3 Years of blogging.

It all began on Tuesday, August 09, 2005, @4:00pm central time. With a few clicks of a mouse, and a number of key strokes on a keyboard, I had created a blog and posted my first article. I ended my first post with these words:

I hope the blog will be informative and at the same time will challenge how others may see things. Will the blog be entertaining? That I cannot be so sure of :) I will do my best. Every journey begins with great expectations and hopes, and this post represents the first steps in a new journey for myself. Will my hopes and expectations be met? I don't know, but the unknown is what makes the journey so exciting! :)



Back in 2005, I did not know one person who even knew what a blog was! Now, there are millions of blogs. At the beginning, I didn't even know how to add a picture to a post. Now, adding video is as simple as the click of a mouse! Over the past 3 years I have seen many, many people create blogs, and in just a month or two...basically stop posting all together. After 3 years, here I sit still posting at the Worldview blog. Today the Wordview blog had it's 19,000 visitor come to the blog. That may not be that big of a deal to some people, but when I started I had no idea what to expect.



What I have learned over the past 3 years of blogging:

1. It is hard work to keep your blog updated and to find way's to promote it. Posting everyday can be difficult, and truly working to improve the blog, and to get traffic to it, is very time consuming. But, it is a must if you really want people to read your blog.

2. You must work to find things to put on your blog that people really want to read and you must provide information people really need.

3. Timing can be everything. A major story can break ,and if you are gathering information about it from the very first seconds of the story's release, then your blog is going to get traffic. Forty minutes later...and there will be 1,000 blogs already postng about the story. You have to be fast!

4. Offer as much information as you can about a subject. Make your blog the one place people can come to find everything they want to know about something.

5. Use a team of people if possible. If you can recruit 3 or 4 people to post on your blog, it will ensure that you have new and fresh information all of the time. This also keeps you from becoming burned out. More people is also better in finding stories and coming up with ideas for the blog. I am using this approach at the Preaching Today blog.

6. Comments and e-mails from readers can make your day, or month. When a reader takes just a few minutes to leave a comment this can encourage a blogger to keep posting for years to come!

7. Don't give up. You never know who is reading your blog and where your post may end up. Yes, you can go through very dry times where you feel no one cares, but stay at it.

8. Work to improve your writing skills.

Those are just a few things I have learned over the past 3 years. The journey thus far has exceeded my expectations and I look forward to the future. Yes, I hope that my blog can become more popular and read by thousands. However, I will keep posting and be thankful for every single reader who stops by, and takes the time to look at what I have posted.