So you have read part one, How To Start a Blog, congrats. You have read part two, How to Design a Blog, congrats. So basically now you have a blog, but now you actually have to run it. Thank god this post is going to be a lot shorter than part one and two, so lets get started.
Stock Pile Posts-
Like I said in part one, if you are just starting out on your blog, before you start you want to write at least 10 or so posts so that when people come to your website they actually have something to read. It will also give you some time to find your voice and create some content. Which leads us to my next point-
Take tons of photos-
Go out and take tons of photos. Take pictures of everything you do for the whole months. Take photos of landscapes, food, your outfit, ANYTHING that is related to your content. It is almost a un-spoken requirement to have high quality photographs to accompany your writing. I think I will probably do a post on how I edit my pictures and how I take pictures but the bottom line is that i’m in college and girls want awesome photos for insta so I can usually loop someone in to taking blog photos for me in exchange for some great photos of themselves. Things were so much easier when I lived with Bron, because she is a photographer and she is nice. Moving on.
Decide how much you are going to post-
I post Monday-Friday. It is hard. When I started out I was posting once maybe twice a week, and it was super random. This is not good! You want the people reading your blog to know when you are going to post, that way they aren’t always visiting your blog expecting content and getting nothing. After that shaky phase I decided I would commit to a schedule. I thought Monday for outfits, Tuesday for reviews, Wednesday for lifestyle ect. That was stupid because sometimes I had a lot I wanted to post in one category and instead of just posting it I would struggle to post an outfit. Now I think I have it down:
- I start about halfway through the current month planning the next month.
- I use Google Calendar to jot down my ideas and see the big picture of my content for them month.
- After I have the calendar completely filled I start color coding. Red is not done, blue is finished, green-ish is halfway done.
This seems to work for me because if I see that next week I have a post on my most embarrassing stories but I don’t really want to write that that week I can move things around. I have always found if I don’t really want to write it noone will really want to read it.
Coming up with Ideas-
This is always the funniest thing for me. Sometimes I think I am fresh out of ideas. USUALLY this happens when I am busy because I have learned if I am just going to work and then class and then back to work, I don’t really have much to say. The best cure for writers block is going out and doing something haha.
If you feel like your writing is boring maybe your life is boring (harsh lol).
Social Media-
I HATE THIS PART. I honestly wasn’t even going to write it. So if this reads “aggressive” it’s because I don’t want to write it lol. When I am chit chatting with people about my blog and they say this phrase “how do you get that many views on your blog you don’t have that many insta followers”. OH MY GOD SHUT UP. Instagram is the absolute worse method for me to get followers to my blog. It is really hard to transfer insta followers to blog followers. Did I mention people who go on insta don’t always want to read a blog!!!!!!!!! I don’t like Instagram anymore, it is one Snapchat level mistake to becoming irrelevant. I schedule all of my posts and captions weeks in advance so its all fake too LOL! Ok i’m done ranting. I get most of my page views from Pinterest, Facebook and Google searches. I love Pinterest, I always have. Facebook is for “older” people but I like it better than Instagram. Google searches are from people search for Disney College Program info. My favorite social media is Twitter but I don’t use it to promote my blog because I think thats stupid. Twitter is for tweeting.
Ok so thats it. You are now a successful blogger who gets 40,000 views a day and you can quit your full time job, move to California and call yourself and influencer.