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Blogging Advice for Beginners From a Beginner {Part 2}

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That’s right people, I wrote another one! I felt so much love and support from the last post I did on Blogging Advice for Beginners From a Beginner that I thought I would do a follow up post on it. There might even be another one after this, I have been thinking of soooo many more things I wanted to tell you all about. A lot of them are actually tips from the comments in the last post that I forgot to mention. I am so scatter brained sometime I’m surprised I can get any of this bloggy stuff done at all! ahem… GET ORGANIZED… doesn’t that sound familiar, Dana? ANYwhoozles… here we are again friends:

Blogging Advice for Beginners From a Beginner {Part 2}

Buy Your Domain URL From the Start and START on WordPress.

AND, get a decent hosting company/package right off the bat. All of these points tie in together that’s why I’m having one general topic here. Are you serious about blogging? Like, really REALLY serious? Then just go ahead and do it, buy all this stuff. It’s really not that expensive and you will be SO glad you did later. I switched my site from blogger to WordPress just a couple months into this little corner of the internets and I am so glad I did. Only having a handful of posts really made the transition much easier. I get anxiety just thinking about a big blogger making the switch, scary!!

Get a Blog Design You Really Like.

Now, I’m not telling you to go and get the most expensive person to customize everything for you. It can be as simple as a free template. But, I suggest doing this ASAP. I can’t tell you how many different themes and headers I have had and I haven’t even been doing this a year yet. Even now, I am in transition and I honestly HATE the way it looks right now. But that is just a big old ball of mess from the crappy hosting company I had before (do NOT use Lunarpages for hosting, at least do NOT buy their starter package….) Soon it will be purdy, soon. What happens when you update your look too much? People will not remember you. OR they will remember you for all the bad designs you keep trying out. Stick with one good design and ride that baby out for a while. A facelift here or there ain’t bad, but not once a month! If only I could listen to my own advice…. AGAIN.

Schedule Posts in Advance.

Have you ever been in a panic to get a post up and you have no idea what you want to write about and you’re not even sure if those picture of your failed molten lava cake came out because your so so camera ran out of batteries and you had to use your craptastic phone’s camera to take pictures but it’s the only decent material you got?! *breathe* Yeah… this has happened to me once or twice, ahem or monthly…. until I started scheduling posts in advance. Got a good idea? Write about it. Made an awesome sorbet from the raspberries growing on your wild raspberry bushes in your backyard that you stumbled upon while frolicking with your squeaky clean toddler? Blog about. Did you make a craft from a popsicle stick, some washi tape and made it rain with glitter? Put that baby on the blog! Even if you don’t need a post, that’s right. Schedule it for days in advance, sit back and relax until your next masterpiece and you will be SO much less stressed! (Did I go over board with this one? Sometimes my imagination is a little cr-AY-zay!)

Guest Post as Much as Possible.

This is a great tool to use. Not only are you getting out there and meeting other bloggers but their readers are seeing your content and only good can come from that! But, once again don’t go e-mailing The Pintester or Cupcakes And Cashmere and expecting them to let you grab a spot on their coveted site. Go smaller. Look for bloggers that are a little larger than you and just go for it. A lot of bloggers will put on their site if they are looking for guest posters on their contact page. If you don’t see that info there is still no harm in asking!

Don’t Stress That Your Google AdSense is Only At $.03.

Yea, don’t even think about that crap. Don’t let this get you down. This is not equivalent to how well your blog is doing. Seriously, just stop it.

DO Sign Up for Google Analytics ASAP.

Like, the day your blog goes live ASAP. Seriosuly, everything (that I can tell, anyways) is gauged primarily on your Google Analytics stats. This is a separate part of Google that gauges all your site traffic. Your pageviews, visitor number, unique visitors (I’m still not exactly sure what that is), where these people are coming from, what they are looking at and my favorite feature real time overview. WOW. I love to watch my readers while they go from page to page. This makes me feel so sneaky and stalkerish at the same time but in a good way, of course. I love it! *I’m watching yooooou!*

Okay, so I think I creeped you out enough that you’ve read plenty for now. LOL, you know I love you! Thanks so much for reading, you’re the bestest!

sillysig
P.S. My little corner of the internets is really growing! Ad spots are now available for purchase! To find out more information like this blogs stats or how to buy ad space please visit my PR and Advertising page (check back often for current discounts). Thank you!
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Comments

  1. Megan @ Homemade Ginger

    Great tips! I have a blogger blog and really love it. Everyone always raves about WordPress and switches over. Maybe my blog isn’t big enough yet and I don’t know enough about the differences. I can totally understand making the switch early on in your blogging career though! 🙂

    Reply

  3. Nancy [email protected]

    Hoping over from Sweet & Savory Sundays. Read your last installment of advice and I appreciate the info. First off I do not even understand Google Analytics. I have it but don’t get it at ALL!! Second, Google Adsense won’t even accept my blog. And I can’t figure out why!!! GRRR. Third love how you are able to use both sides as a sidebar. I can only use one with the theme that I am using. Can’t use the footer either. I designed my site all on my own cause I can’t afford to pay anyone else to do it! Either way Thanks for the advice!

    Reply

  6. Leah

    Thanks for the post! I found it on Titi Crafty Bewitch Me. I love the advice and am currently with Blogger and very nervous about switching to wordpress. What do you think is the main reason to switch? I am just trying to decide if it is something I should do now, or if it can wait! Thanks! Feel free to link up at the Friday Follow along at http://www.leahinspired.com

    Reply

    • Dana DeVolk

      I honestly don’t know why people want to switch but I thought since everyone else thought it was a good idea I went ahead and did it too. I wish I could tell you a better reason! I switched so early that I really don’t remember much about blogger but I’m very happy with WordPress.

      Reply

  9. Kim S.

    Here from On Display Monday…

    I love all your ideas. I just need how to figure out how to add my domain name to replace my blogger address… 🙂

    Reply

    • Dana DeVolk

      Thank you! I suggest going on YouTube and typing in your question, there are tons of tutorial on how to do blog related things. That’s how I learned to do a lot of different thing!

      Reply

  10. Jessica

    Hey Dana!

    What an awesome post! I bought the $10 one from Blogger. Thought it would give me extra stuff. NOT! I’m stuck for a year. Thanks for the awesome tips! I actually have your other one from last week on Sverve too :). I’ll do the same for this one as well!

    Jessica
    The Wondering Brain

    Reply

  12. Sara

    Thanks for all the tips Dana! Most of the things I realized as I started blogging. I know I might have to move to wordpress eventually. Thanks for sharing on my blog hop! Here’s this week’s blog hop #9

    Reply

  16. Kaaren

    What am I missing? Where do I find part 1 of this post. I don’t see a link. I liked this part 2 so much, I’d like to read part 1. Thanks for sharing what you have learned.

    Reply

  18. jen

    Part 1 & 2 were a great practical list of what to think about, thank you so much! I’ve had a blog for years, but never put real effort into it, so I appreciate the thoughts this sparked.

    For those asking why they should switch to WordPress – I’ve designed a lot of web sites using WordPress as the CMS and here are a few factors you might want to consider:

    1. WordPress has a much larger active community creating themes and plugins – this means that you can customize your very easily and add all kinds of functionality that you see on commercial web sites. And new things will come out faster. As soon as a new social network is out, someone will update their social plugin to incorporate it so you don’t have to figure it out yourself. Many of these are free. Some very low cost.

    2. The SEO plugins for WordPress are significantly better than the SEO tool built into blogger (go figure since Blogger is a Google property.)

    3. The custom categories, taxonomy and tagging in WordPress allows you to simply create a wide variety of ‘chunked’ content and helps readers continue reading a thread of related posts/content easily. I.e. Keep them interested.

    4. When you get a little more technical, you can even create custom post types for your blog that can streamline your post creation. You can have a post type called ‘recipes’ and set custom fields for #servings, temperature, bake time, calories, ingredients & instructions etc. and make sure that every post is perfectly consistent in how those are displayed so your readers know exactly where to find the pertinent information.

    If you can’t guess, I’m in love with WordPress even though my own site is still (for the short term) on Blogger because it seemed like a quick way to start for me too. I’ve just been so busy working on other people’s sites I haven’t gotten to mine. Plus there are so many templates it’s hard to choose!

    Reply

  20. Marilee

    I love Schedule Posts in Advance. You didn’t get carried away! I love it! This is something I do already… I have a post written about the robin guarding my garden. Lol
    Thanks for making it ok! Again thanks for more amazing advice!

    Reply

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