BEDN #8: Blog Chat

Okay, so I know that BEDN #8 is supposed to be a Day in the Life, buuuut, my weekdays are not interesting at all. If I took pictures every hour you would have: 9am: desk; 10am: desk; 11am: desk; 12pm: desk; 1pm: food; 2pm: desk. You get the picture. So I decided to do it tomorrow instead, so I’ve swapped around the days. So today is blog chat!

I’m going to go through a few things: how I started blogging; a few blogging tips; and a little bit on advertising etc. for your blog (since I’m a little more in the know about it now!).

I started up my blog back in 2010 with posts like this old gem -I had nothing specific in mind except writing down a bit of what I did every day, sort of like an online diary really that was kind of focused on clothes but not really. That was back in February, and it wasn’t until October that I really started posting properly with my self-imposed Daily Outfit Challenge (even more gems in there, wow!). And I’ve been going ever since! My blog has gone through several changes (and I’m considering another change now – I get bored easily!), but as you know, I mostly post my outfits, books and recipes. I’m not a fashion blog, and I don’t think I’d want to be, more of a personal style with dashes of lifestyle.

So any tips for blogging then? Um, no, not really. I just blog because I like it! You always hear ‘tips for newbie bloggers’, but I’ll add my own, even if they’re exactly the same as everyone else’s: interact with others, whether it’s on their blogs, Twitter or Facebook – there’s an amazing blogging community out there and they’re always looking to find more people to join it. It can be a little scary to suddenly start talking to them, but just go for it! And don’t just blog because you want to make money or score free clothes. When I started out blogging, I had no idea that it was even possible to make money through blogging, and getting clothes sent for free?! When I was offered a Lookbook by Matalan back in 2011, the first company to get in contact with me, I was sure it was a scam. They asked for my address to send the book to, and I was reluctant to share it with them in case they were planning to murder me or something (I think I have an issue with this!). But when the package turned up and it contained not only the Lookbook but also a dress and a satchel, I was confused and excited. I didn’t realise that this was a thing! I’ve now been lucky enough to work with a number of companies, but I don’t blog for that. In fact, I don’t think I’ve even recently featured any c/o clothing on my blog (but I seem to do that all in one go then none for ages for some reason). But it’s a great blogging perk if you work hard enough.

(Everything above from F&F Clothing at Tesco)

And my final bit is going to be on advertising. So receiving clothes is a form of advertising on blogs – I’m sure you all realise that. But there are other ways of advertising too – for example, banners/buttons in your sidebar, text links in your sidebar/in content, sponsored posts and guest posts. Some people see advertising as selling out; I see this as the following: blogging makes up a big part of what I do at work now – part of my job is content writing (and copywriting), and I also freelance write too. And obviously I am paid for doing these things, as a professional writer. If someone wants to use my blog space to advertise their company, that is a space that I have spent 3 years working on, why shouldn’t I charge for that? I’ll spend a couple of hours on my blog every evening at the moment, hours where I’m actually working.

People will usually start offering you $25 for them. This is pretty low. I also get requests asking me to post a guest post for free because the quality of the writing was so good that my site would benefit from it, or to accept $5 for a post. Generally people don’t really know how much they should be offering this type of advertising for – well, it should be however much you think you’re worth for it. The going rate is to think about how much you would charge hourly based on your writing quality. Anything below £35 is usually undercharging yourself. But it’s entirely up to you. I have a little more insider information on this as I now work in SEO and outreach as well as content writing, so I know prices that are offered every day. Sometimes you get ridiculous ones from bloggers who I think are waaay too big for their boots, charging hundreds (sometimes thousands!) for a single post on their blog.

I’m rambling now, but I’m happy to provide any further info on this subject though for bloggers who are stuck with what to charge for advertising/how it works. You can always drop me an email about it at sianhannahthomas@gmail.com if you want to know something (but remember that I don’t know everything!).

(Recipe for Veggie Tagine here)