Let’s introduce and welcome Nancy to the Shades of Tatiana Interview Series! Today we are going to chat about the journey of a lifestyle blogger and cybersecurity analyst.  If you want to connect with someone who creates content based on a wide array of topics and is a huge advocate for wellness. Then, keep reading.

So, without further ado, let’s meet Nancy!

Nancy is a lifestyle blogger and cybersecurity analyst based out of Los Angeles, California. She enjoys advocating for winning at life while being mindful about the different spectrums of wellness.  Her interests cover luxe beauty, casual fashion, good eats, and so on. You can find Nancy’s blog at exquisitely.me, where she post on a weekly basis!

Let’s Get Started!

1.     How did you first get involved in blogging and cybersecurity/technology?

When I was in 7th grade in 2007, one of my classmates had a Blogspot and I thought the concept of blogging was fun. I was on and off with blogging for a couple of years and eventually started blogging regularly on WordPress in 2009. As far as Cybersecurity goes, I was in 12th grade and my high school had a program that introduced me to the field. After attending some cybersecurity competitions, I realized this was something I wanted to do in my career.

2.  What do you find most challenging about blogging about your topic?

Sometimes, I don’t have anything special going on in my life where I don’t have new experiences to share. I started to overcome this challenge by writing about my thoughts regarding certain topics and how people can benefit from my prior experience. For a while, finding the right picture(s) to support the blog was hard because I don’t take much stock pictures. I realized that actual stock pictures from resource websites are actually okay to use, given that I credit the photographer.

3. Have you always been interested in Health & Wellness? If so, what peeked this interest?

Health was something I overlooked for the longest. I was never into fitness or eating healthy until the recent years where I would have free meals from work traveling. I found investing my own health through my decisions and actions being worthwhile and very beneficial to my emotional wellness. Wellness is a topic I went into last year; certain life events prompted me to find ways to take care of myself better and be more mindful about what affects me overall.

4. How would (someone) describe your blogging style?

My blogging style would be relatively short and straight to the point, while attempting to give the reader a value-add thought that may benefit their own lifestyle.

5. What would you prioritize? Content? SEO? Traffic? Readers?

At the end of the day, the heart of your blog or website is the content. If you don’t have good content, you can’t attract consistent readers and your SEO gets affected negatively. The next item would be readers; they carry a lot of weight because if they love your content, they will engage with you and potentially share it with others. The third item would be SEO – if someone is looking for a specific topic, having the right setup that boosts your blog in the search results will give you the proper exposure. I put traffic last because although it’s great to have 200k hits per month, how many of those are real people versus bots? At least I know that the readers are human.

6. What’s the best thing a blogger can give to her/his readers?

Good content and engagement. It is so important to engage with your readers. If a blogger engages with me, it inspires me to actually want to digest the content versus me scrolling down through the post to get a very high-level summary.

7. What kind of networking strategies do you use to help your blogging growth/popularity?

Use Twitter! Although tweets can get lost really easily, there are so many resources on Twitter that can help with your blog growth, especially with the Twitter threads and retweet accounts. I make sure that I engage with my readers the best that I can where I return the favor of writing a comment pertaining to their post if they left a link.

8.  How do you keep coming up with material/content for your blog? Many people struggle with coming up with different articles/posts and they only have one blog.

When I have free time, I do a lot of research for potential blog post topics. I keep a notebook with ideas I collect over time. In case I have blogger’s block, I can refer to the notebook. I also don’t restrict myself to a specific blog theme, which makes it easier for me to talk about food on one post, and my career the next.

9.  What was the most challenging moment in your blog content development process and why?

The most challenging moment is starting the first paragraph after coming up with the idea of what to blog about. Sometimes, I am thinking, “Alright, I want to talk about x,y,z… But where do I start?”

10.  Everyone has a favorite/least favorite post. Name yours and why?

Not going to lie, I am not sure what my favorite post is, considering how I have a ton that I like but it is most likely going to be between the 2018-2019-time range. As far as least favorite posts go, I tend to remove posts I wasn’t a fan of. 

11. Tell me about some of the people you’ve met while working on your blog?

I met several bloggers over the years. One of the bloggers is Eena from chrisandeena.com – I found out she lives nearby and met up with her and another fellow blogger, Alyse at Whole Foods Market in East Pasadena. Our friendship kicked off really well over the last couple of years to the point where I even went to Eena’s wedding, where I met another fellow blogger, Kim!

Fun Questions

12.  What do you do when you aren’t working on your blog?

In the past, I played a lot of PC multiplayer games but kind of got too busy to play. Otherwise, I would be out whether I’m spending time with others, driving to places, reading lifestyle articles written by other bloggers, or trying to make the most out of my Disneyland annual pass. I don’t exactly have a consistent hobby since the flavor changes with the season.

13. What mantra do you live by?

Work Hard, Play Hard. In order for me to afford to play hard, I need to work hard to earn that right. Nothing feels better than being able to reward yourself for all of your efforts and wins.

14.  If someone was interested in blogging, what would be a few things you would suggest?

Baby steps – start on a free platform and see if you enjoy building the content. If you do, that is when you start growing by moving to a hosted WordPress platform where you can start playing around with the themes. Engagement is also very important – people love to be noticed. Your readers will help you build your blogging empire. It also takes time to build out a large readership, so have a little patience.

15.  Who has impacted you most in blogging and how?

So many people impacted me in blogging, I’m not sure who would be on the top. What I can say is that there are different factors that impacted me in blogging. The biggest thing is blog design – I love looking at how people arrange their blog layouts, as aesthetics is very important. The next is how they send their message to the readers. I always love finish reading a post that left me feeling inspired.

16. What is your greatest achievement outside of blogging?

My greatest achievement is probably my career overall – I surprise myself with how much I have contributed to my roles and have been given opportunities to lead efforts and projects while being at a specialist level. I’m lucky that I genuinely enjoy what I do, which contributes to: if you enjoy what you do, you won’t work a day in your life.

17.  Where would you like to be in blogging and cybersecurity/technology five years from now?

In five years, I hope my blog grows to the point where I can start having consistent sponsorships. As far as my career goes into cybersecurity, I hope to reach an advisor-like level where I am more of a hands-on technical lead.

Thanks for joining us this week on Shades of Tatiana. Make sure to visit Nancy on her blog, where you can connect and see more of her interesting work.

• Connect with Nancy

•  Website: exquisitely.me

• Twitter: @ex_quisitely

• Instagram: @ny.ancy