The Beginning of Still Blonde After all these Years & What I have Learned

Still Blonde after all these Years — Why I started Blogging

This post The Beginning of Still Blonde After all these Years post was inspired and sponsored by Domain.ME, the provider of the personal domains that end in .ME. As a company, they aim to promote thought leadership to the tech world. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

My first profile picture (taken in front of a hanging tablecloth (lol) and later cropped to take out the bodacious tatas! Taken from a 5-2011 blog post: “White out, Change it up: Outfits modeled by Women over 45”

Where it all started for Still Blonde after all these Years

In the beginning, there was blonde. She went to see a movie called Julie & Julia (a 2009 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Nora Ephron starring Meryl Streep, Amy Adams, Stanley Tucci, and Chris Messina) about Julia Child’s story of her start in the cooking profession intertwined with blogger Julie Powell’s 2002 challenge to cook all the recipes in Child’s first book. One dark and stormy night, while Walt was away, a blog was born–October 2009.

Why the name? Still Blonde after all these Years?

In 1975, Paul Simon put out his 4th Solo album entitled “Still Crazy after all these Years”. My brother had a copy and I would steal it whenever I could. When I was trying to think of my blog name, I wanted something that captured my tagline of “Fashion and Lifestyle for the Slightly Vintage Woman” and this name just hit me- Still Blonde after all these Years. It had it all, it implied:

• a certain age of woman
• a certain gender
• a certain kind of woman (classy? ditzy? you decide)
• a certain attitude (still hanging on to the blonde)

First Blog post

My first blog post…great pictures right? I had no idea about size, lightening, or backgrounds. LOL

The first blog post I ever wrote was about makeup! Can you believe that? I really don’t hardly EVER write about makeup. My pictures were dark and small. It’s almost laughable today…but the point is, I took a photo, I talked about something and I got my start.

So many women say to me “I’d like to start a blog about…” and then they want to know HOW. I just tell them you just have to do it. You have to go down the rabbit hole, figure it out, and just get started. Ask 19 million questions as you go along, but don’t wait to have them all answered before beginning.

What have I learned over these seven years? SO MANY THINGS

In early 2010, I started doing some Fashion Blogging, see all my Fashion Posts! 

Here’s some advice I would offer new bloggers, after 7 years of many mistakes:

• Watch for trends in blogging. Follow some trends, but not all so you don’t look like a cookie cutter blog.
• Join as many new social networks as you can. Watch closely what big bloggers are doing and try to build numbers in the best networks early
• Force yourself to care about photography
• Hire people to do the things you can’t
• Don’t start out on the blogger platform or wordpress.com
• Don’t use a long blog name (Still Blonde after all these years has 34 letters!!)
• Switch hosting companies when they go bad
• Build a newsletter right away
• Get a great domain name!

What I would do NOW if I was a new blogger

I would tell new bloggers to choose their domain name carefully when building their blog. I would suggest strongly that when choosing their domain name and domain URL that they think it out very carefully. Consider using a .ME domain. If I had it to do again, I might choose a great domain URL like ShelleyZurek.ME or StillBlonde.ME

WHY CHOOSE A .ME DOMAIN NAME??

Domain.ME is a domain name provider that allows anyone (personal and/or business) to create a unique, safe identity online with a domain ending in .ME. PSST! It’s important to note that .MEs are not penalized when it comes to SEO. They have the same benefits as any .COM.

A .ME is uniquely positioned to provide you with the space you need to build your personal brand and create a captivating online reputation and persona that’s a direct reflection of you. .ME domains are great for personal websites, such as blogs, online portfolios, or aliases for social network profiles. Have you seen all of our Domain.Me posts or our last Domain.ME ?

Get a .ME domain for an enhanced presence online