Y'all wanna improve your crochet blogging game huh? Well y'all have come to the right place! Let's jump right at it.
To start you will need a theme, host, domain and not all in that order.
A host. I have always been attached to Bluehost although there are more hosting services out there. For example, godaddy is one of the biggest. Then I recommend wordpress.org (don't get confused with wordpress.com) for the platform.
A domain. In Bluehost packages, there is a domain included. Get your domain when purchasing your hosting package. If you just want a domain, google sells them too (along with just about everyone else).
A theme. Now themes I could talk about all day! You can get themes from Restored 316 (highly recommend), Pretty Darn Cute Designs (also a good one), and StudioPress. I have bought themes from all of these places but my favorite has got to be Restored 316. She has very professional looking designs that are easy to navigate. In the end, I highly recommend a theme with genesis framework.
Setting everything up. I'm not going there. There are so many tutorials out there telling and showing you how to start and set up a self hosted blog like this one.
Let's get real here. How do y'all really up your blogging game. Make sure you improve your SEO.
Improving SEO. I use the Yoast SEO plugin to help guide me some. Other than that, have alt text in your photos, use the title in the beginning text of the post, never reuse a post title, have a minimum of 300 words per post to start, link to an outsource, link an old post and make a call to action (this will help with commenting which helps SEO).
Sharing. Before you even start questioning what, add share buttons to your posts/pages. There are plugins for this. Once you have that squared away, think about activating Jetpack's publicize. Next, I don't know a single professional blogger that doesn't have a social media scheduler. There are many options ViralTag (love it), CoSchedule, Hootsuite and Tailwind. Begin scheduling!
Improving stats. Increase those stats! How could y'all possibly do that? Welllllll….. There are many ways to do this. Let's hit the areas most people miss. Be yourself. Yes, I just said that. Be yourself, most bloggers are scared with, “what if they don't like me?”. I say, who cares. Not everyone will like me. I've had those bad comments and emails, calling me a few choice words. In other words, yes you have to have a steel wall to be a blogger, but you can do it! Haha…we are getting a bit off track.
Back to stats. Being yourself will help fans relate, which will make them bigger fans and create super fans. Have y'all ever heard a super fan stop talking about what they are a fan of? I haven't. Let them talk and talk and talk y'all's stats right up!
Remember SEO. It's important for stats the better SEO, the better your traffic will be. Do y'all also remember sharing? It gets the word out. It's important too. Or even a nice and easy to function blog which goes back to theme. Making it nice and easy to function will make people want to come back. Lastly, content. Give them something they want and they will come and come back. I'll talk more about content later though.
Subscribers. At first, we all think getting subscribers will be easy. Then we get a reality check. It isn't always hard getting subscribers but giving something free if they subscribe, banners across the top (Don't do pop ups. People only get mad.), and giveaways that following or completing tasks (Never require it though. They will only get super mad at you.) Lastly, don't get upset if someone unsubscribes. If they unsubscribe, they are not your target audience. Which means on social media, someone else that is your target audience will which in turn is really good! So don't get sad, upset or hurt by it. It's not personal even though it feels like it, and it's all how you look at it. Think positive!
Content. Content is king. Quality over quantity always. If you have good content that people want, people will come.
Y'all really want followers? Care about them. I can't teach that but if it weren't for them, you wouldn't have your blog. It costs a lot of money to run a blog and if they aren't around, it wouldn't support itself. Appreciate them and make sure they know it.
Thank y'all for sticking around. Y'all are the best!
In you asked in your give away what is your favorite pattern. For me it’s the football hat. With Superbowl coming up, I plan to make a few. Thank you
My favorite crochet pattern thus far is the virus shawl. I’m fairly new to crocheting and I really enjoyed making this.
thank you for such giveaway and i would love to win