Are You a New Blogger?

I’ve been blogging now for around 5 months. To be honest, I didn’t really know much about it, and I only started the blog on a recommendation from a friend that thought I would enjoy writing as a hobby.  I could then channel this passion on to a blog platform; as I do tend to have a great deal of mindless crap to talk about! (with the added fetish for semi-colons!)

I do enjoy reading a wide range of different material from self-help, health issues, work-related topics and kids, etc. I’m in my mid-forties and have had quite a few ups and downs within my life which have affected me for good and bad. I can now confidently say, ‘I did that and got the T-shirt’; therefore,  I wanted to write about those experiences, amongst others.

So my blog really is a work in progress. All I did, to begin with, was use lots of stuff I’ve been through to write posts I thought may be of interest, in some degree to a wider audience. But as the blog grew I realised that it’s very important to have some sort of ‘niche’ as it were.

It took quite a few months to get the feel for blogging and trying to understand the ways to get traffic to my blog. I do hope you’ve noticed if you have read any of my posts, that there is only 1 out of the 174 I’ve written so far, that sells something.  And I think that’s the thing to remember with blogging. If you’re only doing it for the money you may as well stop now!  People will sense desperation in your posts and you will come across as being false. This is definitely the wrong way to go initially. Develop your readership and let people warm to you, then the whole earning aspect can come later;  if that’s what you choose to do.

How do you get your blog noticed?

The first few months for me nearly convinced me to throw in the towel. I probably had around 9 to 12 readers per day, and I seriously wondered what I was doing wrong.  I had at least 80 posts out there by this time, and it just wasn’t progressing in any way shape or form, (I love sayings, can you tell? 😉

It wasn’t about the posts.  The whole problem consisted of the way I was promoting the blog.

I wasn’t!

I needed to get the posts out there on social media platforms and this is what I did, and it’s slowly working.

1. Create a Facebook account with your blog title as your page. Once you have created your posts, highlight the title and copy the link address and post this onto your page, using hashtags like you do for Twitter.

2. Create a Twitter account using your blog title once again as your main page. Copy your link address as before, and tweet your new post with plenty of hashtags. Another good way to get your tweets noticed is to use prime time slots for popular programmes and tweet about them.

3. Create a Stumbleupon account, doing the same as above.

4. Create a Pinterest account, doing the same also. I am still learning about using Pinterest. It is new for me too.

5. Create an Instagram account.

I must admit that Facebook is a good one to start with. New bloggers need the support of other bloggers. There are groups you can join for this very thing. Usually, these groups will post a thread for the day where you can post your recent article and then comment on other blogger’s posts. It’s really good because others will share your stuff while you reciprocate the favour for them. But after a while, I noticed this set up wasn’t beneficial for me as the ‘rules’ of these groups became a little exhausting. ‘You must comment on this blog, you must comment on that!’ Use these to begin with, then find the group that works best for your needs and gives you a little more freedom. I find ‘Bloggers Hub’ to be the best one ????. But I must say that I have received my first comments for my posts by joining many groups at the start of my blogging journey.

There is, however, one important thing about all of this that I would like to mention in conclusion.

Please find your ‘niche!’

I cannot emphasise this enough. My blog is very random, largely because I am a random type of girl who likes a lot of stuff.  Food, books, hobbies, pets, work, health and fun etc.  These subjects do cater for every reader, but I feel that if a blog talks about just one thing all the time it can become a little tedious to read, but that’s just a personal viewpoint.  So whilst all this random stuff is good, the trick is to work out at least one thing that is a sort of thread throughout your blog as a whole.  It took me quite a while to understand this, but now I’ve realised what mine is, and it’s increased my traffic ten-fold.

My passion is painting, so I began posting my artwork as blog posts and joining groups on Facebook specifically for this. It’s worked for me because I’ve joined art related groups where my posts are being viewed by fellow artists, and then my blog is being highlighted in the process. So this is really what you need to do. Find one thing that you can centre on. Do you like cooking? Join recipe and cooking Facebook groups and post your articles. Do you like health and beauty? Work on this and join these groups.

I’ve found that these tips have definitely worked for me, and to be honest I am a complete novice when it comes to blogging. This is all new to me too and I’m constantly learning.

I hope this post has helped if you’re a beginner. Please share your comments of your own ideas and tips, as I could use the advice too!!

XPip