When I first started writing my website I was on a free platform, Blogger. I had not idea how to start a blog and just sat down and started writing. At that time it took me a bit to figure out how to do things and html was totally out of the question! I didn’t even know what it was! (I’m still not great with html, but I’m learning.)
After several months of blogging, I started seeing companies review products. I thought this was very cool–I’m all for getting something free and hey, I love telling others what I think about products I try anyway, so this was a Win-Win for me! The first company I contacted told me no. I don’t think they completely understood the blogger/brand relationship, but also, my blog wasn’t huge. I knew that if I wanted to work with the big brands I was going to have to prove to them that I was worth working with. So, I continued to write the content I was writing, but I started looking for ways to grow my business. I was researching things from website hosting with companies like sourceforge.net to the layout and design of my blog.
We have since grown in leaps and bounds and I couldn’t be happier. However, I’m sad that I have lost some of my content along the line. I am always telling you, and myself, that I plan to get back to my regular writings, however life gets busy. I’m sure we can all understand.
We are no longer on the free blogger platforms. That’s right, we now pay to blog. In the beginning I saw a lot of other bloggers switching from the free platform to the paid platform and I vowed to never pay to blog. I just didn’t see a point when you could do it for free. I have to say, it was a very hard decision I had to make when my blog started to grow, but I can honestly say I haven’t looked back. My blog is sort of like my business and in order to grow my business I had to invest in it. I also pay to advertise and sometimes even pay for some of those awesome giveaways we offer you all! That’s right, I’m not always getting free stuff thrown at me.
Did you know that bloggers have to pay taxes on all products and money they receive? That’s another thing that a lot of people don’t realize. Some take for granted how much work a blogger really does. It’s not always easy, but is a great outlet for many.
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