14/07/2018

Hi!

Happy Saturday everyone!!

And let’s give a little shout out to the fact that it is THE WEEKEND!!

I don’t know about the rest of you but so far the weather here in Essex is GORGEOUS!! The sun is still shining.

Today I thought I would do a post on blogging! Odd that I’ve never thought to do one before, but it’s a question that crops up regularly when ever I’m talking to someone “Lisa why did you decided to start blogging?” So here it is, the answer to the question!

Let’s take it way back to 2015, I had taken Luke away for a weekend in Brighton for his birthday and the hotel we had stayed in was horrendous, water leaking through the bathroom light fixture horrendous, when after complaining to the staff at the hotel in question they were not one bit interested or apologetic, Luke suggested I wrote a review on trip advisor…. cue my first step into the world of blogging (kind of)

Although trip advisor is not a blog, I really enjoyed writing detailed posts about my experiences in places I had visited, eaten in or stayed at, each post I did seemed to get more detailed, and I equally liked getting comments or questions regarding my posts.

I went to Florida in the October of 2015 and did detailed reviews on trip advisor of the parks, my villa’s and dinning experiences. As well as answering any question’s along the way. Soon after I got bored of trip advisor, I wasn’t getting anything from it (satisfaction wise) and it was time consuming to sit there and write the posts up, so I just phased it out.

Whilst planning for Florida 2016 I was busy watching vlogs (Luke and I have a vlog of Florida 2017, but it needs editing… watch this space…..) when I stumbled across a blog of Florida and Disney tips. I had always loved reading blogs online about fashion and travel and wished I could set up my own. Only I had no idea where to start and if I’m being brutally honest I was worried about what other people might think. Would they laugh at me, think it was ridiculous, would I get anyone read my blog if I had one? The usual insecurities set in, so I put it on the back burner.

Luke is the most supportive boyfriend and thought it was a really good idea, and really was all for it, so I decided in the January of 2017 it would be my something new, for the new year. I had researched a few blog hosting websites and decided that WordPress seemed to be the best one out there, they made it very easy for someone like me (with no experience whatsoever) to set up a blog on my IPhone! And the website its self looked very professional.

So January 2017, I finally stopped talking about it and put my plan into action and set up (by myself) [email protected]

I know what your thinking…. #cringe #whatwasithinking …. WORST NAME EVER RIGHT?! Honestly I don’t know what I was thinking when I come up with that name, I think it’s because I am pretty opinionated and usually say what I think, so I’m there for always keeping it real….. okay well we’ve established that it was a name worthy of a CRINGE award! Anyway as I mentioned before I decided to use WordPress which allowed me to set my blog up for free.

Publishing my first post on the 7/01/2017 was super nerve wracking, I had written a post about my Tough Mudder training (which you can read here) when it was written I published it and…. well I expected Miracles if I’m honest! YES I really was expecting to be an instant popular blogger with a post that just went viral. REALITY was the one view I got, which was from my ever faithful boyfriend Luke! Not put off I continued to post and started  to branch out to other things like my Disney blog post’s (which you can read here) I’d say I had maybe 2-3 people read them if I was lucky, it was pretty slow, and at times very deflating.

In the February of 2017 I decided to up my game by upgrading to WordPress’s premium plan and also getting my own domain name.

Over the next few months my “traffic” slowly but surely started to increase, not by like HUGE amounts but even so it was a step up. There were times when I really did think about just quitting, blogging is so time consuming, it’s like having another full time job, and when I wasn’t getting a good response it made it all seem pointless.

Luckily I’m not a quitter, and likewise Luke wouldn’t let me quit! So I carried on pushing through and little by little I started having better results.

It was in July 2017 whilst away for a weekend with a Luke that I decided I no longer wanted to be littlemisskeepingitreal, it made me sound about 5 for a start, and it wasn’t a name that stood out! After brainstorming for a weekend I settled on Lifestyle Lisa, picking a blog name is actually really difficult, I wanted it to be different but yet stand out, but at the same represent my blog site!!

Once I had settled on Lifestyle Lisa, I designed my self the logo, which you can see above, I don’t have a degree in being being creative, but I think it looks okay and I am more than happy with it.

With littlemisskeepingitreal now re-branded as Lifestyle Lisa  and a blog site makeover I was FINALLY starting to pick up momentum!

When I started off blogging I did it for fun, and memories to look back on in years to come. It wasn’t until the summer of 2017 that I started to consider trying to make a go of it as a business.

I decided at the end of June 2018 to take the plunge and upgrade to business plan via WordPress, because, well why not?Lifestyle Lisa is my business and it does make me money (albeit a small amount) but even so I can see it growing, my traffic is flowing more and more everyday, I have 1,117 followers and subscribers and I LOVE BLOGGING!! Don’t get me wrong, it is still so time consuming, and I put a lot of effort into it, I finish work and go home and work on my blog! BUT it’s what I enjoy doing, and I have my heart set on making an actual go of it, and turning my dream of becoming a blogger into reality.

I know the competition is fierce, there are some amazing bloggers out there, but there’s always room for one more right?!

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Email me at [email protected]

Thanks for reading

L xxx

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