Welcome to the second last post for this week. Today is all about what I have learnt over the past year while blogging.
1) Blogging is harder than it looks
Seriously, it is deceptive as you only really come into contact with blogs that are reasonably successful which gives you a false impression of how things are. Also when you are doing research into how to get a blog up and running you read posts about how it only took a few months for them to find a 1000 followers etc. and then you look at your blog that's been going for the same amount of time and you still have none. Another issue is finding suitable content to use on your blog, with a creative blog like mine sometimes you have to force yourself to create something to share (and sometimes it just doesn't happen). The hardest bit of blogging is getting yourself out there to bring traffic to your site. Simply posting to your blog isn't going to cut it (as I have personally discovered) and it is vital to achieving success that you go and interact with other bloggers who post about similar things and the people who are looking at your site.
2) Learn how to take good photographs
Photo's are really good to have within blog posts as it breaks up the text and gives yourself and your readers something to share on social media. Having photo's that quickly show what the post is about is also great as just the image will draw people to your site. But you have to take good photo's for it to work. Having good lighting and a good backdrop is important for good pictures. The camera isn't as important as you might think, I take all my photo's with a 'point-and-shoot' and I think they are just fine.
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| Example of a not so good photo (left) and a better photo (right). |
3) Taking good photographs isn't enough, you need to edit them
Professional photographers edit their photo's and so should you. I'm not saying you should pay good money for editing software though, I use picmonkey.com to edit my photo's and it is really easy to use. Editing your photo's should include fixing the exposure, colours, re-sizing the image and placing a watermark and if you want, a title.
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| Unedited photo |
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| Edited photo |
4) Give credit where credit is due
No one likes a copy cat, and no one likes having there work stolen and passed off as someone else's. Feel free to use other people's ideas for your own posts and creations but make sure you link to them in your post and acknowledge that you used it as your inspiration. Don't flat out copy it though, take it, change it, and then use it.
5) Use trends to your advantage
Right now stenciling and water colour is a big trend in the card making world and by posting your creations using what's 'in' then you will more than likely increase traffic to your site as people seek out inspiration and 'how-to's' as they want to do it themselves. Also seasonal trends are apparent and it is best to keep on top of them so that you aren't posting your Christmas stuff the week of Christmas and not leaving enough time for people to check out what you have done to use your ideas for themselves.
6) Pick something you are really interested in to blog about
Blogging requires a reasonable amount of work and if you aren't really into your subject matter then you will fail. I've had a blog before, it lasted a month before I got bored and left it. This time however, I'm blogging about something that I really enjoy doing and talking about.
7) Planning ahead is a good idea
For the weeks where suddenly everything and everyone needs your attention. Planning ahead and having your posts at least partially finished will help so much during a busy week. Also it can help when you are in a bit of a creative block as you can not do any crafting that week and pick it up later on when inspiration hits.
8) Try to inject some of your personality into your posts
No one likes a boring post, simple as that. Put a bit of yourself out there and people will be more likely to enjoy reading your posts and come back another day to read more.
That's it for today, I know I have so much more to learn about blogging but I'm also really proud of how far I've come in one year. Thanks for joining me today!
Till tomorrow.
Stacey
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