I am an avid user of Bloglovin. I log in at least once a day to see what new blog posts await me from blogs I follow and blogs that are recommended to me. Through Bloglovin I've found several new blogs to follow. I've also found great content I'd like to share on social media, particularly Pinterest, but I can't. Why you may ask.

Because the posts aren't optimized for Pinterest and therefore aren't pinnable.

For quite a while I was guilty of this. I didn't think about others sharing my content on social media, especially Pinterest. So for several months, actually close to a year, my posts weren't optimized for Pinterest and no one pinned them. But after reading about the success other bloggers had on Pinterest and why they had that success I made some wholesale changes to my content.


Under no circumstances do I consider myself a expert on Pinterest. In fact I've only been using Pinterest for a short while now and am still working to figure it out. But while I'm not an expert I do have an understanding and appreciation of what makes a blog post pinnable.

1) The graphics or images aren't made for Pinterest

What makes a graphic or image pinnable is its size. Pretty much any article, study, or blog post about creating images for Pinterest says they should be vertical or portrait style and long. In fact the longer your image is the better chance it has of being repinned. Short and horizontal images don't stand out and get lost among the pins decreasing their chances of being repinned. 

The solution: Create at least one image for your post that is at least of 600x900px which is the recommended minimum size. I make all my graphics using the Canva Pinterest graphic template that is 725x1102px. The more room your pin takes up, the more likely it will get noticed, liked and saved.

You can also create really long images, such as collage images, that you hide in your posts. You can learn how in this post by Chole Danielle.

2) The image isn't attractive

Even if the image is the right size for Pinterest, if it's not an attractive image or doesn't fit my image aesthetic I won't pin it. What makes an image unattractive for Pinterest is it's

• Too dark
• Blurry or fuzzy
• Out of focus
• Has too much text 

The solution: Use better images which can be done in a variety of ways

• When taking your own images, use a lot of natural light
• Edit your images/and ore use image filters. I use the Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop apps to edit my images
• Use high resolution images so they don't pixelate when you increase the size, crop or edit them in any way   
• Use free apps to add attractive text overlays. My favorite app for creating graphics and adding text overlays is Canva 

3) Graphics/images have no description

Descriptions are a big part of what pulls your pins into searches on Pinterest. A description tells people what the content or blog post is about. It's also a place to encourage or entice people to click through to take in your content.

When I select an image from a blog post that I want to pin and there's no description I do one of two things 1) create my own, 2) don't pin it and leave the site. Because I'd rather spend time creating my own descriptions for Pinterest I tend to do two more often than one. 

The solution: Fill out the alt text for your post images. Pinterest pulls the alt text for their pin descriptions when you pin directly from your site. So when someone pins from your blog and your images don't have the alt text, that person has to come up with their own description. This could be a deterrent for them to pin from your site.

4) Share button isn't easy to find

If I can't find an easy way to share a post to Pinterest I may copy the post url and pin the post that way. But more often than not, I just leave and don't pin the post. I didn't want this to happen when people visited my site resulting in me missing out on free exposure and traffic driving opportunities. So I incorporated a variety of ways for someone to share my blog post.

The solution: Add share buttons to your blog that are easy to find and use. My site template has some social share buttons attached to each post. I also use free share buttons from SumoMe that show up on every page and post on my site. The SumoMe share buttons are easy to set up and can be customized to fit the look of your site. Also, I added the Pinterest save button that shows up as an overlay when you hover over any of my post images. 

Whether you've been blogging for a while, or just started you've probably realized that having nice images and/or graphics for your posts is just as important as the words your writer. An unattractive image/graphic can turn readers away from an otherwise great post. It can also keep your post from being shared on social media.

The good news is you don't have to be a professional graphic designer to create nice images/graphics for your blog. All you need is a computer, smart phone or tablet. And my favorite graphic design companion - Canva.


Canva is a free graphic design tool you can access via the Canva app or site. Canva is great for the graphic designed challenged (like me) because it has free and paid templates you can use to create your graphics. When I first started using Canva I looked at some of the templates to get ideas on what I might want to do then I used those ideas to create my own. So in this tutorial I'll be showing how to create your own blog graphic from scratch.

Step 1: Sign in

Go to Canva.com sign-in if you have an account or register by completing the registration form if you don't.

Step 2: Select your template

After logging in you'll see a menu at the top prompting you to select your template or graphic dimensions. One of my favorite things about Canva is the multitude of dimensions available. You can create horizontal, vertical or square graphics of all sizes. Because I share and want others to share my posts on Pinterest, I create at least one pinnable graphic for my posts. The easiest way to do this is to select the Pinterest graphic template.

Step 3: Create your background

To create a background for your graphic you can either upload your own image, or select one of the free ones Canva offers. For most of my graphics I upload my own image that I've edited using an editing app. After selecting your image, resize it till it covers the whole template.

Tip: If you use your own image it's best to upload a high-resolution image so when you resize or crop it the image doesn't pixelate and get blurry.

Step 4: Create an overlay

To do this go to Elements > Shapes and select the shape you want to use for your overlay. For my graphic overlays I use the square shape. One of the great things about Canva is you can customize many elements to your own liking. Such as the graphic overlay you can cover the whole image with the shape or just some of the image. You can also choose the color you want your overlay to be and the amount of transparency. When it comes to text colors I enter in the hex code for the colors that correspond to my blog branding.

Step 5: Add text

After creating your overlay you can place text on the image. You can create multiple text boxes and select from the many free fonts available. Adjust the size of your text to be as big or small as you want. You can center, left or right align the font so the text works best with your background.

Tip: If you have an upgraded, paid account you can upload your own fonts.

Step 6: Download

Once done creating your graphic it's time to download it by clicking the Download button in the top right. I usually have multiple pages of related graphics so I enter the page number of the graphic(s) I want to download and download it as a jpg.

Once downloaded I optimize the image before adding it to my blog by uploading it to and downloading it from tinypng.com. By optimizing the image it won't be so big that it causes the page to load slowly.

Step 7: Add to your post

Upload the image to your blog and determine where in the post you want the graphic to be.

That's it. Really simple. The more you use Canva the more intuitive it becomes and the faster you can create graphics.

I can't believe 2016 is half over. This year is flying by so quickly.

June was a busy month for me personally. I closed and moved into a new house. So there was a lot of packing and unpacking that took place. As a result I didn't spend much time on blogging or promotion. So I was hoping that wouldn't be reflected in my results. Keep reading to see.

(This post contains affiliate links. See my disclosure for more info.)
 
I share my monthly traffic reports partly to hold myself accountable and help me keep a closer eye on my monthly stats. I’m also doing this in the hopes of helping and encouraging other bloggers who are looking to grow their online presence.

June 2016 Blog Stats

• Sessions: 2,778 (+0.18%)
• Users: 2,222 (+0.27%)
• Pageviews: 4,158 (-5.91%)
• Pages/Sessions: 1.5 (-5.66%)
• % of New Sessions: 72.28% (-0.97%)
• Bounce Rate: 81.35% (+3.14%)

June 2016 Top Blog Posts

1. My Relaxed Hair Regimen
2. Hair Tip: Pre-poo Before Cleansing Relaxed Hair
3. 10 Great Hair Products Under $10
4. How to Prep Relaxed Hair for a Day at the Beach

June 2016 Top Traffic Drivers

1. Pinterest
2. Direct
3. Google/organic
4. Facebook

June 2016 Social Media Stats

• Bloglovin: 80 (+4)
• Google+: 58 (0)
• Instagram: 212 (+17)
• Pinterest: 617 (+138)
• Twitter: 294 (+28)

How I did with My June Plans

• Continue with BoardBooster - Yes
• Create a strategy for Instagram - No
• Work to be more consistent on Twitter -No

What worked

Promoting older content
This month I really started digging into my blog archives to find posts to promote. To promote this older content I

• Used BoardBooster to loop older pins
• Scheduled a few Twitter posts using Hootsuite
• Shared posts in Facebook groups

The result was three of my four top blog posts is content that is a year or more old. It's also interesting to note that all of my top posts this month are hair posts. It seems like hair content is more popular among my readers and followers. This could also be because most of my content is hair content and that was the focus of my blog in the beginning.

What sort of worked

BoardBooster and Pinterest
By continuing to use BoardBooster I am steadily pinning to my boards and a couple of group boards I joined without having to do much other than find and add pins to my secret boards a couple of times a week. This netted me more followers, increased engagement and repins.

While the net increase in followers may look good, I did have a few days about mid-June where I had several people unfollow me. At first I was confused and scared and tried to figure out what I might have done wrong. After doing some digging I realized those followers weren't true followers. They were accounts that had profile pics of celebrity figures or stock images. They also weren't pinning much of anything much less repinning me. Basically they were spam accounts and I think since I didn't follow them back they unfollowed me. This put my freak out to rest.

Instagram
I didn't create strategy. In fact I didn't even get around to trying. June ended up being a very busy and kind of stressful month for me so blogging ended up on the back burner. I did see increased engagement (likes and comments) and followers though. This can be attributed to posting a bit more than normal and being more selective with the hashtags I used and using hashtags that have greater reach.

Facebook groups
I've joined several groups on Facebook that are about helping bloggers promote their content. How it works is bloggers share their post on a thread and are then required to comment on and share the posts of other bloggers. I tried to be active in the groups during the month of June and saw increased traffic from Facebook as a result. I also saw increased traffic from StumbleUpon (if you can call it traffic). Particularly in the last week of June. This resulted in an increase in my bounce rate. The impact to my bounce rate hasn't been significant, but it's enough that I'm now going to specify in the Facebook groups where I want my content posted.

What didn't work

Being more consistent on Twitter
For some reason Twitter had been boring me and I had little desire to spend time creating and scheduling tweets. While this didn't helped my followers increase a lot it didn't had any big negative effect - yet.

I can't believe 2016 is half over. This year is flying by so quickly.

June was a busy month for me personally. I closed and moved into a new house. So there was a lot of packing and unpacking that took place. As a result I didn't spend much time on blogging or promotion. So I was hoping that wouldn't be reflected in my results. Keep reading to see.

I share my monthly traffic reports partly to hold myself accountable and help me keep a closer eye on my monthly stats. I’m also doing this in the hopes of helping and encouraging other bloggers who are looking to grow their online presence.

June 2016 Blog Stats

• Sessions: 2,778 (+0.18%)
• Users: 2,222 (+0.27%)
• Pageviews: 4,158 (-5.91%)
• Pages/Sessions: 1.5 (-5.66%)
• % of New Sessions: 72.28% (-0.97%)
• Bounce Rate: 81.35% (+3.14%)

June 2016 Top Blog Posts

• My Relaxed Hair Regimen
• Hair Tip: Pre-poo Before Cleansing Relaxed Hair
• 10 Great Hair Products Under $10
• How to Prep Relaxed Hair for a Day at the Beach

June 2016 Top Traffic Drivers

• Pinterest
• Direct
• Google/organic
• Facebook

June 2016 Social Media Stats

• Bloglovin: 80 (+4)
• Google+: 58 (0)
• Instagram: 212 (+17)
• Pinterest: 617 (+138)
• Twitter: 294 (+28)

How I did with My June Plans

• Continue with BoardBooster - Yes
• Create a strategy for Instagram - No
• Work to be more consistent on Twitter -No

What worked

Promoting older content
Three of my four top blog posts are content that is a year or more old. It's also interesting to note that they are hair posts. It seems like hair content is more popular among my readers and followers. This could also be because most of my content is hair content and that was the focus of my blog in the beginning.

What sort of worked

BoardBooster and Pinterest
By continuing to use BoardBooster I am steadily pinning to my boards and a couple of group boards I joined without having to do much other than find and add pins to my secret boards a couple of times a week. This netted me more followers, increased engagement and repins.

While the net increase in followers may look good, I did have a few days about mid-June where I had several people unfollow me. At first I was confused and scared and tried to figure out what I might have done wrong. After doing some digging I realized those followers weren't true followers. They were accounts that had profile pics of celebrity figures or stock images. They also weren't pinning much of anything much less repinning me. Basically they were spam accounts and I think since I didn't follow them back they unfollowed me. This put my freak out to rest.

Instagram
I didn't create strategy. In fact I didn't even get around to trying. June ended up being a very busy and kind of stressful month for me so blogging ended up on the back burner. I did see increased engagement (likes and comments) and followers though. This can be attributed to posting a bit more than normal and being more selective with the hashtags I used and using hashtags that have greater reach.

Facebook groups
I've joined several groups on Facebook that are about helping bloggers promote their content. How it works is bloggers share their post on a thread and are then required to comment on and share the posts of other bloggers. I tried to be active in the groups during the month of June and saw increased traffic from Facebook as a result. I also saw increased traffic from StumbleUpon (if you can call it traffic). Particularly in the last week of June. This resulted in an increase in my bounce rate. The impact to my bounce rate hasn't been significant, but it's enough that I'm now going to specify in the Facebook groups where I want my content posted.

What didn't work

Being more consistent on Twitter
For some reason Twitter had been boring me and I had little desire to spend time creating and scheduling tweets. While this didn't helped my followers increase a lot it didn't had any big negative effect - yet.

Social media is a great and essential way to drive traffic and readers to your blog. With so many social sites to choose from I found myself signing up for several of them - Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Google+ and Pinterest. With all of these social sites, it can be hard to successfully manage all them in conjunction with a blog.

Fortunately there are many tools out there that help make social media management easier by automating it. I currently use the free version of Hootsuite for Twitter. By using Hootsuite I can automate my tweets so I'm active on Twitter without having to find time throughout the day for posting. This has helped me gain many more followers than I believe I would have without the automated posting.



Pinterest is another social site where I've had issues staying active. I especially wanted to be successful on Pinterest after reading the stories and experiences from other bloggers who saw traffic from Pinterest help them grow their blog.


On my own I did a lousy job of pinning several days a week. Forget about pinning everyday. My strategy was to try to pin a few pins before I headed to work. A few pins during my lunch break and a few more after I got home from work. While this helped me gain some followers, it just wasn't enough. I was probably averaging 1-5 new followers a month. So I decided I needed help.


I searched online for a tool similar to Hootsuite, but for Pinterest, that would help me. After doing some research I found and read many, many blog posts on tools that help with Pinterest automation and management. One of those tools I read about was EveryPost. I signed up for a free trial and it ended up being cumbersome. I don't think I even finished the free trial. Next I tried a free trial of BoardBooster. After just a few days I started to see some positive outcomes.

What is BoardBooster?

BoardBooster is an online tool that helps you manage your Pinterest profile in the following areas:
Pin scheduling
Board clean up
Improving pin quality
Group board management
Board optimization

How does BoardBooster work?

There are three ways to schedule pins with BoardBooster - scheduler, looping and campaigns. During my free trial I used the scheduler and looping. But after paying for a subscription I branched out and started using campaigns as well.

Scheduler

After signing up for BoardBooster you are asked to link your Pinterest account. With your Pinterest account linked, BoardBooster sets up secret Pinterest boards that correspond to your public boards. You pin content to the secret boards and then BoardBooster pins that content to your public boards based on the schedule you set.

I really like the scheduler works because I can several, even hundreds, of pins to the secret boards, but only the number I specified are pinned each day. This has been a lifesaver, because I can still pin whenever I want, but it's not obvious to my followers or the Pinterest algorithm.

Looping

The looping tool takes old pins towards the bottom of your boards and brings them back to the top by repining them. Because of this the feature works best with large boards, ones with hundreds of pins. It would look weird to have several of the same pins close together.

With this tool you can set several parameters, such as

• Which boards you want to loop
• How many pins per day, per day are repined
• The timeframe for the repinning
• Deletion of duplicate pins 

Campaigns

Using the campaign feature is great if you want to pin the same pin to mulitple boards at once or over a period of time. With campaigns you have two options

1. Scheduled campaigns - takes pins from a secret board and pins them to your designated boards based on the schedule you set.
2. Random campaigns - randomly pins from your designated board to your selected group boards within a timeframe set.

I decided to use random campaigns to pin my content to group boards. Basically because it takes less time to set it up which works with my schedule. For the group boards I'm currently pinning to I have my campaign pull pins from the board with all of blog posts.

How much does BoardBooster cost?

When comparing BoardBooster to other Pinterest managers the cost really isn't too bad as each plan comes to about $0.01 per pin.

You can sign up using my affiliate link. While I'll make a little side cash, you can take advantage of BoardBooster's free trial of 100 pins for free. This will allow you to test BoardBooster out without having to pay. If you like it after you've used your 100 free pins, you can chose from one of the following plans:

• 500 pins/month for $5
• 1,000 pins/month for $10
• 2,000 pins/month for $20
• 3,000 pins/month for $30
• 5,000 pins/month for $50

If you're still not convinced let me share with you more about my experience with BoardBooster.

How I used BoardBooster during my free trial

When I first started with BoardBooster I took advantage of the 100 pin free trial. The trial lasted about a week as I got through the 100 pins in that timeframe. Though BoardBooster has several features I only used the scheduler and looping in order to maximize my 100 free pins. To take this even a step further I only scheduled and looped pins for my post popular boards.

To schedule my pins I clicked the ad boards button and selected which my top boards which I determined from my Pinterest analytics report. After selecting my boards I went to each one and manually selected how many pins each would get and during what timeframe - days and time of day. Then I went to Pinterest and started sourcing content that I wanted scheduled.

To set up the looping tool was a similar process. I selected the boards I wanted. Then I manually selected how many pins and during what time of day they should be pinned. Additionally I selected some other settings available for the looping feature. Some of the settings include how to handle duplication, how to handle pins with comments and how pins should selected.




What I liked

• I was able to pin consistently throughout the week
• I didn't have to find time in my day to pin to my boards
• I wasn't bombarding my followers with pins at random times
• I didn't have to manually go through my Pinterest analytics report to determine my least popular pins and then manually remove them from my boards
• My blog traffic from Pinterest increased exponentially from the previous month
• I saw some increases in my average daily repin, average daily repinners and followers

What I didn't like

• By pinning to the secret boards I couldn't schedule specific pins at certain times
• Having to put in the settings for the scheduler and looping

As you can see my likes outweighed my dislikes. So after trying out another Pinterest automation tool I came back to BoardBooster and paid for 500 pins/month option. I've also taken some learnings from my free trial and made some changes to how I'm using the tool.

How I'm using BoardBooster now

I'm still only using the scheduler and looping, but I've taken my learnings from the free trial and using them to be more strategic with how I'm using BoardBooster. Now I'm using the scheduler for my five top boards making sure I have one board from each category. I'm only using the looping tool for five of my boards that either have several of my blog posts, have close to/more than 100 pins and get the most repins.

Once I set up the boards I would be using BoardBooster for I updated the time settings for each board leveraging data from BoardBooster and my blog posting schedule.

My blog posting schedule at the time was:

• Wednesdays: Hair and beauty (makeup and skincare)
• Saturdays: Lifestyle (blogging, travel, home)
• Tuesdays/Friday: Time sensitive posts

So I set my makeup and hair boards to pin Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. My lifestyle boards pin Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. If my blog posting schedule changes, my Pinterest schedule will change to match it.

After determining the days of the week each board would pin, I set the time of day. Because my BoardBooster account is linked to my Pinterest account it's been able to gather some data and provide me with optimal pinning times for my entire account and specific boards.

After one month of using this strategy I saw some really good results. Even better than during my free trial. I've seen an increase in followers an my stats increased across the board by a decent amount

• Average daily viewers +36%
• Average daily repins +148%
• Average daily repinners +36%
• Average daily clicks +105%
• Average daily visitors +82%

And after one month I saw a

• 177% increase in blog traffic from Pinterest. It quickly became my top traffic driver
• 55% increase in Pinterest followers

With these types of increases I'm really glad I decided to spend the $5 for a subscription. I also decided to keep using BoardBooster because I feel it's worth the money.

If you'd like to give Board Booster a try with 100 free pins you can do so using my referral link https://BoardBooster.com/invite/3FWED. Happy pinning!  

I am so excited to share this report! After seeing slow growth in some metrics and decreases in others I have some really good numbers to report.

I share my monthly traffic reports partly to hold myself accountable and help me keep a closer eye on my monthly stats. I’m also doing this in the hopes of helping and encouraging other bloggers who are looking to grow their online presence.


 

May 2016 Blog Stats

• Sessions = 2,773 (+10.70%)
• Users = 2,216 (4.58%)
• Pageviews = 4,419 (+31.24%)
• Pages/Sessions =1.59 (+18.56%)
• % of New Sessions = 72.99% (-1.96%)
• Bounce Rate = 78.87% (-5.70%)

May 2016 Top Blog Posts

1. Hair Tip: Pre-poo Before Cleansing Relaxed Hair
2. Why I Do Apple Cider Vinegar Rinses
3. Product Review: Cantu Shea Butter Leave-In Conditioning Repair Cream
4. 8 Great Shampoos for Summer Hair Care
5. Getting Started with a Healthy Relaxed Hair Journey

May 2016 Top Traffic Drivers

1. Pinterest (saw a 169.73% increase month over month)
2. Google/organic
3. Direct
4. Facebook

May 2016 Social Media Stats

• Bloglovin = 76 followers (+3)
• Google+ = 58 followers (0)
• Instagram = 195 (+12)
• Pinterest = 479 (+187)
• Twitter = 266 (+19)

How I did with my May plans

• Focus more on content promotion through social media
• Continue with BoardBooster -Yes
• Continue increasing my activity on Instagram - Kind of
• Tweet more consistently - Kind of
• Increase my number of blog posts per week - Yes

What worked

BoardBooster
I really don't need to say anymore. I could just stop right there. Since I blew through my 100 free pins I paid for the lower priced monthly plan to continue with BoardBooster. The plan gives me 500 pins a month. That was one of the best purchase I've made for blog (truthfully it's only the second purchase I've made for my blog).

I'll be doing a more detailed post on my experience with BoardBooster, but as you can see from April to May I saw a 61% increase in followers and Pinterest went from my number four to my number one traffic driver. I'm hoping to build on this momentum over the coming months. 


Increased number of weekly blog postings
I started my new blogging schedule in May which took me from one blog post a week to two a week. The benefit of this is I can vary the topics I'm blogging about. As well as have more content to promote throughout the week.

The starting a blog series
While this wasn't listed as part of my May plan, I had to note it. I did a five part series on how to start a blog that ran through the month of May. Sharing those posts on social media helped with gaining new followers - particularly on Bloglovin and Twitter. These posts also got more Bloglovin saves than any of my other posts and was retweeted more than I expected. 

What sort of worked

Instagram
This is a social site I really struggle with. Basically because it's all about pictures. So I have to find something I feel is worth taking a picture of and posting. Over the last month I did get better at this. While I didn't post on a consistent basis, it was more regular. So I gained more likes and followers as a result. Nothing dramatic, but I'm pleased because I've almost reached 200 followers after being somewhat stagnate for quite a while.

My Plans for June

I'm moving in June so I'll be keeping my blogging plans as simple as possible. So in June I plan to

• Continue with BoardBooster
• Create a strategy for Instagram
• Work to be more consistent on Twitter

I am so excited to share this report! After seeing slow growth in some metrics and decreases in others I have some really good numbers to report.

I share my monthly traffic reports partly to hold myself accountable and help me keep a closer eye on my monthly stats. I’m also doing this in the hopes of helping and encouraging other bloggers who are looking to grow their online presence.

May 2016 Blog Stats

• Sessions = 2,773 (+10.70%)
• Users = 2,216 (4.58%)
• Pageviews = 4,419 (+31.24%)
• Pages/Sessions =1.59 (+18.56%)
• % of New Sessions = 72.99% (-1.96%)
• Bounce Rate = 78.87% (-5.70%)

May 2016 Top Blog Posts

• Hair Tip: Pre-poo Before Cleansing Relaxed Hair
• Why I Do Apple Cider Vinegar Rinses
• Product Review: Cantu Shea Butter Leave-In Conditioning Repair Cream
• 8 Great Shampoos for Summer Hair Care
• Getting Started with a Healthy Relaxed Hair Journey

May 2016 Top Traffic Drivers

• Pinterest (saw a 169.73% increase month over month)
• Google/organic
• Direct
• Facebook

May 2016 Social Media Stats

• Bloglovin = 76 followers (+3)
• Google+ = 58 followers (0)
• Instagram = 195 (+12)
• Pinterest = 479 (+187)
• Twitter = 266 (+19)

How I did with my May plans

• Focus more on content promotion through social media
• Continue with BoardBooster -Yes
• Continue increasing my activity on Instagram - Kind of
• Tweet more consistently - Kind of
• Increase my number of blog posts per week - Yes

What worked

BoardBooster
I really don't need to say anymore. I could just stop right there. Since I blew through my 100 free pins I paid for the lower priced monthly plan to continue with BoardBooster. The plan gives me 500 pins a month. That was one of the best purchase I've made for blog (truthfully it's only the second purchase I've made for my blog).

I'll be doing a more detailed post on my experience with BoardBooster, but as you can see from April to May I saw a 61% increase in followers and Pinterest went from my number four to my number one traffic driver. I'm hoping to build on this momentum over the coming months. 


Increased number of weekly blog postings
I started my new blogging schedule in May which took me from one blog post a week to two a week. The benefit of this is I can vary the topics I'm blogging about. As well as have more content to promote throughout the week.

The starting a blog series
While this wasn't listed as part of my May plan, I had to note it. I did a five part series on how to start a blog that ran through the month of May. Sharing those posts on social media helped with gaining new followers - particularly on Bloglovin and Twitter. These posts also got more Bloglovin saves than any of my other posts and was retweeted more than I expected. 

What sort of worked

Instagram
This is a social site I really struggle with. Basically because it's all about pictures. So I have to find something I feel is worth taking a picture of and posting. Over the last month I did get better at this. While I didn't post on a consistent basis, it was more regular. So I gained more likes and followers as a result. Nothing dramatic, but I'm pleased because I've almost reached 200 followers after being somewhat stagnate for quite a while.

My Plans for June

I'm moving in June so I'll be keeping my blogging plans as simple as possible. So in June I plan to

• Continue with BoardBooster
• Create a strategy for Instagram
• Work to be more consistent on Twitter

You've figured out your blog name, picked a design, chosen categories and selected topics. Now you're ready to create content and launch your blog. If you have a plan you can easily launch your blog and have a more successful launch.


I've joined a few Facebook groups for bloggers and consistently see questions from new bloggers on how they should launch their blog. Two of the more common questions are

• What do I need to do to launch my blog?
• How many blog posts should I have ready for my launch?

Those are good really questions and there are many answers. While the answers I see vary because they are based on each responders experience, there is one commonality - you need to have plan for launching your blog.


With a plan you'll know what day and time your blog will launch and what preparation you'll need do leading up the launch. I didn't have a plan and as as result I didn't have what I would call a successful launch. I don't think a successful blog launch means you have hundreds or thousands of visitors within the first few days or even weeks of launching your blog. I categorize a successful blog launch as one where you have built-in followers, ready to-go content and see steady growth after your launch.

I didn't have enough content. No one knew my blog existed. I also didn't have any kind of social following. If I could do it again, I would do it differently. Here are five tips I've gleaned from various sources and my own experience from my blog launch.

Build a following

By this point you've probably selected what social platforms you want to use for your blog. You may even be thinking "I'll set them up and launch them the same time as my blog." I'll tell you a secret, you don't have to wait. Go ahead and set them up.

Social media is a great way to promote your content. But only when you have people following you. Don't worry that you don't have content yet. You can build your following by posting content that falls within the categories for your blog. You can get this content from blogs, pinners and tweeters you follow.

Then once you have content you'll have people to share it with who see you a source for info. Making them more willing to visit your blog and even share your content.

When setting up your social media accounts you'll want to brand them and have consistency with the look of your blog. Some ways to do this are:

• Use the same profile picture on each account
• Create graphics using your brand colors and logo
• Include some information about your blog and when it will launch

Connect with other bloggers

A great thing about being a blogger is that bloggers support other bloggers. So before you ever hit publish on your first post you should consider creating connections with other bloggers. This can be through following and conversing with them on social media. Or commenting on their blog posts.

When I started my blog it was focused on relaxed hair. So I started following other blogs that talked about that subject whether they focused on it or not. I would comment on their posts and share their content. You can even reach out to them about guest posting on their blog.

To make these connections look for blogs that are similar to yours. These are blogs that have similar categories and topics to yours. You can find them through web searches, Bloglovin and even Pinterest.

Promote your launch

This is a great thing to do especially when you've started building a following. It helps create hype and anticipation for your blog. There are a couple of ways you can do this. The first way it to tease your blog launch on social media. This can be done, by posting images or graphics similar to what they will find on your blog.

The second is to create a coming soon page. If you're active on social media prior to your launch and have some followers, you'll want to take them somewhere and have something for them to see. This coming soon page can include the name of your blog, mission statement, the date of your launch. A fun thing to do is to include a countdown. Having this page helps build anticipation and lets visitors know when they should come back.

Create content

Using your editorial calendar, start creating your content. Not just content for the launch, but after. After launching you may want to spend more time on promotion than content creation so it's helpful to have 1-2 months worth of content pre-scheduled.

QA your site

To help your launch go smoothly it can be helpful to do a QA of your site and posts that will be used for your launch. This way you make sure links works, your navigation drives to the correct pages, your site looks good on mobile. You can also check for and correct any bugs, coding or formatting issues.

Happy blogging!

Planning blog content is something I've struggled with. I understand the purpose behind it, have seen how helpful it could be and even encourage others to do it. But for some reason I thought it was easier and less time consuming to just create content when I needed it. While this didn't prove to be an outright disaster it made managing my blog harder.

On the flip side when I plan out my content in advance it's actually much easier and less stressful. In fact planning your blog content has the following advantages

• Keeps you on track. The plan for your blog content should map back to your blog goals. By putting together a plan you can track the progress you're making towards your goals.
• Gives you something to refer back to. When I plot out the topics I'm going to be writing on and my related post ideas I can prioritize which ones I'll work on first and when they need to be completed.
• Improves the quality of your content. I've found when I plan out several weeks worth of content, I don't have to struggle to come up with content or scramble to create it. This leaves me more time to outline, write and tweak my posts. I've also found myself writing longer, more detailed and engaging posts when I don't feel like I'm pressed for time.
• Helps you plan for vacations and holidays. When I plan out my content I can make sure I have posts going live on schedule. This is helpful when I'm traveling for work, on vacation or sick. I can also plan and prepare seasonal content without having to create it at the last minute and possibly miss out on additional traffic.
• Lets you see the variety of your content and provide the type of content your audience wants. I've realized that in my first year of blogging, the majority of the blog posts I did were wash day posts for my hair. They weren't my more popular posts either, my infographic and tip posts were, but I didn't do as many of them. If I had been planning my content I would have seen that my content wasn't varied and also wasn't what my audience wanted.

Overall it saves time. Despite knowing and seeing these benefits I have to admit that I'll typically plan one month and not plan the next three. I'm finding that it really comes down to me being disciplined and creating a plan that is attainable for me.

So, how do you plan blog content? By creating an editorial calendar.

To create an editorial calendar the first thing you'll need is a calendar or content management system. I'm blogging on a budget so I don't use a content management system as they come with a monthly fee. Instead I use Google Calendar because it's free, easy to use and easy to access. Some other options for an editorial calendar include

• Calendar printables
• CoSchedule
• WordPress Editorial Calendar (if you're on the WordPress platform there's the)

The editorial calendar

Before filling out the calendar it can be helpful to reflect on the following

• The focus of your blog
• Your blog mission statement
• Your blog goals
• Your list of blog categories
• How often you want to post
• Your social media selections
• Any special holidays or seasons you want to cover
• The types of content you want want to provide
• Written posts
• Videos
• Infographics
• Printables
• Tips
• Contest/giveaways

Thinking through all of these things will help you lay out your plan. Now it's time to create the calendar. When I plan I

• Plot my categories against my weekly blog posting schedule
• List out a topic within each category
• Determine the type of content for that topic. The type of content I provide on my blog is usually a written post, infographic, tip, video or some combination of the four

You can see in the picture of my Google Calendar I color code my categories which correspond to the colors I use on my site. As you can see from this incomplete calendar I still struggle with being consistent with my planning and getting it down on paper. But when I do it, I find it to be very helpful and I create my best content.

Content promotion

The planning doesn't stop with creating the content. Next is a promotion plan. This is where your selected social media sites come into play. You don't want to spend all that time creating your content and then have no one read it. Planning your promotion also helps you stay consistent. It's helps keep your followers engaged and can help create consistent traffic to your blog.

Here's a promo schedule I put together for my blog (though I don't always follow it). The schedule is also reflected in the calendar image for my May content.

(This post includes affiliate links. You can find out more about my use of affiliate links here.)

When I decided I wanted to blog it became a little overwhelming with all the decisions I needed to make. What platform did I want to use? What did I want my blog to look like? How did I even set up a blog?

Eventually I was able to navigate through those questions, but I didn't really spend any serious time thinking through the questions. So a few months after launching my blog I wasn't totally satisfied with it. This led to me going through that process again when I rebranded my blog. From those two experiences and the research I've done I've learned a few things about building a blog that I'd like to share. In this post I'll be sharing information on

• Choosing a platform and hosting service
• Selecting a design theme
• Setting up social media
• Building a following

Choosing a platform and hosting service

There are so many options out there for blog platforms. Despite that there are a few that tend to be most common among bloggers

• Blogger
• WordPress.com
• WordPress.org (self-hosted)
• Squarespace

Not to put on any additional pressure, but the platform for your blog is a big deal. Some reasons being the platform can

• Make or break your blog (literally)
• Cost you money before you make money
• Determine your blog design options

When I initially started my blog I did little to no research on the blog platform I would use. The platform I use is Blogger and I chose it based on the process of elimination, cost and ease of setup. The other platforms I looked at were Wix and WordPress.

Wix was out due to my experience from using it for a portfolio site. I found the interface to be slow and cumbersome. It cost money to get the ad-free version. I also had issues with the hosting as the site would take a while a load.

WordPress was another platform I eliminated based on past experience. I used the free version for a portfolio site and did like some of the features, but didn't want to commit by paying anything or be self-hosted.

I chose Blogger simply because it was free, used by many other bloggers and easy to use. Over time though I've started to have a love/hate relationship with Blogger. This is mostly due to the limited features available for customization and how buggy it can be.

Here are a few questions that can help you determine which platform you'd like to use and whether or not you'd like to be self-hosted.

• Do I want my blog to be a business?
• How much do I want to spend on my blog?
• How HTML savvy am I?
• How HTML savvy do I want to be?
• How much customization do I want to be able to do?

After thinking through these questions and your answers let's take a look at the pros and cons I've compiled about Blogger, WordPress and Squarespace.

Blogger

Pros

• Free
• Hosted by Google
• Easy to initially set up
• Can find several free and premium design themes for customization

Cons

• Google offers limited, out-of-date, unattractive free design themes
• Has limited features for customization
• Need some level of coding knowledge to customize the design and functionality
• Unattractive, non-customized domain
• Have to pay for a custom domain
• No easy e-commerce options
• Pretty much no tech support

Who this platform is good for

• New bloggers who aren't ready to make a monetary commitment to blogging

WordPress

With WordPress you have two options 1) WordPress.com, 2) self-hosted WordPress.org.

WordPress.com
Pros

• Free
• Several free and premium design themes available
• Free support via email and from the WordPress community
• You own your content
• Can customize using plugins and widgets
• Platform is updated regularly
• Don't need to be too HTML and CSS savvy

Cons

• Limited amount of space, 3 GB
• Non-customized domain
• Some of the plugins and premium features cost money
• Can't make money using ad networks
• WordPress can run ads on your site that you don't make money off of

Who this platform is good for

• New bloggers who want easy setup, access to multiple site features and aren't ready to make a monetary commitment

WordPress.org
Pros

• Several free and premium design themes available
• Free support via email and from the WordPress community
• You own your content
• Several plugins and widgets for customization
• Platform is updated regularly
• Can be used as a content management system
• Can monetize your blog however you want
• E-commerce capabilities

Cons

• Hosting costs (can be close to $100 a year)
• Need to have some CSS and HTML knowledge

Who this platform is good for

• Bloggers who have plan on blogging for a while and turn their blog into a business.

Squarespace

Pros

• Easy to use interface
• Drag and drop features
• Free customized domain
• E-commerce capabilities
• 24/7 customer support
• Unlimited bandwidth and storage
• Design themes available for purchase

Cons

• Squarespace offers a very limited number of templates
• Nothing is free
• Can cost over $100 a year
• 3% sales transaction fee for sales you make on the site

Who this platform is good for

• Bloggers who plan on blogging for a while and want their blog to be a business

If you've decided to be self-hosted you'll need to select your hosting service. When it comes to hosting services not all of them are created equal. I've read and heard some horror stories about hosting services where sites are crashing all the time or the service needs to be constantly upgraded for a fee.

I'm not currently self-hosted so I don't have first-hand experience with hosting services, but from what I've seen other bloggers say SiteGround is one of the better options because

• It's cost-efficient particularly for new bloggers starting at $3.95 a month for the first three years
• There are multiple hosting options
• Has good and responsive customer service
• Has fast load times

Selecting a design theme

After you've chosen a platform it's time to select a design theme. Why not do this before choosing a platform? Blog themes are typically designed and coded to work on a specific platform.

There are a few ways you can get a design theme

• Hire a designer and/or developer to create a customized theme
• Get a free (no tech support) pre-made theme
• Purchase a pre-made theme (most come with tech support). You can get some pretty pre-made themes for Blogger and WordPress from designers. One designer who has several themes I like is Beautiful Dawn Designs. She has pretty themes for both WordPress and Blogger. Another designer I like is Pretty Darn Cute Design. She has several user friendly attractive themes specifically for WordPress.

 Whether you have a design theme created specifically for you or get a pre-made one, you'll need to have a good idea of the type of layout and functionality you want your blog to have. When I was searching for a design theme during my rebrand I asked myself these questions

• Does this theme work on the platform I chose?
• Do I want a traditional layout or more modern?
• Do I want the site to be minimalistic?
• Does this theme work with my brand colors or will I have to adjust them?
• How easy is it to customize?
• How much coding would I need to do to customize it?
• Do I want a sidebar? If so on which side?

Setting up social media

Social media is an important part of blogging as it can be used for content promotion. The best part about using social media for content promotion is it's free! Yes you can place paid ads on several of them, but building a following and getting your content shared doesn't need to cost anything.

There are hundreds of social sites for you to choose from. There are the popular sites such as Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, Google+, Snapchat and Twitter. Depending on your blog focus there may also be smaller more niche social sites you could leverage.

For the purposes of this post I'm going to just hit on a few of the larger more popular sites - Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter.

Pinterest

Many of the bloggers I follow swear by Pinterest because it's their largest traffic driver. Over time I was able to build my Pinterest following to the point that it became my highest traffic driver. I was able to do that by using a tool called BoardBooster which you can read about in my post How to Easily Manage and Boost Your Pinterest Performance.

Here are some tips I found and have started employing for getting better results from Pinterest:

• Have boards that closely match your blog focus
• Post content that closely aligns to your blog focus
• Don't just post your content, post the content of others
• Create vertical Pinterest friendly images for your blog posts
• Use a pin scheduler so you're posting at optimal times throughout the day

Facebook

There are multiple ways for you to leverage Facebook for content promotion - a fan page, paid ads and groups.

I have a small fan page on Facebook and I've found it to be hard to garner new followers without putting money behind my posts.

I also use my personal Facebook page to join hair, beauty and lifestyle groups where I share my content and interact with other bloggers.

Twitter

Twitter is being used more and more for moment-in-time snapshots. I tweet content related to my blog focus. Some of the content is my own and some of it's from other bloggers and sites. To post my tweets I use Hootsuite to pre-schedule my tweets.

Twitter has been test and learn for me and while I haven't always seen great success, I've learned some great best practices for using the site.

• Don't just share your content, share the content of other bloggers and brands. Sometimes bloggers and brands will like or retweet your posts with their content. This can garner additional impressions and followers.
• Include images in your posts. I've found that my posts with images get me the most impressions and engagement.
• Engage with those you follow and your followers. I try to like and retweet a few posts from those I follow each day.
• Use hashtags relevant to your post and blog focus. I limit myself to no more than three hashtags a post. More than that and it can get overwhelming.
• Pay attention to your Twitter analytics as it can tell you a lot about the types of posts that get the most engagement.

Building a following

Yep. You read this right. Before you launch your blog, you should build a following. This is something I wish I'd done before launching my blog and even before my rebrand.

You can do this by setting up your social profiles, following others and posting content. Since you won't have any of your own content yet you can post the content of others that aligns with the focus of your soon to come blog.

That way when you do launch your blog you'll have followers ready to digest your content.





P.S. You can now follow me on Facebook at facebook.com/arelaxedgal