We hit the first milestone of 100 followers on my little blog, and I wanted to write a quick post to thank you all for following along and to share what I’ve learned on my blogging adventure so far!  There is more that I want to do to keep optimizing my website and make it look more professional as time goes on, but I’m loving the challenge of giving myself some time to write every day and capture some my recipes in writing as I make them.  This has truly been a great way to change my attitude from “I have good ideas, why does no one notice?” to “I have good ideas, check them out!”.  All of the follows, positive feedback, and even making some of my recipes (!!!) has been very cool, and I’m excited to keep working at this blog to make it even better as time goes on.

Some things that I have learned over the past few months on my blog that will maybe help out some newer bloggers:

1. Time to Write: I love setting aside some time to write every day, whether it’s a recipe from something awesome that I’ve cooked recently, or an adventure guide for cool things to do around California (obviously it’s been much more recipe heavy here in corona times).  Writing gives me some time to clear my head, share my thoughts on something I think is cool and worth knowing about, and is all my own!  These ideas, words, and pictures are all me, and it’s fun to be able to put my thoughts down on paper and share them!  I try to set aside some time to write daily, although it’s hard to balance a full-time job with writing time sometimes, and that’s okay!  Some days, the blog doesn’t happen – but most days it does!  The key for me is general consistency, and trying to post every day if possible.
2. Use Pictures: I personally love photography, so getting another place to feature my pictures is awesome.  More than that, though, I think pictures help portray steps in a process better than I can sometimes describe.  They help clearly show how a food is cut, what it looks like while it’s cooking, how it should look when it’s ready to eat, etc.  Plus, pretty pictures help drive people to check out your content, so a nice shot up top to go along with the post is always helpful!
3. Sharing and Connecting through Social Media: I didn’t post about my blog on any of my social media until it was at a place that I liked, about 3 months in.  The introvert in me is not really here for sharing my content, but it does help grow the platform!  Overall, the feedback when I finally did share was very positive, and now I post a new blog post on Facebook about once every 2 weeks (don’t want to annoy my friends with constant blog posts).  I also have it linked on my Instagram page and every post goes to my Twitter, so people can access the links to all of my recipes there.  I’m honestly not sure if this is the best approach to sharing a blog on social media, so any tips and tricks would be appreciated in the comments!
4. WordPress is a Supportive Platform: I really appreciate how followers stick around on WordPress, much unlike Instagram where following/unfollowing is rampant and likes are only for attention.  Thanks for joining the blog and staying around, friends!

Some things that I want to work on soon, and would love some tips and feedback from anyone reading out there!

1. Google Optimization:  I’ve been thinking about doing this for months.  I’ve started researching some options but haven’t set aside some time to really figure this out.  Of my 90 or so posts, only 2 of them regularly get noticed through search engines, which is really not ideal.  Since I’m at a place where I’m really happy with my blog and blog content, I’m ready for this to start reaching a wider audience.  Any tips and tricks on Google optimization would be super helpful for a newbie like me!
2. Contact/About Me Page: I think this would be a nice touch, and would make my blog look more professional.  Also considering adding the email address that goes along with the blog to help update things and make the contact page through my blog specific to that.
3. Connecting socials (Instagram, Twitter):  It would be nice to connect all of my socials to the blog to have everyone follow along on all of the things if they so choose!
4. Monetizing:  I know money should not be the main goal for doing things that you enjoy, but it would be really cool to start making some money and do some sponsored blog posts one day! 

I hope this was a fun and helpful summary of my blogging journey so far, and if anything it was a good exercise for me to lay my goals out in writing and to reflect on my little successes along the way.  At my next milestone (250 followers), I’ll post another update on my progress to stay accountable!  By then, I’ll have a contact page and maybe more hits from Google – time will tell.

Thanks again for following along, and I welcome any tips and tricks from you all on how to continue to improve!  Here’s to 100 followers, and hopefully many more to come!