Why did I start writing a blog (again)?

Last updated December 6th, 2023 00:18

It’s evening, quite late already, and the laptop monitor is glowing on the table, next to a finished cup of tea. For the past few evenings, I’ve had a text editor open on my laptop, writing a technical article for my blog. Some text revisions, finding an interesting thumbnail image from an image bank, and I can start publishing the article on the website. I’m already far beyond the 700-article mark. So why exactly am I doing this? Why did I start writing a blog (again)?

Why did I start writing a blog (again)? Because primarily, I enjoy it.

It all started almost 15 years ago when I created my first blog on my own domain. Let’s call it version 1. It was a remarkably simple time. Back then, hardly anyone had a blog, and the number of website users was growing rapidly. In one year, I wrote nearly 900 articles, and during that time, I gained a stable daily readership of 800 to 2000 users. Comments poured in, people engaged in discussions on the website, and it had a life of its own. It was great.

Today, the blogging landscape is completely different. There are approximately 600 million blogs in the world according to the latest figures. That’s quite some competition, and it’s noticeable. Not only has the competition and the era changed, but the technology itself is entirely different. Writing an article now takes more than twenty minutes. To gain even a bit of visibility, one must carefully consider every step taken.

The website needs to be fast, stable, with flawless source code, and as for the text, that’s a whole different story. Even the title must go through an SEO optimizer to make it somewhat appealing to search engines, so you don’t end up on the 39th page of search results. And let’s not kid ourselves, nobody looks there.

Website demands

However, this leads us to why I ultimately decided to start blogging again with version 2. Primarily, it was the desire to push my limits a little further. To learn new things, understand today’s online marketing, and try to promote myself a bit in this current online world. The desire to learn new things was definitely at the forefront.

Traditional shared web hosting no longer met the requirements of this website, so I was compelled to build my own Linux server. I learned how Apache works, how to set up a proper website cache, and more. I built the server from scratch until it was a fully functioning system. It was a new experience for me, and it took me a whole week before I could calmly switch the domain’s DNS from the original hosting to my own server.

The second thing that pushed me forward, without which nobody could do such a website, was, of course, my enjoyment of writing. I enjoy everything related to creative thinking and crafting texts. No, I’m not a copywriter, at least not yet. So, in addition to improving my written Czech, I also had to learn how online writing actually works. How to sell those texts to make them visible. In the last six months, I’ve learned more about SEO than in the previous four years combined.

It even led me to complete a 40-hour certified online course on Google’s online marketing. Me, who was never interested in bureaucracy or marketing in general. So, Google Search Console became my friend as well. Well, at least until it started showing me red numbers for website speed (damn it!). At that point, it started to frustrate me (that’s why I built my own server).

But what is the purpose of all this?

That’s a good question I occasionally ask myself too. Actually, I don’t know. I see the blog as a personal portfolio that I can present anywhere. Here’s the address, take a look at what I can do, thank you very much. I can showcase my interests, demonstrate what I can work with, but also show that I can delve deeply into a problem and learn anything that stands in my way. Perhaps someone will eventually notice this website, someone who will open another door for me. A door to a place where I can push myself a bit further.

It’s an interesting journey, and even though managing and maintaining such a website requires a lot of effort and time, it’s also fun and a step into a new world. So, hopefully, with Blog No. 2, I’ll someday reach similar numbers as with the first one, and maybe people will start filling the comment section, breathing life into it again. For now, I’m writing mostly for myself and about 60 people who visit this website on average every day. But that’s good; four months ago, there were only two people. It’s growing, and it brings me joy. And if you’ve read this far, you can leave a comment too and make me even happier.