Blogging Do’s for Every Blogger. ~Part 2~

Hey, readers!

Happy new month!

I previously began a little series tittled:

blogging do’s for every blogger 💙

It’s a series were I’m sharing important things all bloggers should be mindful of, no matter their niche. The series began with this post, and now the last part of it is here.

EN-joyeee!              

1.Always have a meta description.

A meta description is a little description about a page on your site, only visible to search engines and browsers. You can have meta descriptions for posts, pages and your homepage.

A meta description is important because with it, you can tell a little about a particular page on your site; and so when your site shows up in search results, a person just might be enticed by your description and click on the page or post.

But I’m no expert on things like this, here’s an article by WPBeginner on how to add a meta description, using relevant keywords, to pages on your site.

2.Make use of relevant keywords.

Make use of keywords relevant to what your blog post is about. Use these keywords (in a way that looks normal) in the body of your blog post and in its tittle.

Y’know when you search for something like ‘sweet sixteen party ideas’ in Google, and when the search results appear, the words ‘sweet sixteen’, ‘party’, ‘party ideas’ in most of the search results are in bold font? Yeah, those words in bold are the keywords.

Also, you know how in the WP Reader there are some words in blue positioned on top before the posts in the Reader? They are also keywords.

Every blogging niche has its own set of unique keywords. Keywords are the phrases or words people mostly type in when making searches on the Internet. Placing these selected keywords in your post gives it a higher chance of being ranked high in search results by search engines.

Now I know you might be thinking: I run a lifestyle blog just for fun, and I really don’t need all this SEO gibberish.

Well, that’s what you think.

If your aim as a blogger is to share with only the community of bloggers on WP, then that’s fine for you. But I believe that even as a lifestyle blogger, it is important to make efforts to push your blog’s readership beyond the WordPress community, and using keywords in your posts helps you do just that.

In case you still feel unmoved, here’s the results of a search I once made on: teen lifestyle bloggers:

Lexie used keywords in her post tittle and in the body of her post. Now, tell me who wouldn’t click on this article written by a teen blogger that appeared on page 1 of Google’s search results for teen lifestyle bloggers?

Not me.

So in case I have you convinced, check out number 6 in this post by TwinsMommy.

3. Create social media presence for your blog.

Make a page for it on Facebook, invite your Facebook friends to visit the page and your blog site. Create an Insta account for your blog, share updates on your latest posts (using more of pictures), and don’t forget to input a URL to your blog’s latest posts in your bio.

Social media presence is very important, as it can help you to share updates with your followers, interact with them privately in through messages, and, of course, grow your blog’s readership.

And just an addy: If you think you can, you can as well open a Medium account with your blog’s name. You can post your content on Medium as well as WordPress.

Medium has its own way of ranking posts, and it also has a whole new community of readers.

I got this point from Lexie of What Lexie Loves. Although she’s stopped blogging, she had a Medium account linked to her blog where she posted articles from her original blog. Here’s a screenshot of my favourite Medium post of hers:

4. Tell your friends about it – physically, I mean.

I once got, like, a hundred additional views on my Blogger blog, all because I told a friend of mine about my blog and asked him to tell his friends about it.

He asked me to do a feature post about him, and he would share the link to it via WhatsApp. I enjoyed a huge hike in my stats back then.

In your discussions with your friends, neighbours, relatives and other people, about topics that you write about on your blog, you can tell them about your blog and what it’s about. And even if you don’t want them to know that it’s your blog, you can just give them the URL and a promise of quality content.

5. Reach out to other bloggers.

It would be meaningless to just write blog posts that only your friends and family read. How does that make you a famous blogger?

Even though most people might start up their blogs just for fun, it would still be nice if your blog was read by a variety of people.

Taking part in blogger collabs, interviews, tags, and even guest posting on other bloggers’ sites are great ways to really put yourself out there.

6. Offer value in every post.

This is more particular to lifestyle blogs. Although it’s interesting to read about another person’s life. If that’s the only thing you ever write about on your blog, it’ll get boring fast.

Instead of making a plain old post where you babble about the stress and changes in your life, a better option would be to make a post on how to cope with stress and change in one’s life, using your personal experiences as a backbone.

Find out a way you can educate your readers in every post. Think out lessons, advice and tips from your day-to-day experiences and share them alongside your life updates.

And that’s the end of this little series. I hope you enjoyed the posts, and I hope even more that the blogging do’s were helpful. Here’s the ~part 1~ in case you missed it.

Have any questions or additions? Tell me your thoughts in the comments below.

Thanks for reading, 😄

Dishing out blogging advice, 🥧

Blogging Do’s for Every Blogger. ~Part 1~

Hey, readers!

Having been blogging for about 5 months, I’ve made it a personal point of duty to pen down observations I make about blogging as I go. And today, I wish to share with you:

blogging do’s for every blogger. 💙

They’re quite a lot, so I’ve broken them up into two parts. The Part 2’s coming soon. 😉

And so, I begin…

1.Make your homepage appealing.

When a blogger links to your blog, it’s often going to be your blog’s homepage. So, it’s important for you to have a beautiful homepage. Not a nice homepage, not a good homepage, but a beautiful homepage. This is must-have number one.

Make sure you use colours that complement each other, and colours that are not too sharp in the eyes; otherwise you’ll scare your potential follower away.

To augment your aesthetics, I recommend that you include the ‘Latest Posts’ block in your homepage, so as to give readers a sample of your posts and (hopefully) get them to read.

Lastly, it’s best to write a little intro about your blog and link to your ‘About’ or ‘Posts’ page.

But in case you simply just want your homepage to display your latest posts, that’s fine too. 😚

A blogger I know with breathtaking homepages is: Suhani. And another blogger I know with with a beautiful website is Evin.

2.Give your posts feeling with EM.O.JIS 😜

I’ve come across some blogs whose posts are bereft of emojis, and I’m like:

oh no, no, no 😩

Even though when I began blogging, I only knew the

🙂          😦          ❤        ^-^

emoji symbols(the first three would turn to actual emojis in WordPress, FYI), as I began finding more blogs, I kept wondering how they inputted emojis in their posts. At first I thought it because they wrote posts with their mobile devices, but then I realised that that wasn’t the case. So I browsed out how to input emojis into text on a PC, and I found that on Windows 8 versions, this can be done by holding the Windows key + the full stop/ period key at the same time.

Blog posts should really be coloured up with emojis. They give posts feeling and make them more readable and interesting.👌🏿

So, if you aren’t dolling up your post with emojis, try it out – but don’t overdo it, it’ll just get annoying. 🙄

3. Let your blog design complement your content.

I don’t know about you, but for me, a blog will never be perfect. From time to time, we will always feel the need to add some new designs to our blogs – and that’s okay. But remember to style your blog in line with what it’s all about – let the design, colours and fonts complement the content.

4. Eye candy is very important.

In a time when quality, high definition images are 99% of what people look out for in almost any content, quality images in your blog post will make all the difference. I know why I stress ‘quality’:

99.9% of viewers DO NOT want to see blurred, disproportionate images.

For me, if I go to a site and see such and images, I’ll look for another site if I’m not in much of a rush, or if I don’t know any other site where I can get better written content.

Images attract readers, and putting images here and there throughout you blog post keep them interested. But DO NOT use irrelevant images. Make sure the images you use communicate idea and feeling of your article.

Lastly, don’t place images after every paragraph. Even though images are necessary, putting in too much of them will just get annoying, draw attention away from the actual article, and look amateurish.

5. Try to make your blog post link descriptive.

I mean, tell a little about the blog post in the link. If the tittle does that already, use the tittle.

E.g.:

BLOG POST TITTLE: 6 Things to Keep in Mind Before Choosing a Career.

BLOG POST LINK: https://essasnotes.wordpress.com/2022/04/25/6-things-to-keep-in-mind-before-choosing-a-career-path/

So, you see that from the link alone, the viewer knows that in the blog post, they will find out six things he/she should keep in mind before choosing a career.

And using descriptive links can also be helpful when your post’s tittle is too long. Instead of having the whole string of words as your link, shorten it into something readable.

Having descriptive links is also good for SEO. Though I’m far from being an SEO guru, I know enough to know that short links that tell something about a post get higher rankings in Search Engine results than long, confusing ones.

6. Keep your blog post tittle short and catchy.

Let it capture all that the blog post is about. I once was making a little research on organizations that advance girls in tech. I wouldn’t have clicked on this link to an article on SheKnows if its tittle didn’t read:

9 organizations committed to helping girls kick butt in tech fields.

Honestly ‘kick butt in tech fields’ is what got my attention and click; even though its link was less attractive:

9 organizations committed to helping girls kick butt in tech fields

So you see that a blog post’s title can be that important in determining whether or not it’s link will get clicked on.

7. Try out linking.

As a blogger, you can either link to your own content, or the content of other bloggers/content creators.

Linking to content on other websites boosts their traffic, so be sure to notify them of this (through email, perhaps) so they might just return the favour.

And linking to other posts of your own keeps readers moving around your site. I was elated when, some time ago, I got a like on one of my very old posts. That was made possible because of linking to other articles on your blog.

But please remember to link relevantly. Don’t just stuff links all over the place; it scares readers away.

TIP:The linking technique I believe is best is the one I call the linking-sentences technique. Here are examples:

• “Starting up as a new blogger can be hard, what with all the hard choices you’ll have to make. But other than making choices of niches, social media advert techniques and all others, the area where most beginner bloggers fail is in the choice of a blogging platform. Here’s a post of mine that wisely points you to the best blogging platform,when compared to all others. “

• “Yeah, yeah. You’re probably at that point in your life where you need to make a choice of career. I’ve been there, too. So to help you out, I recommend you first know the 6 Things to Keep in Mind Before Choosing a Career.”

The linking techniques you should not be trying are these:

TECHNQ 1: “… I wrote an entire post about it. You can read it here.”

This technique does work, but the linking-sentences technique works better and is more interesting.

TECHNQ 2: I don’t know if this is from the way the site is structured, but I’ve come across many articles where after a few paragraphs, a link to other posts is placed thus:

“Read also: Nine Ways to Stay in Shape this Month.”

This might get readers to click, but some readers might also find it annoying.

So use the most acclaimed linking technique: the linking-sentences technique.

8. Don’t try to sound too important and knowledgeable

Don’t try to sound important and smart by using long sentences and big grammar (you’ll bore a lot of readers away). I relate better with articles that are written in every day conversational language, than with those written like they were picked out of a textbook for professors.

And because of this, even though you can write your articles any way you want, I advise you write in everyday language, because it will engage your readers more.

9. Write about topics that interest you.

If you’re writing about something you aren’t interested in, your readers won’t like it, too. Don’t force yourself to write about things you aren’t interested in just because you think your readers will like it. Write what you like, and those who like it too will read.

10. Look back at your posts.

As we advance as bloggers, it’s normal to forget about old posts. But I advise that once in a while, you should visit your site and read through old posts. You might be surprised to find out errors, broken links, images that don’t show up, or might even get new ideas we can add to the post.

Revisiting old posts is important because that one old post full of errors might just be the one that a new viewer of your site might upon. And if the post is terrible, he/she will vamoose from your site.

And still on looking at posts, whenever you make a post, immediately check how it looks on your site and in the WordPress Reader, so you can check if all your aesthetics and formatting appeared the way you wanted them to.

And these are my blogging do’s for every blogger. Even though you might be an old blogger, I hope there were some points here that got you thinking.

Thanks for reading, and look out for the ~part 2~!

Dishing out blogging advice, 🥧

Blogger vs WordPress: Beginner Bloggers Beware

Greetings, readers!

In my post, Welcome to WordPress, Olaedo! I said that I would do a post on the up’s and down’s of blogging on Blogger, to save beginner bloggers the headache I and many other bloggers have experienced.

Let’s start at the very beginning.

While writing this post, the audience I had in mind was the beginner blogger. So let me first clear the air up about what a blog actually is.

A blog is a website made for the purpose of writing about things that are important to the blogger. Blogs can be made for different purposes:

• A blog can be for the promotion of a business’ products or services, and is usually attached as a page on a business’ website.
• A blog can be a business venture in itself. You might have heard of people who blog for a living. Well, people like that market their writing skills on their blogs (focused in a particular niche), and often have a page on their blog just for the layout of their services and pricing schemes (in the case of freelance writers).
• Freelance writer: A writer who writes for organizations and businesses who hire him/her. He/she doesn’t work for a particular one, but works when called upon.
• A blog can also be a space on the Internet for one to express his/her feelings on just about anything. Thus the term ‘personal blog’. A personal blog, like Olaedo, is not necessarily centered on profits or products or services. It is simply one where a person can come to share his/her experiences and ideas with other people (and hopefully get encouraging reactions).

Now that that’s done, I’d like to also put in that a blog can be made for blogging about anything and everything, or it can also be focused on a particular niche (category). Whether you wish to make blogging a business or you wish to have a personal blog, know that popular blog niches are:

• Technology
• News
• Health and fitness
• Fashion
• Self-improvement
• Blogging and SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
• and the other less-popular niches.

Okay, I realise I’m starting to sound like one of those SEO blogs (no offense, but…gross). If you want to start up a niche blog and wanna know all the kinks and konkies, head on to this article on this very reader-friendly site:

• 3 Types of Niches To Choose for Your New Blog – TwinsMommy

So having cleared the air about what a blog is, types of blogs, and niches, I move into what this post’s tittle promises… with genuine pride.

Blogger vs WordPress

BLOGGER

This comparison of Blogger and WordPress will show why YOU SHOULD NOT BLOG ON BLOGGER.

(*Harsh*)

Sorry, I’ll rephrase:

My experience blogging on Blogger was bad, really, and I just want to save beginners the same stress. Here’s why you shouldn’t choose Blogger:

(*Much better ^-^ *)

• Blogger is slow. The speed of loading pages on Blogger is abysmal. I remember how I was in a rush and I wanted to quickly check out something on my blog. Because of its slowness, I had to abandon what I had to check out and be on my way.
• Blogger’s customization tools are not too good. Notice I said ‘not too good’. Not ‘bad’ or ‘terrible’. Its tools are good, generally, but you would be better off using WordPress’ block-based customization tools.
• Blogger is too technical.For someone ike me who codes and knows about web design, I can deal with Blogger’s technicality, but for the everyday person, it can be kind of a handful (at first, though). But with WordPress, almost every technicality is taken care of by default.

WORDPRESS

Even though I’ve been using WordPress for just some months, I’ve already seen the clear difference between the two blogging platforms. And I know advanced WordPress bloggers will agree with me.

• WordPress places all its tools in one single menu. At a WP user’s dashboard, there’s a menu with all the shortcuts to all parts of your site. From Tools to Appearance to Stats to Comments, all the shortcuts to your site are all in one place.
• Customizing and editing is easy-peasy. To be honest, when I first heard of WordPress’ block-based editor, I was like: what???. But when it actually got to customizing and editing, it was really fun. Just like Scratch (if you know it), you pick blocks or parts of the site from a menu and edit them. So much better when compared to Blogger’s Customizer.
• It’s a lot less technical. Like I said, the techy stuff is halfway taken care of. But for the full packages and protections you’ll have to install some plugins (plugins are like features that give your site extra capabilities and functions). Still, if you don’t install plugins, your site will still work fine (I’m in that category).
• Writing and designing posts can be done at once. WP an easily accessible media library (which is like a storage for all the pics you’ve uploaded to you blog). But what’s better is that it makes it easy to get photos from Pixels or Google Photos, so that writing posts and putting in pictures can be done all at once!

And that’s the stark comparison between WordPress and Blogger. I may not have gotten all the details of why Blogger is bad, but I certainly did not add. Sure, there are other platforms like Medium and Wix, but trust me, WordPress is by far the best. So make your choice, beginner blogger. 😊

And if you can’t pay for web hosting and the rest as a beginner blogger, you can always use the .wordpress subdomain for your site. With this subdomain, WordPress hosts your site free of charge (like mine and the sites of many other bloggers).

Did you once blog on Blogger and had experiences similar to mine? Are you new to WordPress too? Are you a beginner blogger? Do you have any questions? Please, drop me a comment, let’s discuss!

Thanks so much for reading!😊😊😊

Stay cool,

Welcome to WordPress, Olaedo!

Yeah, this is my first official post on WordPress, and I’ve been beside myself waiting to make it, so here it is:

Life blogging on Blogger.

I started blogging around May this year on Blogger. Well, Blogger was kinda nice. Once I figured out how to change my blog’s theme (after having used the default Blogger theme for more than a month), my blog started looking nice, even pretty.

On Blogger, there was little opportunity for community, meaning that till date, I don’t have up to ten comments on my Blogger blog – and I’ve made up to, like, thirteen posts! It’s not like there isn’t the ‘Comment’ option over at Blogger, it’s just that WordPress makes commenting look so easy and appealing that you’ve just got to when compared to Blogger.

I’ll soon be making a post on the ups and downs of Blogger when compared to WordPress (to save beginner bloggers the stress of beginning with Blogger), so I’ll narrate all my experiences in the post-to-be.

How did I know WordPress existed?

Um… I first found out about WordPress from a bunch of random articles I came across on the net. But I first knew that I could have a blog on WordPress from Evin’s blog, A Curly Sue’s Ramblings. Her blog was so beautiful ❤ ❤ ❤ that it made me ready to forsake Blogger and never look back.

But I dawdled on Blogger for a few more months, trying to see if any good would come out of it before I relocated. But alas! I was more than disappointed – that and I was a bit intimidated by the infamous intricacies of setting up a WordPress site. I spent some more time Googling on how to go about it till I finally got the decisiveness to take it on.

Baby steps on WordPress.

It took me about a week to get the site’s design done – once I’d figured out how to get a “. wordpress.com” site. I wanted my design to be a minimalist one, simple. And I hope it is.

From there, I had to then stuff the blog up with meat and bones, thus this blog post was birthed. I’ve also put in old posts from my Blogger blog here and there, but it’s unfortunate that I couldn’t move my previous views and comments. 😦 But no worries, I’m sure I’ll exceed my former comment and view count with this blog.

I’m still a beginner blogger, a toddler. But I’m optimistic that Olaedo will get positive responses.

Don’t hesitate to drop me a comment and tell me what you think about my blogging journey. I’d love to meet new people!

Thanks for tuning in. 😘

Feeling ecstatic,

*And that’s a wrap! *