It is astonishing to me that as of this week, Average But Inspired is two years old.

I started this little blog on a whim.  I literally sat down on the couch one night, made a WordPress.com account, wrote a post about fruit kebabs and hit publish.  I kept Average But Inspired a secret for a few months and NEVER thought I would still be writing here two years later!

But I’m totally hooked.  I love almost everything about blogging.  The creativity, the friendships I’ve made (probably sounds crazy if you’re not a blogger, but I have made real blogger friends that I have never met in real life!), the fun opportunities that come along with blogging, and probably most of all, the CONSTANT learning that goes on.

And let me tell you, I have LEARNED so much, especially because I have made some of the biggest blogging mistakes during this two-year journey!  Mistakes that, I believe, have caused me to miss out on a lot of traffic and growth.  Don’t get me wrong – I am grateful to be where I am today, but I also can’t help but think where Average But Inspired might be now if it wouldn’t have been for these serious missteps.  

Since I have never written a blog post about, well, blogging, I’m not really sure why I decided to now.  I guess reflecting on what I’ve accomplished over the past two years brought all of this to the surface, and I thought that sharing some of my missteps might help others in Blogland not make the same mistakes.  Note that while this post contains some affiliate links (denoted with an asterisk), these are sincere recommendations of products or services that have helped me correct my mistakes – not included in a cheap attempt to make a buck off of anyone.

So here goes – I’m putting it all out there and I hope it helps at least one person.  Otherwise I wasted a whole lot of time drudging up the past and exposing my blogging stupidity.  🙂

1.  I Ignored Pinterest.

Prior to March 2015, I essentially ignored Pinterest.  I would, on occasion, pin others’ content, and I hardly ever remembered to pin my own content.  In January and February of this year, my average Pinterest daily viewer numbers were in the mid-hundreds and hardly any of my blog’s page views came from Pinterest.

And then in March, everything changed.  At the recommendation of my friend Tasha at Designer Trapped in a Lawyer’s Body, I joined Board Booster*, which is one of the several pin scheduling services available these days.  I joined lots of group boards on Pinterest and then set up my Board Booster account to pin my old blog content to my biggest and best group boards on a recurring basis.  (Note: the awesome thing about group boards is that your Pinterest followers do not see your pins to group boards unless they also happen to be following those group boards.  So you do not need to worry about spamming their feeds because they likely will not be seeing your pins to these boards.  Instead, the thousands of followers of those group boards see your pins to those boards – giving you access to Pinners than you may otherwise not have reached.)

You guys.  I cannot even tell you the difference this has made.  Now over half of my blog’s daily page views come from Pinterest, my Pinterest daily viewer numbers have skyrocketed, and I am gaining new followers every single day.  I would definitely call this a game changer.  And I am KICKING myself for not utilizing Pinterest until four months ago.  I really feel like a total idiot.

Bottom line:  Even if you don’t subscribe to a pin scheduling service, make sure to become a contributor to group boards and pin your content there regularly, following each board’s rules, of course.  I promise you’ll see a difference.

2.  I Moved My Blog Myself.

As I mentioned earlier, Average But Inspired started out on WordPress.com – the free version of WordPress.  About four months into my blogging journey, I decided to move to the Blogger platform because I thought that if I ever wanted to run ads on my site, I needed to be off of WordPress.com.

Instead of researching the pros and cons of Blogger vs. WordPress.org (the version of WordPress that requires you to be self-hosted, but allows you to run ads), I sat down one night and exported all of my content over to Blogger.  It was free, so I figured why not.  I promptly shut down the WordPress.com site and congratulated myself on a job well done.

. . . until a few months later in 2014 when I went to apply for Google Adsense.  And the Googlebots couldn’t find my site.  And Google Webmaster Tools couldn’t find my site.  And I realized my site was no longer even listed in Google.  Average But Inspired was basically invisible on the world wide web.

So not only could I not get approved for Google Adsense, but I could not get ANY search engine traffic at all.  ZERO.

I tried everything I could to figure out what was wrong, but nothing worked.  I even hired an internet development company to figure out what was going on.  A rather hefty fee later, they were able to get Average But Inspired back into Google’s Webmaster Tools, but my site still could not be indexed in search engine results, which meant I was still invisible on the web.  That was money well-wasted.

Finally in September 2014, I bought a new domain name, got an internet web host, and had a professional (Laura Nicholson at Pixel Me Designs), transfer Average But Inspired to WordPress.org.  Almost immediately everything changed.  My site and posts were suddenly appearing in Google search results, and my stats started showing visitors that were arriving to Average But Inspired by way of search terms.  I cannot even imagine the lost visitors over that one year and two months period of time during which Average But Inspired was known only to those who sought it out directly.

Bottom line: Make sure you know what you’re doing before attempting any technical “stuff” with your site.  You can do serious damage.  Also, pay attention to SEO because visitors will come to your site through search terms!  That’s like easy, free traffic!

3.  I Deleted Posts.

Early in my blog’s life, I had a lot of posts that were really embarrassing.  They were poorly photographed, bad projects that I was not proud of.  So I deleted them.

You guys, this really screwed things up for me.

I have no understanding of why this is, but apparently, if you delete posts, it creates bad or dead links in your site.  And then when the little Googlebots crawl around your site, they come across these dead links and they get mad.  (This is very technical, I know.)  And from what I understand, if you have a lot of these, they penalize you!  So much so that your site’s rankings can be harmed and your site can even be removed from Google.

I have a hunch that my deleting posts somehow tied into all of the problems I experienced in connection with point number 2, above.  I just never got a straight answer of why or how.  But even if I had deleted posts without moving the site myself, I’m pretty sure I would have run into some nasty problems.  No exaggeration – I had pages upon pages of crawler errors and NO idea how to fix them.

Bottom line: Deleting posts can lead to dead links, which can cause your site to be penalized by the Google Gods.  Tread carefully.

4.  I Didn’t Have a “Tribe.”

For about the first year that I was blogging, I had so so so many questions and nobody that I could turn to for help.  I literally felt like I was floating alone in the middle of the ocean.

And then one day I got invited to join small groups on Facebook of bloggers with blogs similar to mine.  And my world changed.  I suddenly was part of communities of women who were facing the exact same issues/questions/joys/frustrations as me, and it was glorious.  No question was too dumb, no victory too small.

The support I have received from the women in my “tribes” is incredible, and I am totally sure that I would not still be blogging if it weren’t for them.  Seriously.  I wish I would have known to seek out a tribe of similarly-styled bloggers, as it would have been one of the first things that I did.

Bottom line: If you don’t have a support group like this, find one or create one, pronto.  You may feel weird reaching out to other bloggers to see if they want to form a tribe, but you should get over it.  They will probably be flattered that you thought to seek them out.

5.  I Didn’t Set Any Goals.

All along I’ve treated Average But Inspired more as a hobby than as a business.  And because of that, I never set any real goals for myself or the blog.  In retrospect, I think that was very shortsighted and foolish.

Setting goals, no matter how small, pushes you further.  Goals make you work harder and hold you accountable.  I really believe that if I would have set some goals or benchmarks for Average But Inspired, I wouldn’t have spent as many nights watching The Real Housewives, and instead, I would have been working with a plan and doing things to network, learn about blogging, improve my skills, and more.

As Stacey Roberts said in this great post on goal setting for bloggers, “how can you get where you are going if you don’t know where that is?”  Goal setting is key to having a blog that gets noticed.  It’s time for me to set some.

Bottom line: Don’t be scared to push yourself.  If you want to make something of your blog, you absolutely have to set some goals for yourself.  They might change along the way, but that’s OK.  The goals keep you going in a forward direction.

6.  I Used Sub-Par Photography.

Blogging — especially in the DIY/Craft/Lifestyle niche — is SO visual.  Traffic is driven by Pinterest, and readers are looking for gorgeous photos that tell a story, just as much as compelling writing.

Taking grainy photos with my iPhone, and later a point-and-shoot on automatic mode, did not do anything for my blog photos.  Case in point, this AWFUL photo of macaroni & cheese in one of my earliest posts.  Honestly, why would anybody want to visit my post with a photo like that?  (Trust me, nobody did.  Well except for maybe my mom.  Thanks mom.)

After having every.single.submission of mine to CraftGawker rejected, I finally decided that I could not get away with sub-par photography anymore.  So I’m doing something about it.  I saved up and invested in this new DSLR camera* (it’s a total entry-level model, but that’s OK with me!), and I’m taking an awesome online photography class through Shoot Fly Shoot.  I’m actually learning to use my camera and how shoot in manual mode, which is giving me so much more control over my photos.

My most recent project post (Newspaper Flower Pots) is the first post where I’ve used my new camera and the manual shoot skills I’ve learned so far in Shoot Fly Shoot (I’m not even halfway through yet!), and I think the difference in photo quality is REMARKABLE.  Apparently the people at CraftGawker did, too, because for the FIRST TIME EVER, my submission was accepted!  Hallelujah!

I am thrilled with the progress I’ve made in learning to use my DSLR in just 15 minutes a day.  If you’re interested in learning more about Shoot Fly Shoot, just visit their website or click this image to be taken there.*

Bottom line: Try as you might, you cannot get away with photos that are not bright, clear and compelling.  Every blogger needs to also have a basic understanding of manual photography to truly make it in this visual world.

OK, wow.  We’ve reached the end of my blogging confessions.  I feel so exposed.  But at the same time, I feel relieved to have worked through, or to be working through, many of these issues and to see good things beginning to happen.  We’ll see where Average But Inspired is at two years from now.  But until then, I really hope that this post helps somebody, somewhere at some time.

Thanks for reading.

– Bre

I am SO excited and have been practically bursting at the seams to share this exciting news. . . .

I am finally a “real” blogger who has a “real” newsletter to stay in contact with you lovely people who read this blog. No more automatic RSS feed posts that are impersonal and (let’s be honest), annoying. Nope.  I now have an actual newsletter that will sprinkle your inbox with a dose of inspiration once a week (instead of every time a post is published).  Well, that is, if you subscribe to said newsletter (which you can do RIGHT HERE!).

And to thank those special people who actually subscribe to the newsletter, I have been busting my hump (lol.  Who says that?), to make a special gift that is only available to subscribers – The Beginner’s Guide to Chalky-Finish Painting.  It’s ten pages long and has information how to to get started using chalky-finish paint for furniture refinishing and many other projects.  If you’ve ever wanted to give chalk painting a try, this is for you.  And even if you’re a seasoned pro, you might find something interesting in here!  All subscribers are automatically e-mailed a copy as my way of saying thank you for reading Average But Inspired!

So what are you waiting for?  Go ahead and subscribe.  (I PROMISE I will not spam you, nor will I ever share your contact information with, or sell it to, a third party.)  Then, take a look at The Beginner’s Guide to Chalky-Finish Painting and let me know what you think!  I worked really hard on it, so I hope you love it!

Regardless of whether or not you subscribe, thanks for reading.  I really appreciate it!

– Bre

P.S. You May Also Be Interested In The Best Products for Chalky Finish Painting!

Hello, friends!

A fun thing has been happening in the “blog world,” where a blogger provides a behind-the-scenes peek into his or her blog by answering a set of predetermined questions, and then passes the baton along to some other bloggers to do the same.

I was honored to have been asked to participate by the amazingly talented Bre of Brepurposed.  In addition to having a fantastic first name, Bre is incredibly skilled at refinishing furniture in unexpected ways, as well as at designing beautiful printables and other graphics.  If you are unfamiliar with her blog, I suggest you check it out as soon as you’re done reading this post!

Yes, so before you do that, I want to welcome you to my home – the place where all of the Average But Inspired *magic* (HA!) happens.

(Sorry I don’t have a family pic to show you here.  My husband is the most private person on Earth (he doesn’t even have Facebook), and I promised him I wouldn’t put his photo on my blog.  So here are my cuties to greet you, waiting for you on the front porch.)

My home is a constant work in progress.  Because it was built in the 1920’s there is always something wrong with it (take, for example, the clay tile roof, which is currently failing (think water coming into the living room during a heavy rainstorm), and is a total beast to repair.).  It also has none of the features today’s buyers look for in a home.  No open floor plan, no walk-in-closets, no spa-like bathrooms.  You get the picture.

Nonetheless, I LOVE it and find that, despite all of its shortcomings, it has many wonderful qualities that make it my home and the place I want to live as long as is possible.  Qualities that truly are little details like the built in bookcases and arched alcoves flanking the fireplace in the living room.

(Who cares about arches?  This lady.)

Qualities like the original breakfront in the kitchen, which has glass doors that allegedly came from the old Chicago Board of Trade building.

(Who sacrifices having a better layout in her kitchen just to keep this original piece in the home?  This lady.)

So yeah, it’s all of these little things that come together and make me love my house even when I wish I could see the kids in the living room while I’m cooking in the kitchen, and when I’m cramming clothes into random closets in other rooms because mine is the size of a shoebox.

And now that I’ve given you a mini tour of my house, I’m supposed to answer a few questions to help you get to know me better.  So, here we go!

1.  What am I working on?
I feel like this should be rephrased to “What am I not working on?”  I have about twelve million projects ongoing at all times.  It makes me feel very scatterbrained and stressed.  I honestly don’t know why I do this to myself, but I do.  I cannot sit still.

Right now there are two projects that are taking precedence to others.  The first is the makeover I’m giving my dining room.  I’ve repainted already and am working on some finishing touches.  Here’s a little teaser pic in which you can see some potential new curtains I’m pondering.  (I promised my husband that I would repaint the room a color that would not require me to buy new curtains.  I am a liar.)

The next project is refinishing this little butler tray coffee table that I purchased for $5 last September.  It has been taking up space in my garage since that time and must be gone from my life ASAP.

2.  How does my work differ from those in my genre?
This is a really hard question.  This blog is a hobby; I don’t consider it, or the projects I share on it, to be “work.”  I just don’t think I take it that seriously.

But, pretending for a moment that my projects can be called that, I suppose they are different because they have been created by someone with no real artistic or design skills at all.  There are so many incredibly talented people writing blogs and sharing totally amazing projects – I am not one of those people.

So what sets my work apart is that I think I show others just like me – – average people – – that they can make decently pretty things if they’re willing to put some time and effort into it.  Average But Inspired is hope for the common woman (and man – we don’t discriminate around here)!

3.  Why do I write/create what I do?
Last year I stepped back from my job as an intellectual property attorney in order to spend more time with my children.  It was a sacrifice I willingly made for my family, but it wasn’t the easiest to transition from working in an intense, professional environment to wearing jeans every day and playing Doc McStuffins all the time.

I had to keep myself occupied to prevent regretting my decision, so I decided to use some of my time to explore creative interests that had been shoved aside for years.  I took a sewing class and also began creating all kinds of random stuff.  I really enjoyed it and found my projects getting better with time.  So, I started a blog and then found that, in addition to creating, I loved learning all about blogging and sharing my projects (even if they aren’t always so good).

Creating and blogging gives me a nice way to keep my mental skills sharp, learn new things, have something just for myself, and to be home and actively engaged with my kids.  It is a win/win situation in my book so that’s why I do it!

4.  How does your writing/creative process work?
Okay, I do not have a “process.”  This sounds so official.  In any event, my creations are usually born out of necessity.  I don’t really make things for the sake of making something.  I usually need or want them for some purpose.  So when that happens, I create.

And I get interrupted no less than five gazillion times because I have these two little helpers with me at all times.  They are totally attached to me.  Seriously, my husband swears that the little guy would climb back inside the womb if he could.

But later, after they go to bed, I sit down and write my posts.  On the couch, in front of the TV.  I am never ahead of schedule, and everything is usually written the night before it’s posted here.  If I’m feeling good and not too tired, my posts are a little sillier.  If I’m tired and feeling like blogging is a chore, my posts are more straightforward.  That’s just how it goes.

Phew, well, that’s the end of the questions, thank goodness!  They stressed me out a little bit – they are all very intense.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed seeing some of my home and learning about how disorganized I am when it comes to what you see here on Average But Inspired.

Next week, be sure to check out the blogs of the lovely ladies to whom I’m passing the torch:

Carmody from Paper & Fox

and Cassie from Little Red Window.

These ladies both have wonderfully clever style and delightful blogs.  I can’t wait to see more of their homes and their answers to these questions!

– Bre