Blogging Tips to Improve your Craft Blog!

Jude Allman

Lots and lots of links to follow below containing all of the best posts on Craft Blog UK to help increase views and followers to your craft blog. If you enjoy these posts please share them! You can find CBuk on facebook , on twitter and at Flickr too :) Are you thinking about Starting a Craft Blog? Perhaps you've just filled up your online shop and now your twiddling your thumbs and looking for a way to promote it! Here is a guide to the nuts and bolts of starting a craft blog (you'll love it, blogging is so much fun!)
Customise your blogger template with no html Blogger in Draft enables you to change the layout of your blog, footers, 3 columns, side bars with no html whatsoever!
How to write and promote a Blog Treasury Post In this post I share how to promote your Folksy Fridays, Misi Mondays and Etsy Finds as well as how to get a great looking post using the 'haptree mini treasury template'
Using @ Tagging with Facebook to Promote your Blog Tagging on facebook will mean that your posts reach alot more people (and that's the idea, right!?)
Use Google Reader, save time - get organised! Do you think you are following too many blogs? Never! It's just a case of organising them, don't ever miss out on your favourite blog authors posts again.
Top 10 Blog Post Ideas We all get a little bit stuck sometimes when it comes to thinking up ideas for new posts - if you have craft bloggers block or your looking for some new ideas to spice up your blog take a look at these 10 tips!
Top 10 Reasons to Start a Craft Blog If you are undecided as to whether to make the leap into the world of blogging then look here for 10 really positive reasons to take the plunge.
Why you need a blogroll The Blog List or Blog Roll is a very straighforward little gadget that can add lots of interest to your blog.  It uses an RSS feed and automatically updates when the blogs you have included have new posts added, but there is a lot more to this basic gadget than you think.
Horizontal Link Bar Adding a link/navigation bar to your blog - you know the horizontal bar below your header that helps you sort out all your posts into really cool organised sections - learn how to add this and link to labels within your posts.
Static Blogger Pages  Home, Contact, About me get all of those useful tabs on your blog without touching the html template !
Twitter Basics - A guide to Twitter for Craft Bloggers  @ symbols, hash tags #, follow fridays and how to get more followers!  Twitter can be a real minefield but with this comprehensive guide you'll understand how to use it to your advantage and get more readers to your blog.
Shop Slideshow  Way better than an Etsy Mini in so many ways!  Your stuff scrolling through and clicking direct to your shop and you don't even have to upload all your pics anywhere!  MORE!
Post Background Colour Add a lovely background colour to your blog posts - a different colour for every post or just highlight certain areas of your posts to give them more impact - just like I have here!
Photography Tips Tips from CBuk author haptree  - you need good photos for succesful blogging so here is a link to loads of useful tips to improve your photographs.
Badges and Buttons to Grab Make a badge for blog swapping and learn how to post the code onto your blog so that your readers can 'grab' it for their blog.
Clickable Comments  Have you ever wanted to leave a blog comment on a blogspot blog that is actually clickable, learn how to add a hyperlink to a blog comment so that people can click straight trough to your site.
Link your Blog to Facebook  Exactly that, let your facebook fan page or profile be automatically updated when you blog.

Promote your blog with this simple facebook trick!

Use facebook tagging to promote your blog

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On one of my missions to promote the Folksy blog and facebook page I realised that people weren't using the @ symbol enough to promote their online shops with facebook. I posted about it in the Folksy forums but I thought I'd share it here too as it can equally be used for promoting blog posts aswell! If you're already wondering what I'm talking about do read on, this is such a simple tool for spreading the word about your online shops and also your blog!

The update you can see from 'Hilary Haptree' was written on my profile page but by adding an @ tag I was able to post it directly to craft blog uk's facebook fan page wall.  Click the image if you want to see it more closely - you will also see a little tag symbol which shows readers you have used a facebook tag to post on this wall.

This is so useful for sharing your blogs and online shops - there are so many places on facebook that welcome links that are relevant to their page.

How to Tag on facebook!

All you do is type the @symbol and wait for a box to appear, type the first few letters of the page you want to tag and then click on it.  You now have a hypertext link to the page as well as having automatically posted to the wall of that page, profile or even event. So with one symbol you have reached potentially hundreds of new people!

Try to remember to use the @craftbloguk tag when posting your blog links on facebook, so they automatically zap onto the CBuk facebook wall - I'd love the visitors to CBuk to see all of your brand new blog posts!  All updates posted on the CBuk wall are also seen by my blog visitors as I have a large facebook stream below my posts.

If you have found this post useful please share it!  Click the twitter bird to send out a tweet now!