I’d wanted to blog for a long time, but really struggled with just about every aspect of it. I never knew what to write or how to make it interesting for other people. I’d followed Nikki Pilkington on Twitter for a while and had heard good things about her skills from other people. When she advertised the 30 day blog, aimed to make me a better blogger, I jumped at the chance.What did I learn? More than  I could have ever imagined, but most importantly that blogging can be a lot of fun. From keeping the posts short or splitting longer posts over a couple of days to including images and commenting on other blogs the whole challenge was fantastic and a lot of fun.I was sent 30 separate emails each with a different challenge ranging from writing about a specific topic to writing a guest blog for someone else, but the best part is that each one allowed you to use the lessons learned from the previous days to improve the blog post. Not only that I met a bunch of like-minded people who all wanted to become better bloggers and took the step to upgrade my website to enable me to host a blog within it.The main question is ‘Does it work’ and it’s an emphatic YES. Traffic to my blog was non-existent, but within a few days of blogging regularly the traffic increased massively – from 400 hits in a year to 600 hits in a month!

If you are serious about becoming a better blogger and have around 30 minutes a day to devote to blogging and reading other blogs then this a challenge that you will not regret taking part in, and most importantly it’s a lot of fun

Sign up here

Has anyone else taken part in this challenge and had similar results?

Day 14 of the blog challenge and I’ve been tasked with explaining how I got into doing what I do!

Many years ago I played a lot of sport, but injury forced my to quite. At the time I worked in a job with crazy hours (4am start) so that I could finish at lunctime and head off to the gym in the afternoon. After quitting sport I was left with a huge hole in my day after work, so I decided to make use of the time and give myself some better prospects.

My father ran his own book-keeping/accountancy practice at the time, and I’d always had a head for figures so it seemed like the natural thing to do. I selected a course that seemed best suited to my needs and began to study hard in the afternoons.

Fast forward a few years and I have passed my exams and have a full time job working in a finance department, yet I wanted to use my new skills more so decided to set up my own business alongside my main job. I was open and honest with my employer about what I was doing, and assured them that it wouldn’t interfere with my daytime job. The plan is to eventually work part-time during the day once I have built up my business to a level to allow me to do so. The next logical step is full time self-employment.

Of course there are problems that have been encountered along the way. The two hardest to begin with were staying awake during the afternoon and adjusting back to studying as it had been around 4 or 5 years since I had left school. The main problems I face now are attracting new clients and marketing my business. It’s tough to keep the work/life balance in balance and some evenings I’ll come home from work to find myself working until 10pm. But I enjoy it so it’s worthwhile.

How did you come to be in the industry you are?