I am celebrating a birthday – I have loved the joy of blogging for ten years now. These are the highlights….
1. It is so amazing to think I can type something on my iPad at home and it might make a difference to someone else on the other side of the world. The internet has transformed our lives in many positive ways.
2. Now I have been blogging for ten years, I love re-reading those older posts.
3. When I used to blog more about health and fitness, I was fortunate to get samples of products to review. This included sporty clothing, cycling accessories, food, coffee and (a year ago) a Halfbike.
4. Readers getting in touch or interacting makes blogging especially rewarding. Sometimes we end up corresponding for quite a while which is encouraging for both parties. Once a former colleague found my blog, that was nice to resume our contact with each other.
5. The funny thing with this blog, it is my previous use of catheters and prostate issues which attracts the greatest number of Google searches. While this is okay, as it does seem helpful for some, I think blogging more about personal finance might be a future direction.
I am such an enthusiastic advocate of early retirement which doesn’t have to be for the rich. I retired at 56 and we aren’t particularly wealthy at all but we have a talented firm of financial advisors; without them we couldn’t have taken this step.
6. The number of page views can sometimes be extraordinary. My first blog reached 20,000 page views a month before I put it into “retirement”. If you’re really clever, you can earn money a little money through advertising. I have never progressed this as I don’t want to be distracted by adverts – and I don’t think my readers want to be bombarded with excessive advertising.
7. I have learnt some new skills. I know a little about buying a domain name, hosting and WordPress. I still feel a bit of an amateur but it is nevertheless nice to learn things. I tend to learn best from other people, reading instructions is not my preference.
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