Blogging Tips

Blogging Q&A: You Ask, I Answer

by Olivia

I would never consider myself established or a subject matter expert on blogging, but I do get DM’s and questions about blogging, especially from newbies. As many of you already know my blogging story, I wont bore you with a repeat. But I would have found it so helpful if a fellow blogger at the time had an open discussion with their readers and answered as many blogging questions as they could. So I thought I’d give it a try today.

As I have already said, I’m by no means an expert at this. But I really want to help new and or established bloggers, with any helpful advice I can give.

I took to Instagram and told my followers to ask me any blogging related questions, and I’ll be answering these on this post. But I want to you be able to ask questions in the comments too. So if you have any blogging related question you’d like answered, please leave a comment below and I’ll do my best to answer.

I’ll get started on the questions my lovely Instagram followers asked:

HOW DO YOU OVERCOME WRITERS BLOCK?

Writers block is something a lot of people struggle with. I have written about this topic before, but I will share some of my knowledge here. When my mind goes blank and no ideas or motivation is coming out, I tend to take a break. I remind myself that I am in charge of my schedule, and I am the only one that is putting pressure on myself to post on the days I do. In all honesty, nobody would notice even if I took a day off, and thats what I remind myself.

I also seek for inspiration to get the excitement back about writing. I ask friends or family if they have any ideas and I actually look at stock images. Im a visual person and looking at things makes me inspired.

WHAT ADVICE CAN YOU GIVE TO AN UPCOMING BLOGGER?

There are 2 pieces of advice that I wished I had done when I first started blogging, and I’ll go through them individually.


1. Consistency – Its so so important to remain consistent with your posting. Thats why having a schedule is so important. I think being consistent is so beneficial in the long run. It allows others to be exposed to your work on a regular basis. It shows brands and companies that you are serious about your blog and that you are reliable.


2. Interaction with other bloggers – When I first started I hardly every interacted with other peoples content. I always was under the impression that people would come to me and want to comment on my stuff. This of course is not the case. WordPress has such a great community and is full of such lovely people who want to support and love your blog, and if you are here you need to be the same. How can you expect to be found and expect comments when you don’t take the time to read and appreciate other peoples posts. Its a two way street!

WHAT DOES IT MEAN BY EXCERPT WHILE POSTING A BLOG POST?

If you are a WordPress user then you’ve probably seen the word excerpt on the right hand side when you are writing a post. An excerpt is basically a short summary of the post you have written. It will be what people on google or any other search browser will see when looking for your content.

They are beneficial to use, but I don’t actually use them myself. I would advice to use them if you are trying to optimise your site for SEO (search engine optimisation).

HOW DO YOU OBTAIN AFFILIATE LINKS AND SPONSORSHIPS?

I don’t know much on the topic of affiliate links as I haven’t done any as of yet, but I am linking this helpful post by Jenny in Neverland where she speaks on the topic and provides some great advice!

In regards to sponsorships, I think it’s important to put yourself out there. One thing I recently created after seeing a post by Bournemouth Girl, is a media kit. A media kit is a document which is you showcasing yourself, your work and your website. It’s a document you can send to brands that gives them a snapshot of who you are and what you do. You include your stats and some photography of your own that you have done. That way brands can see if they want to work with you and if their products or services will link to what your website is about.

DO YOU USE PINTEREST TO INCREASE ENGAGEMENT? IF YES, WHAT’S YOUR STRATEGY?

I have used Pinterest in the past yes, but as of recently I haven’t utilised it as much as I should have. When I have used it, its made a great difference to my engagement and helped increase traffic to my site for sure. My strategy is that I create the content for Pinterest as I am creating the blog post (I do this with Instagram content too). I use Unfold and some other apps to create the content, as its the best place (in my opinion) to make easy professional looking content.

Thanks so much for sending over those questions!
In the comments, please feel free to ask any blogger related questions. Let’s start a hub of information and a place for people to come to find out information about blogging.

Olivia x 
• Instagram • Twitter  • Pinterest

55 thoughts on “Blogging Q&A: You Ask, I Answer”

  3. I love how diverse and broad these questions were! Very interesting and helpful to bloggers of all sizes! A media kit is something I’ve looked into as well so as to solidify my brand and have an all encompassing representation out there of myself and the content I create. However.. my engagement rate is just not all that great and I feel it’d do more harm than good to be putting out statistics about how my work is being received 🙈

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. To be honest some brands might not even ask what your stats are, so you could get away with leaving those out if you didn’t want to include them! The last sponsored post I did, the brand didn’t ask me my stats! So maybe create one and then once your stats are at a level you wish to share, then add them in 🤗

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. Funnily enough, I’ve never had any brand, even the bigger ones I’ve worked with, ask me for stats or engagement rates or anything of the like! That’s why I’m not too concerned when I reach out to them.

        Like

    1. No problem. There are a few ways you can make money as a blogger. If you upgrade your WordPress plan to a premium plan, you get the feature to add ads onto your site. This creates a small (and I mean very small) amount of revenue. You can also have brands reach out to work with you or you can reach out to brands, that can create revenue.
      If you decide to go self-hosted you can use google ads which is a much better way to get ad revenue.
      Hope this answers your question!

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  15. This was very helpful ! Agree with all of it, I’m also a visual person so I also look at stock images or go on Pinterest when I’m feeling a bit creatively depleted !

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  16. hello! thank you so much for this helpful post. i’ve been in this platform for 10 years now (5 years active). given the nature or genre of my blog, i expect other people to come to me. i welcome anyone to my blog but i’m ‘scared’ to step out to the outside world… something like that 😅

    i think only recently i found the importance of two way interaction, and actually discovered reader. finding yours really an eye opener. thanks to you, i’m able to ‘open my eyes’ and believe that there’s more to it if i break the wall inside of me.

    to be honest my initial intentions for this blog is to write but as time goes by, it turns out to be more of a lyric blog. i kind of stop writing cos i’m insecure and not good in english. lately i’ve been thinking a lot about rediscover that part of me. i’m not a good writer, but i want to write; daily life or anything from my perspective. but i contemplated if the topic doesn’t suit my blog genre, should i create a side blog? would it be okay if i write with broken english? just wondering if you have some advice for this newbie-like blogger 😝

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thank you so much for sharing this. I think I speak for myself and other bloggers when it comes to be nervous and scared about posting content that is out of our “norm” to post.
      I think the only way you will ever know is to try. I would post the content you want to post!

      When I first started my blog in 2015 it was a beauty blog, about hair and makeup and nothing else. I left for 4 years and came back and rebranded into what it is today. A totally different niche and a totally different me.

      I think you should step out of your comfort zone and give it a try. You wont ever know unless you do!

      Your English seems great to me, I understood everything you wrote here in this comment! So you don’t even need to worry about that 🤗

      Like

      Reply
  17. Pingback: How The Ordinary Skincare Transformed My Skin – Olivia Lucie Blake

  19. Very great tips! Thanks for sharing. Interacting is something I’ve learned is necessary and I’m working on it. Managing my schedule and trying to keep up with everything, I always bypass the engaging part, but I’m getting better with that from week to week.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks for reading!
      It can be a struggle sometimes to keep up with blogging and everything else that comes with life, and I think we give each other grace in that department! 🙂 You’re doing great!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

Leave a Reply