When I started blogging way back when, my biggest challenge was finding images for my posts.  All the blogs that I read would have these beautiful pictures to punctuate their words, or they would curate features by wonderful photographers.  I didn’t get it.  Where were these pictures coming from?  It wasn’t like all of these… read more »

Back in the day, ad swapping was not a thing.  Sometimes blogs would display the buttons of their favorite blogs, but it wasn’t advertised as “swapping” and certainly not everyone did it.  Eventually I started to notice that more and more blogs were charging for their sidebar ads, and I think that’s when the idea… read more »

My last Tips for Better Blogging post discussed why it’s important to have a good blog design.  This second part is going to discuss the pros and cons of designing your blog yourself. There are plenty of good reasons to take your blog design into your own hands.  Maybe you are just starting out, and… read more »

Since I’ve started this series, I’ve addressed several of the changes that I made in order to grow my blog since September: commenting, joining blog communities, and making friends on Twitter, for example.  However, I haven’t addressed one of the major changes that has to be staring all of you in the face: I worked… read more »

What is the first thing you do when you look at a blog for the first time?  Well, the real answer for me is the blog design, but after that?  It’s the follower box.  This isn’t something that I’m proud of.  I don’t think that more followers means that I’m going to like the blog… read more »

Twitter is a tool that I have found to be invaluable to growing my blog and my business.  I didn’t really start to use Twitter effectively until the last few months or so.  When I wrote my 2011 recap post at the end of December, I had 80 Twitter followers.  Today, about 2.5 months later,… read more »

Blogging can be lonely sometimes.  Your relationships in real life don’t always understand what it is and therefore probably find it difficult to support you in your blogging endeavors.  That’s where blog communities come in.  There are all kinds of blogging communities that are out there, with varying levels of exclusivity, and in varying formats.… read more »

I’m no expert at blogging.  Not even close (but if you’re looking, I know of a few people that are!)  However, I did blog for two years and gained ten followers and then gained over 100 followers in five months.  During those 2+ years I’ve come to a few realizations that I wish someone had… read more »