Today I am linking up with Jacquelyn for the first ever “Tip Tuesday” link up! This week is “blogging tips.”
There are a lot, and I mean A LOT, of posts out there about blogging. How to get the most traffic, how to use pinterest to help your blog, how to organize your blog the right way, how to sell ads, how to not sell ads… the list goes on and on. Some of these posts are super helpful of course, but it does get tiring reading the same old advice. Also, it’s hard to apply ALL this advice to your blog, especially those of us in the “lifestyle” blogger group.
So, my tips here are more like anti-tips.
AKA:
“Why my blog will never be “blog famous”
1. SEO optimization: This has to do with search engines and helping people find your blog through searching for key terms. The problem is, your blog post have to be 200 words or more and contain certain key words for the search engines to pick them up. I refuse to write “extra” words in my post just so my blog will be picked up by search engines. If I write a long enough post, that’s great! But I am not going to add extra words and completely change my posts just for SEO. I generally write short and to the point, so I am probably missing a lot of traffic by not meeting this 200 word minimum. So be it!
2. Find your “niche”: One of the biggest “how to blog” tips out there is to find your niche. Well, my blog (and many others that I have seen!) we just don’t have a niche. Is blogging about my life a niche? Because, that is what I am expert on! I am not an expert on cooking, or travel or parenting or fashion, although I do love to write about those things! I don’t focus my entire blog on one single niche topic, and I honestly think that’s okay. But it probably won’t help me become blog famous.
3. Self promotion. This is something I kind of have a hard time with. I feel bad “over promoting” and feel like I am bothering people. I do have plenty of places on my blog that people can follow me, share my post and sign up for emails! (good advice for all blogs of course!) But, I don’t want to constantly bombard people with tweets and Facebook updates! On the other hand, the number one way that I read blog post on other blogs? Clicking over from twitter or facebook! So, I need to start utilizing these tools more on my own blogs! Pinterest is another big one for promoting your blog, if you remember to pin your post and share them!
So, if you are looking for real blog tips here is one that I think is really important (and really cliche).
It’s: “be yourself.” Whatever that means to you. It’s your life and your blog! Do what is best for you, choose the layout you like, choose the niche you prefer or none at all, choose to sell ads or to not- it’s completely up to you! I want my blog to represent ME and my life, and if that means I’ll never be “blog famous” then that’s okay, too!
Check out some other blogging tips over at Tip Tuesday!
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