What I learnt from Blogchatter's #MyFriendAlexa Campaign

October 2020 was my first time signing up for a blog activation campaign, and I am glad I took up #MyFriendAlexa with the community that The Blog Chatter represents. For me, blogging has been a spillover from my “Dear Diary” days and I’ve been an intermittent blogger for years now. Unfortunately, the “intermittent” aspect of my blogging ended up taking centre stage, and I knew I needed a dose of consistency.

In comes the campaign by Blogchatter which sets out to help people that their blog “to the next level.” Honestly, I didn’t even know what exactly an Alexa rank is when I signed up for the #MyFriendAlexa blog challenge back in September (you can read about this sought after rank here). All I knew was that this is a community of bloggers that is focused on collaborative growth, so there could be no harm in trying. With daily reading goals, weekly writing goals, and accountability checks of fellow bloggers, signing up for this helped to bring in a rhythm that I’ve never had before. There were also learning sessions on the technical aspects like SEO, figuring out plugins and overall help with site optimisation, and a host of other conversations that only bloggers can appreciate!

When I started it was with bucket-loads of self-doubt, but I’m finishing with the high of knowing that I’ve had a super productive month. Yes, my Alexa rank has moved from 2-million-something to 200-k-something (yay!) but I’m taking away much more than a 10x improvement in search rankings from this month! Here are some of the things I’ve learnt along the way

I learnt that blog posts are “created” and not just written. From the headline to key-word optimisation to creating graphics and pins, to social media sharing – there’s a process that needs to be done after the writing. Not to take away from the focus of the content, but you can’t ignore these aspects if you want to be successful at your craft.

I learnt that reading other blogs is a fantastic (and often ignored) aspect of blogging. It’s a great way of getting the pulse on what makes for good content. You also learn a lot about the process from people who have been there, done that. It’s not a lonely world, you just need to find your tribe.

I learnt that ‘Sharing is caring‘ takes on a whole new meaning in the world of blogging! The more you put yourself (i.e. your content) out there, the more eyeballs you get. For any writer, the satisfaction of having your work read by people is what brings you back to the table. So rather than fretting about the cobwebs on your site, you need to utilise social networks and get people to read.

I learnt that versioning is a better goal to seek than perfection. Each post you write is one step forward in your journey of writing. So it’s great if you have this idea for a perfect post. But you should know that when you get down to putting the words together, they tend to take on a life of their own. And that’s okay. You’re on a journey, and bettering yourself is part of the goal.

I learnt that I just had to write more. Do you write better when there is a lot happening in your life? Or when there isn’t much happening in your life? The discovery of the month for me was that I write better when I write. I’ve always had a list of potential blog-post ideas which stays a list and never translates into posts. This month, because I had to publish 8 posts, there was no choice. The posts had to come, and I realised that I don’t need to wait for the perfect topic or perfect word count or perfect anything. I just had to write.

There are a lot of good writers out there, with a following that does no justice to their talents.
There are a lot of bad writers out there, with a following that can not be explained by their talents.

And while I can only hope that I’m in the former group, because my following, for now, is still sadly abysmal, this month has made me realise that I can equip myself to work smarter and hopefully achieve some blogging goals along the way!

Through the month of October, I’ve written 8 posts for BlogChatter’s #MyFriendAlexa campaign. You can read them all here: