I’m excited to tell you why—I’m really passionate about this subject!

The internet isn’t dead. In fact, more than ever, the internet is where people turn for both information and inspiration. It’s estimated that Google processes over 8.5 billion searches a day (!!!!!!!). It could be your blog that shows up in those searches, answering someone’s question.

As long as people are using the internet, searching websites for answers to common questions, everyday dilemmas, or needing inspiration for their lives.

They could be looking for inspiration about a home renovation, what winter coat to buy, or maybe they want to change up their hairstyle, etc.) Blogging continues to have a place in the world.

People (now more than ever) actually know what blogs are. There’s less of a barrier to get people to read your blog. Back when we first started blogging, people did not always recognize this type of site as a source of information they felt was legitimate.

I think this sentiment has changed. People would rather get information (like home decor advice) from an individual they like more than a corporate website. There’s more trust for bloggers than there used to be because it’s become more common and accepted over time.

There are SO MANY user friendly tools to start and maintain a blog. There are tools we only dreamed of when we started! This is, to me, the number one reason why it’s easier to start a blog now than it was before.

There are different website platforms, plugins, and whole companies of developers who are familiar with (and ready to meet) the needs of bloggers. It’s awesome! You don’t have to cobble together website features. It’s like if your first car was a Porsche instead of a go-kart.

And along with more tech-savvy tools, there’s also just more of a community and more readily available information on how to get into blogging and how to make it work for you.

Is blogging worth it?

Monetizing strategies exist for the community, so you don’t have to build your own model. You can monetize a blog many different ways, but there are so many more readily available options than when blogging first started.

At A Beautiful Mess we monetize mainly through four ways:

• CPM-based ads (the ads you see in our sidebar and throughout our site in between the content)
• Sponsorships
• Affiliate marketing (like the LTK network, formerly called RewardStyle)
• Selling our own products (we’ve tried several, from T-shirts to iPhone apps)

And for each of these four ways we monetize our blog, there are SO many more tools and options available than when we started!

Is blogging still profitable?

For us, yes. Think about this: Sponsors are aware of blogging and social media. Most big companies now have an annual budget to work with influencers. That could be you!

It’s there for the taking to anyone who is consistently showing up, publishing quality work, and building their audience.

Is blogging hard?

Yes. While it’s maybe a little easier to accomplish (with the rise of so many blogger-friendly tools), it’s more competitive than ever. You have to stand out.

You can’t just post whatever little thing is on your mind with a semi-blurry photo … like some of us were guilty of doing in 2008 (raises hand sheepishly).

I think this is the big mistake that people make. It’s not that blogging is dead (it’s not), but rather it’s that blogging is more competitive and takes a lot of hard work over a long period of time.

It’s not something you can start and expect to be making an income from in the first few months. It takes time to not only get good at blogging, but also to grow your audience.

Is blogging still relevant in 2022?

Yes! It’s probably the most relevant/worth it that it’s ever been, but it’s also more competitive.

Your blog will likely not blow up overnight like it could have in the old days, but that doesn’t mean you can’t create something worth value to both yourself and your readers. xo, Emma

I’m SO excited to share today’s post with you! Last year, I implemented some new batch working habits and it changed my work days dramatically. The results were immediate and shocking and in my 14+ years of blogging, I have felt my most productive ever!

I listened to Jenna Kutcher’s podcast on batch working (which is great, but this episode is especially helpful!). I have heard about batch working for years, but never fully committed to trying it. One of the things Jenna talked about in her episode was how she prepared ahead for her maternity leave, which was something I really wanted to do.

The last time I took maternity leave, I only left a couple blog posts in the drafts, but I got lucky because it was over the holidays when we typically take a little time off anyway. But this time I wanted to stay present in the blog content and leave a bigger buffer so my co-workers didn’t feel my absence as much.

So I tried it, and I LOVED it. Here’s a bit about my experience!

First of all, I had a goal to write 20 blog posts ahead of time that would go up during my maternity leave. I figured it would take me several months of adding an extra post or two per week to get this done.

But I decided to plan all the posts ahead of time. It took a lot of time (a whole eight-hour workday) to get 20 ideas I was excited to write about, and that I was already prepared (or mostly prepared) to shoot.

So, the first phase of the batch work was the planning.

Then in my next shoot (I typically do two shoots a month with my photographer and we shoot 80-90% of my blog posts in these two days), I was in TOTAL shock when we were able to shoot an extra 10 blog posts in one day (in addition to what I already needed for the coming month).

We did it again in my next shoot the following week. And just like that, all my maternity leave posts were shot.

It actually took more time to plan all the posts than it did to shoot them.

Then I spent about two days writing the posts (which I already had outlines for from my planning day). It’s hard to say exactly how much time since I was also working on my regular posts, but I wrote around 20 posts in two days, which has NEVER happened before in all our years of blogging.

This experience made me realize A. How much I still LOVE blogging and B. How much I can accomplish in just a few days if I spend more time upfront planning. The only really big difference was the planning time—I would normally never spend a whole workday planning, but now I will forever schedule at least one FULL planning day per month since I see what a huge productivity boost it created.

I think in the past I had an unfair bias that if I worked in bulk the quality would be lower, but as I did this I realized that the quality was just as good, if not better. I had been getting in my own way for so long by only working on one or a few blog posts at a time.

After this experience I felt so powerful—like, unstoppable!

I went through my schedule and started to find everything I could batch together. I quickly felt like I had more time in my workdays and that I was consistently finishing my work on time or early, which has always been a struggle for me.

If you’re someone who struggles with feeling overwhelmed or is easily distracted, I cannot recommend this method enough. It may not work for everyone’s job, but there are still probably lots of parts of your life where you can try it.

Batch working totally changed my life! I feel so much more confident in what I can accomplish. My only regret is that I didn’t start doing this 10 years ago!!! But I’ll definitely be doing it for the next 10.

xx – Elsie

First, what is hosting? There are a million analogies out there, but the one makes the most sense to me (and keeps it the most simple) is to think of hosting like renting a building downtown for your business. It’s something that holds your stuff, can be designed how you like, runs your basic utilities, and then makes your content or business available to the public. And then depending on how much you want to build yourself vs spend in rent, you can decide what features come built into the space. E.g., If you’re planning a restaurant, it might be worth it to pay a little more for a space that’s already plumbed for it. Or if you’re running an online shop, it might be worth it to pay a little more for a platform with e-commerce already built into it. Just like buildings for rent can be everything from just an empty room all the way up to a furnished office, hosting can be everything from a blank server(s) all the way up to a pre-loaded and managed application (something like Squarespace or Wix).

More functionally, hosting is comprised of servers. And to keep it simple, a server is basically just a computer sitting in a warehouse somewhere that’s optimized to be accessed from the internet. In hosting, you have 4 primary needs from a server setup:

1. Domain Name Server (DNS): This is how your domain name connects to your website. So your website is actually located at an IP address, which is a 10-digit number that looks something like 104.25.39.105. Since no one is going to remember that ever, you create a domain name like www.abeautifulmess.com. And a domain name server does nothing but direct traffic. So you type in a site’s address, and the DNS will take that request and point you to the correct IP address. It’s like the sign that hangs outside of your restaurant you just opened. This service is almost always separate from the rest of your hosting, and many services specialize in (or on that in a minute).

2. Application: So if you’ve ever logged into the backend of a blog, you’re looking at the application. It’s the thing that turns all of this I’m typing right now or have ever typed on this site into the designed A Beautiful Mess website that you’re reading. Rather than me manually styling every thing individually, our WordPress application does all that for me. Examples of applications are WordPress, Blogger, Typepad, and Squarespace. In our example this would be like a space that already has plumbing for a kitchen. This might be a more desirable spot to rent for your new restaurant than a blank room you’d have to add all that too.

3. Database: Data, put simply, is your text and your settings. Everything you type in a post, or every time you check a box in your application, designate the size of an object, assign a link to a button, that’s data. And it’s stored on your data base. So space to store your things, pretty straight-forward.

4. Storage: So these are your files, and it’s primarily things like images, videos, or PDFs. So everything that isn’t the look of the website itself. In your restaurant this might be a big walk in refrigerator to store the food you will prepare.

To bring it all together the DNS takes you to abeautifulmess.com, where the application loads/styles data from the database which links you to the files in your storage.

When people say hosting though, they’re primarily referring to 2 through 4 in the list above. I’m going to talk through three different directions you could go with hosting, making a few notes about DNS at the end. We’ve used all of these over the course of our blog’s life and I’ll explain the pros and cons of each.

1. Service Platform

This is where most bloggers start, and I would totally recommend starting a blog and growing it on a platform that is also your hosting service. Some of the main options here are Typepad, WordPress.com, and SquareSpace. With a platform, it takes care of everything for you. You create an account, and the application is already setup, plugged into a database, and it’s managing your storage. You don’t really have to think about hosting. To come back to our analogy, this would be like wanting to start your own restaurant and renting a building that used to be a burger place. It already has your grills, a hood, the plumbing, etc. However, in this analogy, your landlord is not okay with any major construction. You can paint, put up your own signage (point your domain there), rearrange the furniture, etc. But if you had really specific functionality needs, like a brick oven for pizzas or something, you wouldn’t be able to do that. Services like Typepad or SquareSpace are the same. What you gain in ease, you lack in flexibility. So if you have really particular needs that break outside the norm of a website, it’s a little harder to accomplish in this environment.

That said, you still have a LOT of options, when it comes to a standard website. These services offer plenty of ways to customize. A Beautiful Mess was built and grown on Typepad and we really loved the platform. It was super affordable, especially when you considered that we grew the blog from 0 to over 2MM page views a month without our monthly price changing! You can have your own domain name (so abeautifulness.com vs abeautifulness.typepad.com), you can customize the site some but you will need some coding skills or hire someone with front end experience (you can also use themes to get started and need little to no code skills), and you can grow your revenue through sponsorships and CPM based ads as your blog grows. Basically, Typepad has everything a blogger needs to get started and it’s super affordable. I have some limited experience with SquareSpace, but I love the clean and modern looks they offer without any coding. I would certainly consider having a shop site on that platform and possibly a blog as well.

The main drawbacks to these types of companies / services is that they are not self-hosted, meaning you don’t own the application your blog is built on AND you will be more limited in the customizations you can add to your site. So although I think this is a great place to start, as your blog grows you will probably want to migrate to a self-hosted situation later. For some this may mean they simply start there, as they don’t want to mess with migrating later, while other sites could be content to stay on a platform like Typepad forever. It kind of depends on your goals and how much customization you need / want.

2. Self-Hosting: Managed

So here, you own and install your own application, database, and storage files. So you have to take care of the health of your files and your platform, but the health of the server(s) will be completely handled in the background. Back in our building example, this would be like renting a big open space that’s already got the basics, like plumbing for a bathroom, electrical for lighting, heating/cooling, etc. And your landlord is cool with whatever buildout you want to do inside the space. Meanwhile, she’ll take care of your basic utilities, fix the furnace if it goes out, etc. However, if you ever wanted to grow your space, you couldn’t add on. You would just have to move to a new building. It’s similar here. They’ll take care of the technical side of servers for you, and they’ll offer ways for you to scale up to a certain size (meaning up to millions of pageviews). However, the bigger you get, the trickier it gets to scale; or the more expensive.

Last year we moved our blog from Typepad to WordPress.org. Our goal with the move was mainly to have a lot more customization options available since it is an open source application (hello Plugins—there are SO many options out there) as we felt that at this stage in our blog’s life this would potentially offer the best experience for both our readers and our writing team. Our biggest needs we couldn’t address was that we didn’t have enough control over our site’s loading speeds as well as issues we were facing with image quality—considering screens are getting higher and higher resolution (thanks a lot Retina). But this also meant that we had to choose a new hosting company and we explored a lot of options. We had to weigh out a managed self-hosting against cloud-based, which I’ll talk about next. We ultimately chose cloud-based for abeautifulmess.com, though for acolorstory.com, which has simpler traffic needs, we put it in a managed environment. So let me talk about one of the best valued managed hosting options out there.

Bluehost – You can both buy your domain and set up hosting on Bluehost. It’s SUPER easy and their customer service is great if you run into issues. They offer a few different options (with multiple tiers in each) so it’s a great place to start as well as grow since you can pretty easily move between options as needed (since it’s all one company and you can reach out to customer service anytime). They have shared hosting, virtual private servers, and dedicated servers which are all managed by Bluehost. The only drawback is as your site grows (more page views) the price will change and it can become expensive. Or if your growth is too sudden, you’re limited in your options to scale the size of your hosting quickly. But again, we’re talking millions of pageviews at this point. It’s a pretty seamless process all the way up to that point, so Bluehost is what I would recommend to any blogger who isn’t on a service platform.

Some other managed self-hosting options to look in to: Host Gator, WP Engine, and Media Temple. We haven’t personally used these but we’ve had friends use them or they have been recommended to us by friends so they are probably well worth checking out.

3. Self-Hosting: Cloud-based

All right, so now you’re just renting the land, but you’ve got free reign on new construction. You can scale and build as much as you want. You have the utmost flexibility with the utmost responsibility. With cloud-based hosting, you’re able to run your site across multiple servers, optimizing for speed, and you can add or remove servers as needed to match your traffic on any given day. However, these servers need to be set up by someone who knows their way around hosting before you can even load your application or database on them. This is where the service we currently use comes in.

AWS – This is Amazon’s hosting service and it’s what this blog is currently using for our hosting. For us and our current size (again, over 2MM page views a month with lots of files including lots of images as we are a photo heavy site) it is the most affordable self-hosting option we’ve been able to find. The drawback is you really need someone (a team member or a contractor / third party company) to set up your hosting instances as well as maintain them. Should we have a day when one of the servers we are on goes down, someone will have to manually move us to another server or else our site may go down and not be accessible to readers for a little while. Honestly, we’d only recommend this if you’ve either got some experience in dev ops, or your site experiences big spikes that require a flexible set up for traffic in the millions.

___________________

The common thread through all this is flexibility and difficulty are directly proportional. Think of the famous Spiderman quote: With great power comes great responsibility. That’s to say, the more flexibility / options you want with your hosting, the harder it’s going to be to set up and maintain. Honestly, to those with simpler needs, we always recommend some sort of service platform. A Beautiful Mess started on Typepad, and they were wonderful to us, though it did require some frontend coding. My bar’s website (The Golden Girl Rum Club) is on SquareSpace, and it does everything we need with no coding necessary. So really assess your needs and your available resources before diving into any self-hosted situation. Hope this has been helpful to any of you dealing with hosting concerns—we’ve been there so I know your pain! Best of luck and see you around the internet. xo. Emma

Credits // Author: Emma Chapman and Trey George.Photo: Janae Hardy.

And although I would definitely describe myself as an introvert, I love the challenge of getting up to speak at events like this every now and again. I also LOVE getting to meet online friends and blog readers IRL.

So, I was absolutely delighted to deliver the keynote at Thrive last year. As I started work on a new speech (for a different event that recently got canceled, sadly), I thought it might be fun to turn my Thrive speech into a blog post for you all. Why not?!

And although the experience of reading a post is pretty different from attending a conference, I still thought it might be fun and beneficial to share what I talked about with all of you.

I choose to talk about three important traits that I think you must have in order to be boss. Not to be the boss. But in order to be excellent or first-rate (which is one of the definitions of “boss,” according to Merriam-Webster), you need certain traits or habits in your life.

Starting a talk off by essentially saying, “I’m gonna tell you how to be awesome” is a bit of a gamble, right? Ha! Of course we all want to be awesome, but figuring out a sustainable path to said awesomeness is a daunting task.

And I, for one, am not an expert. I do not claim to be awesome, BUT I do claim to have learned some really valuable lessons while on my own journey so far.

(Here’s me speaking at Thrive. Was all black a good choice? Hmm.)

I shared the story of how I became a blogger and small business owner. It’s a story that starts off with a pretty epic fail. You can read a longer version of the story in my post On Changing Dreams, but essentially my dream was to become an actress.

After a few years of trying in Los Angeles, I not only was not an actress, I didn’t want to be one anymore. So then I was broke AND I didn’t know what I wanted to do in life (I also went through a big breakup that year—it was a pretty tough year, to say the least).

From this failure I have learned SO much. In fact, I would say at this point in my life I wouldn’t change that part of my story for the world because although it was a really hard time to go through, I learned so much about myself, what I want, and how to keep going through hard times.

I don’t really even view it as a failure anymore, but more on that in a minute. The point of sharing my story of failure was to showcase how I learned some valuable lessons that once I started putting those in place, life totally changed.

My life is not perfect, and I am NOT perfect (oh my, not by a long shot). But I am so, so happy in life right now and I think it’s in large part to learning how to be boss.

Trait #1: Set Measurable Goals Often

I really believe that this is the key to achieving most of things you may want to do in life. It spans pretty much any area that you can think of (fitness/health, career, personal finances, hobbies, etc.). So let’s unpack this trait a little. First, the goals we set must be measurable. This is SO important.

You have to have some kind of measurement for if you have succeeded or not. Let’s say my goal is to “get healthy.” That’s going to be a lot harder to measure than a goal like “lose five pounds” or “run a mile everyday for a month” or “find and meet with a primary care physician I feel good about.”

The goal really can be anything, but it MUST be measurable. Otherwise you’ll never know if you’ve achieved it and you’ll forever be in a nebulous state of trying.

Second, you should set these measurable goals OFTEN. I’m talking monthly or even weekly, depending on the goal. There are two main reasons for this. You want the goals to be somewhat bite-sized. I am ALL for big goals and dreams.

But it’s important to take those big dreams of yours and break them down into smaller, measurable goals you can work toward. And you also want to be setting goals often because it will help you get good at it. I believe goal-setting is like a muscle.

You have to exercise it! If you want to be a world-crusher who achieves big things, set goals often so you’re goal-setting muscles can grow strong! An easy way to get into this is to make to-do lists everyday. Set daily goals. Set larger weekly goals. When you’re ready, think big picture and work on mapping out some five-year goals.

It’s all good, but even with the big goals you have, look to break them down into small, measurable bites.

Start with a to-do list everyday (even on the weekend, people, but it can be shorter or you can include “chill out for an hour” on the list) because it is the habit of making small, meaningful changes over the course of a long period of time that can change your life. It’s real. It’s almost like magic. Really slow magic.

Trait #2: Embrace Learning and Failure

Here’s the thing that I wish someone would have told me a long time ago: Failure is part of it. It’s not a thing to avoid or be embarrassed of. I’m not saying we should aim for failure. And I would never wish failure on anyone, because it stings for sure.

But it’s part of the path to success. So don’t think you can avoid it. When it comes your way, learn from it and keep going.

Don’t label yourself a failure and throw a pity party. I’ve wasted valuable time doing that and it’s not helpful and doesn’t even feel good.

If you’re going through a hurtful time, I’m not asking you to ignore it or stuff those feelings away as if they aren’t there. No, I’m telling you to embrace it. Embrace failure for what it truly is, a part of almost every successful person’s journey.

I also believe that if you really want to be boss, you’ve got embrace lifelong learning. We try to encourage and model this on A Beautiful Mess (hopefully it shows!). Sometimes it’s hard to admit that you don’t know everything—but I actually think there’s a lot of power in that too.

Now, if you happen to be very knowledgeable in a certain area or a bunch of areas, I’m not suggesting that you claim ignorance or hide the fact that you may be an expert.

That’s awesome and I hope you find ways to share your expertise with the world. But no one knows it all. That’s simply impossible. So if you really want to be boss in life, you’ve got to accept that you have a long journey ahead that should be full of learning and asking for help. (Me too!)

This goes hand in hand with being able to embrace failure. I think it’s true humility, a very boss trait.

Trait #3: Power Through or Shrug Off Negativity

I think most often we all think of online trolls (haters) when someone says the word “negativity” on the internet. And I’ll get to that. But I actually think there are two more prevalent and more powerful potential sources of negativity in our lives.

First, it’s you. I am (and you are) probably our own worst hater. There really isn’t anyone else that points out my flaws and shortcomings as often as I do. And while I do think being honest with yourself is important, constantly putting yourself down is self defeating and can be really difficult to move past.

It can become a habit we fall into that keeps us from living that happy, fulfilling life we all want. There’s no easy way out of this. Like most bad habits we have to break, it’s going to be a daily struggle full of small (but important) choices that eventually gets easier.

Instead of putting yourself down all the time, be intentional about building yourself up. Write lists of things you love about yourself.

Treat yourself when you achieve a goal. When you do mess up or something doesn’t turn out how you wanted, don’t turn it into a personal attack, but rather think through how things could be improved for next time. Give yourself the same grace you would give your best friend.

And on that note, the second biggest potential source of negativity in our lives is from close relationships. If you have people in your life that you spend a lot of time with that constantly put you down, I really want to urge you to evaluate that. It is really hard when this is a relationship you didn’t necessarily choose (a parent, sibling, or close family member).

In those cases, you will just have to navigate it as best you can, but please think of yourself and your own well being as part of the equation, as I know many of us tend to just think of others and always put others first.

There has to be a balance there. But for relationships we choose (friends, spouses, etc.), I urge you to choose people who fill you up with love and encouragement. You should work to be this friend for others, and therefore you should expect the same in return. You deserve love, we all do.

But what about the peanut gallery? This is a term I’m totally stealing from Brene´ Brown (from her book, Rising Strong, which is awesome and you should read!). Let’s talk about a third and final source of negativity which pretty much includes everyone who doesn’t fall into the first two groups.

This could be people who follow you on IG, or your blog, or just people you casually know but you mostly see on Facebook or something like that. So what about negativity from this area, from haters?

This is going to sound incredibly simple, but here’s what I honestly think as someone who has had to deal with this type of negativity. If there is something useful and truthful about what they are saying, try to learn from it. If there isn’t, ignore it.

If you can learn and grow from the negativity, then think of it as a small failure (aka the path to success) and let it change you for the better (even though, yes, it will hurt a little).

But if you read something that there really isn’t any way for you to grow from it, then put on your blinders and ignore it because we’ve got to-do lists to conquer and boss lives to live. Ignore, ignore, ignore. I promise, it gets easier as you go.

(What face am I making here? Ha!)

BONUS Boss Trait: Be Guided by Love.

I said this during my speech last year but it feels even more relevant today. If you really want to be boss in life, you should aim to be guided by love.

Yes, have big goals in life that you go after. But the big picture goal of your life should not be about profits, or achievements, or fame; it should be about love. It’s what truly matters.

You should love yourself. It’s easy to overlook. Try to seek some balance, self-care, and let go of guilt in your life in order to truly love yourself. You should love others: coworkers, team members, family, followers, friends, and yes, even those haters.

Use your goal-setting muscles to make some plans around ways you can love yourself, your family, your friends, your work family, and your community. A true boss leaves the world a better place as she moves through it.

Of course if you have questions, let me know in the comments. And thanks for letting me share the main points of this past speech with you all! xo. Emma

“How long does it usually take to write or draft up posts and format them with photos and other content?” 

The short answer is: it depends on what kind of post it is. While it’s probably fairly obvious to you guys that a post about a cookie recipe vs. a post that shows a before and after room tour are things that likely took very different amounts of time to create start to finish.

What might not be as obvious is that pretty much ALL posts, or at least the ones that we share here on A Beautiful Mess, go through a similar 5-step process. So although I don’t have a simple answer like, “It takes 4 hours to write a post,” I can share our five steps to drafting killer content.

1. Brainstorm + Plan

The first step to creating any kind of content is to brainstorm and plan. Here on ABM we aim to publish an average of 45 to 50 posts every month.

We share all sorts of content from fashion-related posts (like Sister Style), craft projects, room tours + decor features, recipes, informational articles about blogging, small business, and photography, product launches, and some personal/just-for-fun type articles (you know, the randos) as well.

Each writer aims for a certain number and usually specializes in certain areas, and we work backward from there each month.

An obvious, but super helpful tool for brainstorming is a notebook. I like to have a notebook that I can have near me at all times, so I usually have something small in my purse. I will think of the most random recipe brainstorms at seemingly any time of day, so I like to jot down any idea (even if I end up thinking it’s dumb later) when it strikes.

Then we can evaluate strong ideas and things we are truly excited about from others that we eventually cut. This eventually becomes a more fleshed out list of post ideas, usually with some room to change them up if things don’t work exactly as planned (which is a DIY hazard for sure :)).

With this list we can plan. This includes making lists of supplies to buy and noting if things can be found locally or if we will need to order online and wait for deliveries. Also, a loose timeline can be put in place once you have your list of posts.

For example, I have post ideas on my list this month that will come together in just a day or two, while I also have a project I’m working on that I know will likely take 2-3 months for me to complete. Just knowing this helps me communicate, stay on track, and work within our editorial goals for ABM much more easily than if I were just “winging it” all the time.

2. Create

This is arguably the most fun and most frustrating step in the process. Once you have brainstormed and made a plan of action, it’s time to execute. This will include gathering supplies, making the project, and finding a way to photograph things along the way and the final looks for your article.

The timeframe on this will vary a great deal depending on if you are working on a great salad recipe post or sharing your kitchen renovation.

Here’s just a few tips from a gal who’s been creating blog posts for years. First, give yourself time (like, build it into the schedule) to make mistakes. Things don’t always work as you plan, so don’t assume they will.

It could be that a post will come together faster than you thought, giving you bonus time! But assuming it will come together in a day when it actually takes three is a sure way to stress yourself, and your team if you work on one, out. Boo to stress!

And that brings me to my second tip, which is: enjoy the process. I truly believe one of the most joy filled things we can do in life is create—so don’t blow past enjoying the process of it because you are so focused on maintaining a blog schedule. Sure, hitting deadlines are super important, but so is taking time to enjoy your work. It’s a balancing act that I’m not perfect at but always looking to get better at.

3. Prepare Visuals

For us this means editing and saving our images. There are times posts require other elements, like designed pieces for readers to download, etc. But most often our posts are made up of photos and text. So once the project is complete, it’s time to edit those photos!

This is one place you can save yourself a lot of time by learning to make your editing workflow efficient. First, if you don’t use Photoshop or Lightroom, you should. We use one of these programs for around 99% of the photos you see on ABM.

The only exception is if we’ve intentionally left something unedited, and for phone photos we mainly use A Color Story to edit. I also recommend using actions or presets when editing (you can also utilize batch editing tools as well) as it speeds up the editing process SO MUCH. And although I love the process of editing photos, it’s not the part of my workflow where I want to spend countless hours.

4. Write + Edit Copy

I usually write all of the copy for a post at once. So, this means I take notes during the creation process so I can go back to those notes to make sure I convey all the information that I think will be helpful to readers. Some writers like to do a slightly different process, writing bits as they go.

There really is not one set “right” way to do this, I think it depends more on your style and what feels best and results in the best, most coherent post. But, I do recommend writing a post and then waiting at least a few hours or day before re-reading it. The goal is to re-read your work with fresh eyes to see if you can add anymore info, or maybe you left a step out.

Also, make sure to be linking anything relevant that readers might want to read more about.

Then, have someone else proofread your copy. At ABM we’ve had a few different copy editors over the years.

If you don’t have the budget to hire this kind of service, at least having your significant other or a friend who might be a bit better at grammar than you would be a good place to start. But, generally this kind of service is affordable. So I would recommend looking into it if you are serious about your writing.

5. Publish + Check Comments

The final step is to press that publish button! I know, the scariest part. What if everyone hates your post? Well, if they do at least you will likely get some feedback so you can create even better content in the future.

Worst case scenario is you learn something, and best case scenario is the Internet goes CRAZY for your amazing blog post! So, you don’t have anything to lose, my friend. Press that publish button.

I’d love to say that we religiously check comments, but the truth is we don’t always have the time to respond to everything as much as we would like. But, we still do make as much time as we can for it. It’s important to engage with your readers, AND so often I learn from them on ways to improve my writing, photography, etc. for future posts.

Also, if your readers are as great as ours, you def want to read comments because they can truly make your day. I’ve seriously cried from a really nice comment before, especially on days when I needed it.

Bonus step: Update old, but still popular posts regularly. This is not only a great practice as you’ll be improving your site’s content for readers, but Google also prioritizes sites that do this. So you’ll be upping your SEO game as well. The basic idea is to look at what posts are still being read on your site from last year or earlier (depending on how long you’ve been blogging). You can find this in Google Analytics or other backend analytics you may have access to.

Read those old posts and see if you can improve them in any way, like adding more information, improving the photos, or adding a short video tutorial. Whatever would make the post a more useful resource is a great place to start. We have been working to do this on our own site this past year by adding short videos tutorials to some of our most popular posts like Homemade Bath Bombs and DIY Marbled Clay Ring Dish.

Hope you fellow bloggers out there found something here helpful! And let me know if you want us to expand on anything from this article or have other blogging-related questions you’d love us to address in future articles in this series. Thanks for letting me share! xo. Emma

“I know it’s an individual choice, but does ABM normally insure their photography equipment when you buy it? Have you found that you need it due to such heavy use of the equipment on your blog? Thanks so much!”

There are lots of different ways to approach the concern here (protecting equipment used for business), and I’m pretty excited to see if others have thoughts. Our company, like all small businesses, is unique, and the challenges we face are probably not exactly the same as everyone else. So, know that I am approaching this question from my perspective, but I’m also hoping to just give you some things to think about knowing that your situation may be quite different.

Here are a few questions I would ask anyone who is considering insuring their business-related equipment. Also, when I say business-related equipment, I’m referring to smaller priced items like DSLR cameras or laptops, not necessarily company cars or larger priced items like that. But we’ll talk a bit more on that at the end.

What kind of business are you running?

I am sort of getting at two things here. First, if your business is somewhat similar to A Beautiful Mess—a blogger, content creator, lifestyle based company—then first I would just question what items are truly necessary for business functions. If you are in the beginning stages of your business, whatever you do, it might also be a good time to think about making sure you have all your business files set up and you are official with the federal and your state government (possibly your county too if you need certain licenses or other business documents). I bring this up because as soon as you establish your business, you should seek to get liability insurance, also sometimes called commercial general business liability insurance. This does not protect your business from EVERYTHING, just many of the big, bankruptcy type fears. I know, fun stuff to think about.

You will likely need to find an insurance broker or agent that you trust and feel confident working with in order to get this set up. Just as a quick note, a broker can quote you insurance from multiple companies while an agent generally works with just one company. We work with brokers most of the time, but the most important thing is to find someone you feel confident working with. That way when something does arise in your business, you can ask them lots of questions and get things sorted quickly. Now, the liability insurance will probably not cover damaged property like a camera. It’s possible, but I know ours does not. So I would ask your broker their thoughts on coverage for any specific equipment your business might own or what they feel is the best way to protect your needed equipment in case something should happen to it. If possible, get a few quotes and make sure you pay attention to what it truly covers. Many policies will not cover “wear and tear” type issues but may cover equipment if it’s lost, stolen, etc. Take note of any deductibles as well since we’re thinking about lower priced items. If your deductible is high enough that you might as well buy a new camera, then it may not be worth it.

What about warranties or other coverage? 

Insurance companies are not the only entities that can help you if your equipment gets damaged. They are a good option that you should explore (get those quotes!), but exploring a few other options might prove more cost effective. Most manufacturers offer some kind of warranty, so make sure when you are getting ready to buy that you take note of this. Often it will cover certain types of damages and not others, and it may only be for a set limit (1 year, 2 years, etc.). In order to take advantage of the warranty, you sometimes have to register your equipment or at least save the original purchase documents so you can prove how long you’ve owned it. File these with your other business papers. I recommend a file cabinet from here (they are so cute! makes business filing at least a little fun).

When shopping, it’s good to also check into other, extended warranty options that sellers may be offering. Just as an example, if you purchase your camera equipment from Best Buy, they offer a protection plan (additional cost at time of purchase) that can last up to four years and cover all sorts of damage. If you use your camera often, like we do for work, then this might be the most cost effective option. So no matter where you plan to buy, before you do, see if they offer additional protection warranties, how much they cost, and what all they cover. And be sure to save your paperwork/receipts to take advantage of the plan should you need. And just to be 100% clear, I am just using Best Buy as an example because I have a photographer friend who told me about their plan, and when I looked into it, it did seem really worthwhile. This is not sponsored or an affiliate of any kind, just something I’ve seen that could be useful to you, but do some research and see what you think. Go look into options in your area for what might work best for you.

The bottom line: make sure you are covered in some way, but I’d research insurance vs. warranty options before investing in either.

Also, one more quick note regarding business equipment: consider depreciation rates for your business taxes. Typically any equipment over $2500 will be depreciated over years if you plan to use it during that time for business. We use an accountant for our business taxes, so if you do too, then ask them how this works or at the very least make them aware when do you buy equipment that could fall within this range. It could be that the camera equipment you use doesn’t quite fall into this range, but larger ticket items certainly could. So I figured I’d at least mention it.

Insurance, warranties, taxes—oh my! That was a fun one, huh? What about you guys? Any other small business owners out there who have more thoughts on insuring equipment? xo. Emma

Credits // Author: Emma Chapman. Photography: Elsie Larson. Image Design: Mara Dockery.

“This may be a silly question, but when I first launch my blog, do I launch it with posts in each category already posted prelaunch or just have a welcome post and a couple of posts on the day of launch? Just wondering what would interest readers more in your opinion. Thanks for all the awesome information!”

We actually hear this question pretty often from bloggers who are just starting out or who are in the middle of a rebrand and relaunch of their site. The number one rule is—don’t over think it to the point that you don’t press the go button! It’s better to start than to be perfect. Because perfection is like a unicorn… we all understand the concept, but ultimately it’s not a real thing.

OK, here’s a couple of considerations, even though we don’t believe there’s a black and white, right or wrong way to do this. So first, how many categories do you plan to write about? Some blogs are pretty focused while others have a few main topics and lots of mini topics from time to time.

Here at ABM we fall under the “not super focused” category. Yes, we mainly write about home decor and food, but we also write about lots of other things that we are interested in or we’ve found our readers are interested in (like blogging tips, for example). If your site will focus on a bunch of different topics, it is a good idea to communicate this clearly out of the gate.

This might mean having at least one post in each area, or it might be something you can communicate in your blog design or launch day post. But the main thing you are looking to avoid is if someone shows up the first week and it feels like your site is all about knitting, and then they show up the next week to a recipe post. They may feel confused, or if they don’t like recipe posts, they may feel turned off.

You don’t want them wondering if it’s the same site (since they are new, they may not have your logo, header, etc. committed to memory yet). And you also don’t want them feeling like maybe you’ve already changed direction, so they shouldn’t come back again. So think on those challenges before your launch.

Second, if you already have an audience, like you are rebranding or you had a big audience on FB or IG and are just now starting a blog, then you also might want to consider finding ways to give them a taste of everything you will be focusing on. Again, this is just to help them understand what to expect and why they should keep reading.

On the other hand, if you are launching and you are starting from ground zero (no audience to speak of, yet!), then you might be better off having 3-5 posts (or more) done in your drafts, but on launch day, just publish one post and save the others so you can spread them out and give yourself plenty of breathing room as you find your blogging zone.

If you are new to blogging, finding any way to help take the pressure off and give yourself more time to create and make those posts the best they can be while you are still learning is SO helpful.

But again, the most important thing is to START. Don’t let small concerns, like how many posts to have ready before launch, slow you down. Choose something that fits your situation and get moving! We learn best if we are actually doing the thing rather than just thinking about doing the thing.

Let us know if you have other blogging, business, or other questions that might pertain to this series as we love to know what your dealing with in your world! xo. Emma

“My blog exploded in readership when I started, and because of that paired with the content of the blog (vegan recipes), I received so much negativity from the beginning. Ever since, I haven’t looked at any of the press we’ve gotten, and I rarely check comments. The worst part is, I’ve been stuck posting really ‘safe’ content that’s boring to me only about once a week because I’m scared of going through all of the hate again. How do I get back to being positive and not letting negative people dictate what I want to say?”

This is such a great question, as I feel like it applies to SO many areas of life and not just blogging. If you’ve ever put something out there that you worked hard on (especially if you put it on the Internet), then you may have encountered some “hate” before, no matter whether you’re a blogger, artist, writer, politician, mom, business owner, etc. This list could go on and on! Pretty much anyone who is doing something (as opposed to just watching—more on that in a second) is going to encounter some form of criticism or even hate during the course of their life. So what can we do about this?

Haters vs. Constructive Criticism

First I think it’s SUPER important to understand the difference between negative feedback we should ignore and negative feedback that we should consider. I’m sure we could define “haters” all sorts of ways, but what I think of is spectators who are not interested in adding to a conversation or building anything. They would rather tear you down possibly to make themselves feel better about their inactivity. It’s easy to criticize; it’s much harder to create. So if you are creating anything—articles, projects, content, music, literature, anything really, then you are likely to stir up some hate as those spectators have to face that they are not creating while you are. As Aristotle said, “To avoid criticism say nothing, do nothing, be nothing.” Does that sound like an exciting and fulfilling life to you? Yeah, me neither.

So if you encounter criticism that you can basically summarize as, “You are ugly. You are dumb. You should stop doing things. You disappoint me because you did something I personally don’t enjoy. You suck.” Or any combination of these, here’s what you do—ignore. If needed, delete those emails, comments, or whatever. Don’t even respond because it’s a waste of your time. You are on a mission to make and the spectators in the cheap seats are just gonna slow you down. Press on, friend! I know I’m making this sound easy, but trust me, it’s incredibly hard to do. We all struggle with this from time to time.

But what about that criticism that we should consider? I would call this constructive criticism (from non-crazy people). This usually comes in the form of questions that they feel your project didn’t address, or offerings of solutions to perceived problems or weaknesses in your project. Most of the time people are either A.) Actually interested but something about your project confuses them or doesn’t work for them, or B.) They see how they think your project could be better and so they tell you. Even if this criticism has been worded in a way that stings a little, try to assume they mean well and do your best to evaluate the feedback. Useful, constructive criticism can make us SO much stronger—so don’t live in a bubble and miss out on these opportunities! You may receive feedback that you don’t agree with, or that doesn’t fit your overall goals for the project, and that’s OK too. But it doesn’t hurt to evaluate it as it will help you see things from other perspectives. And if you are selling or monetizing your offerings, then it’s especially important to care what your customers think, even if you can’t cater to every single suggestion.

Don’t live in a bubble, but do protect yourself.

If you need to take a break from reading comments on your site or something from time to time—do it! Just give yourself a week or a month and come back to it later so you don’t miss any useful or kind feedback while you try to avoid some hate for while. Also, don’t google yourself or go to areas of the Internet that you know are just filled with hate (like mean message boards or gossip sites). If you’re gonna waste your time, waste it on something fun.

Protect yourself as best you can and ask for support from family and friends when you need it! We all feel down sometimes, we go through ruts, we feel completely uninteresting, unoriginal, useless. It happens to everyone, reach out to loved ones for support—we all need it!

Don’t let negativity steal your creativity. 

Take a second to think of your favorite writer, musician, or artist. The person you are thinking of right now, I promise someone told them they sucked and they should quit. Aren’t you glad they didn’t! The world is full of beautiful and interesting things because people refuse to stop making, and I personally want to join in this movement in whatever way I get lucky enough to contribute. We can’t let negativity stop us from doing this or scare us from trying. Sometimes it’s hard, but you have to force yourself to go all in and do the thing, or write the post, that you are most passionate about. Do not let fear of negativity water down your brand/vision/goals! As Andy Warhol said, “Don’t pay attention to what they write about, just measure it in inches.” Ha!

And for anyone going through the hate right now, please hear this: YOU are valuable no matter how much people like or dislike your stuff. This is totally something my mom would have said to me in middle school when I would wear the weirdest, homemade clothes to school. But you know what—she was right. Don’t let anyone else dictate your worth!

I could probably talk about this for WAY longer as I am a big believer in the power of creativity and positivity, the enemy of which is usually ourselves or haters. But I’ve already made you read over 1000 words, so how about I let you add to the conversation now. What do you think? Have you dealt with hate? Did you let it steal your creativity or did you do something else? Share your story or questions! xo. Emma

C

“I’ve been blogging for just over a year and getting in to it more all the time, though I want to start giving it more direction because I feel I have been in the experimental phase… So this is a logistical question. Do you delete content from the early days, or as you go along, if you find that with hindsight you’re not happy with it? I tried one feature in particular that I don’t like now and also my early posts suck! Should I quietly delete them or let them sit there as part of the journey?”

This is an awesome question because truly there is a LOT to consider when it comes to deleting old content from your site. The answer to this will also vary a great deal depending on what kind of site you write and what your big picture goals are.

So keep in mind that we are coming at this question from our site’s perspective and our own goals for it. Also I’m just going to focus on three big considerations you should take into account when thinking about deleting old content.

1. Usefulness

For us, A Beautiful Mess is a blog that is mostly focused on education. Yes, we will share lifestyle posts, behind the scenes, or what we are wearing in large part because we know our readers enjoy this content, and it helps them connect to us (we’re REAL people with faces and lives, I swear!).

Ha! But the main goal of ABM is to share tutorials or other information to help fellow makers do just that – make. We love the homemade lifestyle and believe that making things is one way to enjoy the experience of life. I could go on, but that’s a different subject for another post.

My main point is the majority of our posts aim to be useful. They should help you learn to build a piece of DIY furniture, cook a recipe, make a craft project, find the perfect lip color, etc. If your site is similar in that you teach about a certain subject (food, fashion, DIY, home decor, photography, small business, etc.), then your site too is aimed at being useful.

SO, when you are evaluating wether you should delete old posts, first ask yourself, “Is this still useful?” That’s the first test I would put any post through. If the answer is no, then it may end up on the chopping block (but I’ve got a couple more things for you to consider first). If the answer is yes, then I would really consider keeping it.

But also, if the answer is yes but you feel you could do a better job writing that post now, then why not go ahead and update the post with new info, photos or whatever will make it more useful, and then re-promote the content on your social channels or put a link to it in your sidebar for a while to let your readers know you’ve updated the article.

You’ll want to either keep the original url or if you want to rewrite the post completely (giving it a new url), then redirect the old one to point to the new one. The reason is if you have links out in the Internet universe from other sites or people have pinned that post, etc., then if they show up and the content isn’t there anymore, they will immediately bounce away from your site.

But if you redirect them to the new content, or if you’ve kept it in the same place (same url they already had saved or linked), then they will land on your new, updated useful content and hopefully enjoy reading it.

2. Traffic

Before you go deleting those old posts, you might check in and make sure you understand where your website traffic is coming from. A good place to start (if you haven’t installed this already) is Google Analytics.

Understanding where your traffic is coming from, where they land on your site, and if they stick around or leave quickly is all very useful to bloggers in LOTS of different ways.

But when considering deleting past content, you want to check in on your traffic to make sure you aren’t deleting something that a large or significant amount of your traffic is landing on.

It might help if I illustrate this a little. Let’s say that for the past year you’ve been blogging about fashion. But within the past few months, you just bought your first home and now the only thing you want to blog about is home decor and renovations.

You think the old fashion posts on your site really distract from your new mission. So you decide you’re going to go through and delete many of them, especially the early ones as you feel your photography wasn’t as good as it is now anyway.

If you really go through with this plan, it could be that you will see a very large drop in your overall site traffic. Ultimately if this fits your goals and what you truly want to do with your site, then, of course, it is your site so you can do as you like.

But I would advise you to keep your old posts that might still be getting traffic and add something to the end of them (go into the old post and update it, keeping the same url) about your new content.

For example, in an old post where you talked about color blocking and how it worked in your outfit, you could add some text and maybe one image to the bottom of that post that says something like, “If you love color mixing, be sure to check out what colors I choose to decorate our house in” with a link to your newest blog post about what colors you choose for your home.

This is just an example, but the point is you don’t want to brick over a door that people are still using – let them come in, but try to direct them to new, more relevant content if needed.

3. Nostalgia

Yes, you read that correctly, the third thing I am suggesting you consider before deleting old posts is nostalgia.

\First, if you have old posts that are meaningful to you, but they aren’t useful, don’t get much traffic, and don’t support your blog’s overall goals, then you certainly can delete it if you want (it’s possible this may also help your site be more searchable, but it also may not make a huge difference as there are lots of factors).

But, if you do, be sure to save the content somewhere – like a hard drive or something because it’s memorable for YOU and that’s still valuable.

If you have old posts of a personal nature that you just don’t want out there online anymore, then, of course, feel free to remove those – just save the content if it’s valuable to you in any way so you don’t lose photos you might not have saved anywhere else.

The other thing to consider is if leaving old posts might be somewhat encouraging or instructive to future readers. I actually really like it when bloggers I admire have left their old content up and sometimes even point back to it as a way to say, “We all start somewhere.” Because truly we do!

Starting is more important than being perfect. You will be a better blogger during year three than you were during year one if you stuck with it because that’s what happens – we get better at things.

I think sometimes we can really shy away from showing past inexperience because we are afraid people won’t think of us well if we don’t act like we have everything together and ALWAYS have.

But I like seeing fellow bloggers’ past content that they maybe aren’t as proud of now – I don’t think less of them. In fact, I sometimes think even more highly of them because I can see how far they have come and how hard they have worked to get there. So, just something to consider.

What do you guys think? Does deleting old posts get a thumbs up or a thumbs down from you? Or does it just depend on the type of post? -Emma

“I just read through the section on networking: “friends first, networking later.” This is something I’ve struggled with for years as a blogger. Is it possible to establish friendships with other bloggers through email, or is it mostly through social media these relationships are forged? And if it’s through email, how do you send an email that’s not too fangirl or awkward… I just often leave thoughtful comments on blogs in hopes that one day they’ll notice me, but connections aren’t being made for me that way. Help! What do you guys do? And how do you recognize a genuine hello-let’s-be-friends from a because-you’re-famous one?” 

Awesome question – because reaching out to anyone online can feel totally intimidating sometimes! I still get nervous to email or reach out to people, so I get it. Let me just start by saying that I think friendship and networking go hand in hand. Some people view networking as almost a dirty word, which I can understand, but I don’t necessarily agree. It depends how you go about it. If you go through life just using people, then you are missing the whole point – and you’re cheating yourself out of some amazing friendships.

OK, so first rule is be friendly. This should be EASY, guys. Just email people, comment on their site or their social media, and say something nice. Give them a compliment. If their work has made a difference to you or you found it useful, tell them so. Another great way to let people know you love their work is to link them or share their work with your audience. Be confident, and it won’t come off awkward, I promise. Anytime someone has emailed or left me a comment about how they liked XYX that I did, it totally made my day – there’s nothing fangirl about that! It’s just plain nice. Just keep your tone confident and casual and never be afraid to email or reach out to anyone no matter how “famous” you may perceive them as being – we’re all human at the end of the day, right?

I recommend you work to make this a weekly or bi-weekly practice. Don’t just follow people online, reach out and give them a specific compliment. They may not always see it, as the Internet moves fast and not all correspondence gets the attention it deserves. But doing this all the time is not only a good habit, it will also increase the likelihood that you will be seen at least some of the time.

OK, so you’re friendly and over time you will probably make friends with various people online. Hooray! Now let’s say the day comes when you’d like to promote your new project. How can you ask your friends to help without fear? Here’s a few tips.

1. Be clear and concise in what you’re asking.

There have been many, many times over the years that someone I know from online emails me with a super vague request or a super long email that seems to be asking for some kind of promotion, but I feel like I need a key to decipher it. Don’t do this. People are busy, respect their time by keeping your request concise and easy to understand. If you want them to give away a copy of your new book on their Instagram account, then say so. They may say no, but at least they know what they are saying no to. Otherwise they may not take the time to read your super long email, or they may not take the time to try and clarify what you are asking of them.

2. Be polite and, if possible, offer them something in return.

Now likely you are asking your friends for marketing favors because you want to collaborate and learn from them, AND probably your marketing budget is small to ZERO. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. We’ve all been there, friend! But, if you are asking for something, then a very friendly thing to do is offer something in return. You can be specific about this or you can throw out a few ideas and tell them that you’d love to hear their goals right now to see how you can help. If you’re not willing to do a favor for them, then you probably shouldn’t be asking them for one. But of course this doesn’t mean you have to do anything they ask. It’s OK to say no; I say no all the time. But, it never hurts to try and explore a mutually beneficial opportunity that you both might benefit from. I truly believe that if we are willing to help and willing to ASK when we need help, we can all help each other make our dreams come true. I really do! So it doesn’t hurt to ask, just make sure you’re willing to give just as much as you’re willing to receive.

3. If you don’t hear back, only follow up once or twice.

Now this only applies to those times you are asking for things or looking to collaborate in some way. If you are simply sending out your weekly kind words, then you don’t need to hear back. Just assume the good vibes are out there and don’t worry. You can always send some more love their way later in life, no biggie. But when you are asking to work together, or do some kind of marketing push together, I do think following up once or twice is OK. After that you should move on. I generally will follow up once by the original method I contacted them (email, DM, etc.), and then maybe say something to them on another channel just so they know I’m around. People are busy, so follow ups help oftentimes because it’s very possible they saw your request, meant to respond, got busy with something else, and then totally forgot. So a polite follow up is great. But if you follow up over and over again, probably they aren’t interested AND you should be using that time and energy to contact someone else or in another way to benefit your overall goals. I have asked people to work with me on many things over the years, and I’ve gotten plenty of polite no-thank-yous as well as plenty of just plain ol’ never-heard-from-them-again. I could spend time taking it personal or staring at my computer screen thinking how to write them again so maybe they will respond – or I can move on. And the moving on is usually the best thing since time is precious for all of us.

Other than this, my only other tip would be that you really should not take anything too personal. If someone doesn’t want to work together, this could be for ALL sorts of reasons. So don’t take it to heart. There’s always more opportunity out there too. One closed door just means it’s time to knock on the next one. And above all – be a good person. I think this is probably obvious, but as long as you always remember to give of yourself and to spread love and kindness where you can, you don’t have to be afraid to reach out and try to make connections. So long as you do it with love, you’re doing it the right way.

If you have any other networking or making online connections tips or stories you’d like to share, feel free! Or if you have any other blogging or business questions, let us know as we’re always happy to have more to add to our list for this series. Thanks! xo. Emma (+ Elsie)

Credits // Author: Emma Chapman, Photography + Design: Sarah Rhodes and Mara Dockery. Some questions have been shortened from their original form simply so they fit better within this series’s format.