So, I moved the Africaexpatwivesclub blog from Blogger to here, my very own domain and let me tell you, it has been a gut wrenching process! After all the hard work and soul searching about potentially losing readers, I’ve had feedback from friends saying, ‘I clicked on your new site but wasn’t sure whether to read on as I didn’t think it was you’. Fantastic. Great. Not the outcome I had hoped for. I feel like jumping up and down. ‘It’s me, it’s me, it’s still me!!’. And to all those former readers from the Africaexpatwivesclub hey day – ‘come back, come back!’. And to all of those reading now, thank you, thank you, I am so grateful! But life and technology has moved on, so today the playing field is wider and the competition far harsher.

3 months in and I have to admit, the transfer has not exactly been entirely smooth sailing (for instance, you may have noticed that this site is still something of a work in progress). I’ve learned that there definitely is a risk to moving your website (after 10 years on Blogger) but although it has been a very steep learning curve, I have no regrets. Why? Because things now are moving forward (after years of ‘shall I, shan’t I?’) and forward is always a good direction to take. I’ve learned a ton about WordPress, plugins, SEO and social media (having joined Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, Twitter and set up an africaexpat YouTube channel).

Now, all that remains is to figure out how to blog fabulously. Moving the site (after a fairly long hiatus of half-hearted blogging) has meant a drop in readers and loss of momentum that has been entirely down to me.  Blog posts have been too widely interspersed, while over the past few weeks ‘behind the scenes’ gaps for me have partially been spent wildly figuring out a handful of entirely new platforms – and I am SO not a technical person so it has been like pushing water up hill. I think that it took me about 9 days to work out how to migrate my old content onto this platform, which would have been the work of a moment for any Nairobian ‘tech-preneur’. Plus, and this might be the lamest excuse ever, but the whole process also happened to clash with Christmas and a shed load of ‘winter migrant’ visitors (which I’ve loved – so the blog occasionally fell into the background). I’ve also travelled more than I usually do, as you have to live your life a bit in order to have anything to write about, but the secret to being a great blogger is definitely all about being able to do both.

What I have loved about the process of setting up the new website has been the creative side. Taking photos and videos (with my fab new camera), building photo galleries/collages, making short movies and setting them to my favourite tunes, thinking of catchy blog titles, doing flat lays, creating shiny new content and generally making the whole site a whole lot more visual so that it really pops. Stock images are hopefully a thing of the past here folks.

So now all that is done, along comes the hard part – it’s time to make ‘africaexpatwivesclub.com’ fly.  I’ve spent (read: wasted) a huge chunk on time reading and watching videos on how to blog fabulously, hook more readers, utilise social media, network with other bloggers etc. I have to admit there have been days where it has been hard to stay positive about this whole process, because of that familiar old devil on my shoulder who says, ‘why bother anyway, it’ll never work’.  However, nothing ventured, nothing gained. To achieve anything I’ve learned that you have to stick your neck out. And there’s something to be said for that expression ‘to be an expert in anything takes 10,000 hours’. For me, there have been many knock backs from potential publishers and editors, but then I’ve also spent the past 3 years as editor of a fab local magazine (having had no formal experience previously) and went out and got my chance to be published in the UK Telegraph via a speculative email and a pretty pushy self introduction (thank you Liz for being so kind about that!) so now have been writing pieces for them regularly for my favourite UK newspaper for over 3 years. For all the disappointments (that come all too frequently and debilitating though they are), there is also the occasional success and that’s worth celebrating.

What I’ve learned over the past few  months:

• Be honest and don’t be afraid to be the face behind your site that people can relate to. Your website needs a face and an identity. The world of ‘anonymous’ blogger just doesn’t wash any more.
• Create catchy titles and make use of the best photography possible (ideally your own, unique images)
• Make use of social media to spread the word. The jury is still out on the best possible channels to market your blog but for now, I am having fun with Pinterest, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Instagram. Twitter is still a work in progress! (sorry Google+, just couldn’t face it quite yet).
• Join blog networks
• See what other people are doing online to get new, fun ideas.
• Stay true to what you love to do, and don’t be disheartened if success isn’t instantaneous.

Stuff I need to do next – but am not very good at:

• Blog regularly so that fresh content appears at least twice a week.
• Network/promote the blog online i.e. posting on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook more than twice a week.
• Build relationships with other bloggers, including creating some posts in collaboration with other bloggers.

What I can’t wait to do, but will require some very ballsy action on my part!

• Conduct some interviews on the blog.
• Get some advertisers on board.
• Write more articles for print media.
• Focus lots of energy on this project, without being distracted by whatever else happens to land in my lap.

If you are in a similar position (and I tried to make my sister revamp her website so that we could have a kind of blog-off but sadly she wasn’t keen! 3 small children might have something to do with that!) Good luck. Bonne Chance. Let’s go for it and report back in 12 months time to compare notes on how it all went.

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