You Don’t Have To Win A Blogging Award To Be Successful

It’s that time of the year again. The blogging award nominations are open and bloggers across social media are asking for your votes.

I’m not going to ask for your votes though, mainly because I know I’d never win!

Here’s why I won’t win an award for blogging:

• I’m not funny
• I’m not sweary
• I don’t take enough selfies
• I don’t have loads of blogging friends
• I don’t write about babies or giving birth
• I don’t have time to blog every day
• There are no “working mum” categories

And that’s ok, I’m really not bothered.

We all blog for different reasons and you can set your own measure of success. You don’t need someone else to tell you that you deserve an award. I mean, if you’re a parent and you manage to find time to blog then you definitely do deserve a medal!

If you’re feeling a bit deflated with all the award talk, think about why you started blogging in the first place. It probably wasn’t to make loads of money from your blog and win awards.

I started blogging because I work in Digital Marketing and I wanted to build a website to practice web design, SEO, content writing and social media. I had no idea what to build a website about so I started a blog. It was never supposed to be a “mummy blog”, but I realised I didn’t have anything else to write about!

I don’t get 1000s of visits a day, but I think I’ve built an ok site. I’ve managed to get a DA (Domain Authority) of 33 within a year of going self-hosted and I get a fair bit of organic traffic from Google, so my SEO must be ok. I’ve amassed 4000 followers across my social media accounts in less than 2 years, and social is my biggest source of traffic so I must be doing ok at that as well.

I’ve also worked with some good brands, got some free stuff to review, and have even got paid to write a few sponsored posts.

All of that means more to me than an award picked by blogging friends, Don’t get me wrong, the winners of the awards will be fantastic bloggers, who’s posts I no doubt enjoy reading. The whole thing just has a bit of a Eurovision voting feel to it – vote for your mates. These awards are voted for by bloggers, not the public. Whilst I really do appreciate fellow bloggers taking the time to read and comment on my posts, I also want the public to find my blog by searching Google When they’re trying to find articles to read.

So if you don’t get nominated for a blogging award don’t worry. I reckon you can still think of yourself as a successful blogger if you’ve managed any of these…

• You have people you don’t know visiting your blog
• You have a decent Domain Authority
• You’ve learnt about SEO
• People follow you on social media
• You’ve worked with brands
• You’ve managed to get those Yoast traffic light symbols to go green on more than 1 post
• You enjoy blogging as a hobby
• You hit the blogging goals you set yourself

What do you think? Can you be considered a “successful” blogger without winning awards?

Let me know what makes you a successful blogger – gloat below and tell everyone why you’re awesome!