1. SELF HOSTED EMAIL ADDRESS

One of the quickest and most widely effective ways to take your blog to the next level is to set up a custom domain email address. Subconsciously, when your readers see ‘[email protected]’ they automatically question your legitimacy and authority on the topics that you speak about. Self hosted email addresses are a small investment and render a large return!

Related: Setting up your custom domain email.

2. NETWORK AND CONNECT WITH OTHERS

Nathalie Lussier has this great catch phrase: “A rising tide lifts all boats”. I love that one because it really highlights the way in which connecting with others and working together can produce amazing results and in the long run it helps everyone! Some of the best networking I have done comes from connecting with others on Facebook groups. Some of my favourites include:

Savvy Business Owners – This is a private group for women who are or want to be Savvy Business Owners, hosted by Heather Crabtree.
For Love + Money – Hosted by Cailtin Bacher, this is a great, supportive community.
Brand IT Girls Connected – Brand IT Girl Connected is hosted by yours truly and it is a place to share and connect with other lady bloggers and business owners!

 

3. GIVE YOUR ABOUT PAGE A MAKE OVER

Your about page is one of the most frequently visited places your readers browse, so make sure it’s up to scratch!

There is nothing worse that finding an awesome blog and then when you delve deeper into the person behind it, you get hit with a half-hearted about page, a coming soon notice or worse, a broken link! This is your chance to really introduce yourself, tell your readers who you are and why they should listen to you! It’s prime real estate and with some easy little tweaks, you can get you about page looking great and have it go to work for you!

Related: Check out this guide to creating a stellar about page that engages your readers!

4. DESIGN A KILLER OPT-IN OFFER

One of the best ways to level up your blog game is to provide your readers with a way to stay connected with what you are doing without putting in too much effort. Mailing lists are great for this, because you can reach the readers that really care about what you are saying by speaking to them in their inbox. But getting people to sign up in the first place can be a challenge.

People love getting something for nothing (or almost nothing). So creating a killer opt-in offer is a great way to entice people into leaving their email addresses.

Some great opt-in ideas include:

• Creating a workbook or e-guide to something you know a lot about.
• Worksheets can be really helpful in giving your readers clarity on a specific topic.
• Give away a list of your favourite resources.
• Give away a few of you guarded secrets that have helped you to be the fabulous self that you are!

The main thing to consider when you are designing an opt-in offer is what will truly help your readers. Start by thinking about who you want to sign up to your opt in and then consider what problems, questions or needs that they have. Your opt-in offer needs to create the value for them, otherwise they won’t bother sharing their email address with you.

A great way of identifying what sort of opt in your readers want is to ask them! Perhaps on the blog itself, or maybe on your social media channels.

5. CLEAN UP YOUR SIDEBAR

The sidebar makes it or breaks it for me. It you have an overly monetized sidebar or perhaps an overly messy and cluttered sidebar, I will very quickly leave your site. I find these kinds of sidebars to be super distracting!

There are a huge array of sidebar widgets that you can use on your WordPress site to help create a beautiful sidebar, so there is no excuse for presenting your readers with a mess!

Related: 21 Widget to Dress Up your WordPress Sidebar.

Down times are a great opportunity to take your blog to the next level and with just a little effort and a few changes, you can reinvigorate your blog easily!

I see lots of passionate bloggers making some pretty big mistakes, and it’s heartbreaking, really! I want you to succeed so I want to share 5 things that could be damaging your blog in hope that we can iron out some of those kinks and together create a blogosphere that we are all happy to be involved in!

They are simple mistakes and sometimes it’s the simple mistakes that we over look! They are also easy things to fix and you can start fixing these problems today!

1. YOU DON’T HAVE IMAGES AND THEY’RE NOT EDITED

One of the reasons people love to browse blog is to look at the images that accompany posts. You may choose to find stock photos (and in case you missed it, here are my top 5 places to find stock images) for your blog posts or you might want to select an image from your own branded image library. Displaying images in your blog posts do two things: They help to break up the text, making it easier on the eye and they also keep your readers interested and illustrate points that you are making.

Another mistake that we see on blogs is that the images that are selected are either not edited or they are edited poorly. It’s not enough to just display images, you need to make them work within the confines of your branding – apply branded text over the top, use brand colours and apply your logo or url somewhere on the image so when people share your images on Social Media, your mark will be clearly visible. Images should also span the width of your content area, like this:

2. YOUR SIDEBAR IS A MESS

Keeping a clean and tidy sidebar is vital. It can be so overwhelming when the sidebar is riddled with ads and banners and to be honest, a disorganised sidebar will send me running every time. Some key things you should have on your sidebar include:

• Your image and a brief introduction, welcoming your readers to the blog.
• Your social media links.
• A search bar.
• Your blog categories or topics, neatly displayed.
• Popular or featured posts.
• Social Media widgets to make it easy for readers to connect.
• Any sponsors or a select few advertisements.

If you need more ideas, have a look at this list of 21 WordPress widgets that you can use to dress up your sidebar!

3. YOU DON’T PROOF READ YOUR POSTS

Not editing your posts is probably the main reason people are leaving your blog. There is nothing worse than blog posts that have spelling mistakes and grammar inconsistencies throughout, it makes it incredibly hard for your readers to stay engaged with your blog post under these conditions. And think about it this way: the more effort people are putting into trying to understand what you are saying, the less time they are actually connecting with what you are saying and absorbing the message you have for them.

It doesn’t take long to proof read your post. Read it out loud, ask a friend or partner to have a look over the post too. It will make a huge difference to the people you are hoping to connect with and will ultimately keep them coming back!

4. YOU ARE GIVING US UNCLEAR, INCONSISTENT CONTENT

I know it is super tempting to cover a range of topics and appeal to lots of different people, but I promise, this only works for a select few bloggers and it’s usually when they have a team of bloggers that specialise in different things. A Beautiful Mess is one of those multi-topic blogs but they also have a huge team of professionals working on producing quality content. There’s nothing wrong with setting out with the ultimate goal of building a multi-topic blog, but for the solo blogger, focusing down is key.

Blog readers seek consistency – and this doesn’t mean writing the same content over and over again, it just means that they are looking for an expert and when you write on everything from branding to interior design to the trials of raising a family, you are not being an expert and you are certainly not being consistent.

Focusing down (or niching) is great strategy to build authority within your field and also really helps you to produce quality content.

At Brand IT Girl, I cover two main areas: business and design. Within these two areas there are sub-topics: Within the parent of Business, I cover blogging and productivity and within Design, I cover branding and web design. This gives me a range of topics to talk about on my blog, providing readers with just enough variety without overwhelming them with inconsistent content spanning a range of interests.

 
 

5. YOUR BLOG POSTS ARE HARD ON THE EYE.

I absolutely love sub-headings, it’s a little taste of what is to come and really helps to engage me. If I see a big slab of text without any breaks, I am automatically repelled. Instead try using different sized fonts and different colours to create break out points and interest within your blog posts. I use sub-headings to punctuate each point I am making and it gives my readers trigger points when they first skim the article to know if they want to read further.

One of my favourite places to browse on blogs is the sidebar – it’s prime real estate and there are literally thousands of widgets out there that you could use to dress it up and maximise it’s potential!

So if you have a self-hosted WordPress theme, here are a selection of my favourite sidebar widgets!

SOCIAL MEDIA ICONS

1. Simple Social Icons is by far my favourite social media icons widget. It’s easy to use and looks great.
2. Web Font Social Icons Widget & Shortcode is another good one, but it is also a paid option – at $8.00 though, you can’t go wrong!

INSTAGRAM WIDGET

3. Enjoy Instagram is a neat and tidy Instagram solution.
4. SnapWidget is my personal favourite – you generate a code and use a text widget box to display it.
5. Instagram Feed is another really great plugin that you can use on your sidebar.

PINTEREST WIDGET

6. Pinterest Pinboard Widget is my favourite Pinterest widget if you choose not to use the widget builder on the Pinterest website.
7. Pinterest Master is a neat tool that you can use to display your favourite Pinterest board.
8. Pretty Pinterest Pins lets you pick which boards and pins to display.

TWITTER WIDGET

9. Easy Twitter Feed Widget will add your Twitter Feed to your sidebar.
10. AccessPress Twitter Feed allows you to display a real time Twitter Feed on your website, could be really useful if you are hosting a Twitter Chat!
11. Twitter Timeline Widget by Jetpack is another great way to display your latests Tweets on your sidebar.

DISPLAY SPECIAL TEXT WIDGETS

12. WP Easy News Scroller is a paid app that allows you to display announcements and news on your blog sidebar. It’s a one of $16 fee.
13. Quotes Collection is a great way to display testimonials on your sidebar.
14. Black Studio TinyMCE Widget adds a little visual editor to your text widget, meaning you really don’t need to know any HTML or CSS!

MAILING LIST WIDGETS

15. MailChimp for WordPress is a godsend if you use MailChimp (which I recommend) for your email subscriptions!
16. Genesis eNews Extended is perfect for sign up forms on your sidebar if you are using one of the Brand IT Girl premade Genesis themes.

POST, PAGE AND TAG WIDGETS

17. Advanced Tag List Widget displays your tags in a neat list rather than the default WordPress cloud that can often be too messy!
18. jQuery Archive List makes it easy to display archived posts, breaking them down into year and month.

MISC WIDGETS

19. Remove Widget Titles does just that, making it easier for you!
20. Simple Image Widget makes it easier to display images on your sidebar, giving you options like opening in a new tab!
21. Display Widgets allows you to choose what widgets you want displayed on what page, making your sidebar a really flexible space.

That’s just a few of the amazing range of widgets out there that you can use to dress up your sidebar. Which are your favourites?

(PHOTO: Alex Lv)

We are basically all stalkers to one degree or another. We love to see behind the scenes, know some inside goss and maybe even try the same perfume that you wear on the daily. That’s not creepy right? It’s engagement!

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