[All photos in this post where taken by Huong Nguyen of Velvet Media and Marketing at Momed in Atwater Village]

When it comes to starting your own blog, chances are your initial thought focuses on creating your website. You smile like Dr. Evil as you think about it, “Then it’s gonna look like this, and I’ll have this slide in from there, and then the colors will be XYZ”. While those are all extremely important components, they’re not the best places to start. If you have your blog name picked out, one of the next fundamental steps is to create the personality for your blog. It’s best to have the ideal personality down because it’ll make choosing a color scheme and logo much easier. Whether you’re starting a restaurant, cooking, or lifestyle blog having a personality will make a great difference in how you interact and communicate with your audience. In order to create the best personality for your blog, here are six tips to help you along the way.

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Deciding on the personality of your blog is a tough one as you’re often hit with a handful of questions.

1. Should I be myself?
2. What if no one likes me?
3. I really like Such & Such Person, should I imitate them?
4. What if I’m a combination of myself and my favorite blogger?
5. Would creating a totally different persona work for my blog?

The choice is completely up to you, but what I find works best can be summed up in two words: be authentic. Looking at the growth of your blog and your overall happiness with your content, it’s important to be authentic in the personality you give out because you’ll have it for the life of your blog. With that said, be the best version of yourself. I know creating a person or becoming like the blogger you admire sounds good, but how about you don’t. Sure that person has qualities that you like, but you shouldn’t be them. There are characteristics about yourself that are great and those should be amplified in your blog. Whether it’s your wit, humor, sassy mouth, or great ability to tell a story, whatever makes you happy about you is what you should express in what you do. With that, let’s rule out numbers three through five because you’re sticking with number one. Did I just tell you what to do? My bad, but do it anyway.

Oh yeah, and if no one likes you as you are: fuck em. My personal thought is that if no one likes me it’s probably because they have bad taste or I didn’t like them first. So far, it’s pretty accurate.

Look at her blog, now look at yours. Look at her blog, now look at yours.

Comparing what you write about to another person isn’t always fun because the life of the other person often seems so much more exciting. You read her posts or see his photos and stare in amazement wondering, “Is that a koala sitting next to them at their dinner? Where’d they find a koala in LA?” I have to admit, that is pretty cool. Then it comes time for you to write your review or to post your photo. Maybe you have to tell a story about a latte and, garsh there’s very little entertainment in between the vanilla and steamed milk. So, you just fub it a little—who’s really going to know anyway, right? Add a little exaggeration here, a little romance there, and here comes the plot by you, the next Ava Duvernay. That’s fine if your blog is about the fantastical side of storytelling and the reader knows it’s not entirely true, but if it isn’t then you should just be honest. Tell the narrative of your experience at a restaurant, at a festival, or while traveling as it was. Describe the story, but use great diction. Retell what happened and interject the same excitement you had while it was occurring. Keep in mind, not every blog post has to be amazing but if you’re honest about it there’s a good chance it will read as if it is. And if it doesn’t well, oh well, your world will keep rotating.

Want to add a little perspective?

I love Black Mirror, but I don’t love every episode. Still I’m a loyal fan through and through. Sure it’s a fantasy story developed out of pure imagination, but they stay honest to their truth and brand personality. Even within that, they may a flop here and there but the honesty, creativity, and connection through storytelling as it should be told will always have me following time after time.

By the way, “The Waldo Moment” is the Black Mirror flop I’m referring to if you didn’t know already.

When I first started I struggled with figuring out how I wanted to talk. “Talk” referring to my diction, spelling, and the sounds I would use. I initially thought I should come off professional, but that got boring quickly. Then, surprise! It also didn’t feel authentic. After trying to be a professional version of myself, my “Oh my word, thank you for hiring me I can’t wait to work here” self, I realized I didn’t care for it. I wanted to professional, but I also wanted to drop the ‘g’ on some of my gerunds, to crack jokes, curse, and insert sound effects like “merp!”. Why did I want to do that? Because that’s how I talk in my everyday life. Choosing to talk and write the way I wanted to not only made it easier for people to feel like I’m a real person, but it made it easier for me to write. I could write the way I think and talk and ultimately that makes the blog connect with others. When it comes to choosing the way you talk, consider talking in a way that makes you happy instead of how you think you should be.

When it comes to blogging, there are so many other websites that people can visit and if you have people coming to you, then you need to provide them with great content. Since your industry is probably oversaturated—restaurants certainly is—it’s important to have an opinion about food. Instead of posting a gorgeous picture of what you ate, add some insight to the dish. Everyone can say something “tasted good” (and they do), but that’s because it’s easy. Go a bit further and talk about the texture, the scent, and what it reminds you of. Then when you write your review, discuss the restaurant as a whole, the interior, the staff, how it all made you feel. A breakfast, lunch, and dinner is about the food but since there is more to it than what is merely on the plate, take that into your assessment as well. Even if it’s not a popular opinion, have it and stand by it.

I think one of the best ways to connect with people is to let them know about yourself. A great way to do this is to incorporate your own experiences in your captions and blog posts. As you talk about a restaurant you’re visiting and giving your opinion about the food (aye see what I did there), you can tell a bit about yourself too. Your stories add to your personality as they bring forth parts of your life that people don’t know. It’s like you’re opening up to your readers and telling them, “Hi, welcome to my place. Feel free to take a look around.” Whether it’s the story about how your dad got you interested in dining out, your cat that kept you company while starting your own business, or how not getting hired propelled you to follow your dream, they’re all beautiful pieces that come together to best add to your personality. Doing so also makes you relatable and you would be surprised at how many people have similar stories to yours. I know I have been.

I’m not even going to pretend like this one is easy to do because it’s not. I’m not even going to act like I do this one on a regular basis because I don’t. But what I can say is that I try my hardest to blog as consistently as I can. Notice I said “as I can” and not “as possible”. Reason being, real life happens. You’re going to be tired (which no one really cares about), you’re juggling a lot, you’re trying to maintain relationships all while building your blog which means you can only update your website so often. If you can’t keep to a schedule, don’t beat yourself over it. However, it’s essential that you add some sort of consistency to your personality and communicate that to your readers. Whether you tell them when you’ll be posting 3 times a week, 3 times a month, and even when you’ll be away, try to throw some consistency in your routine so your followers can know when they’ll hear from you and your fun personality.

Starting your own blog is extremely exciting and challenging. From picking your blog name to getting your first post out, there is so much to do and so much in between. However, before you hit publish on your first post, I hope you’re able to take the tips here to create a personality for your blog that you love. If your game plan is to eventually blog full-time and for years to come, instill a personality you’ll be happy with for the long run. I mean you’re basically going to be in a relationship and wouldn’t it be great to love the personality of your blog like it were a significant other? Well not that one of ex of yours, but you know … the one you really liked.

Yeah, that one.