The Realities of Blogging Every Day...

I actually completed #Blogtober14! I actually blogged every day throughout October! Go me!

I am excited and shocked by this fact as I genuinely didn’t think I would actually pull it off! I’ve always blogged 3 or 4 times a week, which has suited my life and I had fallen into a comfy routine with it. I guess looking back I was getting a bit bored of the routine and of blogging in general so doing #Blogtober14 has actually been a pretty fun way of shaking things up!

I know a lot of bloggers do blog every day and doing this has really raised my respect for them! I juggle two jobs, I am a carer for my mum, I have a pretty good social life and I also run a small online jewellery shop. My life is hectic at the best of times and blogging has always been my ‘me’ time. So trying to fit in a blog post on the days when I’m doing all of the above has been a little testing! Scheduling posts has been a lifesaver! I usually do my blogging on a Sunday afternoon and a couple of evenings in the week depending on what else is going on. So I knew from the start the only way I was going to complete this challenge was by scheduling posts and being a little creative with my time! I wouldn’t say it’s been easy but I quite like to be busy and I find I am at my most productive then!

I tend to do things in blocks, like taking a ton of photographs for reviews all in one go. Anyone else finding as we head into winter, getting decent lighting is turning into a bit of a nightmare! I then sit and do the writing all in one go too. It makes things a lot easier, however I also love the spontaneity of writing when the moment takes me and just posting it there and then. This was harder to do when you are posting each and every day and it was something I really missed doing.

Blogging everyday has really got my creativity flowing and resparked my love of blogging. ‘Lipsticks and Lashes’ is my baby and I think I may have been neglecting it for a little while before this challenge. I was a little worried I might run of ideas for posts but if anything my current list of post ideas has tripled and I could probably continue blogging each and every day for the next few months without running out of ideas!

When I told some fellow bloggers I was going to blog every day, the response was ‘aren’t you worried the quality of your posts will suffer?’ I was already half way through the month and not really thought about it. I work hard on my blog and I don’t think my posts became poor quality I think I just didn’t have time to give each post some love after they had been posted. Normally I post then promote them via twitter etc which I didn’t do much of during October. This something I really missed doing but due to being busy I just didn’t get the time to do it. I thought this would have affected traffic to my blog as I wouldn’t say I was getting each post out there as much as I usually would but in terms of traffic, my figures almost doubled! This really surprised me I wasn’t really expecting that, I had a more consistent flow of traffic through Lipsticks and Lashes which was great.

Looking at the pros and cons of blogging every day, although there are benefits I think what’s more important for me is getting that healthy life/blog balance. Blogging is one of my favorite hobbies, if it could become more than a hobby then that would be a dream come true but for right now I’m not convinced blogging every day is something I want to do. I’d rather focus on great quality posts then churn out post after post without really embracing them fully. I look at some of my favorite big time bloggers and some of them only post a couple of times a week, I think they key here is to embrace your blog, post what excites you and you can’t fail. I think we all sometimes need a reminder of why we started blogging sometimes and for me it was somewhere to use as an outlet for my love of writing and a place to whittle on!

Love your blog and post when it suits you, no one else!