Lindsey is mom to four kiddos under the age of five. She writes at Campfire Song about life as a military wife and SAHM, growing up, social media and funny stuff. She’s @dashingly on Twitter, and she sometimes haunts Facebook too. Below is her experience during her first year of blogging.

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A is for About Me. This page is often the toughest part of a blog to write.

B is for backing up. Do this to your site often so that you don’t lose your hard work.

C is for critique. I was fortunate enough to have one done by the #blogchat community, and gained invaluable insight from it.

D is for design. It’s important – first impressions are priceless. And I’m still tweaking mine.

E is for engagement. The best way to get your name out there is by interacting with other bloggers.

F is for frequency of posting. I get the most traffic when I keep it consistent.

G is for guest posting. It’s a great way to write outside your usual niche, get your name out there and make new friends.

H is for hard work. That’s what it takes to have any kind of success blogging.

I is for insight into my own thoughts. It’s why I started blogging and I’ve now got a lot of it.

J is for junk. It’s better to post nothing than to put up poor writing; please don’t do it!

K is for Klout – the first social media tool I ditched. It changed how I look at statistics.

L is for list post – my favourite kind.

M is for manners. Use them online the same way you would in real life for commenting, guest posting, chats and copyrights.

N is for niche. Identifying yours might be tough if you’re a SAHM who writes about everything, but it’ll help you seek your target audience.

O is for open. Blogging opens doors to work and opening ourselves up to others allows everyone to learn.

P is for priorities, and mine is family. If you have a life off of the computer, you’ll never be short of post fodder.

Q is for quality. Good content will have readers looking forward to your next post.

R is for ranting. Constantly posting controversy is a turnoff. Readers (and many writers, I think) are looking for support – not to be shot down in the comments section.

S is for spam. Some of my funniest comments are not publishable because they’re not actually real.

T is for Twitter. It’s an invaluable tool to connect with people and it’s faster than Dr. Google if you ever have a question!

U is for understanding social media and its power. The internet is where many people spend much of their time, so to underestimate the power of online branding is, in my opinion, naïve.

V is for value. Do you blog for money? Therapy? Your blog is worth something as long as you think so.

W is for WordPress. It’s definitely the platform I’d recommend to a newbie.

X is for xenodochial – something you should be to your readers.

Y is for you. Your blog is your space, and as long as you’re pleasing you at the end of the day, you will have success.

Z is for zeal. If you’re not writing with it, your readers will know. They’re smart like that.

There they are – twenty-six things I learned in the past year of writing at Campfire Song.

What’s the most important thing your blog has taught you?