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How I blog; learning the pitfalls and time-traps of blogging

Anyone who has a blog will know it takes a lot of time. I mean, hours and hours. What a lot of people do not know is how that time is spent. For all intents and purposes, before I started blogging, I thought it was merely ‘word processing on the ‘net, and uploading some pictures, plus throwing in a few links.’

Now that I’m nearly two years into my blog-career, I can safely say, it is much more involved than that. Yes, I write content. And I take pictures. I also edit those pictures, water-mark them and add descriptive text known as ‘Alt text.’ This is important for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). When I write a post, I have to chose a focus keyword. I don’t necessarily spend a lot of time considering what is the “best” term or word to use. I tend to incorporate the name of the item I’m writing about, e.g. ‘Doxy wand.’

As I write my content, I try to ensure I use active rather than passive phrasing. In a talk I went to at Eroticon, if you can add ‘by zombies’ to the end of a sentence without making it nonsensical, then what you are writing is passive. For example, if you say, “the Satisfyer Pro Vibration can be used in the bath,” you may as well invite the zombies too! It is a passive sentence. Instead, write, “you can use the Satisfyer Pro Vibration in the bath.” The zombies won’t be coming near that!

It’s also important to avoid really long sentences with more than 20 words. In addition, you’ll want to vary the length of the sentences, so you don’t sound like a robot. Rather than ‘text-book’ English, it’s great if you can use a few colloquialisms as long as they’re not going to go completely over some of your readers’ heads. Let’s not alienate people.

 

Content, it is the lifeblood of your blog!

Aside from the nuts and bolts of writing content that actually reads well, and makes sense, you’ll also need to ensure it is factually correct. Measure the dimensions of toys. Don’t guestimate them. Feel them. Real silicone does not tend to have an odour. If it smells plastic or has a chemical whiff, it likely contains a blend of silicone mixed with other stuff like Volatile Organic Compounds or Phthalates. Bad news; these aren’t body safe.

Test the patterns of the vibrations, and see if they feel buzzy or rumbly (hint – hold it on the tip of your nose. If it feels superficial and concentrated on the tip, the vibrations are buzzy. If the vibrations pass through your nose into your cheeks, they are rumbly). How long does a toy take to charge? Are there indicating lights? What are the buttons like to press? People want to read what the toy does, if it delivers the thrills it promises. Not your opinion on the colour or the merits of seamless silicone versus texturing. Yes, these things are useful to include too, but that is not the entirety of your review.

Make sure your photos show the product in full and in good light. Certain themes require photos to have set dimensions. For example, when I set my theme to the current one, my featured images did not display how I intended them to, as the images were uploaded when I had the previous theme. I decided not to edit the pictures, as it was going to take a lot of time that I didn’t want to spend on ‘old’ content.

 

Use time wisely

One thing I spent (and still spend) far too long on, is creating and updating the affiliate links. These are special links that track to my affiliate account, so that I can earn commission on items that I link to. The issue with these links is that a lot of them need updating every 30 days, and not only that, there are loads of items that frequently have their prices amended on some of the larger retailers’ sites. The other problem is that some people don’t delete their cookies stored on their computers / devices, so if the cookies are stored, the sale may not link back to the affiliate.

Another time-drain is social media. I spend too long randomly checking Twitter. I limited my blog social media to Twitter and Instagram for two reasons. Firstly, to avoid being a social media junkie. Secondly to preserve my anonymity. I do not want my family and friends on Facebook seeing that I spend more time with my Doxy than I spend socialising with them. Awkward. My solution, is to try and remain signed out of Twitter when I am working on content, and hide my phone on a shelf where I don’t reach to pick it up every five minutes.

 

This will hopefully give the non-bloggers out there, a bit more insight into what us bloggers do.

What tools do you find help you, if you are a blogger? Perhaps you’re a follower / reader; what do you like to see on a blog? Interact with me by sharing some comment love <3

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One comment

  1. It’s not easy at all, but it’s so easy to read.

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