How I Grew my Blog in a Few Months

These past few months have been really great for my blog; I feel like I'm becoming better at the various skills that make up blogging and my blog has grown considerably in that time too. Obviously numbers aren't the be-all and end-all but it always feels amazing to feel like people are recognising your hard work. Also obvious but I'm still not some huge blogger on everyone's radar, but I have grown my blog considerably from what it was and hopefully can grow it further. I think my experience could be really useful for bloggers like mine was that are hovering somewhere between 500 and 2000 followers that want to reach more people but aren't quite sure how to.

Instagram

Summer 2015: 1000-1500 followers
Now: 6500 followers

Instagram just got bigger in general

This is pretty self-explanatory but I think Instagram in general exploded in the latter part of last year, so of course mine (along with most people's Instagram accounts) saw an increase in followers from the end of summer.

Regular posts

Different people will tell you to post at different times but personally I post twice a day: once in the morning on the way to work, often to promote a blog post (I know Instagram doesn't drive a huge amount of direct traffic but it's good to alert followers you have a new post up) and one on the way back from work, usually of a particular selection of products I'm loving at the moment. Daily or every other day is probably a good aim, but quality is definitely more important than quantity, as posting low-quality images several times a day could actually make people un-follow!

Exclusive content

This is sort of linked but I see accounts of bloggers all the time with WAY better images than mine that have fewer followers and it's usually because they post about once a week and only ever to promote a blog post. I'm not criticising them at all (maybe they're not that fussed about Instagram or maybe that's all they're able to do) but if you're looking for growth, you have to step it up a gear. One way of doing that (which works for me) is posting regular content and giving people something they won't get just by visiting your blog. I post pictures of products I'm loving, my face of the day, some hauls and all my empties exclusively on Instagram so even people who follow my blog elsewhere get something extra.

Quality of images

As I mentioned earlier, posting high-quality images is important. I try to pre-take all my beauty images in bulk with my camera when I take my blog photos as I have good lighting and all the products out already, however I do spontaneously post phone camera images when I'm out and about. When I do this, I always edit them on an app like VSCO before posting. At the end of the day, it's your feed so post what you want, however I try to keep my Instagram semi-slick and save the dodgy nightclub photos for Facebook!

Consistent theme

Linked with the quality, it's nice to have a theme to your photos that makes them identifiably you without them all looking the same. Whether it's using a particular background, prop or filter it's great to have a style that makes people think 'yep that's them' before people even see your name next to the photo.

Relevant hashtags

A lot of people are very anti-hashtag but unless you have a huge following, you probably aren't going to reach anyone new without them! Just keep it relevant to your post and try to choose slightly more specific hashtags to improve your chances of being seen. For example, your post will probably be lost within moments under #makeup however a fair few people will probably notice it under #flatlay.

Get noticed by brands

Always, always, always tag brands when you post their products! I've had my photos re-posted by brands like Real Techinques and Nars and it really is amazing exposure. I gained about 200 followers just by Lorac liking one of my photos and my Instagram exploded when I was re-grammed by Nars. I've also had brands reach out to me to collaborate through my tagging them in Instagram images. Yeah, you probably won't get any acknowledgement for 9 images out of 10 but it's well worth doing for big brands to notice that 1 photo.

Bloglovin 

Start of December 2015: 2000 followers
Now: 9000 followers

Luck

It's a little bit surreal that it took me a good year and a bit to get to 2000 followers and that's more than quadrupled in just a month! It sort of proves that number of followers and having a good blog are not the same thing. My content is no better than it was a month ago, I was just lucky enough to have the platform for people to see it. I'm honestly so grateful for all the support as I'd never have imagined my blog would reach this many followers, let alone in this short space of time (thank you so to anyone reading, whether you've been here a year and a half or a week and a half!)

Feature in Bloglovin Edit

In November I was featured twice in the Bloglovin Beauty email and both times saw an increase in followers, however it was one post of mine being featured in the Bloglovin Edit that really led the the spike in followers in the past month. It does sometimes feel like the only way to be big on Bloglovin is to be big on Bloglovin and the Popular Post pages do tend to be dominated by the same few, however it's great that the site is now doing things to spotlight smaller bloggers. I don't have a mate at Bloglovin and neither of the posts had a significantly high number of likes before they were featured (maybe 10-20, so a little above average), so there are clearly people out there looking at smaller blogs and if your post is good, you have as much a chance of being featured as someone with 100k followers.

Actively using it

It sounds obvious, but a lot of people do set up Bloglovin, let it sit there and wonder why more isn't happening. For me it's my main channel for reading blogs and I interact with other bloggers through it by saving posts I want to read more of or enjoyed so much I want to re-visit. I also try to leave comments as much as possible (genuine comments, not spam, people!)

Using a good first image

Bloglovin automatically pulls the first image from your post, so make sure it's a good one as it's what people are going to see to represent your content!

Domain Authority & Search Engine Optimisation

May 2015: 0
January 2016: 25

I honestly don't know a huge amount about SEO, so if you're looking for a comprehensive guide, you've come to the wrong place! Cocochic has some great information on it. My DA isn't amazing or anything but I haven't been doing much to improve it, the things I've done to improve it are below, and you don't have to be an expert at all to grow in this area!

Search description & permalink

If you're on Blogger, go into your settings and enable search descriptions. Now when you compose a post, it gives you the option of typing in a search description. This is handy if you want to show up in Google searches but want to give your post a title a bit more fancy than 'review of xyz products'. You can also rename your permalink to include the most important words from the title so the web address is more search-friendly.

Name your photos

Instead of IMG0001 or whatever, rename your photos (I do it when I edit and re-save them) to be reflective on what the post is about. This will help your images show up in Google searches and drive more traffic.

Buy your own domain

I bought my own domain name in May of last year. It isn't too tricky to install at all, and you don't have to be self-hosted if you don't want to, however it will improve your SEO and allow you to generate your own DA.

General Improvements in 2015

The look and feel of my blog

I'm not particularly versed in blog design but in 2015 I got a new blog design and header (which you can read about here). Also, I just tried to improve the layout, design and formatting of my blog, ensuring it is mobile friendly and is easy-to-use and intuitive to navigate around. 

Photography

Writing is fairly natural to me, however photography was a whole new skill to learn when I started blogging. My images have improved a lot over the past year and hopefully will continue to do so, as there's always room for growth with this sort of skill. You can read about my photography process here.

Finding a schedule that works for me

We all have different lifestyles and organise ourselves differently and in 2015, I feel like I worked out a rhythm that suited me and allowed me to post regularly and reliably. As life changes I'll continue to adapt my blogging schedule to work around everything else going on for me.

The one area of my blog that is completely stagnant is Twitter. I enjoy it for Twitter chats and interacting properly with other bloggers and use it to promote posts too, so if you have any tips for growing it then please do share them in the comments!

What are your top tips for growing your blog?

 

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