I’m really excited about today’s post. It is different then our everyday tutorials and inspiration posts. I’m going to sort of give you a behind the scenes look at the business side of A Little Craft In Your Day. For those of you who are wanting to start a blog or want to step up your blogging game, KEEP READING because I am going to share lots of tips that I have learned along the way.
I think the most important thing to remember as a blogger is there is always room for improvement. There is no such thing as a perfect blogger. Where you start does not define you or where you can go. When I started blogging, I was on blogger, used my camera phone for pictures, didn’t even know what a step out photo was. With a lot of hard work I was able to improve those things; but it did not happen overnight by any means.
If the blogger I just describes sounds like yourself, don’t fret. I’m here to help and share some things you can do to flip that around and make a 180 transformation!
1) Focus.
There are many areas to improve in. There’s always going to be too. When you focus on one of these areas at a time, I think you will be surprised at your own improvement. Last summer, I decided it was really time to step it up in the picture department. I spent a lot of time researching photography tips, invested in new lights, and learned the ins and outs of PicMonkey. When I go back and look through old posts, I can see the gradual but noticeable improvement. This winter I started to focus on Tumblr. Again, I started looking up good Tumblr practices and posting on there 5 times a day. I was dedicated to it and it worked. Since then I have gained 28,000 awesome followers.
2) WordPress. WordPress. WordPress.
One of the best blogging decision I ever made, potentially even the very best, was switching over to WordPress. It can be a little intimidating, but it is so worth it. Trust me on this one. HostGator offers one-click WordPress instals which will make this process easy peasy! What are you waiting for? Oh and they also offer amazing 24/7 live support via chat, phone, and email. You won’t be in it alone with HostGator.
I have recently learned about HostGator’s new Optimized WordPress. It is the perfect option for new bloggers and seasoned bloggers alike because most of us aren’t rocket scientists or coding experts. With Optimized WordPress, HostGator will take care of all of your core, theme, and plugin updates. You won’t ever have to worry about logging into your WP-Admin panel to handle common updates. It will protect you from hackers (a bloggers worst nightmare) by CodeGuard daily backup and restores. Optimized WordPress is a small extension to your hosting package and other products provided by HostGator.
Without content, good content, people will have no reason to visit your blog. Know your readers or your desired audience and when you are thinking of posts, think of what they would like. When you’re blogging as a business it is not all about just sharing whatever is on your mind. You’ll want to come up with a posting schedule that you are comfortable with. Become accountable to yourself or your readers to stick to the schedule as much as possible. Once you have the content, comes time for promotion. Think of where your desired audience spends their time and promote the content on those platforms.
Finding your niche is extremely important. Its not as hard as you would think either. Think about what you are passionate about and pick the first thing that come to your mind. Tanner and I are both passionate about creating projects that people our age would like- so our niche became teen crafts. You can make your niche whatever you want it to be. Once you find your niche, you’ll want to work hard to become an expert in that field. When you start to work with brands, this will be a huge selling point. Brands want to see that you are passionate about the work you do and not scattered across the board.
Be sure to check out HostGator for yourself. You can find lots of information about the services they provide on their website.
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
