How To Get Your Blog Noticed

I have yet another post for all you newbie bloggers and those who are simply looking to up their game and get their blog out there! With new blogs popping up left right and centre, it can be difficult to make sure your's is one of the ones that gets noticed. Every blogger will at some point feel like their blog deserves to get more attention (including me!), but there are certain ways in which you can help yourself by making your blog somewhere that people want to go and visit! So here is my advice for getting your blog noticed!

Photos

This is personally the thing that I feel is most important when it comes to running a blog. Make sure that your photos are as good as they can be. Compose them in interesting ways, edit them to make colours stand out yet look realistic. Photos are key in getting your blog noticed as many people like to simply look at the pictures and if you have dark, grainy photos they are less likely to revisit your blog. If people like your photos, chances are they may even read the content that goes alongside it. If you are new to blogging and are looking at improving your photos - I have written a bunch of tips, even sharing how I take and how I edit my blog post photos.

Content

Create content that you yourself would want to read. Make it interesting, do your research on products and topics, and think of what could be appealing to likeminded people. If you use the Blogger platform, you can even use Google Analytics to see what your readers are interested in so you can tailor your posts to suit your audience. And remember - personality gets you everywhere! So crack jokes, use italics, bold and underlines to convey your tone of voice. It seriously helps your readers connect with you and your blog. 

Check, Check and Check Again!

Always, and I mean always make sure you proof-read your posts before publishing them. There is nothing more embarrassing than finding a mistake after people have read the post and it is too late. Alongside your blog posts, check all the links work in your side bar (or wherever you have them). It is so annoying when you go to click an Instagram/Facebook/Twitter link to get the 'this page does not exist' message.

Get Your Name Out There
Comment on other people's posts, and I don't mean something along the lines of "check out my blog" or "follow for follow"! Leave feedback engaging with their content, constructive criticism, and make sure you leave a link at the end of your comment and people in the comments may pop over and visit your blog! Talk to people on social media, just be yourself and people will start to take notice of you.

Design

If your serious about getting into blogging, it can be worth investing in a template from places like Etsy. Since I took the plunge and purchased one from PipDig in January, my blog has had so many more visitors and I think this was the reason why! The look of your blog is extremely important. It needs to be well laid out with a clear blog title, social media links and a brief description of yourself. You should create pages so its easy for readers to navigate around your site. And most importantly, your blog posts should be easy to see and read - with a comments section so you readers can get in touch and leave nice messages!

Got any tips of your own? Leave them below and share the love!

Thanks for reading!

Love Charlotte x

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Simple Ways To Improve Your Blog

Hello folks! If you couldn't tell, I've been really loving sharing my tips with you lately. So here I am with yet another post, but this time I'm sharing some incredibly simple ways to improve the quality of your blog! I'll try not to ramble too much - I promise! 

Learn how to use your camera properly. A good photo can honestly say a billion words! You could write one of the best blog posts in the world, but without some quality photos to go alongside, you won't engage people visually! I have done quite a few posts (here, here and here at least!) about blog photography, and I have a couple more in the works for the next few months - so stay tuned for more tips! 

Use social media. Use Twitter and other social media to promote your posts and get you blog out there. Pinterest can be a really good website for bloggers. It is not only a great place to share and promote your posts and drive traffic to your blog, but is also a great place to look for inspiration! I think of so many ideas for blog posts when I'm browsing through Pinterest at 3am! I've recently changed over to a business Pinterest account which is recommended for bloggers. 

Filter your posts by category (and have a search bar). Attach labels when writing your posts to help future readers locate specific posts. If someone is wanting to find a review for a moisturiser that you wrote a couple months ago, make sure your posts are tagged with things like 'moisturiser' and 'skincare' so posts are easily located from your archives. 

Display a list of your popular posts. They are your most popular for a reason. Display them somewhere on the main page of your blog, alongside photos so new readers can see things that might be of interest to them. Maybe display them down one side of your blog under your sidebar? If you use the Blogger platform, there is a widget you can install in the 'Layout' section.

Invest in some business cards. If you a dead serious about blogging, why not invest in some business cards? I know, I know - the first time someone told me I needed some I laughed questioning why I would need some as I am by no means a 'professional blogger'. But then I was asked for one whilst out and not having any, I knew I needed to get myself some! If you are going to buy some though, do make sure they have a similar design to your blog as it showcases your brand.

Post regularly and try and stick to a schedule. If you stick to a schedule, readers will know when you have new content going up so they can pop back! It increases your return readership and is such a simple thing to do yourself. Pick a day (or multiple) and stick to it - I post every Wednesday and Sunday and I have it mentioned on my blog.

Get rid of the navbar. If using the Blogger platform, get rid of the nasty navbar that comes built in at the top of the screen. It looks soooo unprofessional and tacky. I did this almost a year ago and I am so glad I did! I was a little hesitant at first, I thought I'd hate it but it made my blog look so much more sleek. Plus if you really don't like it, it is really easy to get it back.

Are any of you planning on making any improvements to your blog? Let me know what you plan to do - it's always interesting seeing other peoples plans! 

Thanks for reading!

Love Charlotte x

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How I Take My Blog Photos

A while ago I shared with you how I edit my blog post photos, and since then I've had a couple of requests to share how I take my photos in the first place! Logically it would have made sense to write them the other way round, but it's good to be different - right? First of all, I use the Nikon D3100 with a standard 18-50mm lens. It's a fairly cheap camera and there are certainly better ones out there (at a much higher cost), but this has served me well and I'm extremely familiar with all the settings and features. I could probably take a photo with my eyes shut! Just so you know, it doesn't really matter which camera body you get as long as you get one with a standard size lens mount so you can get lots of different lenses to build up your camera kit. 

Timing. I tend to take my photos mid-morning or in the afternoon after the midday sun has started to lower in the sky. As I only use natural light for my photos, I've found that these are the best times to get well lit photos with minimal shadows. I never use flash and I urge you never to do so either. It creates glare and can ruin your photos! When taking my photos, I place whatever objects I'm taking in a well lit location onto of a self made backdrop (large sheets of thick paper) to keep my images looking bright and crisp. 

I shoot on manual. I always shoot on manual. I've shot like this for a while, as a professional photographer once advised me to do so and I've never looked back since! Shooting on manual allows you to adjust all of the settings on your camera to suit the lighting conditions at a time! I usually set my ISO to 100 and if the lighting isn't so great I go up to 200 - but never higher than that! If you shoot using high ISOs, you come out with a super grainy photo, so unless you're a concert photographer or are aiming for that effect - stick to a low setting! Shutter speed and aperture are probably the most important settings when it comes to taking any photo. You want to aim to have a shutter speed of around 1/125 to keep your photos completely in focus. This means that the shutter opened and closes pretty quickly, leaving you with lovely crisp images. Adjusting the aperture on your camera, adjusts how sensitive the sensor is to light. A low aperture, lets lots of light into the camera and a high aperture leaves out the light and gives you dark images. It helps to think about it as a 24 hour clock. At 9.00 (e.g low aperture of f/6.3), it is light and bright and at 21:00 (e.g hight aperture of f/22) it is pitch black dark! 

I take my images in a JPEG+Raw file format. Saving a 'Raw' file helps in that if you completely mess up with your camera settings, but have taken a well composed image - you can go into Photoshop (and some other editing programs) and change your camera settings HOW AWESOME IS THAT?! You can essentially go back in time and alter how you shot your photos! MAGIC! 

Manual focus. As well as shooting on a manual setting, it is also important to focus your DSLR manually. Although it takes more time and effort - the results can often be so much better! You can play around with the focus to add depth to your photos, it always looks nice to have some bits out of focus on purpose. 

I hope this post has helped some of you! If there's anything that you feel I haven't covered - please let me know and I'll get back to you or if there's a lot of topics to cover I'll include them in another blog post! Oh and if you have any tips of your own, feel free to share them in the comments to help each other out!

Thanks for reading!

Love Charlotte x

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