Saturday 29 June 2019

Five Years on Blogger!



Hello my lovelies - today is my 5th Blog Birthday and since I'm going to celebrate this amazing milestone by having a meal with my family, I also wanted to do a blog post thanking all of my readers for every step of the way that you have been there for me.

When I decided to go blogging full-time and I started my blog on Blogger five years ago, I had no idea how much it would change my life. Although I have been blogging on various different websites since the age of fourteen - that's a whopping seventeen years ago in total - I finally found my feet on blogger and loved it so stayed.

The other websites that I have blogged on over the years include myspace, girland, freewebs, webs, tumblr, and wordpress.

Don't get me wrong it hasn't all been smooth sailing and roses, I have had to take blogging breaks here and there to just catch up with life and sort out my health from time to time over the years but I have always come back. I've also learned some incredible lessons in blogging:

| Nothing Fails Like Success | Not every blog post is going to be successful, not every picture or tweet you put up on social media is going to get likes, comments or retweets but if you stick at it, your blog will become your best friend and the readers who love you will keep coming back.

| Positivity Changes Everything | No-one likes a negative person and no-one enjoys reading negative hateful blog posts. I personally don't want to know why you hate your next door neighbour, or why you wish you had slept with your boyfriends family member, I like positive, happy and joyful blog posts and that is the type of content I enjoy sharing for my readers.

| Editing is Your Friend | Over the years I've seen so many bloggers complain about editing things but I think it's a great thing. Editing old blog posts, editing links on blog posts and fixing them, editing pictures and making them brighter, editing is great in my opinion. I wish we could all edit tweets we send out!

| Honestly is so Important | As much as I love editing, I do think being honest online is really important too. Other than brightness, I never edit pictures of myself or selfies as I think that it's not being one hundred per cent honest. Also, I would never post about a product I had personally had experience with or brand I didn't truly love - lying to people online is as bad as lying in real life.

| The Law is Always Changing For Bloggers | When you get settled and sorted with one law, another one comes into play and you have to edit, state, or completely re-do blog posts that you have taken hours writing in the first place - it is a massive nightmare.

| Not Everyone is Going to Like You | You are going to have people online who hate what you do and are jealous of the orotundities that you are lucky to get. No matter what, you're never going to please everyone and I've just accepted that. 

| Your Following Count is Nothing Without Engagement | I may be alone in saying this but I would rather have one hundred followers who are active on my blog and keep coming back than millions who just follow me for a number. I love seeing the same people coming back to my blog and commenting on my posts over and over again.

All in all, I have loved blogging these past five years and have posted nearly five hundred blog posts in total but I wouldn't have done any of it without my readers and followers so thank you to every single person who has ever viewed, read, shared or commented on a blog post, it really means the world to me so from the bottom of my heart I love you all.

With love, Alisha Valerie. x