reasons why I love it.
7 Reasons Why I Hate Blogging
Having to Be Interesting
The problem with blogging is that you have to create content that other people are going to be interested in, that they are going to want to read, that they will be inspired by, and (as much as I hate the word) influenced.
I’ve never been very good at being interesting, at school I didn’t like the same clothes, music, TV shows as those around me. I have always preferred sitting down with a good book than going out and surrounding myself by crowds of people. I have always made an effort to avoid attention and to stay uninteresting.
In terms of travel blogging I often question whether anyone will even want to read my content. I only travel part time, I have no desire to travel absolutely everywhere, I don’t stay in hostels or luxurious hotels, I’m not an adventurous travelling. I understand that I have a very particular way that I like to travel and yet I still have to try and create content that other people will find relatable and interesting.
Doing Keyword Research
If you read anything about blogging then you’ll soon realise that it isn’t just pound away on the keyboard for a few minute and hitting the “publish” button. If you read about blogging you discover that there actually seems to be a science to keyword research, that you need to spend time delving into ones that have a high amount of average monthly searches and look into how competitive the keyword is. You need to spend time looking into short and long keywords, related search terms and analysing trends.
There are some bloggers who take this incredibly seriously, they spend time compiling spreadsheets, they only write posts that will appear at the top of the search results page, and they pack their content with these keywords.
If I’m honest I do not spend a lot of time doing keyword research. My method is to simply Google the term I plan to use and see what content shows up in the search results. I’m not losing sleep over whether or not my content is going to be at the top of the results page every time. For me, content that is packed full of keywords are lacking realism, I want a post to read like a conversation, to hear a voice rather than a computer generated outcome.
Social Media
I’ve spoken and written about my feelings towards social media before. As a blogger you’re expected to have a social media presence in order to communicate with your audience, to create a community, and it’s an aspect that I’m not against. I enjoy a quick scroll through social media and seeing how my friends and fellow bloggers are, seeing what trips they’ve recently taken and I love being inspired to visit somewhere new myself.
However, if you were to actually follow some of the tips that are available online in order to build a giant social media following you would be spending up to eight hours a day (seriously!) getting those numbers up.
I could go into the various ways that social media annoys me, but I won’t. I use social media in my own way. I post what I like, when I like, I engage with my followers and relevant hashtags, I follow accounts that I enjoy, I make an effort to follow accounts with smaller followings and I use the best hashtags for my niche.
The problem I have are the people who play the follow/unfollow game and use comment pods. I have removed myself from groups and conversations where there seemed to be a issue with negativity and what felt like potential abuse and bullying. I want to be part of groups that genuinely feel positive and encouraging.
Influencers
I’ve already written a post about how my intention has never to try and become an influencer, but to encourage and inspire people to travel solo, slowly and in a more introvertly manner.
I’m not going to bitch about the hugely popular bloggers, I read some of those hugely popular blogs, but I am still quite picky about which ones I choose to follow. The problem I have with influencers is that I don’t always find them relatable or with integrity.
When I read a blog or Instagram caption I want to feel as though I know that person, but with a lot of influencers I don’t get that feeling. Instead I feel as though I am watching a constant stream of adverts, for brands and products that they don’t genuinely love and use.
There are some incredible people who blog and use social media, people that use it for good, for being an ally, for breaking down barriers, for fighting causes and generally just being incredible. I include myself in this when I say that we should all be making a conscious effort to follow accounts run by POC, the disabled, different ages, racial groups, cultures and LGBT+. What I dislike is that the accounts that make the big money are ones run almost exclusively by twenty-something, slim, blondes who stand in front of beautiful backdrops in floaty dress or bikinis.
If you really want to influence me, move to the side, get out of the way of the camera and let me see the destination.
Numbers, Numbers, Numbers
It’s very hard to be a blogger and talk to other bloggers without the topic of metrics coming up. Whether it’s asking about your monthly pageviews, your Domain Authority, your Instagram followers, or whether you make money from your blog. All of these questions are perfectly valid but it can be pretty soul-destroying when they work you put in seems to be diluted into a few numbers.
Even when I’ve mentioned to non-bloggers that I have a blog, I have been asked whether I make money or just get loads of free stuff, when I’ve said that actually I don’t run my blog as a full time business I’ve been asked why I bother. As if the huge financial gain would be the only reason, not just because I enjoy it.
My value as a blogger comes from the comments I receive from other people, when they have related to something I’ve written, or when they simply say that they have been encouraged to do something similar.
Having to Know/ Do Everything
If I was to mention the following terms: Domain Authority, pageviews, backlinks, do follow/no follow, plugins, alt tags, Google rankings would you know what I was talking about?
No. Me neither.
I may run a blog and create all of the content, but I am not tech savvy, I don’t understand half of the terminology used. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve had to Google technical terms to try and understand what I’m supposed to know/do/fix.
When you run a blog single-handed you are literally left to do absolutely everything by yourself. From building the site, designing, researching content, typing every word, creating affiliate links, taking/editing and uploading photos, SEO, all social media, promoting content, and then possibly pitching to brands and completing that work,Â
Everyone Has An Opinion
When you’re starting out as a blogger it’s really easy to get sucked into reading all of the tips and advice about how to build a successful blog. Everyone has an idea about what the best topics are, how often you should post content, how many pageviews you should be getting each month, how often you should be blogging before you start making money, the different forms of income stream and who much time you should spend working each week.
If I have learned one thing over the time I’ve been blogging, it’s that you have to discover everything for yourself. That taking advice is fine, even doing a course is a great way to learn actual skills, but when it comes to the work itself it really is down to you to develop your own style.
Why do you love or hate blogging?
Let me know in the comments.
