I get emails every week with questions about blogging, so I’ve compiled the ten most frequently asked questions and answered them below.
1. How often should I blog?
There isn’t a perfect rule for this. You do NOT need to blog every day or three times a week, especially if your blog isn’t your business which it usually isn’t. If your blog is a tool to market your business and connect with your target market, try once a week.
Always choose quality over quantity.
2. Does my blog design really matter?
YES! You’ve got seven to ten seconds to make your first impression. Within those seconds, each person decides whether to spend more time with you or leave.
If you don’t hire a web designer, I recommend that you find a theme for your website that is simple and classy. And, do not add a bunch of clutter—less is more.
3. Should I start on a free platform or should I start with WordPress?
If you want your blog to look professional and you’re blogging for your business, you need your own website.
I recommend using WordPress. That means you need to: get a domain ($10+/year), pay for hosting ($5+/month) and pick a theme.
4. What theme are you using for your blog?
I use Canvas by WooThemes, because it’s completely customizable. I love it.
5. How do you deal with spam?
I use the plug-in, Askimet. It catches 99.9% of my spam comments. I have to delete about two spam comments a week which isn’t bad considering I would have to delete hundreds if I didn’t use Askimet.
6. How can I monetize my blog?
I spent an entire segment on monetization in my CreativeLive course, Build a Successful Creative Blog, because this a HUGE topic. To get you started, ads and promoted posts aren’t the way to go unless your business model is built on promoting other businesses.
If you’re a creative entrepreneur selling your own products or services, don’t include ads or promoted posts on your blog because it takes away from your business and that’s what you want your readers to focus on. Instead, use your blog to give your readers an inside look into your business and talk about your products in creative ways.
7. Can I use pictures I find online in my blog posts?
If they aren’t your pictures and they don’t have a creative commons license, you shouldn’t use them unless you get permission from the photographer. Don’t pull pictures off of Pinterest and use them on your blog unless you want to put yourself in a precarious legal position.
8. Where can I find pictures to use on my blog?
I suggest using your own pictures. It’s a way to strengthen your brand. If you don’t enjoy taking photos or don’t want to learn how to take good quality photos, you can purchase stock photos, find creative commons for commercial use photos, higher a photographer to provide photos or use free stock photos like the ones on Death to Stock Photo.
9. Do I need to pay attention to SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization and is the process of affecting how your website is found with search engines like Google. Yes, you should pay attention to SEO, because you want people to find you by searching for keywords online but you don’t need to spend a ton of time on it. I use plug-ins (All in One SEO Pack and Scribe) to help me with SEO.
10. What are the best ways to get more readers?
First, publish high-quality blog posts that your readers love and can’t get enough of. If your blog posts are good, your readers will share them for you!
Second, you have to market your blog like you do your products and services. You can’t build it and expect that they’ll come. The things that brought me the most readers have been: guest posting, speaking engagements, interviews, hosting blog tours and using social media to promote my posts.
Great tips, April! I need to get Askimet to handle all the spam I recently started getting. I’ll check it out.
I love your photography! Your photos always has a dreamy, whimsical feel to them.
Thanks for sharing your tips and advice, April! I just switched over my website/blog to WordPress and am very happy so far. I am using a ThemeTrust premium theme which I recommend. Will definitely be looking to your plugin suggestions for future updates. Would also love to know what you use for your e-book commerce. Thanks!
Great advice, April! I have been following your blog for a few years now and have heeded your advice of taking your own pictures for your blog. I’ve enjoyed your tutorials on how to edit your own pictures and it has become one of the highlights of my own blogging experience. (along with writing the blogs, of course!) I have been using PicMonkey.com but was given Photoshop Elements for my birthday- so I will be playing around with that for awhile. In another post I remember you talking of different filters that can be obtained separately with photoshop- but I can’t remember which post- Would you be willing to post the link? Thanks, April!!
Fantastic tips! I would have to say that your CreativeLive course is required watching for anyone who is serious about blogging. The content is in depth, clear & actionable. It’s made a HUGE difference for my blog, that’s for sure!
Great answers, April!!
I’ve started using more of my own photos since attending the Build a Successful Creative Blog. I find that it brings more personality and connection with my blog posts. I recently adopted a greyhound and added photos of him to my post! I got a lot of comments from people on my list who owned dogs.
Right now, my set up is basic — with just an iPhone. Maybe one day, I’ll upgrade. Until then, I’m working with what I got. 🙂
Hope you’re doing well.
Thanks for answering these, April, very important info for new bloggers. I especially love it how you are transparent about the theme and plug ins you use instead of making it into a big trade secret 🙂
One thing that I recently realized is that when I write, I need to think about “what is my audience searching for and will they find it in this blog post?”
This one question really helps me chose better topics, titles and create content that actually matters for people, not for me.
I’m just in the process of setting up a new blog (I was planning to spend today making a final choice of my theme, installing it and generally making it look all pretty) so this post comes at the perfect moment! I loved your course on Creative Live (not just the blogging one, all of them!) and would thoroughly recommend it. It’s great to know which theme you use – I find it really difficult to choose themes because the previews don’t show you exactly what can be done with them and how customisable they are.
I can never get enough of your valuable info, April! Having an on-line biz means constantly tweaking to see where/how to make things work (to make money!). I’ll be installing the All in One SEO plugin today. Thanks for all this info!
Great tips. Anyone who hasn’t seen your creative live course needs to ASAP. It was a game changer for me & while I’m still working at building my blog into a business from an early point, your course was what lead to so much learning & development. You rock!
Great posts! I need to check out those SEO resources. They are new to me. 🙂
Great advice. I’m thinking about upping my blog posts to 2x a week instead of 1…I think it’s all about experimenting and finding how you work best. And I totally agree, quality over quantity!
Great suggestions April! I also like WP-SpamShield for catching spam comments on my blog. Works great and is totally free.
What are blog tours? Awesome concise post. Will share
Great tips!! I love Akismet!!!! I have your CL blog course & plan to really dig deep this summer.
Nice roundup, April! Akismet has saved the day countless times for me. I’m always impressed and a little creeped out by how many spam comments it deletes.
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I love your posts! 🙂
I’m really dreadful at figuring out where to guest post, but I’d love to do a blog tour & some speaking engagements (no idea how to get started, but I imagine I need to be a more consistent presence first. 🙂 )
Wowee! Thank you so so much April for this blog post. It is hands down one of my favourites because of how relieved of pressure it has made me feel. I started my blog just over a year ago and before launching it and my little creative biz (selling my art and crafts on Etsy) I read everything I could find about setting up and how often to blog and how people need to take you seriously by blogging up to 5 times a week etc etc! I became burnt out fast and it was just not sustainable. I went down to two a week and tried to keep up with making to stock my shop and keep my creativity alive and my ideas fresh. It is hard. It is soooo refreshing to hear someone say that even if you only post one blog post a week (if your business isn’t your blog) then that’s okay. That its okay because it is quality over quantity. I would much rather produce one to two posts a week of a good quality than five a week so that I can concentrate on the thing that will pay me for my time, but above all, the thing I started my blog for, to share my passions of art and crafts.
Thank you for making me feel so much more okay about this. Thank you for reminding me that I make the rules on my own blog and that it should be on my terms, not other peoples terms. 🙂
April, this is so great and sooo to the point! And I agree with other ladies that a) your Creative Live course is AMAZING and should be bought by everybody who want to be in blogging and creative business b) you are so-so right about photography; besides all the advantages to the blog I really see how my photography skills are improving and people notice that as well, it’s so great!
Besides, I have a question that I could not find the clear answer in the internet. This is re duplicating content. If I write a guest post for the other blog and I believe the topic is relevant for my audience, can I post this text in my blog with the link to the original post of course and even the note about it? It looks a little bit like hysterics in the internet that Google will notice it and I will be punished. Is it true? Sorry to ask here but I am really confused with all the info in the web regarding it and you are a guru to me. Thanks!
Great post and you’re right, these are definitely frequently asked questions!
From my point of view, the most important one to having success is “how often do I have to post?” We’ve found that blogging frequency is one of the simplest measures of performance. If you blog monthly and your competition blogs weekly, you lose. If you blog weekly and your competition posts daily, you lose. And if you post daily and your competition posts 6x a day (HuffPo posts about 120 times a day) then you lose.
Love that you included a point on SEO (my forte!) If you ever want a guest post for the blog on SEO, send me an email and we’ll make it work. Although I’ll recommend Yoast WordPress SEO, not All In One. haha!