A little over a year ago, I made the decision to create a blog. I’d planned to utilize it as a platform to showcase the development of my career within Digital Marketing. When I started writing, I had no existing audience (excluding my ever faithful parents 😄), only a vision as to what I wanted to create… And my god, I loved how unchartered my content was. In a world where you’re almost restricted to posting your content on platforms at ‘prime time’ slots, it was such a relief to create a new channel where I could experiment with whatever I wanted, and be able to publish it whenever I desired.

Blogging has genuinely taught me so much. Regardless of how popular my content is, I’ve been able to discover so many insightful things through the practice of writing consistently. If you’ve ever thought about creating a blog, I’m sure that you’ve also considered the worrying case where no one will take the time to view your content. Well I’m here to tell you that that’s actually a blessing in disguise.

I wanted to construct this post to touch on the five main reasons behind why I started writing a blog, even though I had no intention to attract an audience until further down the track.

Improve your writing skills
If you’re someone like myself, you never paid all too much attention in English class back in school… and now that you’re in the real world you totally regret it!

But fear not, because the almighty blog is here to save the day! A blog is a fantastic way to work on your writing and proofreading skills. As I work in Digital Marketing, it’s critical for myself to be able to competently write polished copy for blog posts, web pages, and press releases. Writing is such an essential skill that’s required across a vast diversity of jobs.

After continually writing copy, you start to get the hang of what works. You suddenly have this desire to expand your vocabulary and construct more enticing sentences. You see, the beauty of writing a blog when no one reads it, is that you can take as long as you need to proofread your work. You can even make changes to your copy after you’ve published it.

I’m well aware that I still have a lot of room for improvement when it comes to the quality of my copywriting, but I can definitely recognise how much writing a blog has helped me with my overall writing skills.

Build an asset to showcase
Building a consistent blog is no easy task, it’s something that takes time to piece together. A well-crafted site can truly show your commitment to a project and provide real evidence of your work. Although great platforms like WordPress, WIX & Weebly offer writers quality site templates, there’s still countless hours of alterations and updates to be made before you’ll start to become satisfied with the direction of your blog.

The beauty of a blog is that for something that requires no more than just your time, it can continually provide you with an asset to showcase. Imagine you’re applying for a job within the digital space. You may not have the most comprehensive resume’ or past job history, but you my friend have the power of a blog behind you! Having a blog can teach you so many useful skills in all sorts of areas like content creation, SEO, analytics and Social Media coordination. By powering up your work portfolio with a blog, you can be one step ahead of the competition within the job market.

The freedom to experiment
One of the main reasons I started my blog, was to allow me to experiment with some trendy Digital Marketing practices. Creating your own site is a great way to get imaginative and let your creative juices flow. Need to get a practical understanding of how meta-tags work? – Have you recently heard of a new plugin that you wanted to trial? – Well creating your own personal blog is a great way of having the freedom to paint your own blank canvas. If you’re constructing a blog with no existing audience, there’s no pressure to perfect your site the first time around. You can take as long as you desire, making as many changes as you’d like before you even consider publishing anything. It took me over six months before I decided to share any of my blog posts within my network.

Voice your opinion
Even if you’re not an American looking to make the country great again, I’m sure we all enjoy having the freedom of speech. Having a blog is a great way to voice your opinion, even if you’re just voicing it to yourself.

We all live busy lives with a million different things going on each day, so sometimes it’s best to just let your emotions roll out into words on a screen. If you’re ever worried that your opinions are invalid or ‘incorrect’, you can create your own platform to voice whatever the hell it is that you desire. When you create a personal blog, you can attract like-minded people to interact with. You could even find yourself becoming a thought leader amongst your particular niche.

Leverage your content
Sooner or later, the time will come where you’ll want to share your beautiful creation with the rest of the world. By having a crafted piece of content, you can share it across your beloved social channels like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to add some spice to your profile. You can also leverage your content to educate potential readers. By cross-posting your blog posts onto sites like Quora and Medium, you can create value for readers by sharing with them your knowledge or insights.

If you’ve ever thought about writing a blog, I couldn’t encourage you enough to follow it through. It’s not going to change your life overnight, but you’ll definitely gain from the long-term benefits it offers down the track. I can’t explain the feeling of satisfaction of hitting that glorious publish button after you’ve constructed another piece of what you believe to be golden content. If you’re considering the possibility of creating a blog, but you’re worried that it won’t eventuate into anything, don’t stress about it, remember to begin writing with just yourself in mind. Blogging is something that can take years to perfect, I myself have only brushed the tip of the iceberg within my blog. I still have so much room for improvement and even more fascinating things to talk about… And hey, that gets me excited!

YAY FOR BLOG WRITING!