Learning to Blog and Developing Your Own Style ~ ActiveRain Makes It Easy!--I have been a member of ActiveRain for a little over five months and I find that the learning curve continues to provide me with insight into how to grow and development the service I want to provide to the consumer. The progression of learning has been in several phases. Each phase has been rather significant in raising my writing skills and the understanding of SEO, keywords and developing that style of who I am and how I want to build my service business for the consumer.  I want to again say that ActiveRain makes this amazing transformation possible for all of us here in the forum. I remain amazed at what we can accomplish here on a personal level and also on the industry level, as well.

So in review, I would like to share my progress in hopes that it will be helpful to others that may be new to ActiveRain and who feel they are so anxious to get down the road and to improve their skills and their business. You will achieve your goals and you will learn faster than you can ever imagine.

Phase I--Where Am I and What Am I Doing?

This for me was the hardest phase and required my solid commitment to learning. I felt stupid and made so many blunders in my first month. I finally found the AR Guidelines and the Newbie's Group and then things started to fall into place. I wrote a few posts, before I really started reading. I would do that differently now. I would read and join groups that have some connection of meaning and relevance for me personally. By reading in these groups that you admire, you very quickly learn a bit about what you want to write about and about different styles and content. It is an important formulative time and having a clear idea of your purpose will be valuable. It took some time for me to get to this concept. By the end of the first month and with very kind people encouraging me, I began to get an idea of the value of commenting and posting. I learned that the comment stream can be as important and provide as much insight into the subject matter as the original post. I also learned that I was here for the consumer and to collaborate with other members of my profession. Knowledge sharing and industry standards are embraced here in the RAIN and that became very important to me and continues to be the reason I am here.

Phase II--Understanding SEO and Keywords?

After this initial learning curve of understanding the general layout of how things worked, I began to focus on writing and posting. I even knew the distinction of writing a post to my blog. I had a concept of the Blogosphere and that there was a larger world of blogging. I got great help and knowledge on SEO and keywords for Google Juice. I began to achieve better Google Rankings and quit using Google "Pay Per Click". I concentrated on several niche markets and began to get results.

Phase III--Doing a Better Job with Writing for the Consumer--In phase III which is my current phase, I began to get a sense that my work was too formulaic and wanted to better plan my writing to provide the consumer in my area better quality information of a more diverse nature. I am now after providing richer information and not just advertising to the consumer. A balance of information, demographics and fun topics about our beautiful community and living and working here. I built my first outside blog. I will be getting some consulting this year on improving my efforts on the outside blog and waiting to see the AR blog product. I am looking forward to continuing to grow and mature in the world of blogging. It is a very good thing to be doing!

PAYING IT FORWARD--is the integration of internalizing this great amount of knowledge and resources here within the RAIN and all the generosity that is shared by returning and paying tribute to the members here. It is a great group of people who are dedicated to achieving the highest level of expertise and service to the consumer in the industry on a daily basis. We all celebrate the best there is about all we do in the commitment to our work and profession. It goes without saying that the potential to grow and evolve here is a CONSTANT!