An Open Letter to Blogchatter #WriteAPageADay

 Prompt: An Open Letter to BlogChatter

Blog Chatter is a website for the blogging community to share their blogs, and participate in multiple writing-related activities. I might have been a member of blog chatter for 4 years or so. It was under some other name when I joined this blogging community.

Here is an open letter:

Dear Blog Chatter,

Hello.. 

It's been a pleasure being part of your community or should we say our blogging community :-) I love the new look of your website with bees and bright yellows.

I am an old friend if you remember me. I joined this community initially to understand the blogosphere. How it works and all. How a blogger writes a post, researches topics, research keywords so that their post comes on the top of the search results, how they choose the best headline, what is SEO, how they incorporate SEO in their articles, how they create infographics, what tools they use, How do they promote their posts blah and blah...

In very less time, I could get some knowledge in all those topics, thanks to you. 

I enjoyed reading others' blog posts in blog rolls and even made many friends. I also submitted my blog posts and felt so happy getting a badge as a top blogger for some of my posts. Cool 😎 

I participated in multiple campaigns and received some free products to review and also many books. 

I also participated in the A2Z challenge, maybe twice. Here is a wonderful A2Z post list about my Colorado Travelogues. 

I also enrolled in an Alexa improvement campaign and improved my Alexa rank and learned some tips on how to maintain the rank.

Thanks to you for being a friend and guide to many bloggers. 

We, bloggers, enjoy writing blogs as for many of us it's a passion. We are ready to spend more time, tune our skills and become better bloggers with good motivation from blogging communities like Blog chatter.

It's been great so far and I wish we have more fun together learning in the future and showing the power of Indian blogging to everyone else. 

Cheers to more creative collaborations 🥂

Until next time,

Word count : 365

The Journey to being a blogger and Social Media Influencer

 Hello, my blog followers and friends, this is a personal post about my journey to being a blogger and social media influencer.

Do you know, what's beautiful about being a blogger? Pouring your heart out and emotions flowing freely into words. I am not an introvert for sure, but I enjoy writing more than speaking. Writing comes naturally to me without much effort. I am not talking about professional writing, but just like a journal jotting down my experiences.

The Begining:

I started my blog around 13 years ago to document my book reviews, but then, my love for travel dominated my blog. This is my first blog post which seems too silly now. 

During this journey of 13 years, I learned a lot from other bloggers, read many beautiful blogs, watched videos, and read articles on how to manage a blog, what plugins to use, how to format it blah blah..My page views were too low as expected(500 views per month) as I didn't write anything to impress others but used my blog as a journal.

The Progress:

The next phase started when I was researching how to promote blogs on social media or whatever channels available. I started traveling more and there is a lot of content that I am publishing regularly. 

I got extra time to write posts in simple, clear sentences, proofread, and edit them in small paragraphs. I also got a knack for creating graphics with Canva which made my blog posts look better and readable. 

Of course, sharing my blog posts on social media really helped me. Also, it made me understand what it means to be a social media influencer. 

Social Media Impact :

The first platform that helped me to grow my blog is Twitter. I least expected it, but I use Twitter also to get the latest information on some trending topics and follow the topics that I am interested in. I got my first 500 followers with this platform. 

Facebook is for my close friends and family, so I get more page views from Facebook naturally. But, I don't over-promote there and restrict promoting personal content. 

My most favorite platform is Instagram. I love sharing the photos from my blog posts, adding a call to action to let the followers click the link in my bio, and increase the reach of my post by using relevant hashtags.

Doesn't seem complicated right?

- beautiful phots

- Call to action and

- Relevant hashtags

My followers gradually increased to around 700 within a few months and my traffic to my blog too saw some hits from this platform.

Pinterest Magic!

The last and most effective platform which helped my blog grew in terms of page views is Pinterest. I would have learned about its power in my earlier days of blogging.

Due to many mentors and blogging friends like Shailaja, I could quickly understand the basics of Pinterest to make it work. Here is Shailaja's page if you want to get her guidance on Pinterest. 

My Pinterest brings me the most traffic nowadays even when I don't blog regularly. My Pinterest profile gets around 50k profile views every month and my blog also reached 15 k monthly views with around 500 views every day.

PC: www.pixabay.com

SEO:

I am still a newbie on SEO, but this really helps me in bringing some of my pages to the top place in Google search. Since I am busy these days, I couldn't focus more on it, but I follow a few tips to get some results at least.

- To use relevant keywords in my blog post title, the first paragraph, and in the search description for each post

- To research topics that are trending to write blog posts

- To rename the images with keywords and use alt text to insert keywords

- Use lengthier posts with simple, easy to understand sentences and small paragraphs

- Use high-resolution images and graphics

I think, if I spend more time on SEO, I can increase my website traffic for sure.

So, that is the journey so far to 15k page views per month. If you are a blogger, did you experience and explore the topics that I mentioned?

I would love to know your experiences and journey to being a blogger and social media influencer. 

Until next time,

I am happy to be collaborating with Intellifluence for this opportunity to talk about social media influencing. 

5 tools that help me in my regular blogging

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When I started blogging many years ago, I was not sure how to make my content more attractive to readers. In this blogging journey of around 10 years, I have learned a lot from other bloggers and from Google as well on different techniques like below:

• Choosing a better headline or title
• Writing content in small paragraphs and with bullet points if needed
• Including relevant high-quality images to attract readers
• Including quotes and providing a takeaway in each article
• Ending the article with an action item/ a question to connect with readers
• Promoting in social media
• Publishing the post at specific times when the readers are active (mid of the week and in the evenings after 6pm)
•  Writing genuine content with a personal touch instead of some ideal scenarios
• Reading and replying to the comments regularly
• Joining link parties and participating in writing challenges regularly.

Even though my blog is on a custom domain, it is managed through the blogger platform. This made it tough for me to use the plugins because of blogger platform limitations. Since I don't earn much revenue through my blog, I cannot go for paid tools as of now. But, there are some free tools that help me to write regularly on my blog. These tools/ apps/ websites made my life easier.  

Here is a list of 5 such tools/ apps/ websites:

1. Grammarly

I write good English with fewer grammar mistakes but the punctuation mistakes irk me a lot. I have Grammarly Chrome extension enabled which helps me to write content without grammar mistakes.

 I use a free version as of now and it meets my purpose. I feel Grammar is the first thing any blogger should focus on if they want to improve their blog and reach more audiences. 

Check this link to install Grammarly:

The World's Best Grammar Checker



2. Canva

I would say this is a boon for social media promotion and to write content with attractive images and text. I use this regularly and almost every time I blog unless I am using my own images.

Canva is free and it has loads of templates and images. It is very easy to use. Just we have to pick an image, include the text we want to add, add our blog's URL, and download the final image to include in our blog post or use for social media promotion. 

Super cool and Simple!

Check this link to create an account and start creating beautiful graphics faster:






3.Image Sources

Picking attractive high-quality images is very important for any blog post. 

Good Paid stock photos are best for Pinterest Pins as they stand out and bring more traffic to me. I suggest Deposit photos for high-quality images that we can use for social media promotion..

Stock Images


The first source that helps me with this is the website www.pixabay.com. Many images are available for free. 

One more option is to search for an image in "Google images" page, select "tools 》usage rights" and filter the results by "labeled with non-commercial reuse". Those images are not copyrighted. 

Other sources are Flickr images with a creative commons license and a website www.unsplash.com. 

4. Buffer

Taking time to promote our content is as important as publishing quality content. I usually promote my content on Facebook, Twitter and Google plus. I also add my links to Indiblogger and the blog chatter reading lists. 

When I schedule my content ahead for a future date I use buffer to share the links on social media. It makes planning easier and I use a free version as of now.

5. Image editing tools

Sometimes, for travelogues, I post photos directly from my mobile. So, I use snapseed app to edit my photos. This is a free tool with lots of editing options. I use photo grid app to make collages of photos real quick from my mobile. 

What tools do you use for blogging? Did you try any of the above-mentioned tools/ apps/ websites? Please do let me know your thoughts and also suggestions on some free tools which make blogging easy.

Until next time 

This article is written as part of SuperBloggingChallenge2018 conducted by Healthwealthbridge.com,Fashionablefoodz.com, and Allaboutthewoman.com and should not be repurposed, republished or used otherwise. SuperBloggerChallenge2018 is not responsible for any kind of infringement caused. 

Also, linking this to #QuotedStories hosted by Upasna. 

My Writing ideas to overcome Writer's block #WritingWednesdays

I write about books that inspire me and places that interest me. Sometimes, there will be a few dull days when my thoughts become stagnant and I don't get any motivation to think differently. A blog is a wonderful platform to express our feelings but we have to write good content and present things in a unique way so that the audience won't get bored. I try to improve my writing skills, read a lot, practice and hone my skills with every new post. Here are a few ideas which help me to overcome Writer's block. These also help me to avoid publishing the boring routine content in my blog.

Source:pixabay.com

1. Books and places
Since my blog is all about these two, these are my first motivation factors to write. I read 2 to 4 books a month and write reviews for most of them. I love sharing details about the tourist places I visit,  though I don't travel very frequently. Sometimes, a day out with children, a walk in the park or any special event that I participate also join my writing list.

2. Round ups and Gratitude lists
This is an easy and fun way to write when I am really stuck and doesn't have much time to write a post. I usually list down the books that I read last month with a brief description of each, linking all my reviews. A quick one, right? I love the idea of listing down all good things that made me smile as a gratitude list and I am practicing this every month.

3. List posts
I love making lists! Top 5 books that I liked or my top 5 parenting lessons or my top tips to manage a fussy eater. This is another unique way of presenting my content without thinking hard.

4. Making a note of ideas
I know, most of my fellow bloggers follow this as well. We tend to forget a few ideas when we can't write about them immediately. Ideas popup anytime ☺ during a shower or in the middle of night or during a public transit to office. I use Evernote to note them so that I can check these in my laptop and write in detail whenever I get time. This app syncs to both my smart phone and laptop, making it easier.

5. Reading
When I am badly stuck and demotivated to write, I take inspiration from other blogs, facebook groups, trending topics in social media, magazine articles etc., Reading generates more ideas. What do you say?

So.. that's about my writing ideas. What about you?

Writing this for #WritingWednesdays hosted by Corinne at writeTribe.
 This week's prompt - "Where do you get writing ideas from?"

Until next time,