5 Tips and Tools for Bloggers (Beyond the Cliche)

     I don’t know about you, but I don’t have a lot of fancy photography/lighting equipment. I’ve always understood how important it is to have brightly lit, nice photographs of your work, but I really struggled with accomplishing this in my dimly lit apartment. Once I started taking my pictures in natural light, I found a lot more success. Even if you stage it to look like the picture was photographed inside, you’ll find that natural lighting can make your images look like they were taken using hundreds of dollars of Photography equipment when, in reality, you were out on your front porch balancing your camera in one hand and a homemade reflector in the other.

     There are tons of blogs that will inform you of you every reason why you should be on Google Plus. I won’t go into that, but I will let you in on an awesome tool that Google Plus has: Communities. I love utilizing Google Plus Communities to promote my blog posts. So, get on Google Plus, search for Communities of people with similar interests, and post your work. When deciding what communities to join, be sure to not only look at how many members there are, but try and gauge how active the community is. Some groups have thousands of members, but no one ever interacts with the posts by +1ing, sharing, or commenting.

     I actually have a community of my own where people can post there free printable designs. I’d love for you to join my community, and share any free printables you may have, or just enjoy all the awesome freebies! Here are some more cool Google Plus Communities to get you started:

• Tip Junkie Homemade
• DIY, How-tos and Tutorials
• Mom Blog to Money Blog
• Food Bloggers

     Guest posting is the BEST way to make connections in the blogging world. All my blogger BFFs are people I have guest posted with. Doing a guest post with bloggers who are more well-known than you not only drives more traffic to your blog, but often it opens doors for even more opportunities in the future. One guest post I did led to me selling a few commercial licenses for my work, another led to me becoming a contributor to a blog. I know it is difficult to keep your blog updated and find the time to guest post as well, but the return is definitely worth it!

     Everyone tells you to promote your blog, but there are way more outlets than just Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. There are tons of really useful tools and resources for bloggers! I won’t go into depth, but here are a few that I am familiar with and love:

• Stumble Upon: Social media tool that generates more traffic than Facebook (at least for me).
• I Share (Printables, Crafts, Fun Food): These websites are GREAT! When I had just barely started blogging, someone told me about I Share Printables. I started submitting my posts, and soon, I saw 90% of my traffic coming from I Share Printables. Today, while I my traffic sources have spread out more, I Share Printables is still my #1 source of traffic to my blog!
• Google Url Shortener: I like using Google’s URL shortener for my posts because it saves all of my URLs and tracks the amount of clicks each one gets.
• Great Link Parties
• Influenster: I great place to practice doing reviews and get free stuff.

I hope that by giving you a host of useful resources, you are not only more motivated than before, but you have been able to create a plan of action and really get to work.