Make Your First Post Suck, Everybody Else Does
Your first post is going to suck. Everyone’s first post sucks. It’s a fact of blogging. Despite your best intentions to write a stellar first post, it isn’t going to happen. Even after all the hard work setting up and configuring your blog, all the time spent obsessing over every CSS rule and semantic detail, and imagining your very best content presented at the very outset of your blog’s career — even after all of that, an award-winning first post just isn’t going to happen.
First, despite your best-laid plans for the type of content your blog will feature, in reality you have no idea how life in the blogosphere will change and mold your site. Things happen and ideas evolve — what you think is the best plan of attack for your blog may not hold true at this same time next year. Things change, and hopefully your thinking will change as well. Thus, crafting a perfect first post based on the overall vision of your site is simply not a reality.
Second, you have no idea who your core audience will turn out to be. You may think you have an idea about your readership, but who is to say that your writing won’t inspire a completely different realm of readers. If you fashion that first post for all those targeted pumpkin farmers that will be loyally reading your amazing pumpkin blog, only to find out that the only people reading the great pumpkin are a bunch of middle-age comic-book fans, your first post will definitely suck.
Finally, it’s not cool to write a successful first post. How many people will actually claim that their first post is totally excellent and that you should drop by and check it out? Well, okay, people may tell you that, but you and I both know it’s just not the case. First posts are awkward, fear-ridden ramblings that accomplish no more than filling the void and quenching that all-too-familiar “new blog smell” with a few welcoming words.
Oh, sure, I hear you say that the first post is the most important, most critical post you will ever write — so do your best to make it fresh, snappy, and relevant. What a load of rubbish. Don’t believe all the feel-good, self-help, top-ten ways to build a million dollar blog garbage. The truth is that nobody will read your first post because nobody knows it exists! By the time people actually notice your site and begin visiting, you will have hopefully written a few dozen more articles that are hopeful more relevant, focused, and popular. Nobody will ever see that first post, even if you become the next millionaire blogger.
So do your new blog a big favor and make the first post just suck lemons. That’s what I did, and I’m not looking back. I hope nobody ever sees this post, and I certainly don’t expect them to. I must admit, it feels great to just write your first post like nobody cares, because in reality nobody does! Either way, after all the trepidation and anticipation of actually putting pen to paper, so to speak, it sure feels great to lower the bar and just write crap. No pressure now, only a first post to get the ball rolling..
