A Royal Friday

Hello there friends,

it has been AWHILE since you heard from me I know. So for a quick update, we are mostly moved in, and my uncle is being transferred out of the hospital to a long-term care facility. He was without oxygen for an undetermined amount of time, so his brain is severely damaged. He is in a coma, and if he wakes up he will be blind and probably unable to do anything for himself. I am still praying everyday that he wakes up and God grants us a miracle.

Moving right along, I have 1 last guest post for you this week from the awesome Amanda of Royal Daughter Designs, if you don’t know her you need to, so scoot on over to her blog and leave her some comment love!

Next week on Pretty Living PDX

*January Group Giveaway- 1 word TARGET

*Top 10 lies you tell yourself when moving

and tons more fun stuff!

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Oh hi there, have we met before?

In case we haven’t met, here’s the short version of who I am: I’m a country-living, ice tea drinking, good book reading, farming, ranching, Jesus-loving, curly-headed wife of a seminary professor. He’s a teacher, I’m a writer. He’s a thinker, I’m a graphic designer. You can get to know me a little better here.

Myranda has so graciously allowed me to be here today, so I wanted to take a few minutes and share with you 3 tips for blogging successfully. I’m certainly not an expert, but I’ve had a few small successes over the past few years of blogging. So I wanted to share them with you!

1. Know Your Audience.
It is UBER important to know your audience. I like to tell newbie bloggers that knowing their audience (or target audience) is the number one key for developing your brand. For example, if your audience is fashion-driven women between the ages of 18 and 24, you don’t need owls, birds, babies, diapers, or hand-crafted hoop art in your logo and name. Knowing your audience not only helps you create content that your readers will want to read (and for which they’ll keep coming back!), it also helps you determine where to advertise your blog, what link-ups will fit your brand, and what (if any) blog conference to attend. All of this leads to saving money when it comes to investing in your brand.

2. Be true to your brand.
As a blogger, you are your brand. Once you’ve invested time, money, and energy into your brand, discrepancies across social media actually slowly chip away at your brand’s integrity. This means, don’t say things on facebook or twitter that don’t match who you are on your blog. It also means that spending valuable advertising funds on a blog that is completely opposite of your brand could not only be a waste of your resources, but actually harm your brand’s identity.

3. Answer questions – publicly.
Whether you’re a lifestyle, fashion, food, or DIY blogger, you want your readers to ask you questions. If one person asks where you got your leopard printed flats, chances are someone else wants to know. So go ahead and write about it. Basically, start paying attention to the questions that your readers ask you. Those are the questions you want to answer, the “hole” you want to fill in the blogging community. It makes you, your brand, an asset, and a worthy read.

There’s a lot more to being a successful blogger than just these three aspects, of course. But if you build your brand, your writing, and your goals around these three, you’ll be off to a great start!

Y’all have a great New Year! And please come say hi some time. You’ll find more blogging tips + tricks in my Tutes on Tuesday series.