Hi guys, it's been a hectic start to my third year of uni, so sorry I haven't posted as much. But Morgan has nominated me for a blogger recognition award!

As I have some time, I feel this chain gives me the opportunity to catch up on my blogging.

I was nominated for the Blogger Recognition award—which is a blogging chain that encourages you to post about why you started your blog and provide two pieces of advice to new bloggers. I think this is good because I know that I have strayed from the reason I created this blog and remembering how it began might help me get back on track. It might also help new bloggers as they can follow the chain and get different advice as they do so.

So, without further ado, this is the Blogger Recognition Award!

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The Blogger Recognition Award rules

• Produce a post about the award
• Thank the blogger who nominated you and provide a link to their blog
• Write a brief story about how your blog began
• Provide two pieces of advice to newbie bloggers
• Select 15 blogs to nominate
• Comment on each nominee’s blog and provide a link to the post you made about the blogger recognition award

So first, a thank you to Morgan at brains and bodies for the nomination.

The Start of Little Sea Bear

Creating websites as a teenager.

This isn't my first blog/website; I've created many as a teenager. My first website was a Harry Potter themed one that I created using Weebly at the age of 13 or 14. Obsessed with the series at that time and connecting with people on Pottermore, I wanted to create a fandom website about it. Here's the link but remember, I was 13-14 at the time. It does make me cringe to think it is still out there, but hey, at least you guys get to see it right?

Still, at the time, I loved it. It was a website solely created by me—with a lot of help from existing themes. But I loved it, and so I started making more websites. One was themed on writing, another was a made-up dictionary, both lost forever... hopefully.

However, they were not blogs, they were certainly more like websites. No. My first blog is probably the one I created in college, Disability Is Us.  I originally made Disability is Us for my Media A-level coursework and thought it was great, but then as I focused more on my studies, I left it to get neglected.

A recent visit to the past

I went back to it recently, expecting to feel the same love for it that I felt 4-5 years ago. All I saw was a disaster. The website is no longer live but you can see extracts of it on a post that talks about building sites, linked above.

So that's how Little Sea Bear came along. I wanted a blog that talked about disability but also showed that I had other interests, like anyone else. It is a mixture of some of my interests, hobbies and university experience and I prefer that compared to focusing completely on disability.  I think this helps me to connect more with my audience, give it a personal touch and feel.

I don't see myself as my disability but see my disability as part of me, so while I cannot remove it completely (and I wouldn't even if I could), I can include other things that are not related to my disability, keeping the blog's audience open to everyone. Personally, I see it as an open diary really, with a focus on books, travel, education and disability.

Two pieces of advice

I was actually asked to write a post about blogging, so I'll probably do a more detailed one, but for now, the two pieces of advice will be a good start.

1. Use scheduling and drafts to your advantage. 
   This means that when you start your blog, get as many down in draft form before you actually go live and choose when you want your blogs to be posted. I choose Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays, but I am constantly looking at stats to see whether I am choosing the right day.Don't be afraid to try different times. Do you get more views in the morning or in the afternoon? Does one topic get more views on one day than on the other? Play around until you find out what is rght for you and your blog.
2. Find the right theme
   It'll take time, but if you really care about your blog, it will be time well spent. The right theme says a lot, if you look at my old website linked previously and compare it to Little Sea Bear you can tell that I have spent more time on the appearance of my blog here than over there.You'll know deep down if your site looks too cluttered, unorganised or overwhelming so spend the time to find the one that makes your site look like one you'd love to visit often.

Bonus tip:

Know what SEO is and make your posts as SEO friendly as possible. This means adding the key words to your content when relevant, in titles, in excerpts, in the URL but also to not spam your content with the key words. Google will pick up on that.  I create a spreadsheet to keep an eye on this.

My nominees

For amazing Book and Film reviews, Writing Tips and Arts, I nominate the following 6 blogs: 

1. The Reading Bull
2. Latte Lindsay.
3. Rachel Poli
4. Molly The Blogger
5. Room of Requirements

For insightful articles on disability, I nominate the following 2 blogs:

1.  The Life of Sophie Abel
2. Chronic Illness Stories by Chronic_Zebra

For interesting and entertaining posts on travels, I nominate 4 blogs:

1.  Its More Fun to Travel
2.  Simply Saidy
3. Travel With Nano B
4. So Very Sarah

For news relating to education and university, I nominate 2 blogs. 

1. This Uni Life
2. The Blog of Liz

For other interesting subjects, I nominate:

1. Unleash your Golden Mind
2. Social Media Dominates
3. Billions of Lives

I hope you enjoyed this post. Subscribe for more amazing content. If you haven't been tagged but would like to answer the same questions, consider yourself tagged, just remember to link back 😉

Don't forget to display this image on your own blogger recognition award posts.

~Shannon~

I hope you enjoyed this post. If you have, why not read some other posts. There are plenty on here: Blame and my post on plastic straws, just to name a few. And please do follow me on here, Facebook or Twitter.