Tips&Tricks for cheap and easy blogging

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There is a common misconception surrounding blogs, which is when you start you must have money to spend. Money to spend on buying advertising or having a top of the range Mac, a DSLR Camera and high-technology photo editing software such as Photoshop. As much as I would love to be able to have access to all of  those things, I have managed to get by on a very old Dell, my iPhone camera and a number of free services. I have to admit, blogging isn't easy and can be very time consuming. It is also a slow process trying to get viewers and I am only just about nearing 3000 viewers in total. But once you get into the swing of things and with the help of these low budget tips and tricks, becoming a blogger may be more than just a dream!

Social Media
First of all I think it is important that you have an audience that you can begin with. If you already have 500+ friends on Facebook and 1000+ followers on Instagram your chances of getting a few viewers on your first post are already looking pretty good. I personally use Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram a lot and therefore hit 100 views on my first post fairly quickly. Apps like Instagram and Pinterest are also excellent sources for ideas and inspiration!

Bloglovin'
Again, another sort of social media platform but this one is specifically for bloggers! This is an excellent website to use to start broadening your audience, seeing other peoples posts and people actually following your posts! This is a must have for any blogger who hopes to one day have a very large following.

Third-party templates
Once people click on a link that directs them to your blog you want them to stay there. Although we say don't judge a book by its cover unfortunately this isn't always the case and the way your blog looks will leaving a lasting impression on your bloggers. Although you can tweak around with the default templates provided by your platform, after a while you will probably want to venture out and find more specific templates to your taste. Luckily if you search on Google you will find a whole selection of free templates of various layouts and colours!

Dafont.com
To further personalise your blog you may want to look at creating a banner for the top of your blog or a signature to go at the end of your blogposts. In addition you may want to explore different fonts rather than sticking to Arial, Comic Sans or Times New Roman. Dafont has a huge selection of different free fonts that are easy to download and install.

Dropbox
I have found this little app incredibly useful for transferring over pictures from my phone onto my laptop quickly and efficiently to upload on my blogs. This is handy if you only have one or two pictures that you want to upload. If you have a folders worth you will probably better off doing this manually or I use iCloud sharing for iPhone.

Gimp
Once you have your photos you may want to edit them to make them more interesting for your blog. For ages I've been trying to find a product like Photoshop to use but couldn't seem to find one anywhere. Therefore I was delighted to come across a programme called Gimp that is totally free to download and has plenty of features to help created a banner, or editing pictures. For example I took one of my simple holiday pictures.


and with a little editing and adding one of many quotes that I love from Harry Potter I made a picture more meaningful ( I definitely will be creating a blog post about this quote!)

Picture taken on iPhone | Quote taken from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Imagination and Creativity
This is where things start getting more expensive, and no I don't mean you'll be out of pocket. Rich content is what is going to make your readers really come back over everything else. If you write a post that you are passionate about and that contains personality then people are going to enjoy your blog. Don't hesitate to be yourself and don't just follow the tone of your favourite blogger because that;'s them, not you!

Time
Probably the most expensive yet most important requirement of blogging is time. You need time to put into your posts making sure that they have great content, well written text, interesting photos and a good presentation. Also it takes a lot of time for your followers and readers to grow. Sometimes you have to be proactive and get people to look at your blog, whether it be bringing it up in conversations, sharing on social media, following other bloggers and commenting on their profiles in the hope they do the same; it all takes time. I'm still waiting for a good set of readers but slowly I am getting there!


Are there any other free tips and tricks that you have found useful that you would like to share? If so leave a comment and if I think they are particularly good I may add them to this post or create a post number 2 (with credit and link to your blog of course)

withloveAmrit

“Don’t focus on having a great blog. Focus on producing a blog that’s great for your readers.” - Brian Clarke

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4 comments:

  1. Such a good post, so helpful to people like me who are just starting out in the blogging world! Thank you :-)


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    1. Thank you for your feedback, I am delighted that this post has helped someone!
      withloveAmrit♥

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  2. very useful tips
    very good post

    colors

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  3. I think another great tip for bloggers is to get involved in blogger chats on twitter. I know this comes under using social media but it's a great way to interact with new bloggers and get your blog out there!

    This was a great post and am going to download that photo editing app now! (My photography skills aren't amazing so let's hope this saves me)

    Aarti | www.aartificial.com

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