Category: Blog/Website Technical How-to

A Blogger’s Journey: Will Someone Pay Me To Blog?

WIWW, Boots,Making Money Blogging — photo by Whitney Loibner

So last week I talked all about how I was Mesmerized By Free Stuff in Stage 4 of Blogging, but then I started thinking that maybe in addition to candles, people should give me Cold Hard Cash.

Stage 5: Show Me The Money

And y’all, let me just be honest: here’s where it gets ugly.

I hear you asking, By ugly, do you mean all those ads that were on the sides of your blog?

Well, yes, because those can be ugly, but actually no, because what happened inside of me was far uglier than Adsense.

Because here’s the thing.

Somehow, when I was just blogging for Free Stuff, I actually liked what I was blogging about. I really did LOVE Moss Mountain Farm. I would go there again tomorrow if Mimi would just fly me over from Scotland.

And I actually like Petit Jean Bacon. (Please send some over.)

Petit Jean Meats, Making Money Blogging — photo by Whitney Loibner

But when I started chasing the money in blogging, I was haphazard and ridiculous, and the lack of financial success in blogging caused me to have a lot of self-loathing.

At first I joined lots of affiliate programs (like this one) where you put company ads on your sidebar and if people buy stuff by clicking on them you get like ten cents. Well, as you can imagine, that did not make me very much money. In fact, I could be totally wrong about this, but I finally decided that the main purpose these ads serve is to make others think that your blog is professional.

Oh, I saw you had ads on your blog now!

You must be big time!

Yes, thank you very much. I made two dollars this month and only because when I saw my mother was ordering something from Amazon anyway, I asked her to please click through from my website first.

Next, I found some other sites that are dedicated to helping you make money as a blogger. The first one was Collective Bias. Opportunities would pop up on the home page of the program (or you could have them emailed directly to you) where you could apply to be a blogger for a product. In the space of about six months, I probably applied for about fifty of these opportunities and I was accepted for two of them. In both cases, I was sent to buy a product, which I blogged about and then I was reimbursed for the cost of the product and paid a fee for having blogged about it. I think I made $50 for blogging about Colgate and $100 for blogging about a camera. Plus of course I got the toothpaste (long gone) and the camera (collecting dust). Let’s not dwell on all the time I spent putting together those posts + applying to the other 48 opportunities that I did not get, because we will probably discover that $150 comes out to about forty cents an hour. Yikes.

I know this is a hideously tedious amount of detail, but it is this kind of information that I was searching for from others in my Show Me The Money blogging phase. And honestly, it just was not out there.

I combed other blogs (including many of yours) looking for how people were making money in blogging. And people do not really say. In fact, if you visit my blog today, you might come away thinking that I am trying to give the impression of a blog that is making money but I just need to tell you that it is not really making money. I think I have still bought in to the idea that having a blog that looks like it is making money is the key to having one that actually does make money. I call it Fake It ‘Til You Make It. But friends, come back in six months and I may not have all that jazz on there anymore.

I might be in a different stage by then.

The good news is that even though I would still very much appreciate making money from blogging, and I can still be very haphazard, I have, for the most part, left behind the self-loathing.

But again, I am getting ahead of myself. Come back next week and I will tell you all about learning To Define Myself As A Blogger.

Do you have questions or helpful info about making money from blogging? Please share in the comments!

Photos this week are from photo shoots with one of my fav Arkansas Bloggers, Whitney Loibner. The top one is an old What I Wore Wednesday photo featuring Country Outfitter Boots and the second pictures is my mama and me enjoying some Petit Jean Hot Dogs! LOVE!

A Blogger’s Journey: Becoming A Blogging Superstar

Moss Mountain Farm, A Blogger's Journey — photo by Stephanie McCratic

And by Superstar, of course I mean, A Blogger who gets Free Stuff.

Like I said last week, I was just plugging away, writing my little heart out about why we should all eat more green vegetables (or whatever) and one day I got an email inviting me to an event as a Blogger.

It was from Mimi San Pedro representing P. Allen Smith. I immediately sent it to my friend Sarabeth with a big IS THIS IMPORTANT? in the subject line and she told me she was not sure but that I should just go. Soon, Jerusalem and I realized we were both invited and we heaved big sighs of relief and made plans to go along together to Moss Mountain Farm.

This next part is important, y’all:

I had absolutely no idea what I was going to.

Seriously.

I had never been invited to an event as a blogger before and I did not have any clue that bloggers were sometimes Given Nice Things For Free.

I need you to know that it was by ignorance, friends, and not audacity that I found myself at the gorgeous magazine spread that is P. Allen Smith’s house armed with nothing but a point and shoot camera and a flip phone.

Gals, I did not even have a Smart phone. It was 2012, but I was resisting. What can I say? However, I was nothing if not resourceful. I joined in with everyone else on Twitter because I had learned to tweet via text message on my Razor.

I’ll pause for you to Be Very Impressed.

I loved every minute of my time at Moss Mountain Farm, and not just because it was a blogging event. That place is amazing. The food, the décor, the chickens! P. Allen Smith gave us a personal tour and I could have listened to him talk all day long. He told stories while Mimi kept us on schedule with her clipboard.

At one point, we were interviewed by cameramen while we had drinks on the lawn with live music. I was star struck. Jerusalem and I both felt like we had hit the jackpot.

On the way home, with my goodie bag full of loot in my lap, I decided that I was now a blogging star. Jerusalem told me she would lend me some pictures so that I could properly write up my day.

I could not wait to get started on my post about Moss Mountain Farm, alternately titled: Look What I Got To Do Because I Am Such A Fabulous Blogger.

Upon writing it, I decided I had officially moved into a new phase of blogging.

A Blogger's Journey, Moss Mountain Farm, Jerusalem Greer, Alison Chino, P Allen Smith — photo by Jerusalem Greer of Jolly Goode Gal

Stage 4: Mesmerized By Free Stuff

I blogged about all the parts of going to P. Allen Smith’s house that I enjoyed, which was, of course, EVERYTHING.

Then my brain quickly moved on to this brilliant line of thought:

If someone gave me a candle and some boots because I am a blogger, I bet I can get some more stuff because I have a blog. Wait a minute! I have already blogged about my favorite sunscreen. I should get that sunscreen for free!

Dear Sunscreen Company,

I am a blogger and I love your sunscreen. I will blog about it some more if you send it to me for free. Here is my address.

Signed,

A Very Important Blogger

I wish that I could tell you that I did not send about eleventy million emails that looked almost exactly like this. If you went through the Sent Messages folder in my inbox from the last two or three years, I can tell you exactly what you would say,

Bless her heart.

I did get a few free things this way, which just added fuel to the fire of my ludicrously bad pitching habits.

It was around this time that I joined Arkansas Women Bloggers. And I went to a conference where I got More Free Stuff, also sometimes called Swag.

I embraced the writing about free stuff with abandon, partly because I am just a writer. Give me something to write about and I will go for it.

Tea?

Candles?

Boots?

Bacon?

Bring it on, y’all!

After about a year I started to wonder if instead of just Free Stuff, I could actually get something even more valuable for blogging.

Like actual money.

Hot diggity. I’m all out of time for this week folks, but come back again next time to learn how to Become Rich And Famous* Like Me.

*Disclaimer: Rich and Famous might be a slight exaggeration.

Go on and tell me. What’s the best FREE thing you ever got for blogging? You’re among friends here. Brag away.

A Blogger’s Journey: Beginnings

photo by Whitney Loibner

Hi y’all! My name is Alison, but that’s not really important. If this post is not interesting, you will have forgotten my name and everything else about me before you get to the end. So let’s just cut to the ending, shall we?

I am hoping that by the end of our time together you will have learned something new about blogging.

Because really, is that not why you joined ARWB in the first place? I am not ashamed to say that I joined up to learn from other bloggers, even if it was just by watching all of your blogs to see what new blogging trends you were up to. Also, let’s be honest. I wondered if I would get a few hits from adding my name to the directory, because when I joined ARWB in the summer of 2012, I was all about Self Promotion.

But I am getting ahead of myself.

I did not start blogging to promote myself. Self Promotion was just a stage.

If you have blogged for any length of time, you can probably mark your blog with stages. I know that everyone’s stages are not the same but I thought it would be fun to tell you the story of my blog in stages and see if you recognize some of the same phases in your own blogging.

I get to hang out here all month so I am going to take my time and have some fun with telling the story of my blog. If I do not manage to teach you anything, at least we will have a laugh or two along the way at my expense. Let me say up front that in taking a mocking tone about my own blogging journey, I do not mean to offend or poke fun at anyone’s blog but my own. I actually think that all the different and crazy things I have tried in blogging have served me in the long run. I have learned by experimenting, so no post has been wasted. Well, maybe just that one about yoga.

Also, let it be known that I do not in any way purpose to set myself up as some sort of expert blogger. As you will see over the next few weeks, my road through the internet has been (and continues to be) very experimental.

But I believe that starting a personal weblog is an experiment worth doing, so let’s begin at the beginning.

My blog, like many others, began as an online journal in 2007.

I have filled notebooks with my melodramatic musings since I was an angst-filled child of 11, so my friend Jerusalem assured me that I could start a blog.

One winter’s night I stared into the screen at WordPress.com and followed the prompts until it came into existence.

My blog.

I called it Chino House, because Chino is my last name and I was going to record what happened in my house. I am creative like that.

Stage 1: i am too cool for punctuation

Hello stream-of consciousness-nonsense with which I bored my 8 readers.

Hello lack-of-grammar-punctuation-or-editing.

Hello all-text-and-no-photos.

Hello girl-without-a-filter.

Hello ranting-that-would-better-be-kept-to-myself (now deleted).

Let me just say that I loved this stage of blogging. As a stay-at-home-mom, I felt like I had been given a lifeline to the world, and I wrote my little heart out. I exploded with joy when someone commented back, Girl I feel you! or Hang in there! or my very favorite comment, This really touched me!

However, after I had a few more readers, I decided that some ranting should be reserved for drinks with the girls and long weepy emails to my friends. (Hello Sarabeth & Whitney.)

Then I moved to on to Stage 2.

Stage 2: I Have A Cute Toddler

This stage of blogging could also be filed under, I Lost My Mind and Starting Homeschooling or Mommyblogger Wannabe.

During this phase of blogging I tried on all the possible genres of mommybloggers.

I wanted to be funny, but not too crass. Positive, but raw and authentic. I wanted to be a photographer and a maker of graphics. A reviewer of books. Informative and inspiring.

Dear Lord, I am tired just from reading all those descriptions.

It was like the adolescent stage of blogging.

Who am I?

At some point during this phase I decided to post my very first recipe.

Yes! Now I was also a Food Blogger!

Wearing all these hats was a lot of fun, but when my daughter’s birthday or Father’s Day rolled around again and I typed the exact same words as the year before, I started to get bored. I wanted more meaning. I wanted to dig deeper.

So I moved on to being a more serious blogger. And by serious, I mean I took myself too seriously.

Stage 3: Existential Blogging Experiments

NaNoBloMo, Blogging every day for the month of August, or Blogging For Lent.

I sporadically played with schedules. And by sporadically, I mean that I kept a schedule for about two weeks before trying a new one.

A recipe a week?

How about a book review a week?

Oh wait a minute, will that mean I have to read a book every week?

Wordless Wednesday, Fashion Friday, Thoughtless Thursday. (I just made that last one up.)

Link Ups!

Honestly, I re-discovered through blogging how much I really love writing and so I invented all sorts of ways to keep doing it. Often they were utterly meaningless and complete rubbish. But somehow I felt the point was to just keep plugging away.

I would read websites like ProBlogger or CopyBlogger now and then and I realized that there were people out there who were professionally blogging. I figured I had just not yet been discovered. Sooner or later, whoever found The Pioneer Woman would come knocking on my door and give me a prize for making granola and raising children at the same time.

You clever girl, you.

I did not understand that most of the opportunities for professional blogging were actually sought after by bloggers. Sure there are some writers who are discovered through blogging. But they are more often the exception than the rule and even they will tell you that staying in the pro-blog world has involved lots of asks. Or pitches. But I am getting ahead of myself. In Stage 3, I would never have known to use the word pitch. I was still waiting for Oprah to call.

And one day I did receive a call, but you will have to wait until next time for me to tell you who it was.

I know you are riveted.

Tune in next week for Stage 4, in which I become Mesmerized By Free Stuff For Blogging.

PS. I would love for you to share in the comments about your own early stages of blogging! When and why did you start blogging?

A Great Headshot {Plus a Giveaway}

by Linda Richards

As bloggers, we know how important it is to gain our readers’ trust. If they don’t consider us both credible and interesting, they won’t keep coming back to our blog, right?

Establishing our personal brand and our blog’s brand is often an intertwined process because in many cases, a blogger’s blog is the writer’s way to express their own thoughts, feelings and opinions so the personal brand is a part of the blog’s brand. Even for many business blogs like mine, my personal reputation and brand is intertwined with my business.

Let’s look at the most basic definitions of branding from what better place the dictionary:

“Marketing process of creating identity for brand a means of distinguishing one firm’s products or services from another’s and of creating and maintaining an image that encourages confidence in the quality and performance of that firm’s products or services”

Jamie is a professional writer who also has a personal blog. She wanted a headshot that clearly established her personal blog’s branding from her writing business.

How does photography influence my branding?

Whether your blog is personal or for business, the images you choose send a message and influence your branding. This includes the many photos that are needed on the About page, to the photography within each blog post.

A personal blog (or a blog for a sole proprietor business) will be more likely to have plenty of photos of the person who writes the blog. A blog for a business (or even a personal blog that talks about products, food, etc.) needs to have plenty of quality photos that represent their topic.

How do I use photography to establish my brand?

To answer this question, consider your answers to these questions:

Jane's "day job" is working at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. but she also co-created a local chapter of the non-profit Dress for Success. She needed a more light-hearted yet still professional headshot for this role.

What is my brand?
What are my strengths, expertise and limitations?
How do others see my personal brand?
Is this brand right for me?
How can I demonstrate my brand in what I write and how I respond to others?

Jane’s “day job” is working at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. but she also co-created a local chapter of the non-profit Dress for Success. She needed a more light-hearted yet still professional headshot for this role.

For a written product like a blog, establishing how you want to be seen and how you convey that in words is the first step in creating your overall brand. The photography you choose is born from those decisions. Once you know the answers to the above questions, you can begin the process of choosing photography to establish your brand.

Cherise needed some serious shots for business and fun headshots for personal use. This fun picture shows a different side to her personality.

Headshots, portfolio and stock: Oh my!

It starts with a headshot and photography about your life (or blog subject matter). This includes photos in your environment that is reflected in your blog’s overall theme. (check out my guest post on the EvolvedMommy blog for tips on getting the most out of your headshot).

But what about all the photos and images you need for each blog post? Written content needs interesting images to illustrate the message.

Erin's brightly-colored shirt choice complements the vibrancy in her smile.

Are you using photos from your cell phone or quality photos from stock photography sites? If you aren’t a photographer by trade (or lots of good practice), you may consider using photography sites such as Dreamstime iStockPhoto. There are many other sites where you can get inexpensive or even free stock photography to use.

Erin, who wants to be an event planner, needed a professional headshot that was bright and cheerful. It was a serious style that gave her youth credibility.

For photos that are for your About page or images that will be visible frequently, you might consider hiring a photographer to get just the images you want. This is especially important for business blogs when it comes to taking photos of food or products. It’s easy to think that because those items don’t move, that they are easy to photograph and that’s just not the case.

Megan is a young professional who needed a casual, modern image that was age appropriate while conveying a sense of confidence and emerging leadership.

Megan's headshot is a perfect example of an on-location headshot.

A giveaway!

I’m excited to be able to guest post at Arkansas Women Bloggers and want to help all of you establish your brand through photography. That’s why I’m offering a giveaway special!

If you enter, you will be eligible to win my Professional Headshot package for free.

It comes with the following:

30-minute photography session
Headshots and full body poses
10-20 images to choose from
1 image, web ready and high-resolution
2 backgrounds (in studio) or an outdoor location
Up to 2 outfits

All photography sessions on location must be within 30 miles or so of Bentonville, Arkansas. If you live outside that area, I hope you still enter! There are plenty of places up in Northwest Arkansas to have a great photo shoot. While you’re here, you can enjoy shopping, Crystal Bridges or many other fun family activities.

To enter, you have to do two things: 1) like my Linda Richards Photography Facebook page, and 2) leave a comment on this post so that I recognize you from Arkansas Women Bloggers. The drawing will be on Friday, May 16, 2013.

So think about this: what does your photography say about your brand? It may be time to update your image.

Linda Richards is the lead photographer at Linda Richards Photography in Bella Vista, Arkansas. As someone who has worked within a corporate

environment for 17 years, Linda understands the professional and personal photography needs for today’s professional. Linda is a wife to Randy for 19 years and a mom to Dane and Dylan; she also understands the needs for capturing the family’s personality in photos. Linda has lived in NWA since 1998 and enjoys traveling, movies, and spending time with her friends and family in her free time.

Making the World a Better Place to Be (and to Blog)

Hello and welcome to the April theme for AWB: Making the World a Better Place to Be (and to Blog)! We should probably win an award for the longest blog post title ever for the title of this mornings post. It says a lot, but we have a lot to say!

This month, we will be focusing on Making the World a Better Place to Be (and to Blog). We love giving you tips to be a better blogger but we also want to inspire you to be a better person, woman, mother, sister, daughter and friend.

You may not realize, but as a blogger, and especially as a member of Arkansas Women Bloggers, we harness a lot of power to help make our communities, our state and our world a better place. Here is the lineup for this month:

April 4, 10 AM – Investing in Self – 100 Free Ways to Nurture Your Mind, Body and Soul
April 4, 3 PM – Investing in Self – Dream Boards: Realizing the Dreams within Us
April 11 – Investing in Others
April 18 – Investing in the World/Living Lightly (Earth Day)
April 25 – Investing in Community/Neighborhood

In addition to each weekly post, we will also be providing you will several opportunities to get involved and start making the world a better place to be! Check back on Friday when we give you information about how you can participate in the Arkansas Food Blogger Bake Sale which benefits Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry program.

As always, we encourage your participation in the monthly theme. Feel free to send us any links and ideas that you have and link up any related posts each Sunday!

When April comes to a close we hope you feel rejuvenated and lifted up, inspired and motivated and ready to Make the World a Better Place to Be (and to Blog)!

WordPress Plug-ins I love

by Jamie Smith

There are many WordPress plugins out there. Some are obvious, some are annoying and some can even break your site. But there are even more that are fantastically wonderful because they make your blog run smoother, better and cleaner.

We all know about Akismet, Jetpack, All In One SEO and Google Analytics, right? I wanted to share a couple plugins I use on my blog, Jamie’s Thots. Some I also use for my business site, Jamie’s Notebook. (Yes, my name is Jamie).

WordPress plugins that pert near changed my blogging life:

Broken Link Checker-this plugin scans your site and emails you if one of the links in a blog breaks. This happened, for example, when a blog post I referred to was removed by its user. It was especially helpful when moving my blog from Xanga to WordPress.

Ozh’ Admin Drop Down Menu-oh, this one gives me chills of nerdy wonderful! It also confuses anyone who works in my dashboard. This lovely plugin moves your left side dashboard menu to spread across the top. This is much more intuitive for website navigation for me. I adore this plugin.

Pinterest RSS Widget-This is a pretty basic plugin, but considering how much trouble I’ve had in the past getting some of my social media updates to show up on WordPress, I’ve enjoyed the easiness of this plugin. So far it’s worked flawlessly and I like the size of the photo it uses. I’m pretty much a words person and this gives my sidebars a little bit of a visual appeal.

Term Management Tools-This plugin is one I found during the Kick-Start My Blog challenge when we were cleaning up our blogs. It may have even been suggested by ARWB ladies, now that I think about it! It made cleaning up my messy categories and tags much more organized.

Now, as a bonus, I wanted to mention a new plugin that I’ve installed but haven’t had a chance to use yet:

Easy Facebook Share Thumbnail- is supposed to make the right photo from your blog show up when you post to Facebook, which is something we all know doesn’t always happen correctly!

So what plugins do you just love for your WordPress blog? Share in the comments what it is and why you love it! jamie

Jamie Smith is a professional reporter and writer who enjoys “letting her hair down” on her blog, Jamie’s Thots. With her business, Jamie’s Notebook, Jamie writes corporate blogs, press releases and website copy. She is also a freelance reporter for The City Wire where she loves finding creative stories about business and the arts. Jamie and her husband John purchased their first home in December 2011 in Elkins and are enjoying raising their two dogs and two cats. When not writing or spending time with her fur kids, Jamie loves to spend time scrapbooking.

Better Your Blog: Housekeeping

When it comes to housekeeping, most people fall into one of two categories.

1. The Planners/Schedulers – This type of person has a master list and a plan for housekeeping. Each day, each week, and each month has a specific task.
or
2. The Impulse Cleaners – This type of person typically takes care of things on an as needed basis. The laundry gets done when no clothes are left and the house gets a top to bottom cleaning five minutes before company arrives.

Oddly enough, most bloggers can be sorted into the same categories! Today’s tips are intended to help you make the most of your time and to be a well-rounded and involved blogger whether you are Planner Blogger or an Impulse Blogger.

The Golden Rule: Treat others the way you want to be treated. – Blogging is not a one way street. The quickest way to be a better blogger is to be reciprocal and be a part of the community. Our goal at ARWB is to make it easy for you to connect with other Arkansas Women Bloggers. Hop on over to our blogger directory, click on five new blogs and do the following:

Read – Make it a point to read other blogs. There is some amazing stuff out there if you just take a few moments to read it.
Subscribe and Follow – Nearly all bloggers are also active on a variety of social media outlets. Consider connecting with your favorite bloggers on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ and so on.
Comment – You know YOU love it when you get comments on your blog. Return the favor and leave one when you stop by someone else’s blog. Even if it is just a quick note to say “Stopping by from ARWB!” I promise it will make that persons day.
Consider Swapping Posts – When you find a blogger that you really connect with, consider swapping posts. What ever draws the two of you together will also likely interest both of your readers. Not only is post swapping a great way to get fresh content but it is a great way to draw in new readers.

Determine your Blogs Goals and Develop an Editorial Calendar – If you ever find yourself searching for topics to write about then what you need is an editorial calendar. An editorial calendar will keep your focused and grounded and give you direction during the times when you need it most. Here at ARWB we have a basic calendar planned out a year in advance. We have specific themes for each day of the week and have selected a theme for each month for 2013. Since we already have a basic idea of what will post on which day half the battle is done for us. Now all we have to do is collect the resources and write the posts.

Collecting Post Titles and Ideas – Post ideas seem to come to me in the weirdest of places and at the strangest of times. While I may not be able to write the complete post at the moment the idea strikes I find I will lose the idea if I don’t record it in some way. My favorite way to record post titles and ideas is with the notes feature on my iPhone. I almost always have my phone nearby so in a few seconds I can quickly preserve the idea for a more convenient time.

Write a Post for a Rainy Day – Some days I get on a blogging roll. I could whip out 10 articles in 3 hours. Other days it could take 3 hours to whip out 10 words. When I am in a particularly good blogging groove I try to write a post for a rainy day. I write a post that is interesting and relevant enough that I could post it at any time. I file it away and on those days when I really need some material but am not finding my muse I pull out a rainy day article and post it.

Are you be Bettering Your Blog this month? If you have not signed up with our Linky, do it below so we can keep up with your progress. Please link to your MAIN page and only sign up once.

Remember ladies, let’s support each other, build a great community, and bask in the kindness that we have built here at ARWB. Now, go Better Your Blog!

Better Your Blog: Content

Blog Content is the lifeblood of our blogs. What to write, how to say it. To be serious, to be lighthearted. Pictures, or no pictures. Every time we sit down to write a post we can ask ourselves a million questions and still find ourselves struggling to create our best writing.

Today’s tips are all about improving your blog content. Whether you are a mom blogger, a tech blogger, a food blogger, a fitness blogger or a (fill in the blank) blogger, we have some tips that will get you writing more and writing better.

10 Tips for Writing Better Blog Posts

Remember that Blog Writing is REAL Writing: Don’t undervalue yourself by treating your blog any less important than you would if you were hired to write for a well known publication. Make sure your content is complete and your grammar is correct. Since you are the maker of your own blog schedule, a “late” post is far better than a hastily published post that is full of errors.

Be Yourself: Your writing should be a genuine reflection of you or the alter-ego which your blog is designed to represent. Don’t fake it with your readers, they can tell!

Write to Your Readers: Even if you are writing a post about yourself, don’t forget to address your readers and connect with them throughout your post. People like to read blogs because they feel more personal than traditional articles and magazines. Addressing your readers by saying “you” goes a long way towards developing a friendly and personal relationship.

Be Short: Most blog readers skim your content. They don’t read every word and the longer you drone on, the quicker they will leave. Keep it short and to the point. Use short paragraphs and bold headings to divide up your content.

Do Your Research: When you present a story to your readers make sure your facts are correct. Being the first to “break” a story can be exciting but if your facts are wrong you lose credibility with your readers. Don’t publish it until you have actually tried it, made it or researched it for yourself.

Make it Useful and Unique: No matter your genre, your readers are coming to your page for something useful and uniquely you. Whether readers are coming to you for a recipe, the latest DIY trend, a book review or even just a good laugh – present it in a way that differs from the 15,000 other posts on the internet about the same subject. Provide your readers with what they need but do it in your own style. Don’t just be an echo of the rest of the blog world.

Have a Great Headline: Before you ever write a word of your post, write a headline. Even if you change it later your headline will help keep you grounded and focused on the intent of your post. Keep in mind that on some social media like Twitter and Facebook your readers may only see a post title and link. Headlines should be clear and catchy and should not be misleading. When choosing a headline you should also consider selecting something that someone will actually Google. Clever titles can be fun but aren’t always best for SEO.

Include an Image: Images are powerful tools of communication. An aptly used image can add interest to your post. Images should be high quality, large enough to see, and aptly placed within your content.

Delve Deeper: We all hope our readers will go beyond the first post on our home page and read other posts that we have written. Make this easy for your readers by including links to related posts within your text.

Calls to Action: If you want more engaged readers you need to invite them to do something. Ask your readers to look at something, make something, buy something, comment, share or like something. Don’t just ask them but make your post powerful enough that they can’t say no.
Will you be Bettering Your Blog this month? If you have not signed up with our Linky, do it below so we can keep up with your progress. Please link to your MAIN page and only sign up once.

Better Your Blog: Appearance

Better Your Blog - Bloggy spring cleaning at arkansaswomenbloggers.com

Before someone ever reads a single word on your blog they have to take it in visually. What people see immediately upon arrival to your blog can cause them to stick around or run screaming for the hills…or at least the next blog.

Your blog should reflect you, your personal tastes and certainly the nature of your blog. Today, we will give you some pointers to help you improve the general appearance of your blog.

BLOG HEADER

First impressions are really important and visitors to your blog will base their first impression on the first thing they see – your header.

We have all done last minute cleaning marathons when we are expecting guests in our home. It’s likely that we weren’t concerned with the state of the kids playroom in the basement or the office that serves as more of a giant closet than a functional office. Instead, we focus on the living room, the kitchen, and the main bathroom, areas that guests will likely see. Why? We want to make a good impression and we want our guests to believe that because the main areas of our house are tidy, so is the rest of the house.

So, the header is to your blog as your entryway is to your house. It can create the impression that you have a well run and tidy blog. It can also create an adverse impression.

Size: Avoid overly large headers. When your blog loads your readers should not have to scroll down to see actual content. Content should begin “above the fold” and if your header is preventing this from happening you should consider reducing its size. The best size for a header is between 150 and 250 pixels high.

Content: A header should contain, at the very least, the name of your blog. If you have room you can also include a short description or tag line for your blog.

Graphics: Make sure the graphics or photos you use in your header are of a high quality. You should also check to see how your header looks in different browsers and on different sized monitors if possible.

Can I make my own header? You bet! Headers are pretty simple to make. It may take a little time and patience but they are not difficult. Need some help? Check out our PicMonkey tutorial or check out this header tutorial we found on The Blog Guidebook.

COLOR

Ask any art teacher, graphic designer or blog guru and they will tell you that color is hugely important. The colors you choose for your blog should strike a balance between those you love, those that please your readers and those that fit the theme of your blog. There is a lot of research and science behind color theory and color psychology and you could spend a long time studying why you should choose certain colors. For now, choose a few possible color schemes, ask a few trusted friends for their opinions and then implement the colors consistently but not overwhelmingly throughout your blog.

Background Color: Many people are tempted to add color to the background of their posts. In a word, DON’T. Background colors can be very distracting and make your posts very difficult to read.

Colored Text: On the internet, colored text typically indicates a link. Having colored text which doesn’t link to additional content could be confusing to your readers or cause them to think something is “broken” about your site.

So where SHOULD I use color? Colors can be effectively used throughout your blog in many places such as your header, blog buttons, post titles, social media buttons, and text links.

How do I choose the right colors? There is a wonderful site called Design Seeds. They develop color schemes based on gorgeous photos. Each color scheme has 6 coordinating colors and they even provide the HEX values of the colors so you can easily input them into your blog.

Got a gorgeous photo on your own blog that you want to use as a starting point? The Color Palette Generator can do just that!

Fonts and Typography

Fonts, like the colors and header on your blog, can cause a reader to stay or go. Fonts are fun and there are literally millions of fonts available, many of which are free! Fonts can also easily overwhelm a reader.

Keep It Simple: When you are faced with millions of font ideas it is easy to go overboard and start adding new fonts everywhere! Select two or three fonts to use and stick with them as many blog readers expect some sense of consistency. Constantly changing fonts could send them packing.

Font Color: As we mentioned above, colored text often indicates a link. If the word is not linking to something, black is the best color to choose. Save colored fonts for post titles, sidebars, and and navigation links.

Font Size and Readability: Readability should always be a concern. Some fonts are really cute but can be difficult to read. Readers don’t typically spend a long amount of time on any given blog. They hop in, skim content, and move on. If a reader is having to spend time deciphering text on your blog they will leave. Fonts should be easily readable and large enough to see clearly.

Serif vs. Sans-Serif: Serif fonts have little lines tailing from the letters sans-serif fonts do not. Many people believe that sans-serif fonts are easier to read online. Regardless, choose your fonts wisely.

Photos

Whether you are using your own photos or stock photos it is so important to use high quality photos. Successful blogging is all about nuance. Once you have the small details under control you can start to focus on your blog content. Sarah Beth Jones is a fabulous photographer and recently shared a great photo tutorial with us. Check it out!

5 Quick Tips for Better Photos

Lighting – Use natural lighting for the best photos. Take the item(or person) you are photographing outside if possible.

Flash – Don’t use it!

Quantity – Take LOTS of photos! We live in a digital age where we don’t have to worry about using up a roll of film or developing costs. Take many photos so you have more to choose from. (Remember really good photographers are only showcasing their best work, they probably throw out 10 photos for every photo they keep.)

Surprise – Take the shot from an unexpected angle or view point. More visual interest creates a more exciting and interesting photo.

Navigation

Blog pages are a great way to present certain content such as an about me page, a contact page, even a collection of recipes or tutorials. If your readers are unable to find your pages they are useless.

Top Bar Navigation Most readers will look to your top navigation bar first when they are searching for something. Your top navigation bar should include the five to ten most important pages in your blog. Readers are looking for ease of use not a scavenger hunt.

Sidebar Navigation Utilize your sidebar to direct readers to some of your stellar content. Add thumbnail images with links to your most popular posts. Add a ‘recently posted’ widget. You should also consider adding search bar, an archives link, and a categories link to your sidebar.

Will you be Bettering Your Blog this month? If you have not signed up with our Linky, do it below so we can keep up with your progress. Please link to your MAIN page and only sign up once.

Better Your Blog: General Goodness

“Nothing I write ever compares to what’s going on in my mind.”

I love that quote because I think it epitomizes what most bloggers feel. We have so many wonderful ideas, thoughts and plans for our blogs and we sometimes (or often) fall short of the image we create in our minds.

Today, we are going to give you five general goodness tips for your blog, plus we will link you to five tips we’ve given you in the past. We hope you will use these tips to guide you towards achieving the blog you have pictured in your mind.

Five new blogging tips…

Check your links – We all write posts and include links to external sites or even to pages within our own blogs. Sometimes these links go defunct, get removed, or get relocated. While it may be a huge undertaking to check all of your posts one by one there is an “app” for that! Visit Broken Link Checker and enter your sites url. You can search for district broken links or all occurrences of dead links. Depending on the size of your site this may take a few minutes. When you’ve collected your data go in and remove or update any links that no longer work.

Participate in a Link-up – The best way to get people to visit your blog is to let them know you have something worth looking at. Blog link-ups are a great way to spread the word about a great post you wrote. Here at AWB, we do a link-up every Sunday called Voulez-vous Partager which is French for “Will You Share?” Each week, we invite you to share your best post from the previous week. But…we’re not the only ones! Many blogs offer link-ups in a variety of different styles, genres and frequency. Visit some and share your links today!

Leave a Comment – You know how good it makes you feel when you receive a comment on your blog. Return the feeling by leaving comments on blogs that you visit. Plus, it’s a great way to start building bloggy friendships.

Attend a Blog Conference – Blogging conferences are a great place to go to get content ideas, technical help, and to build friendships and partnerships with other bloggers. From BlogHer to Blissdom to Bloggy Boot Camp, conferences run the gamut of sizes, prices and topics. We’re partial to #AWBU because it is small, intimate and focuses not only on improving your blog, but with connecting you with other bloggers from around Arkansas. We’ve just opened registration for AWBU13. Check it out!

Step Away from Your Computer – Seriously! The best way to develop new content is to experience life. If you spend your whole life behind your computer screen you will never be able to bring new and exciting things to your blog

And now, some tips and ideas you may have missed in the past…

5 One-minute Ways to Clean-up and Organize Your Blog – Back in January we ran {Kick-start My Blog} which was aimed at helping you clean-up, organize and revitalize your blog. Check out our 5 one-minute tips – or better yet; check out the entire Kick-start series.

Turning Pro: How to turn your blogging skills into a new career – Stephanie McCratic of EvolvedMommy shares some great tips for taking your blog from a hobby to a career.

Getting the Most out of SEO – SEO, Search Engine Optimization, is a term bloggers love to throw around but not many of us truly understand what it is or how to make it work for us. Jasmine Banks of The Brokins teaches us how to get the most out of SEO.

5 Types of Blog Posts That Will Spice Up Your Blog – Variety is the spice of life and Jacqueline Wolven give us some posting ideas to add spice to our blogs.

10 Reasons You Need a Facebook Fan Page – Hopefully, you have one but if you don’t, now is a great time to make one! Check out our post and get motivated to start a Facebook fan page!

We hope you enjoy the activities we have planned for this month. We will be watching your blogs intently as they grow and transform. We will be providing a linky at the end of each Better Your Blog post so that you can keep up with the others as well. And don’t forget to provide us with feedback, because it will help us to create posts, themes and challenges that focus on the things you want and need to learn!

Also, if you participated in our February Matchmaking, you have been sent an email with your Blogger Match. Use these tips to help your Bloggy Match Better Her Blog!

Will you be Bettering Your Blog this month? If you have not signed up with our Linky, do it below so we can keep up with your progress. Please link to your MAIN page and only sign up once.