Welcome to this week's Tuesday tip! Sorry it's so textual, but it kinda has to be! As voted for by you, today I'll be sharing a few blogging tips as part of a new subsidiary of Tuesday Tips, Gem's Blogging Guide! As this is the first in the series, I do feel the need to have a bit of introductory waffle, and explain why I consider myself fit to be dishing out blogging tips.
As I've had this blog for nearly 3 years, I'm in the position of having been a blogger at both ends of the spectrum. For a good 2 years, I'd just post random blogs for the sake of it. My outfit photos were incredibly unprofessional and often un-rotated! As a result, obviously nobody particularly wanted to visit it! Read my archives if you dare! Witness the shitness.
Last summer, after having the chance to develop my opinions and writing skills a bit on my course at uni, I had a bit of a wake up call and realised I didn't have to be a crap blogger anymore. I got a decent camera, some confidence, started putting more time into my posts, realised there was a blogging community to be a part of out there and decided to make this here blog a nicer place to visit and something I could be proud of, not just something to kill time when I was bored. In the last few months I've tried to develop it more and am really pleased to find that the blog is growing more every day. More importantly, it's more of a community than it ever has been before and it's just the loveliest feeling to read comments and feedback from readers.
So in this new Tuesday tips series, Gem's Blogging Guide, I'll aim to share a few tips every now and again of things that have worked for me so far. Obviously in terms of followers, and indeed layout, I may seem to be at the lower end of the blogging food chain, but since changing some things in the last 3 months, my visitors have increased by almost 200% to 15,000 a month (and counting) so I must be doing something worth sharing!
And may I add, my blogging guide is not about making your blog huge so you'll get freebies get invited to fashion week or any of that shizzle. If that's your intention, you might as well close this window now and carry on frantically copying style.com images to your desktop. L8erz! My tips are intended so the talented bloggers out there can hopefully help their target readers find them, like what they see, and come back for more.
In the sea of identikit blogs out there, it's harder than ever to make your blog float to the surface. So here's some of the trickery I've used recently that has led you to be reading this post right now.
Tip 1. Fidget your widget.
Ah, the double edged sword that is Google Friend Connect... If you've got 500 friends, awesome! If you're billy no mates, you kinda don't wanna shout from the roof tops about it, but without your sidebar widget, how will you make any mates? If your blog is only just starting out, or if, like me, you've had a blog for yonks but have only started taking it srsly recently and have a low follower count, people can be quick to judge you by the number of followers you have. So with my impressive D grade in Psychology A level (don't be jealous, guys!), I dreamt up this little method...
Move your followers widget down, down, down. You can't see mine right now. Know why? Because as you are reading I am, with any luck, luring you in and making you want to be my friend! Then by the time you see the widget, I've bought enough time for you to make your own mind up about whether I'm worth following! I think in February I only had about 70 odd followers! I was really surprised to see a noticeable increase after moving the widget down.
Well, that's kinda my star tip but I'll share a couple of other generally useful tips!
Tip 2. How to enlarge images on Blogger.
Any Blogger users will be familiar with Blogger's warped concept of what a 'large' image is when it comes to uploading images in blog posts. I've tried using sites like Photobucket before but due to my layout, the photos I embedded would often have the sides chopped off. Through the wonders of Google, I found this site on how to rejig your html to override Blogger's
Tip 3. Vary your posts.
I try not to let two consecutive posts be the same. If I've babbled about my life too much in one post, I'll just post a short outfit post next. This relates to the first point about seducing those new readers and means you're showing them the different things you have to offer them before they reach the dreaded make or break widget! It's also good fun to challenge yourself to think up different things to post and contributes to an all round valuable experience for the reader!
That's all I'm posting for the first instalment of Gem's Blogging Guide. You didn't think I was going to give away all my goodies on our first date did you?! I'll be back to share more blogging tips on some other Tuesday in the future! Follow me if you don't want to miss out! (Tip 4. Don't be afraid to directly ask for followers, it definitely doesn't make you look like a massive desperado!)
xo
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