How I Started a Blog for my Brother with Autism
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As the oldest sibling of my family I feel that I have a responsibility to look out for my brother and sister who are younger than me. I always want to make sure they are taken care of especially if something were to ever happen to our parents. This past year has been full of lots of changes for me personally. I started a new job, moved to a new city, and have taken on this role of a new online adventure with starting this blog as a family. My brother is 14 years old right now and this year we have been thinking as a family about his transition into adulthood. No one ever knows what the future will hold for them, (I had no idea I would be changing jobs or moving this year), but we take it step by step and learn as we go through the process. So, as a family, we are going to take it step by step and learn as we go for my brother.
My brother is currently homeschooled by my mother who is a special education teacher. I feel so blessed to have been raised by a mother who has always been able to see the best in people and helped to bring out their unique abilities to help them grow to their highest potential. She has shown me that every person has amazing talents and abilities and we need to always show kindness and respect to every one. I am so grateful that my mother has been able to help my brother learn skills and abilities through a nurturing environment that works well for him in our home. Every child is unique and every situation is different for every family. I am just thankful we found a solution that works well for our family. Throughout this blogging experience we will share what works well for our family, but we realize and understand this may not be what is best for your family, but hopefully we will be able to share insight that can help your family in a positive light.
Well, now you are probably wondering why are you creating this blog with your brother with Autism in mind? The purpose for our family with this blog is to be able to create an online home business for our family with the option to allow my brother to help contribute when he is ready or wanting to be able to have an option to make an income as he transitions into adulthood. Once I started doing some research of my own and realizing how blogs can make money and thought to myself this would be an amazing option for my brother whether he would want to join me or I can learn the skills and teach him to where he can start and sustain his own blog when he is older. I am someone who loves to learn and I have loved getting to learn the online blogging world, (even though it can be frustrating teaching myself a new skill). We live in a small town in Iowa and we have no idea if my brother will be able to live totally independent or if he will need family for support. We just want to do what we feel is best for our family and create something where we know he will have the ability to thrive. We know that he loves working on the computer and does well in a one on one environment. These are reasons why we feel that blogging can be a great opportunity for him and our family.
How did I start to teach myself the blogging world?
Around October of 2016 I started to think hard about ways I could help my brother with his future and I started searching online for ideas. I am someone that loves Pinterest and Facebook. I started looking on Pinterest and I noticed there seemed to be a lot of pins that I was drawn to about making money online and I have always been a big dreamer with wanting to start something that was my own to be able leave a bigger impact on this world. I have known that I am someone that is wanting to figure out ways to help other people. I started clicking on those pins and finding blogs that I liked to follow and read about how they were making money. I would think to myself how are they doing it and why can't I figure out how to make money blogging? That was when the inner drive and start of my journey began. During this time was when I had just started my new job so I was on over drive with learning new things, and the blog was put on the back burner. I was constantly thinking about how I could start this though.
Around January 2017 was when came across an amazing resource!! This resource was so incredible because it was designed for first time bloggers where the author laid out a solid foundation to start a blog step by step. Her course was laid out in a simple, but professional way that I could understand with step by step videos of the exact steps you needed to take to start a blog. She was able to help me see my dream, but also create my dream.
What is this amazing step by step blog course? It is called Blog By Number Course by Suzi Whitford from Start A Mom Blog. I cannot say enough positive things about Suzi and her amazing course!! She is such an inspiration and has been so helpful along my own blogging journey. She responds to every email and question that I have for her and she is a super busy women. She has two kiddos and is pregnant with her third! She has grown her own blog from making $0 to $53,765 in ONE year!!! Wow that is amazing work and she knows what she is taking about! She is such a sweet person and truly cares about each and every one of her followers! She takes your hand and walks you step by step through each process. I would HIGHLY recommend anyone that is new to the blogging world who is just starting out or if you are someone that wants to learn how to make money with a blog take Suzi's Blog by Number Course!!
After making a connection with Suzi through her course, blog and email list I had Suzi's total trust and believed in every resource that she offered. Why this is such an amazing course you might ask? The course is so SIMPLE! She lays out everything step by step so you know exactly how to complete each step of the course! It is the perfect course for someone just starting out or even newer in the blogging world that just needs help and guidance on the next steps.
Just take a look at this preview picture of the course and all of the amazing resources you will get when you enroll!! She also takes amazing personal stock photos that she gives you to use in your first blog! She is so generous and has an amazing heart! She is someone that truly cares about each and every one of her followers!
She walks you through choosing your nice, getting your domain name and web hosting, figuring out the theme of you blog, creating a content schedule for your blog posts, how to promote your blog, how to monetize it, and also how to create amazing images that you can use on Pinterest to help promote your blog! She does it all and I cannot have asked for a more amazing resource for just starting out. I am so incredibly thankful that we crossed paths at this time in my life! Here are just some of the things you will find in her ebook and online course!
One thing that I LOVE about Suzi is that she is transparent about the fact that it takes time and effort to make money blogging. It is NOT a get-rich-quick thing. She is very reasonable about the time frame it will take to make a good blog and she is always saying it is a marathon, but it is a marathon worth running.
Lastly, she gives you an idea of how long each step will take you to complete! How amazing is that! It allows you the ability to schedule your day and weeks to make this whole blogging process a piece of cake!
The next steps in my blogging journey
I am someone that totally commits myself to a project if I am super passionate about something, and I am super passionate about this blogging world. After taking Suzi's Blog by Number course I decided I wanted to keep learning, but I also wanted to start now! I am so thankful that Suzi lead me to such an amazing resource with SiteGround for web hosting! This is truly an amazing company with how wonderful their support services are. I am a total newbie to this blogging world, and every time I cannot figure something out I go to the chat area and they instantly answer my questions and help me figure them out right away!
Why I LOVE SiteGround to host my blog?
- I love the customer service because they are super fast and I can instantly chat with them! They are eager to answer my questions and have always been able to help me through the chat feature in about 5 to 10 minutes.
- They were super helpful and installed WordPress on my site for me all within the chat feature when I couldn't figure it out myself! It was super simple!
- They have amazing uptime with having a very speedy site!
- I feel like I have an entire support team to help me out when ever I have questions or don't understand how to do something!
SiteGround has been an amazing resource and I am so thankful that Suzi led me to them in the beginning of this process! I feel like I won the lottery knowing that I have amazing support when I am still learning this entire blogging process. I hope that you can feel as confident as I do with these two amazing resources with starting a new blog as I have these past few months!
I would love to hear about your blogging journey and if you find these resources helpful for you! Do you know someone in your life whether it be someone in the special needs community or a sibling you would love to learn more about the online blogging world? Do you think they may be able to start their own business with the ability to work from home and is good with computers? Let me know about your experiences and people in your life that may benefit from learning this skill!
Are you someone looking for support in the special needs community? Click here for our list of 24 Amazing Online Support Groups and Blogs for Special Needs Families!
