March 15th was Where The Dogwood Blooms’ first anniversary! Seriously, y’all, I can’t believe I’m celebrating one year already. I swear this past year just blew right on by.

When I started the blog, I had no idea where this journey would lead. I just knew I wanted to help preserve the cultural heritage of North Carolina. Through stories, photography, and dialect, I hoped to encourage others to explore the traditions, locations, and flavors that have drawn people to NC for over 300 years.

In the last 12 months, I’ve published more than 80 posts. For the first 30, it felt like the only people following along were Brandon and the girls. After a couple of months of publishing with virtually zero readers, I got nervous and considered giving up. I’m glad I kept posting anyway. 

If I’d given in to my cold feet, I would’ve missed out on so much. The blog took me up to Elkin to explore the hiking trails, which was one of my favorite trips of 2021. WTDB was honored as one of the Top 80 North Carolina Blogs – something it earned for a second year running! And readership has grown like a weed over the last few months. 

These achievements remind me of why we should always keep pushing forward. So while I’m celebrating one year of WTDB, I’m also planning for the blog’s future.

Here are my blog goals for year two:

• Produce more content. My blog topic idea list is a country-mile long, and I’ll never get through them without tackling a more rigorous posting schedule.
• Join a blogger network to be more involved in the blogging community and meet new people.
• Overhaul WTDB’s About page & Welcome emails – both of which feel heavily influenced by my favorite bloggers. I want to make sure these spaces allow my unique voice to shine through.
• Expand WTDB’s social media community.
• Update a few blog posts and replace some photos.
• Stop forcing myself to write a minimum of 300 words per post just for SEO. This practice kills my output and doesn’t seem to help very much anyway.

I’m excited for this upcoming year at Where The Dogwood Blooms. I hope y’all stick around for the ride!