Four Pillars of Growing Your Blog
Whenever anybody asks me how to grow their blog I always circle back to four main points. After almost two years of blogging I have found the four pillars on growing a blog. I am no expert, and I have miles and miles to go when it comes to blog growth but I will do so by following these four aspects. These pillars are good quality, catering to readers, consistency, and being original. These are all pretty general topics but more detailed principles can be applied to them which in turn, increase your blog readers.
Good Quality
It's important to make sure that your blog has nothing but the best possible quality images, posts, and format. The first thing you can do to help fix this is to invest in a professional camera. A good Canon or Nikon DLSR camera will take your photo quality to the next level. Not only will you feel more confident in your blog but your followers will notice immediately. I would find a friend who can help take pictures of you in your favorite outfits as well. By putting in the extra time to travel to a nearby location and spend a day shooting for your blog, you will be reaping the rewards of great quality photos for your blog and Instagram.
Good quality posts are also very important. I would say editing your blog posts and re-reading them to make sure they are prefect is very important. This is something that I need to work on...and I mean really need to work on! You establish credibility when your facts and spelling are all correct in your posts. Finally, make sure that you have a professional looking blog. This is why I redesigned mine. I felt that it was important to show off my professionalism as a blogger and allow my creativity to flow as well through a more sleek and professional blog platform.
Catering to Readers
There would be no Daily Dose of Prep without all of you! My readers are super important to me, as they are to any blogger. It is important that you keep your readers and followers in mind when you are writing a blog. You need to think about what they want to read and why your posts are important to them. After all, if you all came to read a blog about grunge fashion when you were looking for preppy fashion, you most likely wouldn't come back to read more.
It's also important to show readers that you care about them! This can be done by going through their feeds and liking their photos, responding to their comments, and hosting giveaways for them. Giveaways are a great way to not only increase your follow count but also say thank you to your readers for all of their support. Make sure to giveaway something that your readers will want, even if it's something small like stickers or a phone case.
The thing to take away from this pillar though is to understand how important your readers are and know how supportive they are of you. Understand that as much as they support you, it's important to support them through liking their photos, commenting on their photos, and sometimes following them back on social medias! They clearly show that they care about you, you need to show that you care about them as well.
Consistency
Being consistent is extremely important if you are trying to take your blog to the next level. You must establish a schedule for posting and uploading photos. Your readers will be expecting posts often. Whether it be once a day, every other day, or only once a week, sticking to a schedule is highly important. I wouldn't recommend posting any less than once a week. Your readers will expect posts on certain days and it's up to you to cater to their expectations. Treat blogging like a job and soon you will not only receive packages from companies but you might get paid to post for companies.
Being Original
Finally, being original is crucial when blogging. There are so many bloggers out there and a lot of us are posting about the same thing. If not the same thing, we are posting about the same style or topics. The difference amongst all of these bloggers is our specific personality. Anyone can write about fashion and college or any topic really but what draws readers in and keeps them reading is the personal spin that a writer places on their blog. Without personality, your blog isn't effective on your audience. After all, nobody wants a knock off of another great blog. It's best to work twice as hard and establish a solid and unique brand for yourself.
A pro tip about being original is that if you see someone copying you, although it sometimes it can be a little annoying, keep in mind that copying is the greatest form of flattery. There are bloggers that have directly copied me on a few things, and it means that whatever I'm doing is working. My ideas and creativity are good enough to have people turning heads and directly interpreting it. If you are someone who wants to try another blogger's idea out, that's totally cool -- just be sure to give credit where credit is due or message them!
If you stick to these four main points and carry them out to the best of your ability, your blog will soar. Yes, it will take time and you just need to be patient (which is so hard sometimes!) but I promise you it will be worth it!
Stay Preppy,
Lucy
