Sometime last week I published the 500th post of this blog.

It might not be apparent to you, but those 500 blog posts changed my life.

Three years ago I was a stay at home mom.

I’d put a career as a staff reporter then freelance journalist on hold seven years before to have a baby. That made three kids, a husband, dog, assorted lizards and goldfish, a big house and an even bigger yard. It was too much to handle all that and work without constantly being stressed out.

Over the years that followed, I dabbled with part-time work: a semester teaching at journalism school here, writing a couple stories for a daily newspaper there, filing a couple features for a friend who’d taken over as the editor of a trade magazine in between.

I finally came back to writing full time in fall 2007 when our oldest went to college and our youngest went to first grade.

Writing was the easiest part of my freelance business to slip back into.

It was everything else that had changed since I’d been away that was hard to figure out. I’d quit during the dot-com bust and had no clue what Web 2.0 was about. One day a friend casually mentioned LinkedIn and I needed her to explain it to me – me, who’d spent years as a tech industry writer and columnist.

To get myself up to speed, I started a blog. I signed up with Blogger first but quickly switched to WordPress because, honestly, the free version of WordPress had prettier themes, and more of them.

At first I had no specific subject in mind, and barely managed to figure out the software. Most of my initial posts were marginal, though a few have held up surprisingly well.

I got the hang of it soon enough. Over the two and a half years that followed, blogging literally transformed my writing business. How?

• By teaching myself about the mechanics of blogging, I was able to nab assignments to write about blogging and social media for publications likeInc.com.
• By teaching myself to blog, I made myself more marketable by showing perspective clients that in addition to writing straight news, features and columns, I was proficient in another writing format, no small thing as more publications maintain contributor-written blogs.
• By using the blog to showcase my resume, bio and clips, I landed the biggest freelance gig of my career to date, a long-term contract fromFederated Media to edit GetTheInsideEdge.com, a custom publication on corporate finance for mid-size companies that American Expresslaunched in April. Afterward, I learned that even before they called me, the people who hired me had thoroughly vetted my blog and LinkedIn profile.
• By showing I understood the medium and could post week in and week out, I was invited to be a paid contributing blogger at SecondAct.com, an online magazine for people over 40 published from Entrepreneur Media, publisher of Entrepreneur. In addition to blogging here, you can read my posts on workplace issues, careers and retirement on SecondAct’s Prime Time blog twice a week.
• By using my blog to track what’s happening in the digital media industry I’ve been invited to speak at journalism conferences and industry groups.
• By inviting other writers with blogs to join me in a personal challenge to blog every day for a month, I started the WordCount Blogathon, an annual event that’s created a writers’ community and become one ofhighlights of my year.
• By holding myself to a twice-weekly or more blogging schedule and strict editorial standards, I qualified to join a blog advertising network,BlogHer, and this year for the first time am earning advertising income solely from this blog.

I don’t point this out to brag, though I am proud of what I’ve accomplished, especially at a time in our industry when many freelancers question their ability to continue doing business in the manner to which they’re accustomed.

The main reason I’m sharing is this – if I can do it, you can too.

All it takes is commitment, confidence – and a blog.

It might not be apparent to you, but those 500 blog posts changed my life.

Three years ago I was a stay at home mom.

I’d put a career as a staff reporter then freelance journalist on hold seven years before to have a baby. That made three kids, a husband, dog, assorted lizards and goldfish, a big house and an even bigger yard. It was too much to handle all that and work without constantly being stressed out.

Over the years that followed, I dabbled with part-time work: a semester teaching at journalism school here, writing a couple stories for a daily newspaper there, filing a couple features for a friend who’d taken over as the editor of a trade magazine in between.

I finally came back to writing full time in fall 2007 when our oldest went to college and our youngest went to first grade.

Writing was the easiest part of my freelance business to slip back into.

It was everything else that had changed since I’d been away that was hard to figure out. I’d quit during the dot-com bust and had no clue what Web 2.0 was about. One day a friend casually mentioned LinkedIn and I needed her to explain it to me – me, who’d spent years as a tech industry writer and columnist.

To get myself up to speed, I started a blog. I signed up with Blogger first but quickly switched to WordPress because, honestly, the free version of WordPress had prettier themes, and more of them.

At first I had no specific subject in mind, and barely managed to figure out the software. Most of my initial posts were marginal, though a few have held up surprisingly well.

I got the hang of it soon enough. Over the two and a half years that followed, blogging literally transformed my writing business. How?

• By teaching myself about the mechanics of blogging, I was able to nab assignments to write about blogging and social media for publications like Inc.com.
• By teaching myself to blog, I made myself more marketable by showing perspective clients that in addition to writing straight news, features and columns, I was proficient in another writing format, no small thing as more publications maintain contributor-written blogs.
• By using the blog to showcase my resume, bio and clips, I landed the biggest freelance gig of my career to date, a long-term contract from Federated Media to edit GetTheInsideEdge.com, a custom publication on corporate finance for mid-size companies that American Express launched in April. Afterward, I learned that even before they called me, the people who hired me had thoroughly vetted my blog and LinkedIn profile.
• By showing I understood the medium and could post week in and week out, I was invited to be a paid contributing blogger at SecondAct.com, an online magazine for people over 40 published from Entrepreneur Media, publisher of Entrepreneur. In addition to blogging here, you can read my posts on workplace issues, careers and retirement on SecondAct’s Prime Time blog twice a week.
• By using my blog to track what’s happening in the digital media industry I’ve been invited to speak at journalism conferences and industry groups.
• By inviting other writers with blogs to join me in a personal challenge to blog every day for a month, I started the WordCount Blogathon, an annual event that’s created a writers’ community and become one of highlights of my year.
• By holding myself to a twice-weekly or more blogging schedule and strict editorial standards, I qualified to join a blog advertising network, BlogHer, and this year for the first time am earning advertising income solely from this blog.

I don’t point this out to brag, though I am proud of what I’ve accomplished, especially at a time in our industry when many freelancers question their ability to continue doing business in the manner to which they’re accustomed.

The main reason I’m sharing is this – if I can do it, you can too.

All it takes is commitment, confidence – and a blog.

Once a week? A day? An hour?

I’ve been known to obsess over blog traffic, especially if I’ve written something I think is especially profound and want to make sure the whole world shares my opinion.

Checking your blog’s traffic stats is actually quite useful, and not just for massaging your ego. By carefully studying what people are reading, where they’re coming from and where they’re clicking through to you can learn a lot. Including:

1. What topics are popular, so you can write more of the same. Based on a careful reading of my stats, I know that the most popular posts on WordCount have been on writing basics, blogs for writers, market intelligence and the fates of specific freelancers, good or bad.

2. What post formats work best, so you can write more of them. Based on stats, WordCount readers like posts that are lists, best ofs and how tos, plus posts on controversial subjects such as whether or not to write for content aggregators. Armed with that information, I now look for opportunities to do more of those types of posts. I’m also thinking of ways to aggregate those types of blog posts into an ebook or something else I could self publish.

3. What days of the week get the most eyeballs, so you can be sure to post on them. I get more traffic on weekdays than weekends, so unless it’s the May blogathon I sponsor every year and I’m blogging everyday, I blog M-F and take weekends off.

4. What reader-commenters are also fellow bloggers, so you can befriend them by leaving comments on their blogs or adding them to your blog roll, helping boost traffic for both of you.

5. What keywords are bringing readers from Google or other search engines.  If you know what people search on to find you, you can be sure to tag future posts on similar subjects with those same keywords. Top keywords and phrases that bring people here: word count, michelle rafter, qualities of a good editor, freelance story ideas and hyperlocal news.

How often do you check your blog stats? How has checking your blog stats changed how you blog?