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More Blogging Tips

I recently went on a blog subscribing spree and I discovered something new that REALLY ANNOYS ME on a blog: centering all the text in every post. Just... no... don't do it. Please. Maybe I wouldn't have noticed it before studying graphic design, but now I know that centering your entire article is a HUGE NO-NO mainly because it taxes your eyes/brain to constantly start a new line in a different place. Your eyes are less stressed if they always know where the new line of text is supposed to begin. Trust me on this. Centering has it's place... mainly on very formal publications with very little writing on them (say... on a wedding invitation). But on a blog article... this is where you want to left-align everything. Not justified, not right-aligned, not centered... left-aligned. (Justified doesn't really get used much as it causes weird spacing between words, and right-aligned is best used in small chunks for a specific purpose since it also has the problem of not startin...

Are you a No-Reply Blogger?

I get a lot of great comments on this blog, and I love replying to them as much as I can. I try to respond to everyone by email, which seems more likely to get a conversation going, and I try really hard to answer everyone, unless the comment is something like, "Nice," which is hard to know how to respond to. But in general, if someone says something interesting, it's nice to write back, and a lot of times it actually leads to a conversation about a subject we both have an interest in, so that's pretty cool. Lately though... I've been getting a huge amount of No-Reply Blogger comments. Are you familiar with this concept? Basically there's a setting in your Blogger profile that allows you to "Show Your Email Address", which all that really means is that when you comment on my blog and I get your comment, I then have your email address to be able to respond to you. If you don't check that option... it shows up in my email as being from ...

Writing interesting and engaging blog posts

Wow! Only two weeks left in this summer blog series ! Where has the time gone? So, I've been thinking a lot about what makes a "good" blog post lately. If you would've asked me a month ago, I'd have probably said something along the lines of... find a niche, write what's you, love what you write, etc, etc... But I'm not going to. See, I'm starting to feel like blogging is making it's way back to it's roots. If you'll remember, back in the old days (like... 5 years ago), blogging was more like online journaling. You wrote about your day, maybe included a photo or two, maybe ranted about the crazy check-out lady at the grocery store. But then, somewhere along the way, blogging turned into this crazy profitable (?) business endeavor. Everyone became a "mommy blogger" or a "fashion blogger" or a "lifestyle blogger". It became "cool" to blog, and everyone jumped on the bandwagon. Soon there were these blog...

Improve your SEO with this one very easy trick!

Oooh I just discovered an awesome SEO tip - make sure your outbound links open in a new tab, rather in the same one. If Google sees people clicking away from your blog a lot, you lose SEO points. But if a click opens in a new tab, the window with your blog in it stays open longer, thereby improving your SEO. Fortunately this is a really easy thing to implement! How I did this on Blogger... 1. Go into your Template page and choose the option to Edit HTML . 2. Find where it says <head> at the beginning. 3. Directly below that, put in this code: <base target='_new' /> 4. Now whenever you click on any outbound link on your blog (a link that links to somewhere besides your own site) and it'll automatically open in another tab!

Helping your blog posts be found by Google

A common refrain I hear around the blogging world is, "How do I get more followers?" And while there are many ways to attract new readers, let's consider delving into the murky waters of SEO to answer this question today. Let's assume for a second that you hope to gain readership to your blog. Even if you don't want tens of thousands of readers, you probably like the idea of preaching to more than just your cat. And while I'll be the first to admit that I know far less about this topic than I should -- in fact, I'm not even entirely convinced that SEO is a real thing -- I will try to pass along a few little tricks here that seem to work just fine for me. Titles First things first. Pick a title that gives a little hint as to what you're writing about. This not only jogs your memory in the future when you're sifting through your archives, but it allows your blog posts to be more searchable on Google. (And unless you're blocking them, yes, your po...

Sponsors & Swapping. Where to start?

Ahh... sponsorship. Such a confusing, controversial, wildly popular discussion topic among bloggers. There are those who only swap, those who only take paid sponsors, those who refuse to do either. Then of course there's the issue of what to do with your sponsors once you've got them... do you let them guest post? do giveaways? introduce themselves via a "Meet the Sponsor!" post? I've run across these and so many other questions about this topic as I float around the blogosphere, so I will try to answer a bunch of them this week as part of our Build Your Blog! summer series! Q: Shouldn't blog sponsorship be free? A: It depends. If you're a small blog (let's say, for the sake of argument, that that means under 100 readers), then yes, it should be free. But remember that sponsorship is basically a fancy way of saying advertising. Think of it like an ad in a newspaper. The cost of an ad is based on the size of the ad purchased, as well as how many eyebal...

Building a "Grab-able" Blog Button

So... of course the day I had planned to show you guys the ins and outs of designing a grab-able blog button, my secret weapon site (Photobucket) goes down (at least for me... maybe it's up for you?). I was wanting to do a little video for you guys, but since I can't show you part of the process now... I'll just try to explain it. First things first Of course, first you need to make a button. Adobe Illustrator and/or Photoshop are awesome choices, if you have access to those softwares. Of course there are some other free options for creating graphics, as well. Skitch (Mac only) Gimp PicMonkey Picasa My personal favorite of these free options is Skitch - I actually use it quite a bit for resizing/cropping photos (although that's not really the topic we're on today). It's also really good at drawing arrows on and writing on photos. If you've noticed in some of my tutorial posts, I tend to use those features to point out things. Anyway... Open up your software...

On being a carnival... or something like that

Notice that I didn't put the words "sponsor", "giveaway", or "guest post" in the title of this blog post? That's my #1 rule for doing promotional posts on your blog. Although I'm realizing now that even I don't always follow my rules , so take that with a grain of salt. Lol. Seriously though... You may or may not love when bloggers have a giveaway or allow guest posters, but especially when done wrong they can be very annoying to a blog reader. Maybe it's just me, but when trying to get through hundreds of unread posts in my Google Reader, I literally just skip all the ones who's titles scream, "Hey! I'm doing something other than my normally scheduled content!!" However... if you make it seem like you're so very excited to introduce your reader so something or someone new... they just might get excited too. Part of that starts with getting them into your post to read it, so make sure you title with either a relev...

Blogging Tips from a New Blogger

Hello Living the Creative Life readers! My name is Jessica and I blog over at Girl Booklet , which is a lifestyle blog with a little fashion and beauty! Today I am sharing my experience with you as a “new” blogger! I began my blog on May 18th, 2012. I chose that date because it was my boyfriend’s and my one year anniversary! I wanted a special day to start my blog and I couldn’t think of a more special date than that (well other than my birthday - he he - but I wasn’t going to wait until next February so…) there you go! That’s how I came up with the date. Now for the name that’s a different story. Creating a name for my blog was probably one of the hardest and most difficult things ever! I mean there are thousands and thousands of blogs and so a lot of names that I liked for my blog were taken or similar, but after all the thinking and name-creating, I finally came up with a name for my blog! I decided on Girl Booklet because my blog is like my diary. I write my opinions, my thoughts,...

Building friendships in the Blogosphere

We sit alone, typing into our computers, filling up our blogs with things that we find interesting. But blogging doesn't have to be a solo sport. There are many kindred spirits out there, if you just reach out and connect! Join a network One quick way to meet a bunch of bloggers is to join a blogging network. The newest one that comes to mind is the Better Blogger Network , but there are others as well. Some are for bloggers of a certain location, others are just more general. (For example, one that I'm a part of is for people living here in the Pacific Northwest ). Some networks are virtual, while others attempt to meet in person once in awhile. Introvert that I am, I haven't actually attended any get-togethers yet, but I like the idea of it. How do you find these networks? For the ones I've joined, I've sort of just stumbled across them, word-of-mouth style. Some bloggers will have buttons in their sidebar advertising what network they're a part of (a common o...

Please Identify Yourself! A little rant on email etiquette.

Can we just stop and talk for a moment about unidentified business emails? The larger my blog grows, the more I find the need to run it professionally and businesslike, which includes interacting with a plethora of sponsors and sponsorees (is that a word?). Last month, for example, I sponsored about a dozen or two giveaways on various blogs, some offering ad space, others credit to my knit shop, still others a free Etsy shop graphic. Apparently all of said giveaways ended today because my in-box was suddenly inundated with messages saying, "Please send so-and-so the information about their prize!" Which is all well and good... if I could remember which particular blog this giveaway was for... and more importantly, what I had promised to give away for said giveaway. One would think such information would be included in the email sent out to all involved sponsors... but (at least in about 80% of the emails), one would be wrong. Now while I realize that not all bloggers run thei...

Interacting with Readers and Twitter Followers

When growing your blog, it's important to interact with the people who are helping you grow your blog... your readers! If you're quiet like me, you may not relish the idea of being social, even online, but I promise it doesn't have to be painful, and it can go a long way towards making you seem open and approachable. This in turn will make people happy when they visit your blog and that much more likely to stick around! Step 1: Reply to Comments Taking the time to reply to your reader's comments goes a long way to making them feel at home. I can't tell you how many times I've asked a question on a blog and not received an answer. While I understand that bloggers are busy people, it really makes you seem antisocial (and/or rude) if you hole up and never respond to people. Remember that you're not committing to marry this person, you simply want to acknowledge that they exist and that you honor and respect the fact that they took the time to comment on yo...

HTML 101: Coding Basics

Blogging platforms make creating your blog posts pretty simple, but sometimes it's helpful to know a little HTML. I actually use it quite regularly when formatting the photos for my blog, but it has a lot of other uses as well. The first thing you need to know is that pretty much all HTML tags have an opening tag and a closing tag. You need to put these around whatever you're trying to affect. Opening tags come before what you're trying to affect and they can a lot of times be one letter or a series of commands. The closing tag comes after what you're trying to affect and usually is just one letter preceded by a backslash. All tags (opening and closing) need to be surrounded by brackets, as you can see below. <a href=""> </a> <i> </i> <p> </p> Images People can get really complicated when coding HTML, but if you know what to look for, you can usually find the same building blocks everywhere. Let's analyze the image ...

6 Tips for Taking Better Blog Photos

Let's talk photography, shall we? Here are a few quick and easy tips that should get you on the way to taking better blog photos. Tip #1: Make sure you have a clear shot. Photography can be somewhat of a waiting game. If the shot's blocked, don't just shoot anyway because you want to capture the moment. Wait for whatever (or whoever) is blocking the shot to move before you snap the shot. The final image will make much more of an impact if you lose the distractions. You might do well to implement another trick I learned from one of my photography teachers, too... the "sneaker-foot zoom". Which means... get your feet moving and walk closer to whatever you want to shoot. Move around your distractions if you need to. In other words, move your sneakers! via Tip #2: Steady your hand. Have you ever shot a gun? Yeah, me neither. But I hear that you're supposed to pull the trigger at the bottom of a breath. The same thing is true with photography. Believe it or not...

How to Set up an RSS Feed

"What is RSS and why do I need it?" I seem to get some version of this question emailed to me every so often, so I wanted to make sure I addressed it here on this blogging series. Basically, as a blogger... you should totally care about RSS! It's the primary way that readers read your content! There are other, less efficient, ways to keep up with a blog, but for readers who have quite a few blogs they'd like to keep track of, RSS saves the day. RSS ==> Really Simple Syndication Think of your blog as a newspaper. When someone subscribes to your blog, your newspaper gets tossed up on their doorstep every time you write a post... unless you don't bother sending it to print. In which case, it's as though you've just tacked one copy of it up on your front door for everyone to swing by and read if they have time. Don't fail to send your newspaper to print! Luckily, in this day and age, you don't literally have to hire a newspaper press to publish you...