[/caption]Once upon a time I saw this blog as a lifeline. It was going to make my family enough income to take the edge off so I could stay at home and raise my daughter. It was the only answer during a time of desperation and I clung onto it, putting all my heart and soul I could muster into it.
I changed the name to something more SEO friendly (I still think LaureNspired was cute, even though my husband says it makes no sense). I made my blog local, with an events calendar, I wrote content that was helpful instead of exclusively a family documentary. I spent 6 months learning and designing a new blog via Wordpress. I wrote and sent out advertising pitches. I poured over the analytics, fretted over what was popular and what wasn't. I became greedy and competitive.
Unfortunately there isn't a blogging success story at the end of this rainbow, at least in the profit sense of things. While I may not have money to show for all of my hard work, I have made new friends, polished my writing and marketing skills and learned a few things along the way.
- I learned that moms in Reno have a voice and need an outlet to be heard.
- I learned that I am capable of designing a mother freaking website from scratch.
- I learned that you can spend all day on Facebook and Twitter and not get a single thing accomplished.
- I learned how to do 12 hours worth of work in 3-hour nap time increments.
- I learned that passion should not get in the way of love.
But you know what the biggest thing is I've learned?
We are all in this together.
There are hundreds of moms trying to do the same thing, earn a little extra income to help their family survive while trying to raise their children. Moms shouldn't compete; they should uplift and promote each other.
While I may not have successfully earned a living off of this blog, that doesn't mean there aren't hundreds, thousands of you tuning in to read what crazy nonsense I've put out into this crazy land of the Internet. You do care and I thank you for coming back day in and day out, you have no idea how much that means to me.
As you know I am returning to work next month and with that comes a new transition for our family that won't allow the time to tend to this blog. While I'd like to step away from this baby of mine, I can't just let all this hard work go to waste. Blogging, writing, telling our story is a part of me, getting paid for it or not. While I am paying for this domain name, The Reno-Sparks Mom will still exist.
So why not use these last few months to do it right?
Let's use this space to promote each other.
If you own a business, an etsy shop, write a blog, run a moms group, a daycare, want to start a book club, WHATEVER you want, use this blog as your tool to promote it.
Have an ad you'd like me to put on my sidebar?
Email it right on over to: renosparksmom@gmail.com.
Like I said, thousands of moms are reading this here blog, no joke.
Sign up via the linky party below. Enter your email and your business/group/whatever name and we’ll be in contact. Cruise around the other listings and support other moms. Because when it comes down to it, we’re all in this together. Let’s help one another.
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