TIPS AND TRICKS: Blogging Tips #11

I keep being completely undecided as to whether I’m gonna continue posting these blog tips, as everyone seems to have mixed feelings about them (and rightly so). I’ve always tried to be helpful, suggesting ways which I’ve made my own blogging life easier in the hopes that it can somehow help you. I don’t think I’ve ever directly told someone ‘you must do this to be a successful blogger’ as I’m totally not down for those types of posts. If you’ve got a tip that’ll speed up blogging time or help me get some more pageviews or whatever – throw it at me. You dare tell me how I should be blogging – please back the hell away from my creative space and concentrate on your own thang. Anyone with me? Good. So, hopefully this random assortment of tips comes across as the former and most definitely not the latter!

One – Full Width Images | There’s no point taking a pretty picture if no one can see it, right? Once you’ve resized your image (you know, so it doesn’t take an age to load – around 1200px is a good number) click ‘original size’ on an image to make it go to that width. If you have a pipdig template, it’ll automatically resize to the width of your blog. If not, click HTML, go to the end of the link ie. <img src=”IMG URL as it shows as a URL when uploaded”> and add in a width, so it’ll look like <img src=”IMG” width=”800″>. You can play around with that number until you figure out the width of your blog. Do this on all your posts and you’ll make everything look neater and deliciously uniform in no time.

Two – Change The Date | If you’re scheduling posts in advance and are doing it at the end of the month, make sure you change the date in the URL to the right month. I’ve accidentally done this a few times now and it just takes you to a page that doesn’t exist! So, what I mean is this blog posts URL is ‘https://www.thelovecatsinc.com/2015/06/tips-and-tricks-blogging-tips-11.html’ and you’ll notice the month after 2015 is 06 meaning June (obv)? So, if you create a post at the end of June, for example, and want to schedule your tweets for the 1st July, you’ll need to change that number in the link you’re scheduling to the right month. When the post is published, it’ll automatically change on your actual blog, so you don’t need to worry about that, just the permalink you’re copying over from your post to schedule!

Three – Open In A New Window | When adding links to a post, make sure you click ‘open in a new window’ when you’re inserting the URL. Not only is this handy for people who are still in the middle of reading your blog, but want to click on what you’re referring to, but it also helps keep people on your blog. This is great for views, as people are more likely to click on more pages if they’re not directed away, plus it ups the average duration time for people being on your blog!

Four – Name Your Images Properly | A great little SEO tip and it takes no time at all. Once you’ve finished editing your photos or whatever you do with them, make sure you name them accurately. Whether it’s the product name featured or a description of the outfit you’re wearing, it all helps get your blog seen by google.

Five – Create A Promotion List | This is always handy to have when you’re publishing a new post. I go through each platform (when I remember eek) and make sure I’ve promoted my latest post. So, I’ll check I’ve shared it on Google+, created a post on Facebook, scheduled some tweets, posted a related pic on Instagram and Pinned it to my blog board on Pinterest. If you go through it like a little checklist, you know all of your bases are covered!

Helen x
Check out these blogs: Hedonist in Hats, Life of Ellie Grace and Callie Rose.

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