Now I know my blog isn’t huge like some people in the community. But I’d like to think my blog is a nice place to visit. I don’t have an amazing following or traffic but I’m looking into working on it. I wanted to put together a few of my favourite ways to start a blog to help you out and starting a blog tips.
5 WAYS TO START A BLOG & HAVE IT APPEAL TO YOUR READERS MORE
These are my favourite and recommended ways to get your blog ready for your readers. There is nothing worse than coming across a dreadfully put together blog. You need to have things clear and tidy for your readers. Otherwise there is a risk of them not coming back. Hopefully my starting a blog tips will help you get your blog ready.
Make sure your social medias are accessible
When you are a blogger the best thing to do is have as many social media accounts as possible. This way anyone can get in contact with you and follow you and your blog. It is such a pain when you find someone’s blog but they do not have their socials on show. You also need to make sure your social media links are up to date. There is nothing worse than clicking on a link to find out it’s broken.
Have a newsletter sign up form
If you want to keep your readers updated with your latest posts or talk about a particular thing, there’s nothing better than a newsletter. Make sure you have a sign up form that’s clear and accessible for your readers to sign up to. Promote your newsletter on socials for everyone to find you and sign up to it. I send out newsletters every time I have a new post going live, but I also do topic summary emails and recap emails for older content and specific topics.
I post almost every other day to my blog so that gives you a little idea of how many emails I’ll be sending. Make sure you subscribe to my newsletter so you don’t miss a post. I love using Flodesk to create unique and personallised newsletters to match my blog and keep my readers up to date.
Easy commenting system
There is nothing worse than wanting to comment on a blog but you just can’t. I have come across a few blogs who have a system that uses WordPress to log in, but it never wants to accept my logins so I always use my Twitter log in which isn’t ideal sometimes. Please make sure you have a commenting system that allows anyone to comment even if they don’t have a blog. Also make sure your blog is protected from spam comments by using systems like reCAPTCHA or any other security system similar to it. Go through your comments daily or weekly, whichever is suitable returning comments and replying to those who have commented.
Have a contact section or page
If your readers want to get hold of you without using social media, make sure you have a contact section. I have a contact form on my CONTACT page which allows readers to send me a direct message if they’d like to talk about something. Again protect your blog from spam messages by using security systems and make sure your GDPR tick box is available to allow your readers to accept being contacted using the information they provide you.
Have neatly organised categories
There is nothing worse than messy categories and no way of finding a certain topic. Please make sure your categories are neatly organised and displayed somewhere on your blog (ideally in the header) for your readers to find. It really does make a difference to navigation to have clear and neat categories. Also make sure that you don’t have millions of categories to choose from. I like having a select few that I write about often to keep a nice little mixture available on my blog without it being too much.
Images used in this post are credit to Haute Stock Co.
What do you do to your blog for your readers? Have my starting a blog tips helped you? Let me know in the comments.
Every journey needs a first step. Your blog is the step that I needed to start the journey to be a blogger. Really appreciated.
Jessica
http://www.this.co
Neat looking blogs I adore! But newsletters aren’t something I always look for myself so I never made one for my blog. But yes, everything else is spot on and makes the perfect blog!
Isobel x
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Oooh that’s interesting, you’re another blogger I know who doesn’t like newsletters. How come hun? xx
I do all of these but I’m not a fan of newsletters, lease not at the moment anyway. But that’s just a personal preference. 🙂
Sarah 🌺 || Boxnip || Latest Post
Oh really, that’s interesting? Why aren’t you a fan of them? I love sending them out and getting creative x
I do all of these and definitely recommend them to anyone who is trying to improve their readers’ experience.
Sophie
Definitely! There is nothing worse than an untidy blog that stops you from going back x
These are some great tips. I completely agree about contact forms – I’ve come across many where you need to sign up before commenting, which isn’t ideal.
Thank you! 🙂 It’s so frustrating isn’t it when things like that aren’t easy to access, it stops you wanting to visit the blog/website xx
You are on point with this one. I had to do revamp mine as well before because my categories were all over the place.
Awh thank you! I do hate messy categories on some blogs, it makes it so hard to navigate and find what you’re looking for x
This is amazing, some fab tips here. I love the comment section, I have actually just downloaded Disqus as I feel this is a great but I’m not too sure. What are your thoughts on this?
I’m glad you found it helpful with these tips. I used to have Disqus but changed when my blog was revamped as it’s customised to match my blog style. I didn’t mind Disqus though 🙂 x
The easy comment section is so important. I have sometimes given up leaving a comment because it was almost impossible. Either the comment feature was glitchy, redirected you somewhere to log in or I had to scroll through ten ads and *also read this post* sections to find the comment part.
It really annoys me when people have super complicated or annoying comments sections. It deters me away from leaving them a comment because it’s too much hassle x
As a small blogger aswell, with really not much traffic, these tips will 100% help, especially the newsletter which I’ve been debating about for a while! Great post x
http://www.jareddavies.co.uk
I know how it feels to be a small blogger, it sucks doesn’t it. Hoping to grow more! I’m glad these tips have helped x
Completely agree with all of this, especially about the categories! As my blog covers so many different topics, this is something I am always having to rejig, but I think it’s so important!
Sammy x
https://bakeydoesntbake.com
I really don’t like having or finding untidy blogs. It’s so much more helpful for them to be tidy and clear xx