Blogging Advice 003

Disclaimer: An expert on blogging, I am not.

I’ll probably always start off these kind of blog posts with a disclaimer similar to the one above. I really want to drive my message across that I am no professional or expert on blogging. As I’ve mentioned in my first and second advice posts, I do these posts because I have had people ask me for advice before. Hopefully someone out there finds it helpful and uses the advice I have to give.

#Hashtag:

Hashtag! Hashtag! Yes, that’s right, I’m telling you to hashtag. If you haven’t realized already under Post Settings there is a section titled “Categories & Tags,” here you can apply categories to your blog as well as add tags to your post (that was probably really obvious, I don’t know why I felt the need to elaborate.) So, with tags, don’t go crazy now, if your post is about fashion you should probably avoid the tag of recipe or food…unless of course your clothing items have food, in which case, go for it! After writing a post make sure to tag words that are similar and go along with the post. Having tags, allows you to pop up whenever someone searches a certain tag, which again, allows you to promote your blog. Don’t go on a tagging frenzy, make sure to limit your tags to 15 or under.

Tags to Consider:

For a Food Post- food, recipe, cooking, baking, healthy, health, life, lifestyle
For a Fashion Post – fashion, clothes, ootd, life, lifestyle, style, haul, favorites
For a Makeup Post – fashion, style, makeup, life, lifestyle, favorites
For a Workout Post– workout, exercise, healthy, healthy, fit, fitness, life, lifestyle

As you can tell, I use life and lifestyle a lot because I do have a lifestyle blog. Also, you can use multiple types of tags. For example if you are doing a post on fitness fashion than you can always incorporate what I’ve written for workout as well as fashion since it’s a mixture of both.

Awards:

Awards, awards, awards! It took me a year to actually receive my first award and I couldn’t have been more shocked, excited and pleased! I immediately did the award and was so thrilled to share with my readers that I had hit a milestone for myself. Eventually, awards started to roll in and pile up, especially over the past couple of months. I still do the awards that I am nominated for, even if I’ve been nominated for that award before by someone else. The reason I do multiple awards is because it’s a different person who has nominated me, out of all the people on WordPress, someone has chosen ME! It’s an honor to be recognized by someone and therefore you should pay it forward by completing the award. HOWEVER, I have been nominated for some awards and I don’t feel comfortable answering some questions whether it’s because it’s far too personal or just too cringe and inappropriate to answer; so although I’m telling you to do awards, I do advise that you stick to your gut and if you aren’t comfortable with an award’s questions or with sharing too much than just don’t do it.

Tags:

I suppose tags are sort of like awards because usually someone will challenge you to do it. Alongside with my advice for awards, I would suggest you do tags too if you are nominated for them, again, so long as you feel comfortable with answering the questions in the tag. You can also start your own tag or look up some on Google. For example, I know there are tags on Google that are titled: “This or That Tag” or are specifically related to certain things like beauty tags or fashion tags. Take the time to search the web and come up with a tag of your own.

 

That’s all for today, I hope this has helped at least one of you. Again, remember, I am no expert!

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62 thoughts on “Blogging Advice 003”

  5. I loved this! You shared some great advice, thank you!
    I never used hashtags just because I didn’t know you could/should do it 😀 haha, I’ve started using them probably after a year or so…. I am such a blogging expert 😉

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  8. I have never been nominated for an award. I guess I’m still fairly new, and I’m not sure if anyone will ever find my blog award-worthy, though I’m thrilled that people do seem to like a number of my posts. However, I was nominated to do a 5-Day Music Challenge. At first, I didn’t like feeling like someone was telling me what to write about, but I knew I wanted to write about music at some point. Music has always been important to me. Well, the music challenge yielded some of the funnest posts I’ve written. I had a blast. The one thing I didn’t do was nominate others, like I was instructed to do. I did invite others to let me nominate them, if they liked. No one asked. I’m not fond of chain letter type things.

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    1. At the end of the day, it’s your blog and you do as you please so if you wish to pick people, you do so, if you wish not to then don’t! You can always just nominate everyone who reads, this saves you the trouble of getting people and linking their blog. I wish you the best of luck on your blogging journey! Thank you so much for sharing that with me. Have a lovely day! X

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  9. Very nice tips! I agree with tags, I use a lot, but I don’t think I’ve used over 15, so that’s good XD
    Awards are really fun to write about! I like answering questions, but I get your point on using your discretion if you’re unsure about the questions you’ve been asked.

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    1. Thank you so much! You’ll find that tags are very useful! As for award, I completely agree, as I mentioned, I have turned down some simply because the questions that were given to me I didn’t feel comfortable answering and I believe it’s important to blog and be true to who you are! Thanks for coming by and have a lovely day! x

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  10. First off, thank you for the reminder of only tagging your posts up to 15 times. I just read something saying that if you tag more than that WordPress filters out your post as an anti-spam procedure or something. So very good to know!

    Second, could you explain the difference between the Awards and the Tags people and each other and post? I’ve seen a couple but they look like the same sort of thing to me.

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    1. Thank you so very much! Tags can be two things either hashtags for when you write your posts or tags as in posts people do for fun to get to know more about each other. Typically tags are fun and can be found either by nominating each other, being created or being found randomly online. For example if you look up “beauty tag” in google you’ll probably find a couple of them, it’s just a series of questions, some short or some long. People nominate each other to do it as a means of spreading fun, creative posts and to spread each other’s blogs. As for awards, some people create their own awards to represent different things. Some awards have more meaning like an appreciation award (don’t think that’s a thing I’m just making it up) could be like some post where you show appreciation for certain bloggers then nominate them to do the same. Other awards are made up of a series of questions just to get to know each other and spread out the love! Hope this helps, sorry if it’s confusing I’m answering this kind of late at night and my eyes are slowly closing! Haha

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  13. Where do you put the actual # do you just write the word separated my commas or do you need to put the #? I’ve not put any # in my blog but should I be doing this? Helpful advice though, I’m only starting out. Thanks. xo

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    1. So, when you are working on a post, to the right of your screen there should be a part that says “category/tags” here you can create categories fit to your blog such as “fashion,” “fitness”, “recipes”… etc and you can also put tags in a box, it says that tags are separate by space so just write a word, click the spaces bar it should then be turned into a little box and you can write another word! Hope that helps !! Have a lovely day and good luck on your blogging journey!

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  14. I’m very new to blogging & absolutely love it. I work full time so find it difficult to find time to blog, which is quite frustrating, but hopefully this will change in the near future. I’m constantly looking/reading as much as I can on blogging tips etc & so happy I’ve come across your blog – very helpful thank you!! 😊

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    1. Two types of tags, the hashtags you’re taking about which allows people to search a word and your stuff will quickly appear if they search a hashtag related to what you’ve mentioned. There is also a tag in a sense of beauty tags, make up tags, life tags which are basically a series of questions either made by a blogger or taken from the internet, if you look up beauty tag for example you’ll see tons of different survey like posts that virtually anyone can take part in if they wish. Awards are also typically made my blogger and they serve as a way to show appreciate for others. Awards can be anything from a series of q&a’s to an award that just requires to share a bit about yourself. Essentially, tags and awards are done as fun posts that help spread love in the blogging community as well as help share other blogs and bloggers. Hope this has helped ! X

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  19. Thanks so much for your helpful tips. It is great to come across a post that you know will help. I use tags however, a change in a word can make a difference. The hashtags I’m still a not sure. Great read and both posts are informative. 🙂

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  21. I was just thinking this week that I have not been as good about doing the categories and tags thing as I probably should be, so I was happy to see this post! I really just hadn’t taken the time to learn the difference between the two, and it was an easy step to skip. But I won’t anymore 🙂

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  22. Thank you BeaFreitas for your 001 and 003. 001 was pretty clear but 003 was less so. I didn’t understand why an award includes questions, and then questions about tags–I understood less. But don’t feel compelled to answer me. I’m sure you’ve got lots of stuff to do. I’ll keep poking along learning as I do. I just recently learned how to use tags (but you did say “hatchtag” and that confused me thinking I should use # in a tag but it seems that’s not what you meant.

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    1. I said hashtag only to not confuse readers with tagging as categories and tagging as ones you get nominated for. For tags it’s typically a series of questions you can find them online or you can even create your own and then you do it and nominate others to do it to spread other blogs but also to get to know your readers as well. Other tags don’t involve questions but they involve a certain theme, for example, my best friend created a Smile Tag in hopes of spreading positive vibes where she asks people to share their photos of them happy. Another blogger I know created a gratitude tag where she asked people to share what they are thankful for. As for awards, I don’t know anyone that’s created one personally but they’re usually a series of questions to get to know the blogger. I’m very unsure why an award has questions but that’s all I’ve seen. As I’ve said, a blogging guru I am not.

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