Blogging Tips and Advice

Hey Lovelies, hope your all having a good day, a few times I've been asked for advice on blogging so I thought I would do a post on it to help you, I've only been blogging for about 18 months so I'm not the most knowledgeable and I'm sure other bloggers will have done similar posts that have been blogging longer that you might also find useful but here's my post for you.

If your thinking about starting a blog, I highly recommend it every since I started I loved it, I enjoy sharing my posts and it's my own space on the Internet to write what I want and the blogging community is so supportive.

When I first started I was reading some blogs but I only had a bit of an idea on what to do, when I look back on my first post I think it's awful but you always have to start from somewhere and you learn as you go.

It's up to you what you want to use, you can use blogger, wordpress, your own domain or any other blogging sites, I have never used wordpress or any others but I find blogger easy to navigate and use and I know it's quite popular to use but find whats best for you.

When I first started I had no idea for a name it was very basic and I was just called acmakeuplover but after a while I hated it so I then came up with the name beautywaterfall it took a while but I love the name, my blog is mostly beauty so I wanted beauty in my name and then one day I was listening to song called waterfall and it was a nice song and I thought it clicked really well with beauty and waterfalls are pretty. It can be hard to think of a name but try to think of something original and that has meaning to you and don't make it too long so people can remember it.

The layout and design of your blog, when I first started I had no idea on any of the technology, my design was just a one you could use through blogger and it just had my blog name on it, it wasn't anything special and I didn't really like it but I had no idea on what to use. For the layout it was quite easy there was widgets in blogger on the layout in the gadgets that you can use and I just added them to my blog. The lovely Kate who is a blogger also, designed my layout for me as I was completely hopeless when I tried to do it myself, you can always try to do it yourself there's lots of how too's on Google and other people also design them and you can get them for cheap.

The content, when I first started I had so many ideas of post I wanted to do and it was mostly beauty I wanted to try to be original as well and not have the same posts as everyone else. Your content is entirely up to you, you can write whatever you want and you don't have to follow the crowd it's better to be original and write a post that not many people will have seen. I also think it's nice to do personal posts so people can get to know a little more about the person behind the blog.

For you photo's you don't need a brand new expensive camera, when I first started I just used my phone, as long as the camera is quite good and the pictures are good quality that's all that matters, when there on your blog just make sure there big and clear so people can see them. It is best to take pictures in natural lightening but I know now it's winter it's getting harder. What I like to do is take lots of pictures of what product I'm using so then you can go through them and find the best ones and also take different angles of the product. I like to just use a plain background but it's up to you but just make sure the background isn't cluttered. If your wanting to edit your pictures, I usually use Picmonkey which is a good free editing site.

I would say is interaction is key so have social media sites, I find twitter is the best there is different chats on different days that you can get involved in and share your blog link, lots of blogger use it and I have made so many blogging friends through twitter and their blogs. Interact on other people's blog leave them comments and tweet them. Always try to respond to all your blog comments, emails and tweets. It's fine to leave your links on people's blog with a nice comment but don't leave a comment saying follow my blog I'll follow yours nobody likes these sort of comments and don't spam people with your link. If you ever get the chance to go to events or meetups you should it's a great way to find new bloggers with the same passion as you.

The last thing I want to say it takes time to gain followers so don't get disheartened if you haven't got many followers, remember we all start off with the same number of followers none and it took us time to get to the number we have. I find the bloggers that I speak to are all so lovely no matter what there follower amount, so don't think you can't speak to other bloggers because they have lots of followers, they will speak to you.

I hope you enjoyed the post and if you have any more questions, you can tweet me at @ashleighcarrxx or comment below or email me at acmakeuplover@gmail.com.

Ashleigh xx