Welcome to my new website

Hello, and welcome to my new website. I'm Chase Charaba, a writer, photographer, marketing specialist, YouTuber, and small business owner. I've blogged on and off for the past decade on WordPress with my site A Writer's Outlook, but I stopped writing a few years ago. Instead, much of my focus has been on writing optimized content for various organizations as a full-time content marketing specialist. I've also been hard at work with my two fantasy series, Rivithel and The Eskaden Chronicles.

While I enjoy my work, I've been wanting to restart my blog for a while. Restarting my old WordPress blog seemed like the most logical choice, but I decided that I needed to start a new website to commit to rebuilding my personal brand. Plus. I'd been wanting to use Webflow more, and this presented the perfect opportunity to build my website.

This blog will focus primarily on my journey as a content creator, whether through photography, writing, YouTube, or SEO. It will also feature fiction, updates on my novels, and general pieces about my life. Primarily, I want to tell my story in an authentic way.

In this article, I'll share more about my goals for this website and why I decided to return to blogging.

Why I stopped blogging

I stopped regularly updating my WordPress blogs in 2019 and 2020. The primary reason for this was that I started working full-time as a content marketing specialist.

After moving to Utah in August 2018, I spent the next few months looking for work. While I had a few interviews for sales positions and warehouse stocking just to get started in the workforce, I was unable to land a job. While I had work experience from my time as a writer, editor, and designer for college newspapers, I didn't have any internships or other off-campus experience. I began to wonder if I was even good enough for a job. Did dropping out of college due to moving to Utah make me a failure? I'd applied to work at places like Costco, Best Buy, and Smith's (Kroger), but never got anywhere.

In my YouTube video from March 2019, I said, "I've been on the job hunt for six months, and I just haven't found anything. I've been interviewed by a lot of different companies, but for whatever reason, they just didn't hire me. And, I started to feel really discouraged about that. You know, maybe I wasn't good enough to even be employed, because I hadn't finished my degree, my Bachelor of Science degree."

Soon, I began to branch out in my job search. Maybe I didn't need to apply for entry-level positions just to get work experience. What was the harm in applying for other positions when nobody was willing to take me seriously anyway? So, I began to look for work that aligned with my passions: writing and photography. Finally, I began to see some progress. I began to apply for marketing positions because of my experience with writing and designing school newspapers. I never expected these applications to get anywhere, but I still figured it was worth a try.

Then, in March 2019, I started my first full-time job with Freedom Home Warranty as a content marketing specialist. I quickly began to learn more about the world of marketing and how I could utilize my skills to market home warranties to homeowners and real estate professionals across the country. Thus began my career in blog writing with SEO in mind, social media marketing, layout, and videography.

As I started to write at work, I lacked the motivation to go home and continue to write for my own projects. This led to me posting less and less to my blogs and my YouTube channel. I always planned to pick it back up, but I never had the motivation to do so once my sites died out. The effort to revive my blogs didn't seem worth the effort. As I changed jobs and became more involved in other projects, such as my own business, I never picked it back up.

Now, I've learned how to effectively manage my time and drive organic traffic to a website. With more than 250,000 website sessions attributed to my blog articles and webpages over my short career, and with most of those being within the last 12 months, I feel confident that now is the time to restart my blog.

What I will blog about

While it would be best to niche down to a particular topic, I'd like to use this website to write about all of my various interests. This is a site about my passions, my projects, and my life. As such, my articles will revolve around my experiences and goals. However, I also think this is a great opportunity to give back. I've learned so much since 2019, and I feel like I now owe it to the world to share some of what I've learned.

Topics I will write about in this blog include:

• Marketing: Tips that I've learned as a content marketing specialist and now content marketing manager for various organizations, my own small business, and my personal projects. I'll also share my opinions about marketing trends and tools.
• Writing: Becoming a published fantasy author remains my biggest dream in life. I'll share my journey as I write and edit my novels and try to get them published.
• Photography: Documenting the world around me is one of my greatest passions. Since picking up a camera in 2014 I've taken tens of thousands of photos during hikes and adventures across Washington, Oregon, Montana, and Utah.
• Outdoors: My love for photography stems from my yearning for adventure. I love hiking and exploring new places. Follow along for trail reviews, commentary, and more.
• Life: Explore my perspective on life in the Pacific Northwest. I'll also share what it's like owning a small business with my younger brother.

Conclusion

I hope you'll follow along as I restart my blog and follow my passions. While it will take some time to slip back into the rhythm of blogging, I'm excited for the opportunity to do so once again.

You can follow me on social media @chasecharaba on my platforms, including Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok.