5 Things To Consider When Starting A Family Lifestyle Blog
Whether you are setting up your first blog as a way to capture your children’s milestones and memories forever, as a hobby to keep you sane during those baby years when the lack of adult interaction can feel alien (this is why I started mine way back in 2011) or you are planning ahead to hopefully making it a career and an income stream, there are a few things you’ll need to ask yourself, consider and work through before you begin.
By working through these before you even search for your domain name or blogging platform you can save yourself a lot of time and effort and added stress in years to come.
- Finding a name for your blog
Now many of us earlier bloggers named our blogs after our children, we were blogging about them and it at the time seemed sensible, however, what happens if you have another child? I had to add a tagline to Emmy’s Mummy when Harry came along, others have used the number of children they have only to go on to have more.
You will also want to consider what happens when your children are older, will you continue to blog about them? Calling your blog “All about XYZ…” then not blogging about XYZ when they are of an age you may want to sensor could lead you to want a name change, which is, of course, doable but forward planning could stop this entirely. - Check all social media handles are available
So, you’ve found that perfect name for your blog, the domain name is available but are the social media handles?
It is far easier to try to keep these all the same, and it makes finding you easier for other bloggers, companies and PR’s. - Decide how you will refer to your children
Anonymous blogging is hard, it’s possible but to stay anon for years gets harder and harder. Another way to help protect your children’s identity online is to refer to them by a letter or a nickname. You may find it tricky to remember to do it in the start but in time it will be automatic, it is far easier to do this than to change after a few months or years of blogging. - Will you be showing your children’s faces online?
It is possible to blog about your children without actually featuring their faces in your photos, you could take shots of the backs of their heads for example or distance shots.
It is a way of protecting their identity.
I never show the children’s school badges in my photos and don’t post pictures with my road sign in the background etc to help protect them somewhat. - Remember your children will find themselves online at some point
Parent blogging means we are putting our children online far more than many others (unless you have that family member who posts every single update to social media including the last time their child went for a poo.) Yes, we all have one on our timelines, don’t we?
You may want to think about how much information you put out there about them, Yes posting a picture of your son wearing a dress his sister has put on him is funny but remember when Googling he may find it in years to come….or his mate’s will. I’ve many of these pictures reserved for Harry’s 18th birthday party and have some in canvas prints around the house so they won’t come as a surprise to him at all.
Some things are very funny online but there is always a fine line of things which could be hurtful to the children/very embarrassing in years to come so we do need to keep that in the backs of our minds.
Now the fun begins – don’t be shy, come and say Hi if you’ve just started your blog or are thinking of starting – we don’t bite, and we will all come over and follow you on social media shouting encouragement from the sidelines if needed.