Learning from my blogging mistakes

2009 September 29

by timmy

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Image via Wikipedia

I just read an article about Gmail’s latest outage. It was the title that caught my eye: “Why you should be glad about Gmail failures.” As someone who is using Gmail, the title kind of got my proverbial goat. As it turns out, the article was less about boasting on Gmail’s failures and more about how Google has the opportunity to learn from its high profile mistakes. Although I still have my reservations about Google’s low profile issues, it does seem as if when problems hit in the public’s eye, lessons do get learned.

While reading this article, it reminded me of my many mistakes in blogging through the years. Some were fixed with a relative lack of difficulty while others I have yet to have the courage to find a fix. In this article I would like to be candid and share some of those mistakes and some of the fixes and changes I have enacted since.

(1) The topic

When I began blogging at the domain timmyjohnboy.com I was using it as a personal blog. The topic basically changed with my whims. I wrote about whatever I wanted to. This ended up being a mistake because I not only didn’t reach any goals for my blog, but the goals in and of themselves were vague.

This did not help Google Adsense serve relevant ads. It also did not help with SEO. Without a specific topic for the blog, I wasn’t doing so hot with the search engines.

Since then, I took the time to choose a topic I love enough and one with which I have passion and began to create content on that topic. Choosing a niche helped me participate in the conversation with others in similar niches. I was able to find people with similar interests. Although not perfect yet, my ranks have at least begun to grow. Google Adsense now comes across a bit less confused.

Is your blog more of a personal one, or does it revolve around a specific topic or niche?

(2) The Goals

When I began to blog, I really didn’t have much of a goal. It was more getting things off my chest. I did gain a love for writing and I did meet some interesting people. But I didn’t have real goals to meet by blogging.

Since then I have been blogging in order to do a few things, one of which is to strengthen my authority in my niche. This means that I am not only learning more about my niche, but I am also showing my own current aptitude. I am also working on my writing style. The more I write, the better I get at communicating. Although I have not quite arrived in the place where all my goals are met, I do have a reason for blogging and my goals are being achieved.

What are your goals for blogging?

(3) The Domain Name

The name actually came from a nick name my father gave me when I was young. Basically with a first name Tim and a middle name John and an apparent like for the Waltons as a television show, the name came together as TimJohnBoy or TimmyJohnBoy. I began using it online when I first started using webmail and I’ve been using it ever since.

I haven’t actually decided if this has been a bad choice for the domain name. On one hand, it really has nothing to do with technology, computers or the Internet. On the other hand, using my own name in the domain can aid in strengthening my name’s “brand” or “authority.” What I mean by this is that it can strengthen the tie between my name and the topic that I write about. For instance, although he may see his domain choice as being a mistake, it is difficult to hear John Chow’s name without thinking about the blogging about blogging niche, right?

You tell me, is my choice of domain name a mistake?

We all have made mistakes. It is only when we see what we can learn from them that we learn how to grow. Sometimes we CAN be glad about our failures!