I would never put my “experience” as a blogger on my resume, but shouldn’t you? I still bring that experience to a current or future employer, so isn’t it worthy?
In the beginning, I had to have a rudimentary understanding of html, TCP/IP, and be at least competent in computer hardware and software maintenance, use, configuration, and troubleshooting. Once the decision was made to have a website, I had to select among a variety of storage sites, create a page, and upload it via FTP.
In order to drive traffic to said page, I had to understand both user behavior as well as how search engines work? I had to see the internet as search engine crawlers do – the titles, metatags, and alt text of images.
When it came time to start a blog, I had to decide what I wanted, and then look through the various platforms available to select the best one. I had to know what I needed, as well as what I didn’t. I then needed to select or design a template that was both functional for the user and the search engines as well as being aesthetically pleasing. The design would have to follow contemporary usability standards too.
When it came to the content, I had to make sure I was putting up what people would consume. My writing would have to be engaging and involving. I had to learn to write copy. I also needed to develop a voice – the content I wrote, synthesized, and linked to in fact became my marketing and brand.
That whole time I also had to keep track of my traffic. Who was visiting? What language? What days? What times? Where did they come from? What were they using? What ISP? What browser? What search engine? What keywords? What inferences could be made from these findings?
I also had to reach out to this community of stakeholders – be they readers, subscribers, other linking blogs, people who shared the same interests, geography, or sentiments, managing and enriching relationships.
The last part goes into strategic planning – what future directions would be tackled? What lay ahead for the technology, the design, the material? Will there be a revenue stream – does it matter?
The process of starting and maintaining a blog involved the knowledge, skills, abilities, and other attributes of multiple disciplines and jobs. By skimming the above, I can easily see competencies of someone specializing in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). There are also elements that could describe a web designer, graphic artist, marketing, advertising, or communications specialist, a copywriter, a community manager, and traffic manager.
Having a blog may be seen as some sort of frivolous vanity project, but for someone who takes it seriously, even if it never generates any revenue, the value of the experience may be immeasurable…