Hey all, so a couple of months ago now I attended an event at Amazon HQ to get some blogging advice from some of the experts in the field! It was a free event with talks from Ella (Coco’s tea party), Gem (Gem Fatale and writer at Cosmo), talks from the Asos team on their fashion ranges and then Reena (Fashion Daydreams). The main focus was on how to take your blog to the next step and to monetize through affiliate schemes. I wanted to do a blog post a couple of months on, to tell you what I have learnt and what actions I have taken to improve my blog! It was a great event and really opened my eyes to a blog being a hobby and then a blog being a profession! Here is what steps I have taken;
Blog Design
You may have noticed I have had a large tidy up on my blog in terms of design. I illustrated my own banner and have already tried to pick up some HTML skills but I got really lazy with it and learning new things. I knew what I wanted to achieve on my blog wasn’t going to happen over night and I was frustrated I didn’t have the extra time to learn. So I put my ideas to the lovely Abby (Abbzzw) who was an absolute amazing person to help me getting my blog up to scratch.
Firstly, you have to not be afraid to let go of the design you get attached to and take on some constructive criticism. After the event I was SO READY to have someone tell me exactly what I was doing wrong and break it down for me so I could learn, and Abby did just that! Change can be the best thing for progression and to step up what you are already doing. Abby completely stripped my blog back to it’s bare bones and cleaned up all the HTML, i’d recommend getting someone who knows their stuff! I then kept the design very clean yet still stuck to my fun and pretty aesthetic. What this meant is my blog now runs faster, has cleaner HTML so google doesn’t hate me and allows me to post content a lot easier with automatic text colours etc.
Post Content
My content has been so much fun to make now I know what I am doing!! There was so much I wasn’t doing like ‘ALT TAGS’ on images and actually saving my images with a good name that then helps people to search my blog for content.
For example rename an image from your camera ‘SAM00777’ for example to, ‘Paige Joanna Miss Selfridge White Dress’; this can make all the difference when people search on google and your blog with clean traffic, even when pinning to pinterest!!
If this all sounds like nonsense, it used to be for me as well but I read up on it, wrote notes and kept going over it to make myself more knowledgeable on cleaner post writing. Making links NO FOLLOW is really important as well, especially if in two years time an old post you wrote contains a link to a garment that sold out and doesn’t exist anymore, then this is known as a ‘broken link’ and again contributes to google and search engines not liking your blog (as it may contain spam or bugs).
There are some great help blogs out there that can teach you all these things.
Affiliate
This is something the event went over a lot and being honest I had no idea how good it could be. I am still getting used to and learning the techniques of affiliate programs in terms of gaining a substantial amount through it. I’d recommend signing up to the Amazon one though as it’s really simple to use and they have loads of helpful pages on the website to teach you.
One thing I would say with affiliate is always keeping true to your content and readers with what you feature. Don’t just add in links here there and everywhere for the sake of trying to earn money. There are many of affiliate programmes you can really make the most out of.
Self Help
After the event I realized the only way I am going to get better and happier on my blog is to help myself. I now plan plan plan my content, schedule posts as far in advance as I can usually making a few posts on a Sunday ready for the week ahead. Using ‘Buffer’ which means you can schedule your Facebook and Twitter posts, if like me you work full time. I genuinely feel like the event helped shake me out of my funk, gave me the energy to work on the skills I had already learnt and made me believe I could take it further.
Images from Classing Time Blog (Thank you) 🙂
Since the event a couple of months ago I now know you can achieve whatever you want if you push yourself. Plan ahead, research, don’t be afraid of change, try out affiliate programmes and stay true to yourself. I am still learning every day and it’s hard not to compare yourself but love what you do and others will love it too.
Hope you liked this post!