ten tips on how to gain comments+followers

Have you ever visited a blog that just annoyed you? Every post is either too silly or too serious. The design is so ugly it hurts your eyes. The grammar is awful.

Here are ten tips for you guys. And by the way, I am no pro. This is just what I have learned in my experience. :)

{001} don't be too serious. I hate it when I go to a blog and I see all of these posts that imply that the writer is meditating, pondering, and walking around with a straight face 24/7. There isn't one exclamation point or a smile in the whole post. If you're posting too seriously, or with one funny thing every ten posts, do please start adding more humor.

{002} beware of perfection! This sort of goes along with the above tip. Don't ever aim for a perfect post, perfect writing skills, perfect design...It will get you nowhere. I hate blogs that have nothing but "I want to be perfect" written all over them. It's rather sickening once you've thought about it a while...No one's life is perfect. No one's life is even close to perfect. And here some people are, blogging and pretending that they and their lives and everything else is perfect.

I don't mean to belabor this point, but look, if you're not going to post about all of the perfect moments in your life, it doesn't mean your posts have to be gloomy and depressing. It doesn't mean your blog has to contain garbage. Just be real and be yourself. Don't be afraid to express your thoughts, but at the same time, be nice...And remember, your blog should not be just like your journal. Some things going on in your life should be kept to yourself. Because once you post something, the whole world can see it! (Unless your blog is one the private setting.) Imagine your blog post being all over the news. Would you want people to see it then?


{003} avoid word verification. Readers hate trying to figure out what all those gnarled, strange letters mean and then typing them out. Stick to just moderation! Just go to your blogger dashboard >> settings >> comments >> and then select "no" for word verification and "yes" for comment moderation. If you're wondering what moderation does for you, you must view and approve of every comment before you decide if you want to publish it or not. No comment is published before you look at it.

{004} choose the right layout. STAY AWAY FROM THE TEMPLATE DESIGNER! I know that the designs are so tempting to switch to because 1) they're easy to manage and 2) everyone else has them. However, have you ever noticed how the scrolling is funny on blogs designed with the template designer? And all of the designs to pick from are very unnatractive. Plus, you get some things taken away from you with the Template Designer. So please, just use the Minima template, okay? And if you ever need help with something smaller, you could email me and I could try to help you out. (note the TRY)

Keep your design fresh and clean. Try to spruce it up every once in a while. I prefer no background on my design (usually), but it's alright if you add a background to your blog, of course! Just make sure it's not super cluttered, nor too dark or too light. You don't need to take your readers' attention away from your posts. Make your posting and sidebar background white, or some other very subtle color. And if anything is too dark, please don't use it!

One of my biggest pet peeves is coming to a blog and seeing nothing in the design matching. Please match everything in your design, okay?? Thank you!

One last thing...Be you when it comes to designing your blog. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is copying someone else's style while designing your blog. It's okay to get inspiration, but if you want your design to prosper, stick to your own style!

{005} don't be boring. If you want to gain comments and followers, don't be boring or drag on and on so all the person reading your post sees is words! Add pictures to break up the text. (Like, if you can, add something other than pictures of flowers. Come on, people! Think outside the box! ;))

So say everything you need to say, and don't add any useless junk or ramblings to your posts. Give your readers quality work! Your readers will thank you.

{006} please don't hurt my ears! I hate it when I go to a blog and music starts playing super loud. If you want to make people leave your blog immediately when they come visit...Putting automatically playing music on your blog is exactly the way to do it.

If you really want music on your blog, you can still add it! Just make sure only your readers can turn it on (not off) if they want to. Because your taste in music is probably going to differ from your readers' taste in music.

{007} catch people's attention in your posts. A few examples are text in different colors (not the whole post in color, but you know, just a little pop), strikethrough, bold, and italic settings. There are many more to use, though! Just remember to not take it over-the-top. ;)

{008} don't annoy us with your enthusiasm. Never, ever use more than two exclamation points in one sentence, and don't type in caps all the time, either. It really makes it feel like you're yelling. If you have three sentences in one paragraph, only one should have an exclamation point. Otherwise your sentences look very immature.

If one or more of your posts look something like this...

"AAAAAAAAAAH IM SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YAYYAYYAY! I CANT BELIEVE IT, PEEPERS"

...or this...

"Hey peepers! Scroll down to look at the pics taken with my camera Annie if you don't want to read all my ramblings! Okay, so I think I'd like to make a photography blog! It'd be fun to share my photos on it I was thinking... So let me know what you think on that! Actually the blog is up and you can see it by clicking here! But it hasn't been posted on yet!"...and so on.

...or this...

"hey guys,its me alisha.i just wantd to let u no im not postin alot here as u can c, so i wont be posting as much as b4.i will post 1nce a week tho. my old laptop broke and im gettin a new 1. anyway bye!!!!!!!!!!!"

...then, well, think before you write.

{009} pretend there are no such things as comments or followers. Well, it's okay to acknowledge your comments+followers and thank them (aka "thanks so much for forty followers, guys! it means a lot!"), but don't stress about how little you have. Try to, sort of...forget about them. If you do that, followers will start to come, thinking, "Hey! She isn't even worried that she has only forty followers! She's not even whining about it or anything. I think I'll follow her." You'll go from twenty followers to two hundred followers before you know it. I promise.


{010} have fun. Be open to visiting others' blogs, following other blogs, and making new friends through the blogging world. Just enjoy yourself! If you want to make it the best blogging experience ever, it will be the best blogging experience ever. :)