My very first blog post was published on December 17th 2009. On that day (and the lifetime before that day), my head was filled with zillion’s of ideas for my home, and dreams to make my home my dream home. Those dreams still exist of course, but I’ve since been dealt a large dose of reality – in the form of, well, reality. Funny how it took a blog to put this into perspective for me. That was actually part of my self-proclaimed blogging therapy, to write it all down and help me sort it all out.
More than one blog, actually…
It’s true that I had never even read a blog before I took the plunge and purchased the Building Character domain name and web hosting. I had never searched for fellow home renovators or dreamers. I wasn’t even sure where to go to find people with my interests. I had (and still do have) a lot to learn about blogging and connecting with other bloggers and readers. So on t -minus 2 days, I googled “blogging” to learn more about it. Here’s what I found:
So, I visited ProBlogger to learn more. And that was the beginning of this blogging adventure.
And the idea of actually making money? This is why I experimented with a couple of Google ads on my site – to see what they would do for me – wanna see my haul to date?
To be fair – I haven’t actually tried to make money on this site – wasn’t my intention really. Just thought I’d see what the ads could do for me. I might monkey with them someday – but you can’t make any money from these things unless you have serious traffic to your site. I think I have to make $100 before Google will pay me. At my current pace, let’s see, that’ll be roughly 31 years. I’ll let you know when that happens 
So, from reviewing ProBlogger I also figured out that I needed a reader so that I could get blog posts delivered to me. I hooked myself up with Google Reader so that I could read blogs from one location.
Now, to find other blogs to read.
Huh. Where to begin?
I cruised the comments on ProBlogger and clicked-through to a few other websites. This is how I found Man Vs. Debt. And from Man Vs. Debt, I found Get Rich Slowly… and from Get Rich Slowly I found…and so on and so forth…
Of course, I wanted to find some home renovation blogs too… but had a harder time doing that. Eventually, I found Houseblogs.net. From here I was able to mine individual blog rolls to find some decent home renovation blogs. I think my favorite one to follow is DIYdiva.
Traffic
So, back to my own venture for a minute. Here’s a graph, oh how I love graphs, of the traffic to my blog since I started it that fateful day in December. Note, the y-axis goes up to 50.
Here’s the breakdown of traffic to Building Character – top ten sources of traffic:
So, facebook continues to be my #1 source – after I link to my latest post on my facebook site. Followed by subscription to the Building Character rss feed, and then directly to the page by typing the url in (that’s my mother-in-law I think 
). Looks like I need to send some shouts out to re-nest, Russet Street Reno, and Man Vs. Debt for some traffic…
Here’s to the next 3 months!
I’m a happy blogger. I really like writing… and it’s interesting where it takes me. Building Character has evolved to a bit – it’s not strictly a house blog, but more of a house blog with some family thrown in for good measure. They live here with me after all.
I’m starting to be able to step away from my incessant planning in the name of mental health – trying to grasp this concept of delayed gratification (Thanks April!). I’ll keep up with the home reno dreams and realities when they are worthy of chronicling – In fact, I’ll soon be attending the Madison Area Building Association Home Products show
More on that later.
Have a good one!