Everyone and their dog (literally) has a blog (meet: TrotterPup and GrumpyCat). Why wouldn’t you? It’s a great way to build your personal brand, share your ideas, express your creativity and talk about the things you like and enjoy the most. Many people start blogging for a hobby. Those that are serious about writing will start a blog to potentially make into a viable business; And a successful business it can be. FastCompany posted an article today on how the top fashion bloggers can make upwards of $1,000,000 to show off their loveable outfits. On the flip side, It is easy to get discouraged as there are many blogs out there and thus so much competition. However, we all know that if something was easy to find success with then everyone would be doing it, right?
Think of Leandra Medine, also known as Man Repeller. One or the original fashion bloggers of our time. Now, attending school on the upper east side in NYC, I’m sure she did not experience much financial hardship growing up. However, her first blog was titled: Boogers and Bagels. The reason? She stopped at a bagel joint in NYC to grab a bagel and cream cheese, and stopped to eat it. As she was eating it, she found a booger in her cream cheese. Now, even just reiterating that story brings me to the verge of vomiting and extreme nausea. That’s the beauty of creative and persistent people.
They take the things that may cause some people embarrassment, and turned stomachs and transform it into something to share with others. Not only that, as I peruse the original blog: boogersandbagels.blogspot.ca I find that not many of her posts have any comments. Readers weren’t showing any love.
But when you think of how 3 days after Leandra launched her next blog, Manrepeller, it was featured on Refinery29 and launched into internet stardom, then you realize that success can come at any time and things aren’t that bad, are they?
Want to get your blog to the top of search engines and find a loyal following?
Post unique content
Don’t copy someone else blogging style and expect to find a unique and loyal following; people will tend to drift towards the blog that is posting the original content. You do not want to be conceived as a fake. Plus, if you want to find real enjoyment in creating your blog posts it is better to use your own creative ideas rather than always being one step behind the trend. Who knows, your next creative idea might be the next big thing that blows up!
Let Your Readers Know The Real You
Fill your blogs with emotion. Talk about your feelings, your passions, how you want to make a difference. Talk about things that matter! I think we’re all really sick of reading about outfits that are ‘cute’, expensive and ‘cute’, or sponsored and ‘cute’. Tell me the story behind it. Tell us how you had to bet your last eggo waffle to win it. Tell us how your best friend or your ex-boyfriend said it was god-awful which made you want it even more! That’s the thing that gets me to read a blog post from start to finish.
Make it social
Don’t just post on your blog, share your content through all your social media mediums. Research current events and trends that people are bound to be searching and find ways to work these things into your content. When people are hitting google for “Kimye Wedding Pictures” your blog is sure to come up.
Update Often
People are getting bombarded every day with emails, Instagrams, commercials, tweets, radio ads, youtube videos, and more. You need to stay relevant and current to avoid getting lost in the interwebs. This means posting often, keeping it relevant, and making it memorable. Make a schedule and stick to it. Aim to publish at least 7 articles/ posts per week. If you post one per day then you can guarantee that people will be relying on your blog for content and coming back for more!
Make Friends!
I think this is the quintessential tool for being a successful blogger. Find individuals that have similar interests as you and build a great support system of interesting blogs that your readers will love. This means that you can ask them for advice, give them tips on what works for you, and most importantly: share links. If you link your followers to other blogs and they link you back, this is a great way of gaining a readership that you may never have had. Plus, your blog is now viewed as a trusted source of information considering these other bloggers vouched for you. This is why blog curation sites like NOWMANIFEST.COM are so successful. They feed off of one blogger’s followers and direct them to similar blogs that they will equally enjoy. This creates a network of followers and blogger’s who loyal fanbase will continue to grow exponentially.
But wait! There’s more! Reason #2 why this works so well: SEO. A website that has many external links feeding back to it instantly gets a better rating on google searches and gets skyrocketed to the top of search results, meaning instant 10000x followers. 🙂
Do your own thing and experiment until you find what works! That’s the best kind of blogging lessons you’ll find!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leandra_Medine
Read the ManRepeller’s Original Post here
Here are where the photographs are sourced:tumblr: chanelbagsandcigarettes, thefashionreef, warholfactory, cakedupmakeup
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