Not only did we recently finish another year of blogging, we've also had 399 posts leading up to this. We've learned a lot about blogging in the past year. We had some really great months, and some horrible months. We had some sponsorships go extremely well, and some fail miserably. Overall, I think we're both happy to have the learning opportunity and I think that's what our blog has always been about.
But of course, if we've already gone through the process of these failures, we'll share them with you. Sure, you might have a different experience, but this is just how it worked for us.
Quality over Quantity
I'm sure you've heard this before, but it's definitely applicable to blogging. Last January we posted around 40 times. Mind you, there are only 31 days in January. We were making separate posts for our link up and would often make a normal post and a Polyvore post on the same day. Our posts were pretty low quality in general, and I doubt anyone wanted to see them on their feed so often!
We suggest writing better posts, it might mean you have to take more time on it, but readers will enjoy it more thus making them more likely to return. You may only get to post a few times a week with that method, but it's worth it. As long as the content is high quality and relevant.
Life Happens
Just because you plan out a month's worth of posts, doesn't mean they're going to write and publish themselves. We would make such detailed plans for each month, but wind up getting busy. We didn't block off any time for blogging and then would up not having it! Once we missed a few posts it was easy to essentially give up for the month and stop posting. This is the worst thing to do! Now we missed a whole month of posts and likely lost a bunch of followers.
Take advantage of the scheduling feature blogger offers. We also find that just having some posts ready to go saved in drafts is nice when you were planning on writing one day, but couldn't. That will give us more cushion, and making blogging less stressful. With this, we'll be mindful about our time, and be sure to set some aside for blogging each week/
We saw a huge difference in traffic, just by tweeting about our posts more than just once. We realized that not everyone will see it the first time, so it helps to share multiple times. Sharing content created by friends of yours, or even just bloggers you admire also helps. Your followers will likely enjoy their content, if they enjoy yours. Plus it helps out other bloggers, and that's always nice!
We would suggest tweeting about all your posts. We use If-This-Then-That for the first post, and then we tweet about the post again throughout the week! When we read a post we like, we're also sure to share it then too.
Going back through old posts always makes us cringe. Surprisingly, it's not because of our dorky writing. It's mostly because of the photos. AGH! They were so bad! We've seen so much more interest in our posts once we fixed our photos. The first thing people see when they go to your blog will be photos and it takes a split second for readers to decide whether to stay or not. Often, when I'm going through my Bloglovin' feed, I only look at the photo. So if someone's photo sucks, I won't even look at the post!
We would definitely suggest using a nicer camera for photos, as opposed to an iPhone. It's also good to go through and edit the photo, even just adding text is good and makes the photo look so much nicer. Photos also work great as a sort of title for posts, so you can pretty much just type the title of the photo. (For SEO purposes try not to have your photo placed before any text!)
Going back through our old posts feels very strange. Sometimes we sound like teenagers. Occasionally we sound like adults. Then there's times where we sound like a business CEO. Weird huh? We're both teenagers, not adults and definitely not in charge of a major company.
When people come to our blog, it's weird for them to find us using different voices- the same way if you just walked up to your friend and talked in a different accent each day. It's confusing and readers don't get to know you! Make sure your posts sound like you- it's actually easier, anyway!
Even though there is a lot we could have done better, we aren't upset about what we did do. We've learned a lot through this and we're happy to continue to find better ways to do things. Can't wait to see where the next 400 posts bring us (hint: we've got quite the project planned for this summer!).
-Cassi & Katie
Promote, Promote, Promote
We saw a huge difference in traffic, just by tweeting about our posts more than just once. We realized that not everyone will see it the first time, so it helps to share multiple times. Sharing content created by friends of yours, or even just bloggers you admire also helps. Your followers will likely enjoy their content, if they enjoy yours. Plus it helps out other bloggers, and that's always nice!
We would suggest tweeting about all your posts. We use If-This-Then-That for the first post, and then we tweet about the post again throughout the week! When we read a post we like, we're also sure to share it then too.
Use Great Photos
Going back through old posts always makes us cringe. Surprisingly, it's not because of our dorky writing. It's mostly because of the photos. AGH! They were so bad! We've seen so much more interest in our posts once we fixed our photos. The first thing people see when they go to your blog will be photos and it takes a split second for readers to decide whether to stay or not. Often, when I'm going through my Bloglovin' feed, I only look at the photo. So if someone's photo sucks, I won't even look at the post!
We would definitely suggest using a nicer camera for photos, as opposed to an iPhone. It's also good to go through and edit the photo, even just adding text is good and makes the photo look so much nicer. Photos also work great as a sort of title for posts, so you can pretty much just type the title of the photo. (For SEO purposes try not to have your photo placed before any text!)
Have a Clear Voice
Going back through our old posts feels very strange. Sometimes we sound like teenagers. Occasionally we sound like adults. Then there's times where we sound like a business CEO. Weird huh? We're both teenagers, not adults and definitely not in charge of a major company.
When people come to our blog, it's weird for them to find us using different voices- the same way if you just walked up to your friend and talked in a different accent each day. It's confusing and readers don't get to know you! Make sure your posts sound like you- it's actually easier, anyway!
Even though there is a lot we could have done better, we aren't upset about what we did do. We've learned a lot through this and we're happy to continue to find better ways to do things. Can't wait to see where the next 400 posts bring us (hint: we've got quite the project planned for this summer!).
-Cassi & Katie
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