Do you blog for yourself?

I’ve been blogging now for about 15 months. Actually it’s longer than that on one of my other blogs (See Trevor’s Birding) but that was on another platform.

I find that blogging for myself is very satisfying as I see the number of articles mounting into their hundreds with over 400 on this blog and over 500 on my birding blog. It is also satisfying to see the number of comments steadily increasing each month along with the total number of visits. On my three blogs I have a total number of visits of over 500 per day. This is very encouraging.

It is also encouraging to see my writing skills developing the more I write. I can now “write on demand” knowing I have set myself a target number of posts to write. I also set myself a target number of words to write every day. I’m a little short of this target but not far.

Writing for others:

A growing trend with blogging is to write for other blogs, such as a network of blogs. My son recently challenged me to consider doing this but I haven’t yet taken the plunge. I almost did a few weeks ago when an opportunity arose on a topic I could have written with my wife. I didn’t apply and the position was filled. I can see some advantages in writing a blog for a network, for example. Some of these advantages are:

1. All the technical stuff is taken care of.
2. Regular income.
3. An expectation of regular posts – this is great for discipline.
4. The benefits of being in a large network – some of the promotion is done for you.
5. A sense of community within the network.

At this stage I don’t think it is for me – unless someone out there has an offer too good to refuse. Remember – I have the time, I have the skills and I have the track record.

To read more on this topic read this article: Blogging for yourself vs. Blogging for others on Darren Rowse’s Problogger.