Blog Baby Blog: Week 5 Five Tips for Bloggers

For week 5 of Blog Baby Blog, I thought I would share 5 things I think you should be doing as a blogger.  Want to catch up on the previous posts?  Here you go:


1. Claim your blog on Bloglovin'.


This is a must.  Want followers?  Make sure you are providing people ways to follow you.  The most common is Bloglovin'.  Do it.  Now.

**To paste the code into your sidebar, go to your blog-->Layout-->Add a Gadget-->HTML-->Paste code-->Save.

2. Stop being a No Reply blogger.  


{And you probably are one even if you think you aren't one)
This happens ALL THE TIME.  Even if you've changed it before, Google is sneaky about changing you back.

What the heck is it?
Whenever you leave a comment, the comment shows up in the blogger's email.  It is #1 a million times easier to reply to comments, and #2 a million times more personal to reply by email instead of posting a reply for the whole world to see.  It is a real and beautiful thing.  Trust me.

You can follow this tutorial to stop the insanity.  (Does anybody else remember this????)

3.  Break. Up. Your. Posts.


Please.

(See what I did there?) Don’t give your reader a giant blob of text.  Their eyes are going to glaze over.  We’re teachers, and we’re tired.  If it looks hard, we’re not going to do it.  See the numbers I’ve been using?  They’re pretty darn cute, but they also serve the important job of visually break up the post for the reader.  


Before you click on publish, click on preview.  Is there too much text running together? Add in a photo, so number graphics, a row of colorful dots, whatever!  If you have a post divider or a sidebar divider on your blog design, you can use that, too.

4. Take advantage of your real estate.


Go to your blog’s homepage.  No scrolling.  What greets your readers? This view is what pulls your readers in when they first visit.  Make sure that you are promoting your blog and giving readers a chance to connect with your on social media.  Make it easy on them.  Nobody wants to dig around to find out how to follow your blog, social media, find your store.  Promote you first, others second.

5. Blog


I know.  Seems silly, right?  Sometimes we get so caught up in everything else and don't blog.  Just go do it.  Maybe your photos aren't perfect or arranged in beautiful collages.  You don't have to have fancy graphics.  It would be amazing if you did have time for that with every post but don't let that stop you.

Content is king.  Just share your good stuff.  Here are a few ideas:

•Link up! There are lots of linkies out there, and they're a good way to connect with other bloggers.  Try to stay focused on content related linkies (Five for Friday, Mentor Texts Monday, Tried It Tuesday, there are tons!).  Do link up with the fun ones, but try to keep your blog more content focused.

•What were your excited about this week? No matter how big or small.  There are times it's taken me a little while to figure that out.  And that's kind of sad.  Both for me AND my students.  It doesn't have to be something elaborate, maybe just an aha moment.

•What went terribly wrong and what will you do next time.  This is real.  It's just as real as your happy moments and relatable to us all.  Bonus?  You may get some good advice.

Just blog.  Pinterest is forever.  One of most pinned posts (last time I checked) is from when I had ZERO followers.  What can I say?  I peaked early.  If it's good, people will come.  Maybe not tomorrow, but it will happen.

Anything important you think I missed?