Blogging Tips

Sharing a few blogging tips to get your blog off to a good start

Getting Started

Getting a blog off of the ground can be a slow process. So It’s always a good first step to let your friends and family know about your new venture.Sharing yourself, or what you do, in a blog is a fun form of expression. You make wonderful friends and connections and you receive joy from expressing yourself.

Blog topics run in all different directions. I try and maintain a theme when blogging. But there are no rules about what you can or should blog about. At Katherine’s Corner I keep it personal, with lots of sharing, recipes, photographs, crafts and life stories, etc..

Choosing a Blogging theme is a personal decision driven by your blog goals.If you are just writing an open journal, no theme needed, just write what’s on your mind. If you are hoping to earn money from sponsors etc, I suggest a theme that your target sponsors would be interested in.

Make your blog inviting, it should be pleasant to visit and encourage your readers to stay a while. Give them plenty to look at ( not over whelming) Never underestimate the power of a nice photograph and a nice layout. I can help you with this one

Be Yourself- no explanation needed

Blog hops- are a great way to meet new bloggy friends and share your blog too.Hop on every Thursday here at Katherines Corner or visit the hop page to find some others too. See topic below for how to have a blog hop

Be Social- social networking is a great help in the world of blogging, twitter, facebook and other social sites help you connect with like minded people and those interested in what you have to share.

Don’t ask someone to follow you just because you will follow them back. You want them to follow you because you have something they want to read, learn, or experience through you.

Be Patient your readers will grow as your blog grows.

Moderate- moderate your comments, or add a spam checker plug in. Capchas can be a discouraging for readers and may stop them from leaving comments.

Your Domain- It is such a good idea to have your own domain name. A blog address that states your name is wonderful. Try and stay away from blog names that include your blog host name.

Join-Join some online blogging groups or other social groups.

Respond to comments as often as possible. Respect your readers.

Giveaways

Giveaways are a fun way to say thank you to your blog readers and to help draw attention to your blog too. Everybody loves the opportunity to win a prize.

When you create a giveaway. I suggest offering a variety of ways to enter. Tweet, facebook, post the giveaway button, visit your shop, website, blog about it, etc. You should always have the mandatory entry “follow this blog”.

It’s important that you verify each entry. A few people will say “I posted your giveaway on my blog”, but when you visit the blog its not there.It’s unfortunate, but it does happen. Use a verified drawing process like random.org to select your winner and be sure to post how your winner will be selected in your rules. Keep good records, I use an excel spreadsheet to log entries, but a pad and paper to list the entries is sufficient.

If your giveaway prizes are “sponsored” verify your prizes have been received by the winner. I know it is hard to believe, but some may promise a prize without fulfillment.

Please let me know if you are having a giveaway on your blog. I love to enter too and I’ll place your giveaway on my giveaway page too* need help creating a giveaway button? I can help.

Don’t forget to keep checking the WIN IT TAB here for monthly giveaways from Katherines Corner and for other great giveaways too.

Check, Check, ReCheck

Check and Double Check- the importance of checking, and rechecking before you publish your post.
Check your spelling
Do your research
Credit your research
Use images with care ( copyright etc)
Don’t ramble
Use a relevant title to your post

Tag words and keywords are very important too

Blog Hop Getting Started and What Is A Blog Hop

A blog hop is a link up list that invites other bloggers to introduce themselves and broaden their online community.It introduces others to your blog while providing a link up list for other blogs to join .

When joining a hop pay attention to what you are allowed to link. Link up your blog post ( unless otherwise noted)

Hosting Remember you must set it up first and then use the hop’s page perma link to create the button html.

Visit click on other blog names or pictures on the list and hop around and visit/ meet as many new friends as possible! Encourage your hop participants to leave a comment .

Remember to leave a comment when you hop over also. Let the blog you visit know that you have hopped over from “ the blog hop name” to visit them.

Promote your hop with partners ( if you have partners posting the hop on their blogs be sure to ask your participants to follow them also) and online social media.

Decide if you will be hopping on a specific day of the week, on the weekend, or once a month, etc. So your participants will know to keep coming back.

It’s nice to decide on a hop theme. Will you be sharing crafts, recipes, giveaways, or just blog hopping for new friends? Any theme is great and helps to identify your specific hop from others.

Create a hop button with an html code for copying; can help with that!

Select a “linky” provider ( the form that creates your blog hop link up list). That is the host site where you will create your list for people to participate. The most commonly used are www.linkytools.com, www.inlinkz.com and www.blenza.com/linkies. You will need to set up an account to use these services. There may be a small fee, some charge for their service and some don’t.

Establish your rules. You do not need to have a bunch of rules but you should have at least one-participants who link up must follow the hop host/hostess blog.

It’s up to you if you want any other rules. Like no advertising, or blogs that link up must fit the theme, must follow on twitter, etc. Encourage your hop participants to post your hop button ( they will copy it from the html code (I personally do not feel this should be mandatory but it is a nice option.)

Some blog hop host/hostesses even pick a random blog from the hop link up list and award a giveaway prize through a random drawing. The prize can be a post about the blog selected, or something tangible. You decide if you want to offer a giveaway, this may be something to consider after you have a few hops under your belt.

There are some wonderful hops out there. Mine is one of them Every Thursday join us for Thursday Favorite Things! I have a blog hop list here too to get you hopping.

What IS SEO

Search Engine Optimization, this is how the little web crawlers ( robots, etc) discover your blogs information for distribution in search on the web. Through google, bing, yahoo. etc. Contents are scanned and the search engines pick out what is relevant to their search users.

URL

is the actual address on the internet of your blog, the universal resource indicator

What Is html

You see it everywhere throughout the internet but what is it?

HTML is the building block each website is created with. It is a series of elements called tags and angle brackets like this

all buried with the contents of the page.

HTML tags normally come in pairs like

The first tag in a pair is the opening tag and the last is the closing tag.

Web browsers analyze the tags to interpret the content of the web page, blog, etc.

HTML is also what allows embedded objects and images to display and to be interactive ( click to go to location). Like for blog buttons.

I am not an expert on HTML codes. But, what I don’t know I can always research and find out.

List Your Blog On Search Engines google, bing and yahoo

you can list your blog on google click HERE

on yahoo click HERE

and on Bing click HERE

This will get you up and running, there’s always more to learn.

Still have questions just drop me a note CLICK HERE

Please make sure that my email address is in your approved list. I promise I am NOT spam.I can't reply to your comments or send you emails unless I am in your approved email list. xo

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bj

March 28, 2013 at 08:08 (UTC -6) Link to this comment

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All good tips.
A problem not addressed in the Blog Hop linky parties is one that I am not sure how should be handled.
It is very frustrating for us to link a party in our post to find that that party, for one reason or another, is not there. The host either decides to quit the party….is out of town so the party isn’t going on and so forth.
Then, we bloggers have to go back into our post and delete that said party. This has happened to me several times and its very frustrating. So, if one is planning to host a weekly or monthly link party,
BEING LOYAL to the blog linky party is very important. Also, sending out an email notice to the people that regularly participate in their party when the party is going to be deleted or just postponed would be very nice. I know it’s a lot of hard work hosting these parties…..it’s also hard on those attempting to join the party only to find it’s not there.
Thanks, bj
1. Katherines Corner
  
  March 28, 2013 at 11:53 (UTC -6) Link to this comment
  
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  Hi Bj, thank you for your comment on blogging tips referencing the blog hops. It can be disappointing to discover a hop is no longer happening. I feel your frustration. I think it’s best to visit the blog before adding your link to your post ( that’s how I do it).
  Reminders are tough too. Because blog hop hosts can’t just send reminders out to everyone. The linker has to request a reminder. Originally I had ” participants will receive a hop notice unless I am notified otherwise” or something like that, giggle. But. the reminders were ending up in spam folders and shooting back to me declaring “I was spam” so my comments, emails etc were going into spam folders too. I do have a linky hop reminder list bloggers can sign up on ( its on my hop posts) then they get the reminders and they will always know if a hop isn’t going to be posted.
  Thank you for your bloggy friendship and participation, Biggest HUGS!!
Rosey

March 28, 2013 at 09:02 (UTC -6) Link to this comment

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You have a plethora of great advice here, it’s wonderful that you’ve shared it.

The only thing I thought of while reading that you hadn’t already addressed is the group giveaways. It’s fun to help others promote their giveaways, but know what you’re getting into. Don’t just copy/paste the html code w/o giving it a once over for content, spelling, and flavor. I got one full of curse words once that had me editing quite a bit. I was surprised! But also glad I hadn’t just cut/pasted as directed.

Thanks for sharing, your advice is well received.
1. Katherines Corner
  
  March 28, 2013 at 11:54 (UTC -6) Link to this comment
  
  Reply
  
  Wow Rosey! that’s awful. thank you for adding your comment xo
Tracy @ Ascending Butterfly

March 29, 2013 at 02:49 (UTC -6) Link to this comment

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Great tips, and thank you for reminding everyone to turn off those captcha’s!
Debbie @ Deliciously Inspired

April 20, 2013 at 20:57 (UTC -6) Link to this comment

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Hi BJ – I am new to the blogging world but have a teachable heart. Thank you with being so generous with the information. Very appreciated.