How Did I Get Started with Blogging? |

October 8, 2026 blogging tips 🕑 4 minutes read

Istanbul Turkey

Someone told me to start blogging 18 years ago.

Here I am today.

What a sexy blogging story.

My origins are boring. I never see this post ranking high on Google.

Someone told me to start a blog. I bought my domain and hosting. I blogged.

A few years short of two decades later, I am doing the same stuff I did a long time ago. Listen. Write. Publish. Network. Promote. Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

I began my online journey with internet marketing. My mentor suggested blogging. He stressed the importance of owning online real estate. Build an email list. Buy your domain and hosting to run a blog. He drilled both ideas into my mind.

I rarely got more than two words out of the dude. He was busy. He was a highly successful internet marketer. He was not well-known. But he was busy. He thrived behind the scenes.

So I began blogging 18 years ago.

I had no clue in hell what to do. I winged it. I struggled. But I persisted.

I even hired an SEO agency to publish articles for me. No; not on my old blog. The guys published ezinearticles. But the guys were ESL. I appreciated their hustle. But the articles published under my name sounded rough. I flushed $500 USD I did not have at the time down the toilet. Lesson learned.

After this wake up call I decided to run a multi niche blog under a different domain name. I experienced mixed success.

Blogging From Paradise came into form in 2014. This old blog was a doozy. I made dough through it but never got clear on it, either.

2014 Turning Point

In 2014 I faced a crisis.

The hosting company put a cyber gun to my head.

The folks suspended my blog for breaking the terms of service. I allegedly broke a rule.

I could delete thousands of posts or my blog would remain suspended.

I considered my old blog. Did I enjoy it? No. Did I make dough off of the thing? Yes. But it never felt right.

I changed niches consistently. I never got clear on it. It felt off.

I had no vision for the thing minus posting some helpful content and earning coin.

Blogging From Paradise Dot Come became my next step.

I trashed the old blog. I had no desire to preserve it.

I thought about my life.

What consumed my life since 2011? I circled the globe as a digital nomad. My wife and I flew to Bali in May of 2011. We had been across SE Asia, Central America, South America and Fiji.

Blogging formed the basis of my online business.

I had been blogging from paradise since 2011.

After searching for domain names I came across a pleasant surprise: no one gobbled up Blogging From Paradise Dot Com.

I bought that sucker.

I wrote and published my first post on the domain.

Do you want to hear something neat?

A dude in Australia emailed me. He tried buying Blogging From Paradise Dot Com a short time after I purchased it.

I guess it was in the stars guys, eh?

Why Would You Care About How I Started Blogging?

Everyone assumes that a long blogging career has a spectacular origins story.

A blog that grows into something must have come about in special fashion, right?

Wrong.

The hosting company erased 6 years of my life. Does that sound special? Does that sound fun? Did I leap over the moon in excitement when 6 years of blogging work went down the cyber toilet in that moment?

The company ripped my blog away from me.

That’s how Blogging From Paradise Dot Com began.

Let’s revisit the beginning of my blogging career.

A guy who replied with 2 words *every freaking time* emailed me: “You should blog.”

I took his word for it. I did some due diligence but basically pulled the trigger based on trusting someone I barely knew.

Does this sound like a smart start? Did I show great wisdom?

Hell no.

Yet here I am 18 years later.

Long blogging careers may start with someone saying, “start a blog”, then you start the blog.

Stop Waiting for Signs

Most of you began blogging a while ago.

Aspiring bloggers; stop waiting for signs. Stop waiting for inspiration. Stop waiting. Buy your domain and hosting and get on with it. Either blogging is for you or ain’t for you. Maybe you should quit. Maybe you should keep blogging.

No magical blogging fairy gives you inspiration to make blogging decisions.

Most blogging careers begin in ordinary fashion. Some begin with severe heartache. The hosting company may all but force you to change blogs, as in the case of Blogging From Paradise Dot Com.

How you decide to begin blogging matters little.

Following a smart strategy for an extraordinary length of time matters plenty.