Blogging Tips and Tricks : Meet Candi Randolph

Meet Candi Randolph inspiring blogger #11 in our “Women Over 50 Who Blog Series. Candi hails from Michigan in America and today she’s sharing snippets of her life, her blog and 5 blogging tips and tricks for midlife bloggers.

Find out more about Candi’s life in Michigan, what’s important to her, and how she got into blogging. Scroll down towards the end of this post for her really helpful blogging tips and tricks.

Meet Candi Randolph

I’m a 60’ish girl from a typical Midwest middle-class family that was full of love and faith. Both of my parents were children of immigrants, Scandinavian on one side and Italian on the other. Yep. Quite a contrast!

Family was always very important in our lives and remains a top priority for me today.

I’ve been married twice, divorced once and widowed once. My two adult boys and a stepson live near me, and spending time with their families, including the grandkids, was a defining factor in my relocation from SW Florida back to Michigan eight months ago. If you’re not familiar with the states, that was a 1200 mile move from a year-round warm, sunny climate to a 4-season climate with plenty of snow in the winter!

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Welcome June! It’s a beautiful time of year in the Midwest. Green is everywhere, flowers are blooming, birds are singing. Enjoy your weekend, make memories with those you love, take some time to enjoy life. xo #welcomejune #enjoytheweekend #begrateful #relaxandenjoy #familytime #midlifeblogger #instagramover50

A post shared by Candi Randolph (@inspiremystyletoday) on Jun 1, 2019 at 3:26am PDT

The experiences I’ve had throughout my personal and working career have helped me so much with perspective, communication and the ability to problem-solve and set goals for the future.

From a 25-year banking career including the opportunity to be involved in a start-up operation, to owning a residential building company with my husband, to a short but interesting career in real estate, to creating a successful home staging business, all of these ventures have given me a wealth of experiences. Some have been rewarding and wonderful, others incredibly challenging and stressful.

Starting an online business

About a year and a half ago, while running the home staging business in Florida, I began to think about ‘retiring’ from that business. Although successful and profitable, home staging is very physical and demanding, and I knew that at some point I would want to, need to, change direction.

I’d been dabbling with online businesses for about 10 years, as well as business-related websites, so working online was familiar to me. I felt that turning to an online business would allow me to continue earning an income as well as be a destination based rather than location-based.

The next huge question was, what should my blog be about? I’d studied and researched, and knew that it should be something I have a passion for. The first thing that came to mind was home staging and interior decorating because I’d done that for many years. I know the trades, I’m good at them, so it made sense, right?

But after I started working on my blog, concentrating on DIY Home Staging, my heart just wasn’t in it. So I took a step back and started pondering, then writing down what I really had a passion for.

I realized that it was about midlife…my journey…the ups and downs, the challenges of getting older, experiencing menopause and beyond, family changes, loss, and so many more facets of life as a woman over 50.

My goals were to share, inform and inspire women in this stage of their life, and when I thought about a name for the blog, I realized that I already owned a domain called inspiremystyle.com. It wasn’t the typical name for a midlife blog, but it felt right to me, so Inspire My Style it was!

Blogging tips and tricks for midlife bloggers

That was January of 2018, and I have learned so much in the last 18 months. At this point in time, I feel like my message has been refined and clarified, after slogging around for a while with a variety of midlife-ish topics.

I write for women in midlife about aging naturally, living a healthy lifestyle that includes fitness and nutrition, casual fashion (no fashionista here!) as well as expressing style and finding joy through home decorating. 

One of the things I love so much about blogging is that I have a unique voice in a niche of thousands. We all do. My approach, how I write, and how I live, is simple, honest, approachable and informal.

That’s how I live and how I dress, too, although I do have a style. We all do. I wrote about it recently in my post, How to Define Your Style, and put a pen to my individual style like this: –

My Personal Style in Midlife: Understated, casual and relaxed, with denim, lots of black, simple jewelry and sandals (or black boots in cold weather) as my go-to fashion choices

Blogging is my full-time job. It’s not a hobby, although I thoroughly enjoy what I do. It is a business that I am building for my future, in my 60’s. I’ve invested a lot of time and some money into training and education as I would with any other business.

It’s been a journey for sure, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it! I hope to be blogging for a long time to come.

Candi’s top 5 blogging tips and tricks

1. Write about what you love, what you know, what you want to learn about. If you’re bored with your blog/topics, it might be time for a heart-to-heart with yourself. And, it’s okay to shift direction!
2. Write in your own style, as you would if you were talking with friends. If it’s too formal and stilted your readers will notice, and not in a good way.
3. Take the time to look closely at your post before publishing to make sure it’s easy to read, has some white space, an image or two, and that the paragraphs aren’t overly long. You want your readers to keep reading, right?
4. If you want your blog and audience to grow, take the time to learn how to do that. There are a number of fine courses in SEO, social media, and the basics of creating a successful blog post. Blogging is an acquired skill.
5. Use social media to grow your presence, but choose which platform(s) to concentrate on. It’s impossible to be “all things to all people”, and social media is no different. Select which one or two you will focus on, based on where your audience is, and where you see the results. Then move on to others when you’re ready.

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Thanks so much Candi – it’s been great getting to know you!

Inspire My Style 

Candi Randolph is a woman in midlife who writes about the experiences that women have as they go through this unique phase of their life, with topics like natural aging, healthy eating, fitness, casual fashion, home, and family. She lives daily by faith and a strong cup of coffee.