If My Grandmother Can Blog, Anyone Can Blog!

I’ve been helping my grandmother manage a blog she uses to document her past and present travels. In the last couple of months, she’s written 35 well-researched articles (in Spanish), complete with scenic photos of her trips. Her dedication to blogging is inspiring, and I’m sure she will see success given some time.

When you first start a website/blog, there’s always that initial hump you have to get over. You write and write and write, and no one reads. It’s really hard to maintain the motivation to continue writing. But if you keep it up, you’ll be surprised how many people will find your content in Google and visit your site. Persistence pays.

We first set up my grandmother’s blog with a free, hosted WordPress.com account, and it took 5 minutes. Publishing a blog entry with WordPress is as simple as clicking “Add New,” entering a Subject and Body and hitting “Publish.” Anyone can do it.

My grandmother has had a steady trickle of visitors since she started her WordPress.com blog, but 30 blog entries later she decided she wanted to try out Google AdSense to serve advertisements on her site. So we got her some hosting space at HostGator — I’ve been using them for years, and recommend them to anyone for their quality hosting and excellent support — and I helped her set up a self-hosted WordPress installation so that she can display advertisements. (WordPress.com doesn’t let its users serve ads since the service is free.)

I’m going to do my best to help her attract visitors to her site not only because I know how happy it would make her, but also to prove the point that if my grandmother can blog, anyone can blog! And everyone should.

So I’m writing now to encourage you to a) go check out my grandmother’s blog (and the up-and-coming English version, too) and b) go start a blog of your own because you’ll find it empowering and extremely rewarding.