Come Share Your Three Top Tips!

So here it is! From today (Thursday) to Sunday, Three Top Tips is on! Post a blog post with your three top tips, and link up so we all can benefit from your wisdom. :)

 Please feel free to use the button in your posts (and post it on your sidebar)!

I've got to say - at first it was really hard for me to come up with three tips, but then I started thinking about design, post content, blogging etiquette... and then I was overloaded with so many that I could hardly narrow it down! But I finally did. I went with more of tips on how you present yourself & your blog to others.  

Please don't feel that you have to do the same. There's so many aspects of blogging - and I hope to get as wide a variety of tips as I can! 

Tip #1: Think, plan and review. 

One of the biggest sources of frustration to a blogger and to his or her readers, is when the blogger gets a really good idea but then nothing (or very little) comes of it. Often this comes from the blogger just throwing the idea out there without thinking it through a bit first and coming up with the best way to approach it.

For example, when I first thought of this "Three Top Tips" idea, I almost mentioned it in this post. Then I thought about it a bit and realized that wasn't the best way to introduce it. I needed to write a separate post about it so you all would really be interested! 

Something else that goes along with this is proofreading. Make sure you read over your post a couple of times before you publish it! I know sometimes this feels like a waste of time, but it really makes you sound much more knowledgeable and mature. :)

Tip #2: {for photography blogs} Big photos are the best! 

If you didn't know, I have a photography blog called A Rose in God's Garden Photography. When I was setting it up I did a lot of research (because, if you couldn't tell, I really like to put my best foot forward). One of the things I found on all the photography blogs that I liked was that they had nice big photos in their posts. This really makes the blog stand out, because obviously people are there to see the photos! 

It's really quite simple how to put up big photos. You just have to make your post area wide enough to accomodate the size of the photos, then when you upload them make them "extra-large". They won't look right on the post creator, but when you preview them they should be just right.

I'm sure there's other ways to do this too, and I would love suggestions/tips if you all have them! After all, I'm still learning too. ;) 

Tip #3: Know your audience & what you want to do with your blog. 

This is probably the tip I learned through the most trial and error. When I was first starting out, I had absolutely no idea how to do a blog. I also didn't really define the reason why I was blogging - I suppose at that time it was just because it was a cool thing to do. :P I was writing quality stuff (like this post and this one), but no one commented on them and I was getting discouraged (and I probably only had about 10 followers in all). 

Then in January of this year, I decided that my blog needed a new focus. I decided to focus more on my readers (actually reply to their comments!), and invite more people to come along for the ride. I started networking with other bloggers, and training myself in all the different things that make a blog successful (like figuring out feedburner... etc). Now I'm almost at 100 followers (200 if you count my feed burner subscribers)!

So all that to say: if you haven't already, it really is a good idea to determine your audience and the goal of your blog. Is it just a place for you to jot down your thoughts? (Which means that followers/commenters aren't as important.) Or do you want to share your work with others? (Which means you want to network and get the word out.)

Alrighty, so there you have it. My three top tips.

What are yours?