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.

Tips and tricks for effective studying

So today's post is a little different. Since it's revision period for uni students, and soon to be revision period for A-levels and GCSEs, I thought I'd share a few tips that I've learnt along the way to help me study. I still find myself procrastinating more than I should, but these things definitely help me to stay on track!

1. Find out what type of learner you are

There are three main types of learner: auditory, visual and tactile. When it comes to learning content for school/uni, these are normally limited to auditory or visual. Do you learn best when you listen to things or see them written down? Lots of people could answer this straight away, but if you're unsure there are tests online which could help you decide. Once you've decided upon this, you can then think more specifically about how you remember things best. Do you remember more if you listen to things in the morning, afternoon or evening? Do you remember things best if it's on a mind map or in a list? Maybe flashcards? I've come to realise that I'm a visual learner, who finds mind maps useful, but really benefits most from practicing past exam questions.

2. Schedule breaks

Knowing when your next break from studying is means that you're more likely to work effectively during study sessions. It gives you something to work towards, and breaks up the monotony of the day. There's no point working (probably not very effectively) for 8 hours straight when you can include breaks and come back feeling refreshed and ready to go.

3. Take mini breaks every two hours

It's been proven that concentration levels decrease significantly after about two hours of doing a particular task. Therefore, even if it's not time for one of my scheduled breaks, I try to remember to take about ten to fifteen minutes out. Recently I've been using this time to play a few games of 2048 (here), which I like to think keeps my brain active enough to keep me in the studying mood. However, the mini breaks should be used to do whatever it'll take to refresh you and get your concentration levels back to their maximum.

4. Use an extension to limit your access to particular websites

I procrastinate a lot. I also procrastinate to avoid procrastination (this involves things like tidying my room, which shows that I've reached another level of desperation in my quest to avoid working). Therefore when I really need to get stuff done I use the StayFocusd extension (found here) on Google Chrome. This allows you to create a list of websites you want to limit access to, or create a list of the only websites you want to be allowed to visit. There's also a nuclear option which blocks all of your limited access sites immediately for a certain amount of time, with no way to reverse it. Definitely useful when deadlines are approaching!

5. Keep your workspace tidy

Anyone who knows me will probably laugh at how hypocritical it is for me to advise other people on keeping things tidy. However, yesterday I did have a little panic about the sheer amount of work I had laid out in front of me after changing revision topics. Once I'd moved the work for the previous topic out of the way I found that I was able to concentrate more easily because I could focus on just one thing.

6. Plan your time

In order to ensure that each of your topics gets the appropriate amount of attention, it is vital to plan your time. Everyone has favourite topics, and so it's all too easy to spend twice as much time studying for these as any of the others. To avoid this, I know quite a few people who use Microsoft Excel to schedule in blocks each day for different topics. This works for people who prefer to know exactly what they'll be working on. However, this isn't my favourite method of scheduling revision, as it makes it feel like your studying has been restricted to the topics you scheduled days or weeks ago. And, sometimes, you just don't feel like you can tackle a particular topic. The method I prefer is deciding on a certain number of hours per week for each topic, and then keeping a tally as you study. This is more flexible and still ensures that your attention is spread properly across all topics.


I hope some of these tips might be useful to you! Have you got any other tips for working effectively?