Tag Archives: How to Blog

How to Set Up a Blog

June 28, 2017 By in Blogging Tips Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 24 Comments

Starting my blog – Fashion and Style Police, was one of the best decisions I have ever made. It all started with wanting to share my ideas and thoughts with people. I saw it as a medium through which I could express myself. Little did I know that a profitable business would be born from it too.

 

UK Blog Fashion and Style Police Image

 

Fast forward to where I am right now, blogging has seriously helped elevate my life as a freelancer. It has given me the opportunity to not only be able to help a lot of people but it has also helped me provide for my family and be there for them whenever they need me.

Just like me there has been a great increase in the number of people who want to also start a blog. When I started my blog, it involved a lot of trial and error. So I thought I’d create this simple guide to help you set up your own blog.

 

Step #1 Get a hosting plan and domain name

This is the most important set when you want to set up your blog. A hosting panel will is like a space where your blog will be kept. All the information from your blog will be held by the hosting company so as to give you and your readers access to your blog.

A domain name is the name of your blog. It forms the URL of your blog. For example, when you want to come to my blog, Fashion and Style Police, you have to type in “www.fashionandstylepolice.com”. That link is the domain name of my blog. So, whenever anyone want to come to your blog, they will have to type in the domain name. Once they type in the domain name, the hosting company grants them access to your blog.

Getting a domain name and hosting requires that you pay a monthly or yearly fee. That’s not much of a problem as domain names and hosting come at really low and affordable prices.

 

Step #2 Go for WordPress

Once you have your domain name and hosting sorted out, you need to install the blog platform that will actually enable you to start blogging. Although there are a lot of blogging platforms out there, I recommend you use WordPress. WordPress is easy to use and most hosting services have the one-click-install-Wordpress option.

 

Step #3 Install and customize a theme

The next thing is to select a theme for your blog. The theme is what gives your blog an appealing look. Themes are easily customizable. You can change the colour, rearrange the elements on your blog and completely tweak the design of your blog. I got my theme for £99 about 2 years ago, and it is one of the best £99 I have ever spent!

 

Fashion and Style Police Image

 

Step #4 Install plugins

To get your blog to do more you can install plugins. Plugins help you to add some really cool functionalities to your blog like allow you to track the number of people who come to view your blog through Google analytics.

Plugins like Yoast SEO help you make sure that your blog is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) friendly. Plugins like Akismet make sure that you don’t get spam or bots writing comments and make sure that you only get real humans commenting.

 

Step #5 Add content

This is the best part. Now that you’ve got your blog up the next thing is to add content. You can now start creating the content you would like to share with your audience. Feel free to add images and even videos to help enhance your content.

 

I hope someone out there finds this How to set up a blog post very useful. Feel free to add any tips that may have helped you in your blogging journey in the comments section below. You can also ask me any blogging question. I promise to respond or find you the answer. You can also read more blogging tips in my ebook, available on Amazon.

Happy blogging.

 

How to Blog and Work Full Time

July 24, 2016 By in Blogging Tips Tags: , , , , , , , , , 54 Comments

Fashion and Style Police

 

If you think balancing blogging and your full-time job is impossible, then you’re wrong. You can do both at the same time successfully. I worked and blogged at the same time when I first set up Fashion and Style Police. I had a customer service job in Manchester which I hated. I had to commute for over 4 hours to and fro work, on the slowest, most unreliable train service ever. So trust me when I say my job experience was not pleasant. Apart from the commuting, I hated the job itself. It was an office job and all, but it was not for me at all. It was killing my creative mind slowly so blogging became an outlet for me. But I won’t deny the fact that it was a lot of work, running a blog and having a full-time job.  I had to plan and organise every aspect of the blog to get things going.
From my experience, if you love writing, have a good plan and the right mindset, you can achieve this easily. In the beginning it may be a bit tricky but you will adjust to it in no time. The trick is to use every minute you have efficiently and stay focused. You can blog and work full-time by:

Assessing your daily activities
Observe your daily routine. Write it out in a journal if you have to, so you have a clear perspective of all your daily activities. Next to each activity write down an estimate of how much time you spend on it.  It doesn’t have to be exact; a rough estimate will do.
You’ll be able to see how much time goes for non-productive tasks like watching TV, chatting on Whatsapp, or going on social media.  You can use that time for writing your blog posts, editing pictures, scheduling tweets, sharing your content on social media, or whatever you need to do for your blog.
You can also use time spent commuting to reply your blog comments, read and comment on other blogs, send emails and connect with your readers.
Being creative with time
If you want to balance blogging with your full-time job, you don’t only need to make use of already existing free time but you also have to create time. Waking up an hour early gives you a head start for the day. Use that extra hour to work on your blog. If you are focused, that one hour is enough to do a good amount of work on your blog because you likely won’t have any distraction. In addition to that, make use of your lunch time. Let’s be honest: no one uses one hour to eat lunch. Share your lunch time with your blogging activities.

Planning your blog posts
If you have your blog post ideas ready, it saves you time spent thinking of them. Have a notebook or a handy app to take note of post ideas, especially those that crop up at weird times. Writing an outline for those ideas even if it’s a sketchy one helps. Have an editorial calendar where you write down which blog post you should work on. The idea behind this is that as soon as you have free time, you can start work immediately.

Scheduling blog and social media posts
Automation is your best friend. Automating your posts allows you to have your content up automatically. Scheduling your tweets in advance helps get your tweets out when you want them. Make it a habit to create content in advance and schedule them. This will help you save and utilize your time effectively.

Do you blog and work full-time? How do you balance them both?

How to Make Your Blog Stand Out

July 11, 2016 By in Blogging Tips Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 53 Comments

I read hundreds of blogs a week.. So trust me when I say I have seen them all. The good, the not so good, the bad, the ugly, and the very ugly. My blog isn’t perfect. In fact it is nowhere near perfect. I still have a lot of work to do on it, but it is where I need it to be for now. I go on so many blogs on a daily basis, many of them I won’t visit again unless I have to. So I thought I should share some tips on how to make your blog stand out from the rest.

Fashion and Style Police Image

 

Here are some features my favourite blogs have:

 

Have a Sleek Design

My definition of a sleek design is simple, chic, easy to navigate, and not overloaded with ads or unnecessary widgets in the sidebar. I like to be able to comment on a blog post easily and quickly too.

 

Mobile Friendly & Quick to Load

I like mobile friendly blogs and I like blogs that are quick to load, because I usually browse through my favourite blogs on my iPhone. Some blogs are painfully slow, it takes ages for a post to load, and I find it so frustrating. You having a mobile friendly quick to load blog is an easy way to stand out as a blogger.

 

Regular Posting

I like blogs that are updated regularly, and by regularly I mean daily. I hate it when I read a post or 2 that I really like, only for the blogger to not post a new blog post for a week. That puts me right off. I hate waiting.

 

Pretty Pictures

I am a very visual person, and if you read my blog regularly, you would know that. I enjoy taking photos. I have been playing around with my Canon camera, and I am also currently taking a Lightroom course to improve my editing skills, so I am still a work-in-progress. But I am not where I used to be 3 years ago or even 6 months ago. The quality of my photos have improved massively and that is because I pay special attention to them.

Paying attention to your photography is one of the easiest ways to stand out as a blogger. Take it from me. Many blogs have not so good photos, and that is me putting it mildly. You will stand out easily by having amazing outfit or product shots, with the right props, pose and lightening. Go the extra mile, it is never crowded.

 

Have a Search Box

Make sure the theme of your blog layout comes with a search box. It is a very useful tool to have. It makes it easy for brands, PRs, and You to find old blog posts. As a blogger outreach consultant, I may sometimes have to dig into your blog to find relevant blog posts before contacting a blogger.  A blog not having a search box means I have to go through the entire archives or rely on Google to find the relevant blog posts. Most times I just move on to the next blog.

 

Categorise your Blog Posts

I see so many blog posts listed as ‘uncategorized’. That is a big no-no in my eyes. I am an organised freak so all my blog posts have to fall into a category. You not categorising your blog posts is off-putting. For example, I may just want to read your fashion posts, but you may also blog about pets sometimes, if you have your posts categorised, it will be so easy for me to find the fashion posts that interest me.

 

How do you make your blog pop? How do you make your blog stand out?

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