Hey guys!
It's Lay.
Today I’m just doing a brief intro because I’m having a guest take over this post. I wanted to start a new series where I have other boss people (currently girl bosses) take over my blog by answering a few questions from me.
Our first guest is Vanessa Ashley. She is a college student at the Fashion Institute of technology. She started a YouTube channel Vanessa Ashley and now she is launching a blog on WordPress on October 1st. She’s here today to talk about her new blog. If you want to contact her to welcome her into her the blogging community be sure to reach out to her on Instagram @vanessaaashley.
1.Tell us 5 facts about you?
Five facts about me are that my name is Vanessa, which symbolizes “butterfly” in Greek, I am half British and half Italian, I have a small Yorkie named Maxx, New York City is my most favorite place to be, and I love to bake.
2. What is the name of your blog?
The name of my blog is “Vanessaashlyblogs”. I went with that because all of my other social media platforms are some version of “Vanessa Ashley”, my first and middle name. I wanted to keep things as consistent as possible.
3. When is the launch date and why did you choose that date?
The launch date for my Blog website is October 1st, 2020. I decided to go with that specific date because I want to make sure the website is as perfect as it can get before launching it. I am sort of a perfectionist when it comes to things like this.
4.What inspired you to start a blog?
I have a strong passion for beauty, skincare, fashion, and lifestyle in general so I wanted to create a platform that is totally personalized by me. I like the idea of creating weekly content about said categories on my own terms.
Also, I have friends who are content creators and they inspire me to expand my platform. I feel like a blog is a perfect way for me to expand as I’ll be able to write about things I don’t necessarily talk about on other platforms.
5.How will your blogging content differ from your youtube content?
My blogging content will mainly be writing and pictures while my youtube is strictly videos (obviously) consisting of vlogs, hauls, beauty content, etc. I like the idea of simplicity so I want to keep my blog simple, yet informative.
6.What goal do you have for blogging this year?
My main goal is to establish myself as a blogger and enter the blogging community. I’m not focusing on analytics right away, as I want to learn more about the experience before growing my platform.
7.Did you have professional help when completing your blog or did you do it all yourself?
I did not have professional help when completing my blog. I used the program called WordPress to create my website, and I’ll admit it sure was challenging. I feel as though I’m getting the hang of things now which is nice, but WordPress definitely did not make it easy. (No offense to any WordPress lovers haha)
8. What has been your favorite and least favorite part of creating a blog?
My favorite part of creating a blog is laying out my website, choosing the pictures, editing the pages, etc. It’s a lot of fun to customize it and add my own personal touches. What I dislike about this process is that WordPress is slightly challenging in my opinion. But eventually, it started to make more sense. Overall, the experience of creating the blog has been so much fun.
9. How often will you post on your blog?
My goal is to post weekly, but I’m not putting too much pressure on myself in the beginning mainly because I have school to focus on, and other content to create aside from my blog.
10. What do you think will be the most challenging part about blogging?
Honestly, I feel like being consistent will be a challenge at first, only because I’m currently a student (taking 7 classes at FIT) who takes school very seriously. Obviously, I will try my best, but as I mentioned earlier, I’m not putting too much pressure on myself.
11. Can you tell us why you chose your hosting service and what makes it different from other ones?
I chose WordPress because a friend of mine recommended it, but obviously, everyone's experiences with hosting services are different. I don’t have anything against WordPress, it’s just a challenge sometimes.
As mentioned, a friend recommended this. In the past I have looked into hosting services such as square space, Wix, etc. but they did not seem to support the image I have in mind for my blog website as a whole. WordPress seemed to have a lot of features that would allow me to layout my website in a particular way I want.
12. Do you plan on telling personal stories on your blog: why or why not?
I don’t plan on telling stories that are too personal on my blog, if that makes sense, just because I want to keep my personal life off of social media, or the internet in general, as much as possible. This may change in the future if I feel more comfortable, but for now, I don’t plan on posting anything too personal on any platform whatsoever.
13.Will you participate in blogging challenges this year (i.e. blogmas)? Why or why not? If not, is it something you want to do in the future?
As of right now, I do not have plans to participate in blogging challenges, but perhaps I will in the future. I am a huge fan of challenges though and am interested in them for sure.
14. Did you do a lot of research when you were in the planning phase? What did you learn about?
I honestly just went with the flow. I took the knowledge that I already knew and started from there. If I stumbled at all or had questions, I would research or ask friends. My main motto is to go with the flow, so I didn’t do an extensive amount of research as some people would normally do.
With that being said, I mainly researched different hosting services because I felt like that was the most important aspect of my blog initially. I learned a lot about the different types of services to host my website and liked WordPress the most.
15. Is there anything you have questions about as a new blogger? If so, write them down in question form.
Some questions I have are:
How do you come up with content ideas/ does it get tiring?
What is your favorite aspect of blogging?
How long did it take you to create your blog?
I wanted to end off this post by saying my answers to her questions. You can email your own responses at vanessaboiardi@gmail.com.
I draw inspiration from things around me whether it's physical or digital as well as my own emotions
My favorite aspect is that I get to share my perspectives that can possibly help someone else or inspire them.
I started my blog is 2018. I remember I planned it for a month- 2 months. Then in 2019, revamped it around the same time because the end of the year is when I get my burst to create things that are new and different. So this is a hard question because I feel like I'm constantly making improvements as I learn instead of spending more time trying to make it perfect because a person learns through experience so the more I ha put it off the more I wouldn't have posted.
So that is all for today. Thank you so much for reading my first interview and I can't wait to do more like this in the future. Let me know if you find this post interesting. Also, be sure to check out Vanessa's blog when it launches on October 1st. In the meanwhile there's a lot more fun content coming soon. Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe to keep up to date on here. New posts are up every Saturday and I hope you come back again. Have a good day, evening, or night, and stay healthy and safe.
Until next time,
xoxo Lay 💋
My last blog post: Life of a college student during a pandemic
My youtube channel: SimplyLay
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