If you’re like me, you’ve seen these ads for making money blogging. I’m here to investigate. I also intend to share with you my findings, good or bad. And it all starts here, with this website.
First, let me say that all the posts I found said to go on Bluehost and use WordPress, which I did. But it was not nearly as easy as they made it out to be. Maybe if I were willing to accept a generic looking site and just wanted to start typing, then I could have started my blog in only twenty minutes, but for me it took two weeks! Of course, that was because I had a particular look I was going for and working around my job and other side projects. But there was one thing that really delayed me.
All the sites I’d found about starting your own blog told me to skip the AI and say I was following a tutorial. So I did. And I couldn’t get it to look like I wanted. I couldn’t find the stock pictures to fill it out, I couldn’t get my logo to look right, all the things I’d already worked on to go on my site didn’t fit. So I started over. I built a new site and used the AI feature. It worked! Not only did I approve of the layout, the AI made several pictures for me that I was able to crop and use in my website. Problem solved!
So now I’m up and running, though there’s still a lot to do. As you may have noticed, I’m also trying to start a brand and sell items in a store. I’m not sure yet if I’m going to use the store on the site or another one, as I have to research what fees are added. I am working on building up inventory to sell, getting my other artists on the site and getting pictures of their products. There’s still a lot of work to be done, but I’m finally of the bench and putting in the effort.
There’s something to be said for AI. I don’t approve of using it alone, saying it’s my work. That’s why you won’t see any of these website picture available on any of the items we sell. But you will find similar images. I love the look of many of the pictures that AI came up with, but I’m going to put my own spin on them in the real world, using them for inspiration and not as original works of art. That’s my compromise with AI. That also helps the artists that the AI pulls from not be ripped off. They aren’t having their artwork plagiarized, it’s just a source of inspiration. I wish I knew the artists so I could credit them.
The site is hosts a variety of artists work, but the blog will all be done by one person. Me. So you’re bound to see some of my opinions come through. If you notice any typographical errors, please let me know!
One other thing I read about when looking how to start my own blog was to make it as long as possible. I’m not sure I can do that. I tend to write pretty concisely. If it’s a story, I can embellish and make it truly something to read, but I’m not sure how I’m supposed to do that with a blog. I’m afraid it’s going to become a journal or diary of sorts, so I’ll try to mix up the content and let you decide what should be published. I know I want to add some how-to articles and a few lists, not to mention recipes and maybe a few stories just for kicks.
I hope this seems like a good start to you, because I’m not sure what else to write just now. I’ll see what I can come up with for tomorrow. The blog should just be once or twice a week, usually on the weekends. That will give me time to have something more prepared with better editing. Today you get the journal version.
Thank you for starting this journey with me. Have a great day!