MY TIPS, INSPIRATIONS AND TOOLS FOR STARTING A BLOG
Hi all :) So first of all I love all my readers and thank you for following along with my posts! I feel like I have a lot of followers that stay tuned for the health tips and workout videos and even a few that just follow for the random updates on my life.
BUT for the girls out there that are following because you are someone that also wants to start a blog and begin to work from home, this post is for you.
I want to give you some insight on what to do so that you don’t waste your time, some of the websites that have inspired me, how to grow your blog quickly and the work that you need to put it to run a blog from home!
I started blogging mainly because I wanted to interact with my followers more and I couldn’t really do that solely on Instagram. I started with my Tumblr page, but then realized that I still wanted more. More options, more interacting. I didn’t go to ANY CLASSES for website design or graphics or any of that so I actually taught myself how to build a website, meaning that YOU CAN TOO!
I started off trying to use wordpress but it’s kind of a lot of coding which I found really confusing. Some people like it but I found SquareSpace to be much more simple.
5 Tips For Starting A Blog:
1. Pick a Direction, And Stay With It:
- When I started my blog I talked about everything and it was just all over the place. As soon as I really narrowed it down to just health and fitness and took out fashion, personal stories, random pictures etc, I noticed my followers started to grow.
I think it’s okay to talk about a lot of topics once you build an audience and have a good amount of followers but when you’re just starting you want to pick one main focus and kill it! This way your followers know what they’re going to get if they go to your page and begin to rely on you for that thing.
2. PICTURES, PICTURES, PICTURES!
- After lots of reading, studying and experimenting I’ve learned that people (including myself) are drawn to simple, clean pictures, and lots of them! The other reason my blog took some time to gain followers was because my pictures weren’t cohesive with one another. They make look good in each individual post but once you look at my entire blog, the pictures would clash and it would look to busy to the eye.
Pick 1-2 sizes that you want all your pictures to be in every post and don’t stray from it. Do they all have the same color schemes? Do they all have plain backgrounds? Do you like them to be poppy colors or do you want them all to be faded? Do you want them to all be pictures of things and people or do you want them all to be plain colored backgrounds with text on them? Whatever you choose, keep it consistent. I edit all my pictures on Canva! It’s the best you can do everything on here! Add text, graphics, cute little hearts, Ebooks, WHATEVER!
3. TEXT:
- Same thing as pictures…you want your fonts to be the same throughout your blog/website. Pick a headline font and a normal text font. People will start to understand what your text looks like when there is a link attached to it or when it’s something important. If you change it for each individual it can start to get confusing. DAFONT.com is a great website for downloading new fonts :)
4. KEEP THE CONTENT CONSTANT:
Now this is where you have to decide if running a blog is something that you’re really passionate about, and I don’t mean to sound intimidating. I remember when I was starting my blog I used to just Google, “How To Start a Blog” and all the posts said pretty much the same thing which was, “It takes a lot of work, be prepared to work and not get attention for a while, it takes consistency, blah blah”.
It really does. But if you stay with it and follow these tips you will start to gain a following. You need to post almost everyday. Your followers want to wake up and go to your blog and if they start to notice that you haven’t updated your website/blog in over a week, they’re not going to have an incentive to go back. Make it fun, new and exciting, ALWAYS!
5. BE GENUINE, BE YOU!
People are going to start following if they like YOU! Let your personality be transparent. Type the way you would actually talk to someone so they can start to understand your language. Be vulnerable and be relatable. People are going to be drawn to your blog if you can give them useful information or motivate or inspire them in some way. If all your posts are about your cat, then I don’t know if your audience will really be attracted to it. Unless your cat is like the most magnificent thing anyone’s ever seen…then maybe.
5 Tips For Working On Your Blog From Home:
1. Schedule Posts:
I would probably have a massive anxiety attack if I didn’t have my schedule with me. My Kate Spade Calendar is my LIFE. You need to get one. You can look at the entire month right in front of you and say, “Okay, I want to blog 4 times a week this month. Monday I’ll post about my new favorite snack, Tuesday I’ll post 5 new booty exercises, Wednesday I will post about the benefits of chia seeds” and so on. This way you know that if you’re busy all day Wednesday, you need to write your blog for Wednesday on the day before and schedule it for the next day so that it posts on it’s own.
This way you’re always holding yourself accountable for posting X amount of times and you know what you have going on for the month. Here's an example of what my schedule looked like in November.
2. Delegate a Certain Amount of Time to Working on Your Blog Each Day:
Remember – in order to make your blog successful you HAVE TO BE CONSISTENT! I spend time on my blog everyday even if I’m not writing a blog that day. It’s good to look at other websites to gain inspiration for design and posts, create graphics for upcoming posts, organize, etc. Someone that I found and really found beneficial was this website!! It is so amazing it’s all about how to build your blog, design, and develop a relationship with your followers!
3. COLLABORATE
This is probably the biggest thing that will grow your blog and something that you MUST dedicate time to. Find other people that blog about the same things that you do. Ask them if they want to collaborate with you in some way whether it’s hosting a give away, sharing a blog, giving a shout out or whatever. You’re readers are likely to have the same interests as the other blogger so when their readers see that you have information that they’re into, you’re likely to gain them as loyal followers!
4. Write Down Your Goals:
Along with having your posts planned out for the month, actually write down what you want to accomplish that month so that you always continue to push yourself and stay on top of your game. Write down how many collaborations you would like to do that month, how many photo shoots you want to set up, how many things you want to cook, how many pictures you want to paint, whatever it is, set goals and write them down.
You should be checking back in with yourself once a week to make sure that you’re on track.
5. Get Snapchat!
Haha, who saw that coming? Snapchat is great because if you use it properly you can show all your followers when you’re working on a new project, what your day looks like, what your struggling with etc. It gives you a chance to develop a relationship with your followers which is HUGE and it allows them to love you for your personality which in turn will begin to show through your writing. Add me on snap!! My username is CHELSEYROSE ! You’ll always find me at my desk, on hikes, cooking, making new yummy detox drinks and what not :)
I hope this helped!! You can do anything if you stick with it! None of us really know what we’re doing so it’s just a lot of trial and error, practice and patience.
xo CR
