Over the past year and a half, I have been working super hard to grow my blog as much as I possibly can. I have a full time job and also own my own business on the side, so finding time to grow is very hard. Throughout my experience, I have discovered some efficient ways to market your blog without having to be a full time blogger. Below are my top 5 ways to grow your blog (and some of the things I’ve learned along the way)!
1. Link Parties 
Link parties are the biggest way to grow your blog in my opinion. I have been linking up almost every day ever since I started blogging. Although linking up to multiple link parties might be time consuming, IT’S WORTH IT!
The only way my blog grew when I was first starting out was from link parties. Not only are you linking up to other blogs, but if your post is impressive enough, you might get featured the next week. This is HUGE. You will most likely gain many many followers if you’ve been featured on a big bloggers link party. Another way to use link parties to grow your blog is to actually host one. By using Linky Tools or InLinkz, you can pay about $20 a year to use their link tool. I host a link party called Work It Wednesday and use Linky Tools. I have also collaborated with 3 other bloggers to make a “mega” link party. More bloggers = more coverage for you = good:)
2. Social Media 
Social media has also been HUGE for my blog. I started off without using any social media and that was my first mistake. I started my blog just for family and friends and didn’t think anything would come of it, so I didn’t think I needed to use any forms of social media. Well, I was wrong. I really wish I would have created a blog FB page, Twitter, Google + and Instagram account when I first started blogging. I know I would have had double to followers, but what can ya do? I didn’t start utilizing social media until this year; my second year of blogging… BIG mistake. When using social media, make sure to post every time you have a new post up on your blog. It’s also fun to support your bloggy friends and post about some of your favorite projects of theirs. Just make sure to tag them in the post and provide the link to their blog page. The blog world is SO supportive and we all want to see each other succeed.
3. Content Content Content!!! Content is obviously very important when it comes to blogging. As much as I want to tell you to post every day, if you don’t post quality content, your readers will no longer be interested. I would suggest 3-5 posts per week as long as they contain quality content.
4. Photography 
Ok, you might be thinking… wait. I’m not a professional photographer!! And I’m about to tell you thats totally ok! I understand not everyone is a professional, but quality photography is a big one. Although it’s tempting, try to avoid those easy iphone pictures. They are totally fine for “before” pictures or maybe even a few “process” pictures, but not for the end result. No one wants to look at low quality images. There are so many great blogs out there that produce high quality images, so we have to keep up!
5. Buy A Domain Name One big regret I have is that I didn’t buy a domain name when I first started blogging. I used a .blogspot name for over a year and finally made the decision to switch over to a .com address. At the time I didn’t realize how painful the transition would be. I also moved to WordPress (which is fabulous!) and that was also a very difficult transition. If you are just starting out and want a .com address, I would suggest buying a domain name immediately. When I switched over to my new name and look, I lost about HALF of my followers… It was rough. It took me about 6 months just to get back to where I started. Like I said… very painful experience. Totally worth it, but painful. Alrighty friends, I hope you have learned a few new things today!
I know these tips have really helped me in my experience and I hope they help you all as well!!
Thanks again Tanya for having me:)
Thank you SO much for the wonderful tips and sharing your ideas with us Amy, no matter
how long we have been blogging, there is always something new to learn!!
Have a wonderful, safe & Happy Halloween this week friends!
great tips…I knew most of them, but not necesarily do all of them either, which is fine by me 🙂
Great tips! Thx so much for sharing:-)
Thanks for sharing all of these tips. I agree about link parties. 🙂
How do you go about buying a domain name?
Emily,
In order to purchase a domain name you can use a few different sites. One of the easiest and most popular is GoDaddy.com it allows you to search your url and see if it is available in a .com, .net etc… format then you are able to purchase it which reserves it for a year.
Tanya 🙂
Thanks for the info! I had googled domain names and hated to just jump in with so many links to choose from. Next question – is there a difference between .com and .net?
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