OK, it’s that time again to evaluate how my blog is doing for my social media class.  I’m happy to report that much of what I’ve learned so far, I’ve applied and have seen some pretty good success. Since starting my blog one month and 10 days ago, I’ve posted 12 blogs and have made 25 new blogger friends. Not bad! The biggest challenges that remain at this point (and as mentioned in my previous blog on this topic) are continuously finding interesting and new ideas for beauty / makeup topics and posting regularly to my blog.  With working full time, being a student and trying to maintain a healthy personal life balance, it can be hard to find time to blog.  Blogging is about work and dedication and knowing how to combine everything into a post to make each one as amazing as the previous.  If you really enjoy blogging as much as I do, you will find the time to “squeeze it in” as much as you can.

Today, I will share with you some information I’ve learned which I find to be most valuable for your blog’s success.  The first is with respect to search engine optimization (SEO) techniques which can help optimize your blog and maximize search engine rankings.  SEO techniques learned so far include (1) developing a good algorithm – using good relevant keywords, tags, and text on your posts; (2) keeping content fresh and new – the fresher the content, the more relevant your blog page will be in searches; (3) linking your blog site to external reputable links; (4) including at least eight keyword hyperlinks and alt tags in your posts; (5) using bullets, bold, and underlined (hyperlinked) text, for emphasis; (6) placing keywords in captions and heading (H1 headings have the most emphasis); (7) choosing a handful of popular social media sites to join (I finally joined Twitter!); and (8) posting comments on related blogs.

Going back to the #3 and #7 above, you can get a decent number of views on your blog site if you share your posts on the various social media sites you have. So whenever you make a post to your blog, go ahead and post it on your Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or whatever other social media sites you use.  The more people that see your posts, the more traffic will come to your blog site.

Most of us are visual people and including great images and/or videos in your post will attract readers.  There is nothing like a compelling image on your blog post.  Think about how many times you’ve clicked on a post because of the image you saw.  Do you tend to click more on the posts with an interesting image?  I’m sure you do!

Remember, your focus should be on writing great content and making great friends.  In my opinion, the more friends you have that know about your site and read your blog posts, the more people can share your articles with their friends or elsewhere.  So, proactively find blogs to follow and comment on other’s posts – ENGAGE.  You’ll see that some bloggers will follow you back! 🙂

Do you have any other interesting blogging tips you’d like to share?  If so, feel free to comment below.  I’d love to hear from you!

Thank you for reading!

XO