This volume came late because I have been very sick the past days which I will blog about next time. Anyway... This week's #YouBlogYou will be about blog design and statistics. This is for us to understand how these aspects can be significant towards the growth of our blogs.
If you're wondering what this is, #YouBlogYou is a blog series dedicated for bloggers wherein they will answer 11 questions related to blogging every week. This is a great opportunity for us to know them more as bloggers while others can learn something from them too.
1. How do you classify your blog? In what category does it fall in?
I classify my blog as a lifestyle blog because I post almost anything - from books I've read to the food I've eaten. For now, I only own this blog, but I'm planning to create another one which will focus more on photography.
2. What is the title of your blog? Share with us too what’s the story behind it.
The title of my blog is Tales & Escapades. The story behind this is simple; I'm a person who loves to tell stories and I love adventure so I searched for words that can describe that. Hence, Tales & Escapades.
3. How did you come up with the design of your blog? Tell us if it’s a free/purchased template or someone you know made it for you.
This is a purchased template from Georgia Lou's Etsy Shop. The template is called "Francesca" and I bought it for $20.00 (roughly Php950). I chose this blog because of the slideshow which I can use to feature up to five posts. Also, this blog theme is mobile responsive which is a plus for me since most of my viewers browse my blog using their phones.
4. If you own a domain, where did you purchase it? If you don’t have one yet, what’s preventing you from getting one?
I bought www.louisechelleblog.com via GoDaddy. I really did not plan to purchase it that night but they had a sale so I took the opportunity to buy the domain for 3 years. If I'm not mistaken, I spent just about Php 1,200 for the 3 years.
5. Where do you host your blog? Which platform? (Blogspot, Wordpress, Tumblr, etc) Are you planning to move to another platform/host? Why or why not?
I still host my blog with Blogspot because I don't have enough finances to pay for a hosting site. Besides, Blogspot is a great platform to use; very user-friendly. I wanted to switch to Wordpress before just for the sake of being able to customize more of my site and accept different paid ad services however, I'm not ready for that yet. Also, I will regret loosing the comments and page views I gained from this blog if I start a new one in another platform.
6. How often do you check your blog statistics?
I check my entire blog's statistics weekly but I do check my blog post's stats daily. This is so I can see which post is trending so I would know which post needs more promotion.
7. Do you think having a good and fast-loading template affects the traffic of your site?
I do believe it does because I myself, as an internet viewer/reader, I don't wait for a webpage that takes too long to open. If my site takes more than 2 minutes to load and most of my viewers are like me, then it will really affect my blog site's traffic.
A neat template too somewhat encourages visitors to stay longer and read more posts compared to sites that have too much columns and pop-up ads.
8. Do you use other sites, software or apps to schedule and post your blog posts? If yes, care to share it with us? If none, simply tell us how you share your posts.
I use Blogspot's scheduling feature to schedule my posts while I now use CoSchedule to help me schedule my blog posts in my social media. I'll be reviewing them soon so please do watch out for it. It's very easy-to-use and very helpful!
9. How do you think you earn blog post comments or blog shares?
I earn blog comments by joining comment exchange threads in different Facebook groups. I also gain comments from my regular readers and/or the other bloggers who I became friends with. While there are some comments that come from Twitter users; these are the people who either wanted to share their experience with what I have posted or to ask something about my post (since 140 characters tweet is not enough).
10. Aside from the activities mentioned above (blog post sharing & comments), what other efforts can help increase a blog’s statistics?
As I mentioned above, I get some support from Facebook groups dedicated for bloggers. Social media is really the easiest way to drive traffic to a site. And oh! Facebook advertising can really help a lot! Example: After publishing Why You Should Watch #HeneralLuna, I promoted it via Facebook advertising for just a day and that post gained 3293 views!
And aside from hosting giveaways, writing reviews and tagging the persons related to your post can really help drive traffic to your blog too! I remember this post I made for the book Besties wherein Georgina Wilson, one of the authors, actually retweeted my tweet that contained the link to my post. Her retweet helped me gained 2561 views (as of writing) for that certain post.
I'm pretty sure you've heard of this: great SEO will effortlessly help you be in the first pages of Google searches. I can't say much about this because I'm still learning it.
11. Check your blog statistics and tell us either what you think helped you attain that number of views or what do you think you could have done to increase it?
Looking at my blog statistics, I know that the shared posts by known personalities and the companies/brands I've blogged about PLUS the power of Facebook Advertising really helped me gain those numbers.
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