Step 1: Start A Blog

I did this 14 years ago, on a whim, with no planning or strategy. It’s so easy your grandma could do it. In fact, maybe your grandma has done it, in which case your grandma sounds pretty cool and I’d like to meet her. Maybe she can help me figure out why the endless scroll on my beauty blog keeps dropping posts.

Step 2: Write Good Blog Posts

This is actually much harder than you might think. For example, I generally spend between 14 and 11102348978 hours thinking of an idea for a single blog post, procrastinate my best ideas until they’re no longer relevant, and then weep over my general feelings of inadequacy as soon as I hit “Publish.” Thank you for attending my Ted Talk.

Step 3: Repeat Steps 1 And 2 Again And Again

That’s pretty much it.

If that sounds overly simplistic, I have a confession to make: I might have sort of glossed over Step 2 a bit. That’s because it takes basically no energy to start a blog (noun) and a metric ton of it to actually blog (verb). Sort of like it took basically no energy to write this post but a whole bunch of work to get started with the newsletter I just launched that’s all about — SURPRISE! — what goes into Step 2.

A lot of bloggers skip Step 2 and go straight to Step 3. And if you’re willing to spend a bunch of money on nice photos and tempting giveaways, you can probably coast for a while that way. But when the money runs out, or when the influencer bubble bursts and the sponsors stop coming by, you’re probably going to want to have something to offer readers. (I mean, your mom will always share your links on Facebook. So there’s that.)

Take it from someone whose analytics indicate that even men enjoy my posts about maternity pants: Good writing is the steak you need behind your sizzle.

If you want to get good at Step 2 (and, by association, Step 3), I support that. Not just because that’s good for you, but because that’s good for everybody. More good writing is what Michael Scott would call a win-win-win, and that’s the best possible outcome.

Anyway, I would like to help you get good at Step 2, which brings us back to my new newsletter. It’s called Blogging With Voice, and if the name doesn’t make any sense to you, good news: I explain it in the very first issue. Which you can read here! For free! And if you like it, you can subscribe here! Also for free!

I’ve got more blogging resources coming down the pike, too, so stay tuned. Tell your friends. Forward it around. Post it in your groups. Be a pal. Wag the dog. Take a hike. Toe the line.

OK, that last bit there might have just been a list of idioms. I told you: Step 2 is the hardest step. Excuse me while I go grab a Kleenex so I can hit Publish.