There is so much information on the internet about everything you ever wanted to know about, from how to train you cat to sing to how to launch a rocket to space. So why would you not teach yourself to blog? After all there are lots of free blog posts about the subject, including my own blog.
There are however a few things that you need to know about teaching yourself to blog, which might make you re consider it as a plan.
Teach Yourself to Blog Versus Hiring a Blogging Mentor
You won’t actually teach yourself
It sounds harsh to say it, but most people who decide to teach themselves something never actually get around to doing it. They have great intentions and they truly believe that they will do it, but the reality is they are unlikely to.
You see things get in the way and when you are not accountable to someone then of course you will choose going to see a movie with your friend rather than sitting down to read articles that will teach you to blog.
You’ll need to adapt what you read for your industry
When you are researching how to blog for your business a lot of the information will be very general and won’t give you specific information about how to tailor it for the pet industry.
Examples that are given are rarely, if at all, about pets. Most people writing about blogging are going to be people who are looking to help small businesses in general, not just ones from the pet industry.
They are also unlikely to have ever written blogs about pets and experienced what works and what doesn’t first hand.
No-one is going to give you any feedback
You’ve read 100 articles and you write your first blog post and you think it looks awesome! So how do you know if you have missed anything or need to change anything?
When you teach yourself there is no-one to ask how you did.
Yes, you can ask a friend or family member to read over it and see what they think, but their opinion will be based on whether they found it interesting or fun. They won’t be looking at the technical side of whether google will show it to your ideal customers.
Also, do friends REALLY give honest feedback!
It will take you a lot longer than you think
Teaching yourself takes a lot longer than you think. You need to read a lot of free blog posts from a lot of different people to get every piece of information you need.
Unless it is a self-taught course that you have paid for it is unlikely that you will be reading everything you need to know in chronological order, so you will need to figure out how you need to pull it all together to make sense.
You will also find there is conflicting information on the internet – so who’s advice do you take?
You will probably wish you got the help sooner
Sometimes you can spend HOURS looking for something for free that you could have saved a lot of time and effort if you had just paid to begin with.
Whether this is paying for someone to create awesome graphics for your blog or getting someone to write an ebook for you, it’s important to prioritise your time.
Which is more beneficial to the growth of your business? Hours spend searching on the internet about how to do something or hours spend writing quality content under the guidance of a mentor that will bring 100’s of customers to your website?
