Blogging tips to boost your stats and readership

Fashion Infatuation is well over 4 years old now, and to be honest with you I didn’t have a clue what I was doing in the beginning. I didn’t know how to get my own domain name, I didn’t know how to gain followers, nor how to promote my posts... I didn’t even feel comfortable taking photos of myself for outfit posts, and didn’t actually start doing this until way after my blog was set up!

Fashion Infatuation has grown naturally over the years, but I wish I had known back then how to really boost my blog.

Below are some tips and tricks to fellow bloggers out there, and they will hopefully be extra helpful to new bloggers.

Domain

When you first set up your blog, make sure you buy your own domain name as soon as possible if this is something you want to have. If you get your own domain or change your domain after a while, you’ll lose all stats that you’ve built up, and your blog will go back down to zero - meaning it won't appear in as many Google searches and less people will find their way to your blog.

Design

When it comes to design, make sure it’s clear and easy to navigate. There’s nothing worse than a cluttered blog, as this is the opposite to user friendly, and your visitors might find it off-putting. Many bloggers opt for clean lines and lots of white, and focus on taking really professional photos for their posts, which spices up the blog design in their own way. Clean lines are also a better option for the mobile version of your blog.

Logo and business cards
With your design you probably came up with a logo as well. Make sure it's one you're happy with and that you can see yourself using for a while, as this is great for business cards and other material. The simpler the logo, the better! I ordered my 2 sided business cards from StressFreePrint, and I absolutely love them! They're perfect to keep in your wallet, and hand out to fellow bloggers at events, or just sneakily leave in posh bars for people to see... ;) 

Gaining readers

This is an obvious one, but to gain more readers you're best off creating fan pages on Facebook and Twitter. Even if you don’t like these platforms, they are after all the most popular ones, and your blog will benefit from it in the long run. Just make sure you update them regularly with posts, pictures and statuses.

Twitter

When it comes to Twitter, try to get involved in conversations, and monitor and use hashtags relevant to your blog niche.

Some great ones to monitor and use if you’re a fashion or beauty blogger are #fbloggers (fashion bloggers) and #bbloggers (beauty bloggers).

Also, keep an eye on #bloggerswanted and #bloggerrequest for opportunities to collaborate with brands.

Comments

Talk to other bloggers! Just like you want people to comment on your blog, have a browse around for similar blogs to yours and comment away!

If you leave your link in the comment it will also help your blog’s visibility and SEO stats. But don’t go all spammy on people!

SEO

Optimise your blog SEO wise, so that it shows up in more Google search results, which will lead to an increase in readers, and which could also result in more brand collaborations.

Below is a short list of a few simple ways of doing this without being an SEO genius;

Blogpost title – Think about what people tend to search for on Google. They won’t search for ‘Post 165’ or ‘A rainy day’, but you’ll get more search hits by optimising your post title and really explaining what your post is about. For example; ‘How to dress in layers for the Autumn season’.

Keywords – Similar to the above point, think about what people search for online, and try to use these keywords or key terms in your post content. Rather than describing your dress as just ‘dress’, use all possible terms to describe it. For example ‘mint green 3/4 sleeve bodycon midi dress’.

Link to old posts – When you’ve blogged for a while, try to refer back to older posts in the new posts you’re writing, and link to these posts through relevant keywords, such as ‘skinny jeans’, etc.

Add category tags – Tag your posts with relevant categories. Don’t use too many, but try to stick to generic ones that will be relevant to many of your posts. For example ‘fashion’, ‘beauty’, ‘makeup tutorials’, ‘outfit posts’ etc.

Alt tags on photos – Before you hit publish on the post you just wrote, right click on your post photos and add alt tags. This helps Google understand what your photos are actually of, and they'll show up in more search results.