My blogging story

Who am I? !

Mark Jenkins !

32, User Experience Designer !

I’ve been blogging for 7 years !

I love design !

I love messing around on the internet

So, why did I start blogging?

I needed a new challenge and was slightly bored in

my job…

…so I had some ‘free time’ to ‘tinker’ around

with the internet…

…I’ve always had a (very) keen interest in both electronic music and

street art and graffiti…

…So I asked a ‘techie’ friend

!

“What do you know about blogging and

WordPress?”

…his reply

“Give it a go!”

I bought some cheap web hosting…

…Read a guide to installing WordPress

…and that was it !

I WAS AWAY!

I started my first blog in December 2007 with some ‘free time’ over the Christmas period

And set myself a challenge…

My challenge was to

POST POSITIVE

So I continued to write

POSITIVELY

Reviewing music I liked

POSITIVELY

I kept badgering away with my blog posts

POSITIVELY

I never thought that my blogs would become

‘successful’ and be read by thousands of people

I started blogging purely for fun

!

As a place to write about what I liked

!

An ‘online diary’ of sorts

The months went on

One thing led to another

The blog became popular

I was invited on trips to Paris (3 times),

Amsterdam and Belgium

We were on the radio

I now run and write for two blogs and one for

my online portfolio

Friedmylittlebrain !Started in 2007 !Covers electronic and hip hop music !4 writers !2000+ Facebook Fans 1500+ Twitter Followers

UK Street Art !Started in 2008 !Covers Street Art and Graffiti !3 writers !70,000+ Facebook Fans 15,000+ Twitter Followers

And I started to use WordPress for my design work, helping clients to

get to grips with the platform

I’ve designed and set up WordPress blogs and websites for Time Out, Fallon London,

Shopcade, and my own company

What did I learn?

Email

Once the blogs started to become popular I

became inundated with email!

Since the beginning…

15,738 emails !

to Friedmylittlebrain

11,234 emails !

to UK Street Art

Traffic

“When I started blogging, I hoped that I would get a ton of traffic

through search engines because all of the other popular blogs got a lot of Google love. The reality is you won’t

get too much traffic from Google because your blog is new…it takes years before your search engine

traffic kicks in.” !!

Neil Patel co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, and KISSmetrics

Design matters

The size of your !

Fonts Typography

Spacing !

are all small things that are part of your design. These elements can have a big impact on whether your content

will be read or not

Be Social

Build up your social media profiles and share links to your blog and blog posts to increase

incoming traffic to your blog !

This is one of the best and quickest ways to get new eyes on your blog posts

Be Consistent

I soon realised that by not being consistent, the

blog traffic dropped considerably

Some of my Google Analytics stats and what

they meant for consistency on UK Street Art

Example 1 !

4th April 2013 to 4th May 2013

6,325 Unique users 32,381 Page Views

3.8 pages per session 2.39% Bounce Rate

Example 2 !

4th April 2014 to 4th May 2014

4,546 Unique users 8,697 Page Views

1.73 pages per session 68.87% Bounce Rate

Example 3 !

1st Jan 2011 to 31st Dec 2011

130,516 Unique Users 407,684 Page Views

2.05 pages per session 69.52% Bounce Rate

Example 4 !

1st Jan 2013 to 31st Dec 2013

67,354 Unique users 158,000 Page Views

1.75 pages per session 71.41% Bounce Rate

Embrace Mobile

Mobile isn’t a bubble that is going to burst

Make sure your content is readable on various

devices

Did I ever get paid?

YES !

To date I have made £275 from Google Adsense

!Made around £1000 from sponsored articles

!So it’s never been a huge amount…

I’ve always blogged because I loved it.

!

Anything else was a bonus

How did I keep it up?

I blog when I want to

!My advice is to blog when you want to, not when

you feel you have to – it’s more natural !

There’s no rules on when you should blog !

Set subjects, What time, Which day !

Unless you’ve set those rules…

How has blogging changed for me?

New services and platforms

!Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and the list goes on

!Social Media can be quite like a blog, a daily

update on your life, your business, your interests, with text, photos and videos

Has blogging led to paid work for me?

Indirectly, yes !

I always bring up my blogs, blogging and my involvement with Guardian Masterclasses at job

interviews !

I find it helps to show that I do have interests outside of Design and User Experience

!

Blogging in the future?

WordPress will continue to grow strongly

Stats from wordpress.com, 6th May 2014

New platforms will emerge

People will continue to have things to talk about

There’s always someone out there who wants to

read about what you write about

10 Golden Rules

for writing a blog and building an audience

Be yourself

Above all, blogging should be fun !

Write about something you know and feel passionate about !

Write about what you want, as often as you want !

It’s easy to lose sight of what you’re doing and why. It’s useful to remind yourself of this often. A good test to keep coming

back to with your blog is !!

“Would I read this?”

Be specific

A common mistake of new bloggers is to try and write about everything. This can be confusing for readers who need to be

able to ‘get’ your blog very quickly !

Identify what it is you have to say, what makes your voice unique and different from everyone else

Be user-focused

The internet is one of the most democratising, useful technologies every invented – and yet it’s remarkable how

many sites dictate to or ignore the user !

Look at your site with a stranger’s eyes !

Why am I here? !

What impression am I getting? !

How do I navigate and find more content? !

What are my next steps?

Be concise

The average time spent on a web page is less than a minute, and many users leave after 10-20 seconds

!Structure your pieces with this in mind: write engaging introduction, put your most important arguments first

!Experiment and mix up your formats if they work for your

content: break up text with bullet points and pull quotes, try posts that are lists, video or photo only posts, stories and

links of the week

Be consistent

It doesn’t matter how often you update, but if readers come to expect a post every week, try to deliver – disappointed

readers may not come back !

If you drastically change the focus of your blog or change your opinion, be open and honest – explain what you’re doing

and why you are doing it

Be patient

Be realistic about what you expect from your blog !

Don’t expect it to be an overnight success !

Don’t expect your blog to make you a fortune, instantly !

Don’t always worry too much about the look of your site, this can be improved iteratively

Leave room to experiment - try different ways of writing

!Set yourself realistic targets and strategies for achieving

Be social

If you’re serious about growing an audience for your, then social media will be invaluable for you

!Use it as a tool to engage your audience and drive them back

to the fresh content you have written !

Make contact with other bloggers !

Get involved in discussions on related blogs !

Consider offering other blogs a guest post !

Encourage commenting !

If readers take the time to comment, reciprocate

Be clever

There’s a huge amount of information on the internet !

Look for ways to promote your blog that won’t cost you !

Be aware of other blogs in your area !

Ask yourself why you like or dislike them !

What can you do that they can’t? !

Why would potential readers visit yours over theirs?

Be brave

Blogging can be an exposing thing to do and criticism is a fact of life on the internet

!Listen to feedback

!Try not to take criticism personally

!Don’t be afraid of having a strong or controversial opinion

!You will find it fairly difficult to break WordPress

Try things out!

Be suspicious

Of anyone who talks for 45 minutes and tells you that there are 10 Golden Rules of Blogging

!––––––––––––––––––––––––

!The best blogging is eccentric and unexpected

!If you love what you’re writing, keep doing it

!The internet is a big enough place that

there’s an audience for pretty much anything

Thank you! !Mark Jenkins UX Web Lead !theluckystrike.co.uk @markjenkins