Five Reasons You Need to Upgrade Your Blog Design

It peps up your blogging mojo

You know that feeling you get when your hair is done and you're in a shiny new outfit? It makes you feel like a million bucks. You get the same feeling when you give your blog design a new look!

You've grown as a blogger

Maybe you've decided to be a more dedicated blogger. In the past, you may have blogged recreationally. But now, you're goal is to blog three times a week. Step up that look, honey!

Your readers deserve it

Spoil people that read your blog every day. Let them show up to your special space and see something just for them.

You have a new strategy

Did you decide to step up your social media plan? How about blogging frequency? People will notice something different about your blog when they come back.

Just because

In the last ten years, I've done about, oh I don't know, 18 redesigns. Maybe more. Many of them happened for no reason at all, but made a big difference in the look of my blog.

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If you're thinking about doing a blog redesign, I hope you'll check out my shop on Etsy! I create pre-made themes for Wordpress, and have several services that help move the process along for you. Each theme looks great on the desktop, tablet or a cell phone, and they're all less than $40 each. For more information, check out the site!

20 Ways to Be A Successful Blogger While Working Full Time (Part 4)

How to Blog and Work Full Time

Here's the last installment of blog tips for working full time. Check out part one, two and three here. Got any tips to share? Leave a comment!

Create “events” on your calendar

I've recently started using my Google calendar as an editorial calendar. All of my videos and blog posts are scheduled there ahead of time, so I can see what I need to be doing during the week. I also schedule time (an hour here or there) to work on the blog, and that is set up like any other appointment or obligation.

Always keep a running to do list

This kind of goes back to the Google Docs idea. Create a list of blog post topics, layout changes, or tweets to share. Whenever you need inspiration or have time to knock out some things, take a look at that list. You'll be surprised how many small gems you'll find there over time!

Revisit some things until later down the road

Don't force certain topics. Did you draw a blank or are running out of ideas? Give it time, let your brain focus on other things, then come back to it later down the road. I'm telling you, people will be able to notice when your posting just for the sake of getting content up.

Don’t compare yourself

There really isn't a win for doing this. It gets you nowhere. Trust me, I have spent years wondering "why didn't I get that opportunity" or "How does she have so many followers?". What a gigantic waste of time.

Get ahead

Wouldn't it be great to know that you have posts set up for every Monday of the next month? It can happen! Spend a span of work time scheduling a particular series. Once you've written all the copy, schedule the posts for the appropriate times.

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20 Ways to Be A Successful Blogger While Working Full Time (Part 3)

How to Blog and Work Full Time

In my third installment of blogging tips, we're going to do some planning and outsourcing. View part one , two  and four of the series, too!

Create an ongoing Google Doc

I absolutely live by this!  I create Google docs that I can edit at any time. Since they live on the web, it's easy to update on your phone or on your computer so you can continuously work on them. I have pages like short and long term goals, blog re-design ideas, random post ideas--basically anything that comes to mind.

The old faithful editorial calendar

I work so hard to use an editorial calendar. It's something that I've never been good at. I like to plan my posts in advance, but I never really you finish. An editorial calendar is basically an idea we took from magazines. They will share a calendar of what each month's issue will contain. So you know that May will be dedicated to Spring beauty, and February is all about Valentine's day. We can do this on a much smaller scale, as bloggers. You can lay out your calendar with themes, specific posts, or whatever else you can think of.

Guest contributors

Here's an easy one! Basically you're getting people to write content for your blog so that you don't have to. If your goal is to have fresh content for your blog five days a week, see if you can have a guest post once every couple of weeks. It's also a good idea because you get the perspective of someone else. That reader might bring their own audience, too! Take the pressure off yourself!

Automate like crazy

Set up as much as you can ahead of time so that you don't have to do it in your current moment. Once you finish your blog post, schedule it in HootSuite to go to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. That way, if it goes out at 11 AM you don't actually have to do it--Hootsuite does it for you. If you knock out all the automation ahead of time then it's much easier for you to not think about it later.

Don’t beat yourself up

If you don't get content up on time or everybody's upset that you're changing, It's okay. My goal is to post every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. It almost never happens. And ya know what? Everything will be fine. Life will go on and you can always start again.

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