For Bloggers: My Top 5 Tips for Blogging

I’ve been wanting to launch a series for bloggers for awhile. I’ve been blogging since 1999, back in the old days of Diaryland and LiveJournal. I started publicly blogging in 2009 when I launched the first incarnation of this site, Evolution You. Over the past fifteen years, I’ve learned a lot about blogging. I am by no means an expert. I have a relatively small following and a lot to learn. That being said, my advice will be especially helpful to new bloggers and to those who want to turn their blogs from “just a hobby” into something more.

I intend to share all sorts of resources in this series — from helpful tips, to useful websites, to time-saving tools, and more. This first post is going to be very basic — what I consider to be “the nuts and bolts” of blogging. If you have questions about blogging that you would like me to address in this series, please let me know in the comments!

Tip #1 – Consistency

I firmly believe that consistency is the most important element to keeping a successful blog. Whether you post once a month or twice a day, it is important to keep a rhythm. Your readers will come to expect your posts. Blogging is a relationship between the blogger & the reader and, as in any good relationship, you must hold up your end of the bargain.

If you keep a blog for yourself and have no intention of growing a readership, you can disregard this tip. But, if you are like me, and are trying to grow — or even monetize — your blog, then consistency is critical. If you consistently post once a week and then suddenly publish nothing for two months, you will likely lose readers. Personally, if a blogger that I read goes MIA (missing in action) more than a couple of times, I will unsubscribe from her feed.

If life gets in the way — think: a move, a wedding, sickness — that is totally understandable. It’s great if you can give your readers a heads up. If you can’t, it is likely that your readers will understand it once in awhile. But anything beyond that will not be good for the health of your blog.

Tip #2 – Grammar & Spelling

Grammar and spelling are critically important for bloggers. In case you missed the memo: It’s not K00L to tYpE like DI$ n e m0re. Occasional typos and grammatical mistakes are understandable. (After all, few bloggers can afford to hire a full-time proofreader!) However frequent mistakes, spelling errors, and even slang can be a major turn off to readers. I don’t care how much I enjoy a particular blog, if the blogger types LOL after each sentence, I’m not going to continue reading it. Frankly, it’s tacky.

A couple rules-of-thumb are to keep your spell-check turned on and to proofread each post before you hit publish. Every post will not be error-free — I catch embarrassing typos in my own posts more often than I’d like to admit — but putting forth the effort will improve reader experience and give your blog integrity.

Tip #3 – Photographs & Illustrations

Look at a successful blog, and nine times out of ten, you will see beautiful photographs and/or illustrations. The world — especially the online world — has become an incredibly visual place. Websites like Pinterst, Tumblr, and Facebook are brimming with prettiness, colour, and inspiration. When readers visit a blog, we want to read whatever the blogger has on offer, but we also want to see something. In many cases, words alone are not enough.

You do not have to be a talented graphic designer or photographer, but I do believe that the “visual” aspect of blogging is critical to the success of a blog. Whether it is food, travel, or parenting — readers want to see it as much as they want to read about it, if not more.

In the case of photographs, share well-composed and well-lit photographs. In the case of illustrations and graphics, images should be clear and aesthetically pleasing.

Tip #4 – Comments & Engagement

I will now reveal my #1 blog pet-peeve: I absolutely loathe CAPTCHA comment filters. There is nothing more frustrating to me then to go out of my way to interact with a blogger & leave a comment only to get held up by a CAPTCHA comment filter. Sometimes I will go ahead and play the silly CAPTCHA game (which in so many cases is virtually impossible to read) and then it will tell me that I’ve entered the word incorrectly and have to try again. Sigh. Seriously!? Ain’t nobody got time for that.

In many cases, bloggers do not even realize that they have a CAPTCHA filter turned on. (I believe that it is actually the default setting for blogspot blogs.) So, take a moment and check to see if you have it turned on and if you do, turn it off. If you are worried about spam, it is much better to moderate comments as they come in. This puts the burden on you and takes it off of your reader. If you are serious about growing your blog, you won’t mind the few minutes per day that it will take you.

I believe that asking questions and encouraging readers to leave comments is a wonderful way to increase engagement and improve your relationship with your readers. Take the time to respond to comments, too! Maybe one day your blog will blow up and you will become so big that you won’t have the time to respond to every single comment — but for now, do the right thing. When a reader takes the time to comment, you should always take the time to reply. Additionally, it’s a wonderful touch to visit the commenter’s own blog (if she links to it) and leave a comment. I have gained so many beautiful friendships (and readers!) with fellow bloggers that all started from simply leaving comments for one another.

Tip #5 – Content

It may seem wrong that I have left content as the last tip. After all, what is a blog without content? Of course content is critical — and great content is even better yet. Still, I know that many bloggers (or would-be-bloggers) remain silent because they fear that they have “nothing important to say.” Folks that feel that way are missing the point. Bloggers blog for many reasons — having something important to say is only one of those reasons — and even the very best bloggers don’t always have something important to say. I blog because I love blogging. I love sharing bits & pieces of my life with an amazing community of readers. I love sharing my photographs, my stories, and pieces of my life. I love helping people. I love meeting new people and hearing their perspectives, all the while sharing my own. Sometimes, I do have something important to say, but not always.

I used the phrase “very best bloggers” in the previous paragraph, but I struggled to write it. I don’t really know that there are “best” bloggers. So long as the basics are covered, I believe that every blog has the potential to be wonderful. Recently I was reading The Secret Life of Bees, and I came across this line: Actually, you can be bad at something, but if you love doing it, that will be enough. At the end of the day, this advice is true for so many areas of life, and certainly true for blogging. If you love it — if you let your passion and light shine through the cracks — you most certainly will be a very good blogger.

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I hope that you enjoyed this first post in my For Bloggers series. Remember, if you have questions about blogging that you would like me to address in future posts in this series, please let me know in the comments. Many thanks.

P.S. Why did I include photographs of Roman playing with the vacuum cleaner in this post? Because they’re cute. Duh! xo