I'm so excited to share this with you guys. It's been a journey and I hope these tips can be useful to you as I've had to experience them for myself as well.
January 12, 2018. That was the day my life changed forever. It was the day I wrote my first blog post, published my website and this whole writing journey began. I also like to think of it as the starting point in my writing career. For someone who’s never published her writing outside of school, it was a monumental moment for me to finally sit down and say, “Today, I’m going to make content that the entire world can read.” It was also the best decision I’ve ever made. But it’s still something I’m learning to navigate. It’s only been seventh months so I’m no expert, but for anyone who’s just starting, and this is the first blog they read for tips, I hope I can help with the seven things I’ve learned after seven months of blogging. 1. Know your niche- Yes yes, I’m a hypocrite-but hear me out. When I say find your niche, I mean that you need to find out what you want your blog to be about. Who’s your audience, what kind of topics do you want to have on your blog, what is your blog going to be about? You should have a general direction of where you want your blog to go and what you want to write-even if it’s just for the first post-and then from there, the rest of your ideas will follow. I’m going to do another blog post on what you should write your first blog post on and let me just say now, it doesn’t have to do with anything with what I just said before but if you want to hear my ideas on niche’s in general, check out this blog post which is cleverly named Niche’s. (Because I’m convenient like that. Lol) 2. Conversation is key- This means find other bloggers and interact. I’ve officially signed up for Bloglovin’ (Although, I am currently not active but will be soon so follow me anyway!) and all I’ve been doing is looking for people who have similar interests to me (for personal pleasure.) Then, I’ve looked and saved posts that relate to me and my blog. If they said something that I liked or sparked an idea of my own, I follow, and I save their post. Go to other blogger’s sites, see what the latest trends are, especially if you’re a fashion blogger. To be honest, I couldn’t tell you what the trend is, I never really cared, for someone who always just wore what she liked, but if that’s your thing see what everyone is talking about. What is everyone wearing for the summertime (or upcoming fall), know your seasons and see if you can jump into the hype. Oh! And comment. Always comment on other peoples blogs, interact with commenters and get them to come to you. It brings a lot more traffic this way and you may actually talk with some really cool people and make some new internet friends. 3. Learn your SEO settings-Boring and complicated SEO settings. Which is what I thought at first, but it’s actually not that bad. For the basic SEO settings, hopefully your blog platform-whichever one you use-will make It easy for you but if it’s complicated, YouTube is always available. Or, if you’re stubborn like me and determined to figure it out on your own, play around with it and see what happens. It’ll tell you if there’s an error or you’ll know if things don’t go exactly as planned. Your SEO settings are designed to get you on Google’s search engine which brings in a ton of traffic, if you’re doing it right. You won’t know if you’re being searched up the way you want until you try it so have no shame in searching yourself up. It should take at least four weeks to get yourself up there though so don’t be discouraged if you type in your name two minutes after you update the settings (like I did) and don’t see anything. It’s going to take time. I recently just read a post from Helene In Between about SEO settings and she says they’re best used to track something called your bounce rate. It’s basically to see who’s clicked onto your post and then immediately clicked out of it which will tell you that your posts are not set up the way you want them to and you need to change the settings. She has a lot more detailed explanations though, so I’ll leave a link to her post down below for more help. 4. Update, update, update- Consistency is key and updating regularly is so important for someone who’s just starting out. You want people to keep coming back to your blog and you want those few who trickle in to stick around and not get bored. If you post three times in one week and then drop off the face of the earth for the next two months (or delete your entire site like I did) people will forget all about you and you’ll have the start the process all over again. So, try to update regularly but when you do update, keep it consistent or at least let your readers know when you’re going to be posting. I don’t have a set schedule for updates, but I try to post at least once a week from the end of the week to the beginning (between Thursday and Monday.) Also, if you post too much at one time, that’s great for bringing the traffic in for that week but then you’ll have to scramble for ideas for the following week and you suddenly loose followers. (I know, such a complicated concept, but trust me, it’s a thing.) So, update regularly, but not too often…consistent. (I hope you guys got that. Lol) P.S. Don’t delete your site. It’s a struggle to get back up. Trust me. 5. Summer sessions is a thing- For someone who’s not only a full-time student but still has another five years to go, keeping up with your blog can be tough. But when you’re just starting out, it can be hard to pick and choose when you can afford not to update. Which is why during the summer, take advantage of the extra time you have. Whether you spend a majority of that time getting your most updates in or just brainstorming ideas in advance for the rest of the year, take all the time you need so that your blog stays frequent all year round. 6. Always get a second opinion- Or a third or fourth. For now, my most reliable source is my mom. She has her own website and she’s a master at grammar and spelling (all things English that I’m still learning) and I always like to go to her for feedback-if not for the content but just for the flow of context. But I don’t mind going to my friends either. If I use their names I like to ask for permission first or to see if they like this title over the other. Sometimes I bounce ideas off of them for topics as well. It’s great to sit there and read your own work and declare it amazing-because you think it is-but you always need a second opinion to give you a reality check and say, “hey, that was rude.” or maybe something simple like, “you spelled definitely wrong.” (Which I always do. Smh.) 7. Spread the word- Social media has literally taken over our society, but I’m not mad at it! I’m not a huge fan of all things Twitter, Facebook and Snapchat (if you haven’t already noticed) but I’m a huge fan of Instagram so that’s my main source of bringing traffic to my blog. But for those of you lovely social media people out there, as soon as your post goes up or maybe even before your post goes up, blow up on your social media and tell everyone that follows you that you’ve posted. There is no shame in promoting yourself and where I said you should be consistent on your blog, when it comes to your social media, be as random as possible and be as often as you want. Bug the hell out of all of your friends, your family until you know they’ve read it, they’ve subscribed and shared it to all of their friends and family. You want every person watching your story and jumping back to your bio to click on the link that leads to your blog because honestly, social media is one of the biggest ways new bloggers get the word out for everything. And that’s amazing! And here’s a bonus because I’m generous like that. Lol 8. Have fun!-Cheesy, I know, but I’m serious! Starting a blog is tough. I don’t mean to sound discouraging but I have to be honest, it’s a lot of work. But I love it which is why I’m doing my best to make it enjoyable for me. You want to create content that you enjoy making and that you know your readers will enjoy reading. You also don’t want to want to rush things just to get have something up for your deadlines or have to repeat your same content. When you’re just starting out, you want to always be circulating new ideas, so make sure you have fun with your blog. (And then when you’re a pro you can recycle that article from a couple of months ago with a new perspective.) Your readers are your friends, they want to know what you have to say, not what you think they want to hear. Don’t try to copy someone else or be someone you’re not just because you’re behind a keyboard and can edit your words and you never want to make updating seem like a chore. If you find that you’re not enjoying what you’re writing, there’s a likely chance your readers won’t enjoy reading it so make sure that you have fun with your blog, that way you’ll want to continue doing it. And that’s it! I hope you guys enjoyed these tips. I know this was more directed toward future or new bloggers, but I hope those of you who took the time to read it, now have an idea on how I keep my blog up and running. Don’t forget to like, comment and share or contact me on my socials. Until Next Time! With love, Arianna Bloglovin’: arianna99 Helene In Between: (SEO Settings)
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AuthorI'm an 21 year old girl who lives in NY. I love to read and write and fashion is my life. Follow me to find out more! Archives
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