I started this blog on the 10th of April 2012 and I am lucky enough to have now reached the 10,000 hits mark. So I just wanted to say a big big ‘Thank You’ to all of you who stop by and take the time to read my blog.

This seems like a good time to tell you all 10 things that I have learned about blogging, so here goes :

1. Blogging is Addictive – if you are anything like me, you check your stats 10 times a  day and get a little rush each time you see the orange glow of a new notification.

2. There is a magic formula for successful posts. It’s not lots of research and thought provoking content (although these help!) I have found that my successful posts are the ones which have a little bit of my soul in them. The posts which are about topics that I feel passionately about seem to be the best recieved. Wether I’m expressing my intense hatred for essay writing  or pointing out the ridiculousness of the things that we do to look good. 

3. Bloggers are a friendly a bunch.

4. To be a good blogger, it helps to read other blogs. At the very least, reading other blogs gives you an idea of what makes a blog post interesting enough to persuade you to stop and read it. There are thousands of new blog posts everyday,  think about how you decide which ones to read? For me, it’s the posts which have cool snazzy titles,  which are about something new and exciting, which make me want to know how? and why? The posts which make me want to say to the person nearest me, ‘hey, look at this’, those are the ones that I stop and read. So I try and remember those factors when writing a blog post. I might not be ticking all of the boxes all of the time but some of the boxes some of the time seems to be working just fine at the moment.

5. Bloggers are children. We read the posts that have pictures. If  a post doesn’t have some sort of image our brain tells us that it will be boring. It’s sad but true.

6. Some days you will have 50 ideas for a blog post. Some days you will have 0. That’s just how it goes.

7. If you are a blogger, there are lots and lots of people out there who want to give you free stuff. Companies are always sending bloggers free stuff for reviews and giveaways and fellow bloggers are always hosting giveaways. I’m grateful to say that I have been inducted into the free stuff club. I recently recieved some really cool tops from the clothing brand ‘Sinfused’ and they also let me host a giveaway so that 2 of my readers got free tops too. Tip – from my own experience and from reading other blogs it seems that what happens most often is that companies will approach you, not the other way around. I had never heard of Sinfused before I got an e-mail in my inbox saying that they liked my blog and wanted to give me some free stuff to feature on it.

8. It’s easy for blogs to be boring. There are so many blogs that do product review after product review after product review and for me it gets tedious after a while. Throw something a bit different into the mix every once in a while. I mean my favourite cereal is cheerios but I don’t eat them every day of my life, they wouldn’t be my favourite very long if I did. There are so many of these types of blogs because companies are a lot more likely to send free products for review to bloggers who have a track record of well written reviews. It makes sense but it’s also a bit annoying, If you want to attract free stuff fair enough, but try and make sure that you are interesting to your readers as well as to companies.

9. You know how nice it feels when someone ‘likes’ or comments on your post or decides that your blog is good enough for them to follow? Other bloggers know how nice that feels too and they want it for themselves so don’t be a Scrooge blogger-share the love.

10. Nice Bloggers finish first. The bloggers that I follow aren’t the ones who get into arguments in comments sections. Just sayin’.

Thanks for checking out my blog 🙂