10 Things I Did or Wish I Did when I Started Blogging

So I will have been at this blogging game for 18 months come September 1 and accordingly, I think I am at least now qualified to look back and tell you what I should have done with this little baby..  I don't know about you, but I love blog posts about blogging.  I literally lap them up, as there is always something new to learn.

Today I am going to make a list of 10 things I would do if I was starting my blogging journey tomorrow, knowing what I know now.  Luckily I did a few of them from day one, probably more by accident and it has made my journey much easier and enjoyable.  As for some of the others.....well nothing is perfect!!!!!

Oh and today's post is brought to you by some beachy vignettes around my home.

1.Think hard about what you are going to call your blog.  Once you are some months down the track and you have a following and people are getting to know you, it's very difficult to change your name. 

Here's a comment I got recently, from a big American blogger, when I asked my audience about what they would like to be called as a gang, so it can happen to any of us.

"I'm so bad with names, so no advice there DIY Show Off? Really? If I had known what I know now...I'd have something cute. lol!"

 Think about what your niche is and try to think of a name that encompasses all that you are. Although I am a coastal blogger, I wanted  to include posts about all things related to house and home.  So that's the Empire bit.  The Desire bit was more about wanting it all to be pretty and beautiful and sharing some of my hopes and dreams on here.

18 months on, I'm still pretty happy with it, but do wonder whether it would have been good to have something about the coast in there.

2. In relation to the name of your blog, I would even go as far as registering it as a business name, with your government authority.  I registered Desire Empire as a business name with ASIC, which cost me about $110 for three years, before I registered it as a domain name.  I didn't want to be contacted by someone who registered it down the track, on the back of my success and then told, I could no longer use it.

I would definitely register a domain name too.  It looks more professional if you are a dot com rather than a blogspot.com and if you decide to go back and register it later, your name of choice may not be available.  Sites like Go Daddy provide an inexpensive option for domain hosting, which are easy to set up. Although beware of trolls that are lurking to snatch your domain name if you fail to re-register it on the day it expires.  Go Daddy will charge you a fee to reveal who has reregistered your name and then you will need to pay that person or group $$$ to get your name back.  Yes there really are horrible people like this in the world, who are lurking just waiting to make money off your success.

3. Back up your blog weekly.  You will see many examples of people who have logged onto their blog one morning, only to find the whole lot gone and without any possibility of it being retrieved.  All that hard work, your whole archive gone..  It would be devastating.  Here's how to back it up, if you use Blogger:

In your blog dashboard go to

Settings> other> blog tools>Exports Blog>download blog

It should save to your down load file with a date and if you ever lose your blog content, it should all be there to reload.

4. Decide on a blogging platform and think long and hard before you sign up and start publishing.  Many bloggers prefer Wordpress once they get there, but most people seem to start with blogger, Which kind of  locks them in, as making the switch from Blogger to Worpress down the track must be a bit tricky.  I really like blogger, although there is no support from them if anything goes wrong.  It seems to work much better under the Google Chrome browser than the Explorer browser, because Google owns both Chrome and Blogger.  Oh and although Blogger is free, you will get hit up for money once your photo limit is reached, although it is a nominal fee to increase it.

5.  Have the graphics and layout of your blog professionally designed.  This is going to be the view you present of yourself to the world.  It is your brand and it needs to be easily recognisable, very attractive, well laid out and professional.  Of course if you are blogging with a view to not working with brands and you are just diarising your life electronically, which is actually why I started blogging, you may not need to worry about this.  But being me, I did.   Even though my motives were not commercial, I am now very glad  I put lots of effort into the design  from the start.  Now I am working with sponsors, it's something I don't have to go back and re jig now.

I used Shari from Little Blue Deer.  She has been an absolute delight to work with and even now, helps me when there is a problem.

Before you approach a blog designer, you need to have a good idea interms of style, colours, fonts and shots you want to use in the design of your blog. Although Shari has a wait list, once she begins a project she is very quick, so you need to have done your research.  My blog design cost $US200 and I believe that it is still lovely 18 months into blogging.  I may do a little tweek soon, but I have not felt the need to do a major overhaul.

6.  Start up other social media platforms such as Face Book, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest in the name of your blog, not your own name, and use only one or two profile pictures maximum, to keep your branding streamlined.  And don't do as I did and start up your blog page in Face Book as a person.  Make sure you start up your blog page as a business.  I wasted 6 months making friends in Face Book with Desire Empire as a person and then decided to close it down to start as I should have originally, with a business page.  I then lost lots of those followers for a while and it was a hassle explaining to them what had happened, when I asked them to rejoin me on my business page.

Choose the social media platform that you enjoy the most.  It's impossible to be across all of them constantly even though I think you should touch base with the biggies once in a while at least. It's possible to link your Facebook posts so they automatically share to your Twitter, which I think is a good idea. You can also post your Instagram shots to Twitter and Face Book, so it looks like you are across everything, even if you aren't. It's worth linking them in order to save time and to capture a greater audience, which helps to build traffic.

If you do try to be on them all constantly, you will have no life and therefore won't have anything to blog about.  I love Twitter and find if I tweet my current posts plus a few archive posts, then my stats increase by 20 percent on that day.  I wrote a post on Twitter for virgins here if you are not sure on how to play.

7.  Gather up the social media icons in a group and put them at the top of your blog with a link to all your accounts.  If someone lands on your site and decides they want to follow you or come back at a later date to read your post, make it easy for them to follow.  I have only just bothered to do this (although they are still a work in progress and the links are still not all in place) but it is interesting that the rate at which my followers now increase for Face Book is better, because I finally decided to make it easy for people to follow me that way.  Also make sure there is an email address up there, or use the envelope icon with a link to your address, so that you are easily contactable.

Also use the share buttons for social media,  at the bottom of each post, so that if a reader wants to share your post over to their Face Book or Twitter or to pin it or whatever, it's easy for them.  You can also easily share your posts over to these sites as well.  Here's a website that may help you with this. And this is a post I found about the share icons, to cover all blogging platforms.  Mine still needs work, as you will see I don't have a 'pin it' button down at the bottom of this post, which I should have.

8.  Expect people to act in the blogispere the way they do in life.  Most of the people you will encounter  are completely lovely, but there are nasty people lurking around as well.  I have only ever been bullied by one person, who has been relentless from the start of my blogging journey and  also to many others', it seems.  Thankfully I am very strong and confident in my own skin, so I have never felt the need to respond.  As long as you write in your own voice, about your own experiences, you can feel confident that you are on the right track.  Don't let the nasties bring you down.

With regard to leaving comments, I have never seen the point in leaving nasty ones.  If people are generous enough to share some of themselves with you, why be mean?  I think rude and nasty comments only reflect badly on the writer, although they are often written anonymously, which says much more about the commenter than the blogger.  If you don't like something just move on, there is no need to comment at all.  The best advice here I think, is as my mother always says,   "Remain a lady at all times."

9.  Whilst we are talking about your own voice, lets talk about photography.  I am very definite about only posting my own shots. Although, I do post shots of  houses for rent or sale in my region  and have informally spoken to real estate agents about my concerns.  They are fine with it, because it's promoting their clients' home.  However, the rule of law in Australia is that you do not own the rights publish a photo online unless you  have purchased them, been given express permission to publish or you took the shot yourself.  That is basically the law of copyright, as it applies in Australia. I like people using my shots and allow them to do so free of charge, as long as they are credited with a link back to this blog, but not all professional photographers feel that way.  Remember they have families to feed as well.

10.  If you like to get comments, turn off word verification.  We all love to get comments and word verification is such a turn off.  The code is hard to read and I often find myself having to do it twice or three times, as it's so easy to muck it up.

Here's how to turn it off for Blogger:
Settings>Posts and Comments>Show Word Verification>No

And of course with my lists, there is always a bonus tip

11.  The most important tip, although this is one I knew back when I started, as it's how I try to live and that is to have FUN.. I have made some lovely friends online and some of us get together regularly.  Attend all the blogging conferences you can, with a stack of your business cards.  Network like crazy and enjoy yourself. Blogging has opened up so many wonderful opportunities for me and the day it stops being fun, is the day you will not see me here any more.

So what are your tips?  Leave a comment below, feel free to let me know if I am wrong on anything here, as I would love to learn more.

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You can pin any of these shots by hovering over the shot and clicking on the  'P'.

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