Blogging Tips – html codes and free photos for blogs Part 2

Blogging tips part 2

I was asked by several people on Twitter to post some blogging tips, so here is part 2.  You can go to Blogging Tips Part 1 as well.

1. Be personable with your readers. If you have the ability, send birthday cards, encouraging cards, or a thank you card in the mail. You can use a comment form that your readers can voluntarily fill in so that you can send them a real, paper card via snail mail.

2. If you use Firefox, you can use all kinds of add-ons to make life easier. The one I really love, is called Clippings.  It allows you to highlight words and then save them as a new clipping. If there are phrases you use all the time, you can use a clipping and it will paste the phrase for you and it’s always saved. Right click and bam! There it is!

3.  Comment on other blogs w/i your niche.  Part of blogging is the community. We are building relationships out in the cyberworld. Leaving a quality comment and letting someone else know you enjoy their work is a big deal. Writers want to know they aren’t writing to themselves. And Christian writers are praying that they are helping someone out there. If that someone is you, let them know it!

4.  Do-follow – make sure your blog is set up as a do-follow blog.  If it is a wordpress blog, then it is automatically a NO-follow blog.  Part of bloggers commenting is to share some of the link love.  A NO-follow blog, does not allow any juice from the owner’s site to benefit anyone on their blog.  I personally think we should share the love and help each other out so I have a plug-in called Wp-Dofollow so that my blog is a DO-follow and a win-win for my commenters and bloggy friends. However, my comments are ALL moderated due to the sensitive content here so the spammers who hit my site do NOT get published and do not get any link love. There are rules to follow for do-follow and no-follow when it comes to advertising and reviews. You’ll need to google this one and read up on it. I’m not tech savvy enough to explain it.

5.  Join a group of bloggers.  I happened to catch #blogchat on Twitter one Sunday night and I was sold.  I got a whole world of new information opened up to me.  Bloggers helping bloggers.  You’ll make some new friends and learn a lot!  It starts at 6pm PST every Sunday night.  Go into Tweetchat, type in blogchat in the very top and it will load only the #blogchat so you can see everyone at once and respond.  It also allows you to pause the chat, which moves very fast.  I pause it and read the page, respond to questions and comments, and then unpause to allow another full page to load, and then I pause it again.  There are several awesome folks who save the transcripts from each blogchat and they post those so if you missed something, or need to reference something, you’ve got it right there!  They also edit out the retweets, so all you are left with is the solid comments and tips!

6.  Pictures are important to your blog and your posts.  Check out Lightstock for images Christian writers need and want. They are royalty free. There’s a small fee for images but they are worth it. They have one FREE image each week as well. PicMonkey is my favorite image Photo editing site. I pay $4.99/month so that I can use the premium services and create images that are worthy of Pinterest. Pinterest brings more traffic to my site now than any other source. I also use Pix-o-sphere for safe, family friendly photos. Always remember to give a source for your photos! You don’t want to be caught stealing photos.

I will continue this series as things pop up.  I’m no expert and I’m still learning but I wish I’d had these types of tips sooner!

What are your blogging tips? Do you agree or disagree with anything listed?

Blessings,

 

Photo Credit

21 Comments

  1. So glad you posted this! You already know I love your idea about being more personable, and I really think the whole snail mail thing is awesome. I basically think all your ideas are awesome… and I’m going to check out part 1.

    Wylio.com is another great search engine for photos that actually creates the code for you so you just need to copy & paste. I used it in my last blog post. I don’t think it’s family friendly… though I’ve never come across anything gross/weird in my searches for photographs.

    xo,
    Rachel
    Grown Up Rachel

    See what I did there with the signature 😉

    • Awesome Rachel! Good to know about the other photo place. Pix-O-Sphere generates the code too and you just choose the size and it auto formats right there. I like it because i have some great photos and now I can share them and see my name out there a little more 🙂 LOL I’m glad you like this! These are just things I’ve learned or things I’ve noticed that drive me nuts 🙂

  2. This information is AWESOME!!!! I’m a very new blogger and I need all the tips I can get. The information about the Pix-O-Sphere is especially appreciated. So, once again, a great post!

    • Bryan, did you read part one as well? There are sooo many blogging tips. I probably barely scratched the surface!

  3. Im still learning about all this bloggy things…thanks for these suggestions and tips!
    kelli recently posted..A Week Dedicated to YOU

  4. Ok – this is AWESOME!

    I don’t understand the no-follow – do-follow – is that for wordpress.org too?

    • Yes! wordpress is automatically a NO follow blog. You need to use the plug in, in order to change that 🙂 Not sure why they set it up that way but it’s a quick fix 🙂

      • Could you explain a bit better what “no-follow” vs. “do-follow” means? This is especially helpful for those of us who use a non-WordPress blogging platform.
        Joe Sewell recently posted..The Capped Idol of Copeland-Hagin, Part 7: More on the Image of God

        • Sure! It’s confusing stuff, isn’t it? Do-follow basically refers to me allowing you to post a link to your blog on my site AND allowing that link to your site to get some of my “juice” or page rank. If you can have your site linked on bigger sites with a really good google page rank, if they are do-follow that is, it helps boost your pages page rank with google. If they are a no-follow site, then you can leave your link and you get no boost or credit from google. Google grades based on who is linking into your site. Sorry, if that’s not clear. That’s my best understanding of it. And the do-follow goes beyond wordpress, it’s for all sites 🙂 Every website is set up to either be a do-follow or no-follow.

  5. THANK YOU so much! I followed the directions in your twitter comments, and I’m checking to see if it works. Will work on the others tomorrow. Mono/flu kicking us when we’re down around here!
    Blessings,
    Shawna Lee
    Please feel free to stop by: Shoofly Pie and Grits
    ShooflyMama recently posted..Book Review- Save the Date by Jenny B Jones

  6. Those are some really great tips! Thank you so much for posting and I am going to check out Pix-O-Sphere!
    Heather recently posted..Resurrecting Anthony- A True Story of Courage &amp Destination Review &amp Giveaway

  7. Thanks for sharing these tips, especially the site for free pictures! I look forward to checking it out – and going back to read Part 1!
    Tracey recently posted..Hands- Reaching and Stretching

  8. Thanks for promoting Pix-O-Sphere. 🙂 There are so many more features on the way..I’m excited to unveil those announcements soon.

    Great tips!
    Sisterlisa recently posted..David Bruce

    • Thank you! I have many more 🙂 Lots of tricks I’ve learned. Can’t wait to hear the new announcements!

  9. Hi Mel- Been thinking of you… funny, I can’t even seem to get a link on my blog that allows anyone to subscribe via email. Do YOU know? Ha. I’ve been meaning to figure this out;). I figure, for me, it’s aaaaalllll a process. And I am learning lessons through it all in all aspects. And boy, I’ve got a ways to go. Love you girl. D
    Dawn Dausman recently posted..Planting Seeds

  10. luvly to meet you Mel!
    thx for taking tea with me at FHC!
    i’ve now joined pix, thx to your intro “)
    another great small but free photo album avlbl at A Vermont Girl blog of
    Heather’s
    some with scriptures and positive quotes… enjoy!
    Faith Hope & Cherrytea recently posted..come away

  11. Hi Mel,
    I found your site through an old Facebook post of yours – Christian Bloggers Network. My husband & I launched a new blog recently to encourage Christian parents in raising their children. I am in the research mode everyday for a few hours to learn as much as I can to improve our site. Thank you for these good tips. They were most helpful and I look forward to your ‘Part 3 and beyond’!

    God Bless,
    Linda

    USSParenting
    Linda Crawford recently posted..Valentine’s Day- Red Gone Mad

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