Five ways to get your blog noticed

I'm not going to pretend that my blog is popular. It's still a baby and still has a lot of growing potential. However I've been pretty happy with its growth so far, considering that I've not been able to dedicate much time to it. Therefore I thought I'd share a few things that have helped my blog out so far, in the hope that they might help out one or two of you.
1. Leave comments (on posts that interest you!) My first tip is the most obvious, and something that I expect everyone will do anyway. If I'm on my laptop I try to check Bloglovin semi-frequently, as I've found that being amongst the first few to comment on a "popular" blogger's post is a good way of generating more visitors. It's also important to remember to leave comments on blogs with fewer followers; they deserve love too (and if I'm honest, often have much more interesting content!). Plus it's always lovely when there's a chance that you might get a reply.
Remember that what you write is a reflection of you. It's really frustrating for everyone when someone leaves a generic "Great post!" comment followed by their blog link. I, for one, would not be interested in reading someone's blog if they're too lazy to think of something interesting. Do your best to express your personality in your comments, or at the very least write something specific to the post. Another thing that I found improved my page views was learning how to leave a hyperlink in a comment. Generally people will be too lazy to copy and paste your blog's URL, and so leaving a link increases your chances of new visitors. There's an easy hyperlink tutorial here. (If you're not sure if you've done the hyperlink correctly you can always use the 'preview comment' feature to check first!)


2. Sponsor your favourite blog For the last month or so I've been sponsoring the lovely Becky over at Becky Bedbug. I chose to sponsor Becky as I love her content and visit her blog really often, so I guessed other people would too! My page views have increased since I became a sponsor, and I even gained a few followers after Becky did her monthly sponsor shout out. Thanks Becky! Last month I also sponsored a blog with more followers. I've gained much fewer page views through this blog, probably due to the number of sponsors being overwhelming. This is something to consider if you're thinking about sponsoring - fewer sponsors means you'll stand out. Many blogs offer advertising from as little as £1, so there's not much to lose by giving it a try!

3. Offer to write guest posts By offering to write a post for someone else you're also getting a chance to reach a whole new bunch of readers. It's easy, when thinking of a guest post idea, to get a bit selfish and try to save all your best ideas for your own blog. But remember that people will only be interested in checking out your blog if they actually enjoy reading the guest post, so only write something that you'd be proud of posting on your own blog. You also don't want to disappoint the blogger you offered to help out by writing something mediocre - you are doing them a favour after all!

4. Use social media Once you've written a post you need to promote it. Unfortunately I've not had time to do this yet, but it's pretty obvious that the more places you leave a link to your post, the more visitors you're likely to have. Lots of bloggers use Twitter, Facebook and even Google Plus to promote their posts. However fewer people think of sharing their post on StumbleUpon, Reddit and Pinterest. Research all the resources and use them. But be aware that some sites like StumbleUpon require you to share other peoples' posts as well as your own to avoid breaking their terms of use. It's also important to remember moderation. People don't want to be reminded daily about your latest post - one share on each site is enough. As well as promotion, social media are also a great networking tool (that's what they're there for, right?). Taking the time to build relationships, and even friendships, with other bloggers will go a long way to increasing your readership. It's also lovely to interact with a few like-minded people and share ideas. Blogger chats such as #bbloggers (for beauty bloggers) and #fbloggers (for fashion bloggers) are a great way to dip your toes in the water if you're not sure where to start with Twitter!

5. Try to stick to a post schedule Whether it be daily or once a week it's best to try and post semi-frequently. If you can stick to this then people will begin to recognise your blog's name and, if they see that you're posting new content regularly, might be tempted to check it out.  And that's it! I hope some of you find this post useful. If you have any other tips then please do leave them in the comments.