Last week, I was speaking to an eagle-eyed reader who reached out to me to ask if I used to have a different blog under another name. I used to have a little space on the internet called ‘Danielle Alexa’ which was my labour of love for 5 whole years. I worked so hard on that blog and towards the end it reached absolutely dizzying heights which are still quite hard for me to believe.

As much as I loved that blog, I reached a stage in my personal life where I was unable to dedicate as much time and attention to my blog due to family commitments and instead of letting the standards slip on the blog which I had worked so hard on, I made the very painful and hard decision to let go of the blog and refocus my attention on my family. But I am not back with a vengeance and I wanted to take some time to speak to you all about the insane opportunities that I gained from running my little corner of the internet.

 

 

Meeting Likeminded People

For me, one of the most amazing things about starting my blog was creating true friendships. Meeting so many like-minded people is rare and wonderful. We would find each other by having similar content on our sites. I would then reach out and have a conversation with them. Back in the day, we may have done a blog swap to try and reach new audiences, but at the beginning of 2019, it was fewer blog swaps and more just wanting to connect with somebody working towards something similar to yourself and having the same hurdles to try and leap over.

 

Forcing Me Out of My Comfort Zone

I am a creature of habit through and through, but blogging changed that. All of a sudden, I was forced in front of the camera, not just behind it. I was going on brand trips completely on my own, something that I would have never done before. I reached out to people on a whim to take a risk on a new friendship, something again that pre-blogging I would have never done in a million years. Blogging was the thing that kicked me up the arse and helped me to be so much more independent, which I needed. This level of propelling me out of my comfort zone has helped me in so many other endeavours, not just my online side hustle.

 

Amazing Accolade on my CV

My full-time day job is in marketing and SEO is a huge part of that. Because of my blog, I now have a set of statistics from a website that I completely built from scratch where I hustled and brought in hundreds of thousands of visitors daily. I now keep a file with my blog statistics attached to my CV so that if I ever think about moving to a new company, I can show them what I can achieve and that I can do it 100% on my own without a company name behind me and a team of other people. Running this site and the one previous encouraged me to delve into SEO and to continue learning all of the quirks and changes to the search engine landscape.

 

Amazing PR

I was a couple of years into my blogging life when I was first contacted by Charlotte Tilbury. I was offered their PR and could not believe it. They were the first company to reach out to me. I can remember running around my place of work and jumping for joy. One of my favourite brands wanted to work with me, it was pure shock. From there, after showing their products on my Instagram and blog, other brands quickly began to follow. In the end, I was receiving PR from so many of my all-time favourite brands. So incredibly lucky and when I stopped blogging I asked to be removed from lists. I felt like it could be going to a better home where the brand would get something back.

These days, I am much more selective with the brands that I accept PR from. My intention is to be very transparent here with my site and I do question how honest people can be if they are receiving what is essentially gifts from specific brands. Plus, there is definitely a level of ridiculous consumption that comes with accepting PR.

 

Working with World Class Brands

This one kind of ties into my point above. For somebody who adores too many big brands out there, it’s amazing to work collaboratively with them. It might be a post to show people what is new at Net-A-Porter, a makeup tutorial using a specific brand that people can purchase from Selfridges. No matter what it is, it is an amazing privilege to work with the brands. Especially when you have bought so much from over the years as an equal. Over the years I have worked with Louis Vuitton, Don Perignon, Nars, La Mer and many more.

 

Money

Finally, I want to mention the money. I had to work incredibly hard on my blog for around 4 years to earn good money. Even then it wasn’t anything worth writing home about. That was via affiliate marketing, AdSense and paid sponsorships from brands. A couple of months before I quit my blog, I was earning more via my blog than I was in my full-time job. My issue with the money from blogging was that it was never promised. Every month varied massively and with my OCD, that is something that I cannot deal with. However, I am at this stage wondering if I can make this my full-time gig.

 

If you ask me, there is one million different reasons why you would want to get into blogging. For me it is that level of connectivity with people. It is outstanding to create friendships for life in just speaking about the things that are on your mind. If anybody is thinking about creating a blog, I would suggest jumping into it with both feet. However, only if you have the right intentions. Money is not the most important thing and it is hard to reach a normal wage.