My Top 5 Blogging Tips

Truth is I’m really enjoying blogging at the moment, I’m not putting as much pressure on myself and yes that might mean less posts, but it means I’m concentrating on the quality of that post, and making sure if I was the reader, would I want to read my own post. Now because I’ve had my blog for some time, I’ve learnt many different things along the way. I’m not saying I’m a professional, because I’m still learning, but if your someone who is thinking of starting a blog, or have just started a blog then hopefully I might be able to help you in some way.

1.Write For Yourself

Don’t write posts because at the time, your favourite blogger has just wrote a post that has gained lots of popularity and likes. If you write about something, just because everyone else is writing about it, your not writing from your mind, or your heart and that will catch on with your audience. If your writing about something that you want to write about, your audience will see that, they will enjoy your posts for you, and then the likes will come, and you’ll gain more interest that way. If people can see you enjoy what your writing, they’ll enjoy it too. Do you understand what I’m saying here? I’m not the best at explaining things! Just be yourself. You will not want to write posts all the time, if your copying what someone else is writing, you will basically become a prisoner within your own blog. Write what you want to write about, write like your just writing for yourself, and if you get likes and comments that’s great and if you don’t? That’s fine too, it’s better to be different than to be the same. Same is boring.

2. Blog Design 

Again make your blog design how you want it, don’t copy someone else’s design. However I’m now going to become a bit hypocritical. In my opinion I would stick to black text. When I first started my blog, I used purple text and now looking back at it, I’m like, what was I thinking? Black is definitely easier to read and books use black text, newspapers and magazines use black text. I must admit, when I changed from purple to black, I gained more readers. Also don’t make your background too busy. Having a busy background, is drawing attention away from your blog posts and coming from a personal opinion, if your blog is too busy, I will just click off it. Lastly, make sure your site is easy to navigate. You don’t need loads of widgets everywhere , keep it simple. Oh and definitely have a search button, if you are a reader looking for a particular subject, you don’t want to be routing through loads of different posts, so could be common sense, but make sure you have a search button and make sure it’s at the top of the page. My design is still something I’m learning about, and something I do end up playing about with a lot, so I’m still learning too.

3. Your Blog Isn’t Going To Grow Over Night.

Building up an audience takes a long time and you have to be patient. I understand how it can be pretty disheartening if you spent a long time on a post, and no one has liked or commented. Give it time and it will come. If you put in the hard work and stick to it, and if you love what your doing, that will pay off. It took me a year to get my first 500 followers and in all harshness, I don’t even know how I got 500 followers  because I wouldn’t classify what I wrote then, now looking back, good quality content. Also don’t expect to see your website get thousands and thousands of views straight away either. The most important thing is to not give up. Look at it as a positive, you get the freedom to try out different ideas for your blog, see what works and see what doesn’t. Just because it doesn’t go how you think it will to start off with, doesn’t mean it won’t and it doesn’t make you a failure. Just think how long did it take for your favourite actor, band, footballer, dancer, whoever it is, to get to where they wanted to be in life? You are not a failure, no matter how long it takes.

4. Freebies.

If your just starting a blog to get freebies, then that’s not going to get you anywhere either. If that’s the case, you probably shouldn’t start a blog. You need to enjoy what your writing and if your just writing about companies to get a freebie, they’ll see that. It’s not about freebies, although if you wanted to know, it took me a year, when I got my first one. If your just starting a blog for freebiess, you need to put the effort in as well, a few posts here and there will not work, it will require a lot of hard work. You will also need to put your own money into it. The hard truth, PR companies only have a limited amount of products to send out. Yours isn’t going to get picked all the time. You won’t be the only one with a beauty, fashion, gaming, fitness blog etc. Blog because you love doing it and want your own little space on the internet.  Personally, I love being a part of the blogging society and that’s enough for me. Most of us are supportive of eachother and I’ve made some lovely friends from blogging and that’s great. I never knew so many people would be interested in my blog, and I appreciate every single one of you, it means a lot.

5. Proof Read.

This is a must. Always proof read your work. Yes, I always proof read mine, but sometimes you can miss the odd spelling mistake, or not add the right punctuation. The reason why I say proof read, is because when you are reading someone’s post and it contains error after error, it’s really off putting and distracting and you may even turn people away from your work, which is not what we want. You should spend just as much time editing and proof reading your work, as to what you do creating and writing it. You want to make a good impression, and if you feel like you haven’t got enough time but want to post, post it the next day and proof read it. If your post is a day late, it doesn’t matter. Having a really good post is better, than having a post half decent. It makes all the difference trust me. Not to mention it’s a good first impression for potential companies who want to work with you, if you appear careless and lazy, they aren’t going to want to work with you.

These are just some of my blogging tips, because I felt this post was probably already quite lengthy. I hope it’s helped and feel free to ask me any questions, if you have any.

A x