Tuesday Tip - Gem's Blogging Guide

Hola!

This week's tip will be the second instalment of my blogging guide. In other words, I forgot I'd been planning to do a Konad tutorial this week until after I'd eaten my weight in pasta and jaffa cakes. Consequently, I barely have enough energy to type, let alone pimp my nails. FML, etc.

Click here to see the first instalment of my blogging guide, where I justify just who the heck I think I am to tell you lot how to blog. The gist is that I'm not claiming to be the be all and end all of blogging perfection. I don't even have a header, for christ's sake! This series is merely about sharing things that work for me, and sharing tips that work for others and are on my to-do list.

Don't forget to comment if you have a blogging tip to share. It might get featured in my next blogging guide post!

Super easy photo editing:

After seeing Jazzabelle's link to Picnik a month or so ago, I've been quite hooked. The free and fun service allows you to add retro and Lomography style effects to your images, as well as offering all the usual basic editing options (crop/exposure, etc.) It's ridiculously simple, so is great for photoshop-phobes like myself. I usually add a hint of sepia and a faded vignette to my images, FYI. I'm no Wish Wish Wish just yet, but hey, I can erm, wish!

Add a 'related posts' widget:

I only just cottoned onto this yesterday after realising I really like these widgets on other people's blogs. There is quite literally no down-side to this widget, really. It enhances the reader's experience by directing them to similar posts to the one they're currently reading. Obviously the longer a reader spends on your blog reading posts that interest them, the more they'll want to return! Well, hopefully.

The site my Twitter-pals recommended to me was Linkwithin. Just like Picnik, it's piss easy!

Use the 'Pages' feature:

This is near the top of my blog to-do list. I love when blogs have a nice organised layout with separate 'About me'/'Sponsoring info' pages. See Jen's blog, A Little Bird Told Me for an example (and check out her outfit post inspired by me while you're there!)

Sections like an 'About me' help us nosey readers get to know the blogger a bit more, whilst the advertising information makes it easier for brands to find out your policies and is generally quite a nice, organised touch! Organised and my blog aren't exactly synonyms so it's easy to see why this has taken me nearly three years to even begin thinking about!

Reading > writing

If you have an hour to spare and are pondering posting a blog, STOP! Go and read (and comment!) some other blogs instead. It is more beneficial to your blog to get involved in the 'community' than it is to post a new blog entry. Trust me, I spent about a year posting blogs into the abyss without bothering to spend time getting to know other bloggers and commenting. As a consequence, nobody was reading my blog because nobody knew I was there. When I started to get involved and devote time to reading other blogs, my situation really changed. I feel like a bit of a hypocrite dishing out this tip, as I haven't been keeping on top of my comments very well recently. But this is just a temporary blip! Planning a late night in bed with the laptop (Why does this sound sexual?) so I can get back on top of things (Still sexual! Argh!)


Hope you've enjoyed these tips, and I'm looking forward to hearing yours!!

♥