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Why start a blog… and what does it mean to win awards – with Charlotte Miller aka The Forelock Journal

Why start a blog - Charlotte Miller- The Forelock Journal

Do you have a blog? Have you ever been tempted to start one, but just talked yourself out of it over and over again? We’ve all been there.

Whenever I publish a blog I still ask myself if it’s the right thing to do and the best use of my time. But it really is SUCH a fundamental part of the way I market my business. But what if the blog isn’t for business? If it’s just for fun? Why start a blog at all? In this week’s episode of the Small & Supercharged Podcast I talk to Charlotte Miller, aka The Forelock Journal, all about her award winning blog. The whys, the hows, and everything else too.

Why start a blog… and what does it mean to win awards for your blog

Here are the show notes for episode 21 – why start a blog and what does it mean to win awards for your blog – with Charlotte Miller from The Forelock Journal. In this episode you will hear…

  • The inspiration behind The Forelock Journal- and where Charlotte’s passion for writing came from.
  • How Charlotte started The Forelock Journal.
  • The original idea behind The Forelock Journal, the kind of content Charlotte decided to include on the blog and why.
  • How Charlotte integrates her social media with her blog, how she shares the content on her platforms, and how it differs.
  • Charlotte’s aims for The Forelock Journal over the next 12 months.
  • How scary the equestrian world can be, and how Charlotte wants to help people who are feeling overwhelmed.
  • Great things that have happened since starting The Forelock Journal.
  • How having the blog has changed Charlotte’s perspective on social media
  • Managing the voice of self doubt and what to do when the niggling voice gets loud.
  • How to write content for a blog – how batching works for Charlotte.
  • The schedule that Charlotte works to for The Forelock Journal.
  • How Charlotte won Haynet’s Equestrian Blogger of The Year and what that meant to her.
  • The difference between mainstream blogging and more niche industries (such as equestrian and country) and the opportunities provided by Haynet for the blogging awards.
  • The #horsebloggers and #ruralbloggers groups on Facebook available for people in our industry who want to blog.
  • Charlotte’s top tips on how to get started as a blogger if you want to start your own blog.
  • The importance of focusing on your goals, your vision and what you want to do, as well as establishing your own style of writing is really important.

A HUGE thank you to Charlotte for chatting to me – you can find out more about Charlotte and The Forelock Journal by following the links below…

The Forelock Journal Website

The Forelock Journal Instagram

The Forelock Journal Facebook

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Why I reduced my blogging schedule

Do you ever feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day and your blogging schedule is another addition to your workload? Do you feel like your blogging schedule is slipping? Or maybe you made the conscious effort to reduce your blogging schedule? Yeah… I did that too…

You may have noticed that my blogging schedule has slipped a little of late. Well, that’s not entirely true. It didn’t so much slip, it was more a conscious decision to blog less. To reduce my blogging schedule. But I’ve come to realise that, for me, this wasn’t such a good choice. So here I wanted to explain why I reduced by blogging schedule and why I have every intention of ramping it back up again…

Why I reduced my blogging schedule

Can we nip back in time? A while ago – well, over a year ago – I set myself a challenge. To blog once a day for 40 days. It was my 40 day blogging challenge. The aim was simple: I needed to get blogging for myself. At the time, I did a lot of blogging for other people’s sites and I saw the power it had. But for myself? Never had the time – too busy- nothing to say- insert any excuse you like. I had and used them all. I always like to try and test things so, when a client asks a question, I can actually help solve an issue because I’ve been there and done it. With blogging, I had done this for clients but not for myself, so I knew I needed to change that… so I started the blogging challenge.

What happened after 40 days?

After the 40 day blogging challenge, I reduced my schedule from once a day to three times a week because, really, once a day was not practical for me at that time – three times a week was. It felt good to have a plan and, after writing once a day for 40 days, three times a week was a breeze. I liked it. I got lots of information out, I had lots of lovely feedback, it generated traffic for my website, enquiries and clients. It ticked all the boxes.

As for the negative side of things, blogging three times a week is still pretty time consuming. I’m writing this blog at 11pm on a Tuesday night for a future Wednesday posting. Also, writing three times a week does mean that I can’t do everything else I want to do for promotion and marketing because there isn’t enough time. Well, OK, that’s not quite true. A bit less mindless social media time would generate this deficit. But I digress.

I decided a couple of months ago that I should knock one blog on the head, reducing to two posts a week – on a Wednesday and a Friday. I did also have a TEDx talk to prepare for, which did take a lot of time, I introduced a regular Live session on a Monday afternoon on my Facebook page, and I planned a lot of video content to record. But I felt like something was missing. In addition, I wrote guest blogs for Eventing Nation, become digital marketing partner for The Business Barn and landed two more magazine columns (joining my NFU Countryside column) in Absolute Horse and Equestrian Life. So I haven’t been sitting on my bum doing nothing.

But something was missing… I missed writing three blogs a week!

I know, I do wonder what planet I am on most days. The facts are this…

  • I love writing
  • I get great feedback from my blog posts
  • I reach my ‘tribe’ through my blog
  • People get to know me through my blog
  • My blog helps my SEO
  • Blogs help my web traffic
  • Blogs allow me to share unique content

So, in short, I will bring back Monday blogs, because of all of the above. At this stage, I’m not going to commit to a blog each and every Monday, but that is what I would like to achieve. I’m not saying I won’t knock it back to two blogs again in the future, but at the moment, I’m back at three. And I know it’s weird, but I’m kind of excited.

So, that’s why I reduced by blogging schedule- and why I’m ramping it back up again.

How often do you blog and why?

 

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