This 15th August I truly celebrated. Not only India’s independence but a small win for me too. I won the
How and why I started blogging is a story I have chronicled in a post I wrote a while back. But I never really shared the journey of behind the scenes with my readers. On 15th August my humble 2 year old blog was declared as the best Indian Parenting Blog by Indiblogger which is not just the largest community of bloggers but also the most respected and revered. So I thought I really ought to write a post to share the ups and downs, highs and lows and my blogging odyssey with some of my favorite people in the world- my readers! After all it is you guys who make the blog what it is!
I started my blog as a diary but soon I wanted to share more than what my daughter ate that day. I wanted to share every parenting lesson I learnt, I wanted to talk about products that made a parent’s life easier, I wanted to show how one could simplify home management, I even wanted to share my not-so-good attempts at DIY and crafts and lots more.
Starting a blog was easy, it was keeping it up which made me go crazier than I had ever been. I was a tech-novice who couldn’t differentiate between a RAM and a hard disk. I had no concept of html, coding or redirects. Alexa and PING sounded like some funny cartoon characters.
Yet, here I was overnight reading up about buying domains, setting up wordpress, taking backups, modifying CSS (whatever that was!) and more.
The more I learnt, the more it seemed I had to grasp. I wrote some posts and waited with bated breath to see my first few readers drop in. I waited and then I waited some more because writing the content is the easier part, it is getting the content to your potential readers which is difficult. So I went on my learning curve with Social media, google tools, SEO (again what’s that?) and more.
Slowly readers other than my mom and my husband started trickling in, I still remember that day when I got my first 100 page views in a day! I went berserk and felt like I had arrived (yeah I was mad!).
In time I started getting way more readers than I had ever imagined, I had people sending me stuff to review and some even wanted to pay me to write about them on my blog. Wow, it definitely wasn’t a diary anymore.
Even so doubts, negativity and writer’s block would creep in now and then. Last year I even went off the blogging grid for almost three months. But I realized I really loved it and wanted to pursue it as a career.
It all seems so far off now, when I see my name among some of India’s finest bloggers. I have fellow bloggers asking for tips and ideas and I am always honored to help a new blogger out. I now know that blogging is not just necessarily a hobby but if taken seriously it can generate money, for some it can even be the source of their family income.
I definitely don’t claim to know-it-all about blogging or even parenting for that matter. Everything in life is a Work-in-progress, as it should be. Because when you stop learning, you stop living.
When Indiblogger awards were announced I submitted my blog with a lot of hope but some trepidation too. I was up against not just some amazing bloggers but people who had been at it for a lot longer than me and had a ton of followers. Nervously, I asked my readers to write testimonials for me.
But when the love and affection started pouring in, I was amazed, humbled and elated at the same time. Take a look at some of what you wonderful peeps have written.
I won’t go all modest and say I had no idea that the awards were happening on 15th or I didn’t know I had won. Not only was I hoping to win the awards but I also wanted to live tweet and Facebook the whole award ceremony for the I know.
Thank you to each and everyone of you who voted, wrote a comment or even silently wished me success. I want to dedicate this award to all you guys. Thanks are also due to some fabulous bloggers, women entrepreneurs, mentors and friends who became my support system, my personal cheer leading team and my critics, all rolled into one.
I can’t thank my husband enough , not only because he is the first one to remind me that my hosting or domain renewal is due and does it promptly but also because he makes everything awesome in my life.
Most of all I want to thank the reason of my existence as well as this blog’s existence- my little angel!
She is the inspiration for everything good I do in my life. Thank you Samaira!
