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How did you start your blog?


wintermom
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Can I ask you how your started your blog and what recommendations you have? Or if an alternative way to share information would be better.

 

I'm considering starting a blog as a way of sharing my experiences exploring my grandmother's Swedish cookbook from 1923. A couple people suggested I post about how it goes, and I though a blog might be a good way to do this. I could add photos and describe what I make, how the family likes (or doesn't like) the attempts. 

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Who is your intended audience? If it's for personal reflection and to journal your adventures, I'd keep a blog. I think it's too difficult for most people to remember to actively go to a webpage.

 

If you expect other people may be reading it, I would suggest you post it where those people already are such as Facebook. Or if you use a blog, you could post links to your updates on Facebook, and people could be reminded or encouraged through that to visit your blog.

 

How to start it? As in your first post? I'd make an introduction of sorts, and depending on the length of your story, include a history of the cookbook and the story of your grandmother. It sounds like a really fun thing to do and research! (Of course, I'm taking a break right now from poring over genealogy records from the 1800s.) :)

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Who is your intended audience? If it's for personal reflection and to journal your adventures, I'd keep a blog. I think it's too difficult for most people to remember to actively go to a webpage.

 

If you expect other people may be reading it, I would suggest you post it where those people already are such as Facebook. Or if you use a blog, you could post links to your updates on Facebook, and people could be reminded or encouraged through that to visit your blog.

 

How to start it? As in your first post? I'd make an introduction of sorts, and depending on the length of your story, include a history of the cookbook and the story of your grandmother. It sounds like a really fun thing to do and research! (Of course, I'm taking a break right now from poring over genealogy records from the 1800s.) :)

 

Thanks for the great suggestions.

 

Re: how to start: If you have any suggestions on how to actually set up a blog - the technical side of things. 

 

Any recommendations on a platform, would be most welcome.

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I have been blogging for 12 years. If you want to blog, I suggest you use either Wordpress or Blogger and just have it be self hosted. You can blog for free provided you don't want to do anything fancy. That is how I started out. Then I got complicated and now I have it hosted and my own URL. My blog does not make me money though and it is more or less a family blog. My blog www.OurUnplannedLife.com is a Wordpress blog but I started out on Blogger. So depending on how far you take it, you can switch if needed. 

 

Good luck! Let us know where you end up having your blog! 

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We use blogger for our company blog - it's user-friendly and I like how it looks. When I post, I also share on our FB page, which gets more views. It's not monetized or anything, we just write interesting/informative (hopefully) posts for our clients to read.

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I started with blogger 10 years ago and have used it ever since.   It's simple to set up and the learning curve isn't too difficult.  I never could figure out wordpress.  Audience wise, let everybody you know who you want to read it by word of mouth to your family and friends, plus use facebook and /or twitter. You can set up your site so automatically posts a link to your social media (if you do social media)  

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The (very big) problem w/ doing your blog on Facebook: they will then own all the content.

 

You want to have full ownership and control of your blog. You don't want to wake up one morning and because of major changes they've made, lose your all of your photos and writing.

 

I think WordPress is a phenomenal place to start, but my learning curve was steep. Whether you use WordPress or Blogger, just know that you can type "tutorial on how to set up a blog on WordPress" and video tutorials will appear. (So don't let a learning curve bother you. You can figure it out. I had a couple of very annoying days, but since then I've been thinking, "Why did I think it was so hard?")

 

Best thing I ever did was find the tutorials.

 

Also, I wanted to add that your blog may very well interest the larger world outside of your family and friends. It's a super cool idea.

 

Alley

 

 

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I did a very simple blog about our lives and homeschooling a long time ago. I used blogspot I think. It was super intuitive bc I'm not techy at all. You can change things around really easily--it is all template-based. Mine was www.twilightandsunrise.blogspot.com You can go to the beginning and see how I started. I learned how to add stuff to the side, a counter (which I reset many times), a couple of buttons, and pictures. It is super basic but if I can do it, anyone can!

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