Tips and Advice for New Bloggers

Blogging, it can get frustrating when you start;

Is anybody looking at my blog?

Why do I have no comments? 

Does anybody care?

What do people want to read?

Is my blog getting out there?

Am I just wasting my time?

Well I had all these thoughts too. So I decided to put together a list of tips for new bloggers based on my discoveries!

Navigating the blogosphere can be difficult, but with a little direction and hard work, you can have your thoughts out there for the world.

1. Take Pictures: Everybody loves looking at pictures, not everybody loves reading lengthy entries that don't have any picture to bring a face or item to the mind. Try to include at least one picture at the beginning of the post, especially if you are writing about something that happened in your life that readers might not be able to understand without a picture.
2. Review: Review stuff you already have, talk about stuff that you would love just be sure to be detailed and be honest.  Add the product name to the labels at the bottom of your site and be sure to include a link to the page, this will give readers and prospecitve companies to see how you review your products and decide if they want to send you thier product for review
3. Use Google Analytics this site allows you to track traffic on your site, everything from how many page views you get a day, to what content they are looking at and reading!  I love how I can see exactly where my readers are coming from and how many views I get a month. Its as simple as installing a tracking code on the bottom of your site and then logging into the Google Analytics site so that you can see who's seeing you.
4. Don't Give Up: I'll be honest, I blogged for about eight months before I got something free to review. I would just post on other people's sites leaving links to mine. I would send letters to companies of products I liked asking to try them. I would post tutorials for projects and recipes that I made, I would talk about what Annabella and I did for the day. I would talk about anything just to keep writing every day. Viewers and companies want to see bloggers that blog at least daily if not more.
5. Join up blogging groups! My favorite is Socialmoms, formerly twittermoms, this site is chock full of great ideas for topics to blog on and they have sponsored posts. If you read my blog often you're familiar with the tips I post, most of these are a result of a Socialmoms suggestion. Other great blogging sites are SheBlogs, and Mommybloggersclub
6. Make friends with other bloggers: This is a great way to keep up with the latest blogging trends leave comments for other bloggers and they will most likely do the same for you!
7. Advertise: Did you just write a new post? Share it with your facebook and twitter followers, they will be happy to have a new post to read, and since I started doing this my traffic has gone up a lot! If your link is too long to put in a tweet, simply use tinyurl to make it smaller but still click-able!
8. Open Ended: Ask open ended questions at the end of your post, you may just get some answers!
9. Make your contact info easy to find: Put a contact/about me page on your site, it will make it easy for your readers to contact you as well as learn a bit about you and your blog.
10. Don't overdue it: The worst thing about some blogs these days is meaningless and boring posts, I hate seeing posts that are just a link to a coupon, why are you linking to this product or coupon? Do you use it? Have you tried it? Have a friend that thinks its amazing? I don't like seeing posts that are otherwise just for advertising. I will do sponsored posts for companies if I like thier product, but only  if I like it!