It’s my birthday! The Everyday Admin turns 1…

I can’t believe it’s already the 1 year anniversary of The Everyday Admin! I set up the website on October 24th 2018 and published my very first post “An inaugural event and a debut speaker…InspireEast 2018” on October 26th 2018.

I’d never set up a website before, never used WordPress, never written a blog post. I didn’t know what I was doing and I certainly didn’t know what to expect. In this post I’m going to share with you my experience of having a blog, I’m going to be completely candid with you about my stats, I’ll explain some blog/WordPress jargon, and finally, detail my lessons learned.

I’m not sure sharing all this information is really the done thing, it’s quite personal, but I wish I’d had some sort of reference point along the way and this post might be useful if you have a blog or are looking to start one.

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The stats:

What’s the difference between visitors and views? Well, I’m glad you asked. Every time someone navigates to a post or page on WordPress it counts as a view, however a single visitor might click on 3 separate posts, thus generating 3 “views” by 1 “visitor”.

Views per month

The chart above demonstrates a correlation between the amount of content I publish and views: fewer posts = fewer views.

Top 5 blogs

1. In top spot with 1894 views is the write up of my very first talk Use lightning quick actions to create powerful page layouts your users will love!
2. In second place with 1787 views Dashboard date filters: the best feature you’re not using yet…
3. In third place with 1587 views Create A Data Quality Progress Bar 🔋
4. In fourth place with 1288 views Time saving tips: Remove all report columns with a single click using the Lightning report builder!
5. In fifth place, with a huge 1158 views despite only being published on August 21st 2019, is Admins – You Can Integrate Too by fabulous guest author Ronak Mehta of Cloud Integrate

Where do readers go next?

My aim for The Everyday Admin was always to create tips and tutorials that acted as a “one stop shop”. I would do the research and trawl the internet for relevant information, then provide links, so you don’t have to. I’m really pleased to see my posts are generating a lot of “clicks”. I especially like seeing clicks to other Salesforce community blogs like The Accidental Admins and Admin Hero. I’ve tried hard to link to Twitter accounts in my blog posts so readers can easily find and follow other Salesforce community members.

What’s a click? Well, in WordPress terms, clicks are “the number of times your readers have clicked on external links that appear on your site.”

So what are my top 10 clicks to other sites?

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Guest bloggers:

I’ve been really privileged to host several amazing members of our community on the blog. Each has their own experience, own perspective and own style. I know that I’ve personally learnt a lot from their posts and I hope you have to!

In order of publication date:

James Beezley: Create a Declarative Progress Bar

Paul Ginsberg & Chris Emmett: Trailblazer Community Emails: Declutter & Take Back Control!

Claire Jones: Summer 19′ new feature alert! Have you combined Flow & custom notifications yet?

Nathaniel Sombu: Get that “360 view” from any Salesforce object 🌍

Ronak Mehta: Admins – You Can Integrate Too

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Lessons learned from my first year:

• Don’t put emojis in the title. Whilst they look great on the post itself, they make the URL link look naff when shared.
• There’s a crazy amount of talented writers in the community. Hosting guest authors has been a complete breeze and so much fun.
• It’s hard to feel motivated when you’re taking time out. Having recently taken 8 weeks out following an operation, I had pretty bad writers block. Without using Salesforce daily, and being away from the community, my well of creativity vanished. Attempting the certification maintenance on Trailhead reignited my passion and got me writing again. The point being that Salesforce is a vocation, not just a job, and it’s important to be proactive and seek out opportunities to learn and become inspired.
• Maintaining a blog and coming up with content week after week can be difficult. I’ve attempted to post weekly with some success. On average I’ve managed 3 posts a month. I’m still trying to learn to be satisfied with putting out good content, even if it’s not at the frequency I hoped. Quality over quantity as they say…
• Having said the above…consistency is key; I need to keep providing useful content frequently enough to be relevant.
• Always add a search bar for easier navigation. Thanks @mr_eichhorn_at for giving me a little nudge to get one added to The Everyday Admin.
• Getting shared is really important for exposure. I’ve been lucky enough to be shared and re-tweeted by several Salesforce influencers. Their audiences far surpass my own and drive more traffic to The Everyday Admin. Being included in the official Salesforce Admin digest doubled my website visitors for a week.
• Getting likes and positive feedback is incredible motivating. I don’t know any bloggers who do this for praise or thanks, but when it’s just you behind a computer pushing out content, it’s a real boost to know that people are reading it and it’s helping someone.
• You don’t have to be all things to all people – do what you love and it will show. I want to write tips and tutorials; the kind of things that have helped me. My content is aimed at all Admins, but especially with newer and solo Admins in mind. I don’t write about things I have no experience of, the guest authors can do that for me!
• Don’t compare your blog to anyone else’s. There are lots of them in the Salesforce ecosystem, all with a different purpose and vision, and that’s ok. By all means, take inspiration from other blogs, but be confident enough to create the blog you want and don’t feel pressured to be the same as everyone else.

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Final thoughts:

I have loved every minute of creating the website and writing content. Having the blog has given me a fantastic creative outlet that continues to fill me with such joy and passion for the platform, for the community, and for helping others. I would wholeheartedly recommend blogging to anyone else out there who feels like they have something useful to share.

If you’d like to write a guest blog and share it via The Everyday Admin then feel free to get in touch via the Contact page or Twitter! I would love to talk to anyone with a blog idea that’s aimed at declarative Admins.

Finally, a massive thank you to my guest authors, to my visitors, and to everyone who has liked, shared and commented on my posts.

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