It’s Friday and I have been meeting a lot of new up and coming bloggers and it got me to thinking, I really wish someone would have written me a how to guide when I first started. Not on just the mechanics of how to blog but who to know and who to follow and who’s fun and what not; where to find good paid opportunities and places to write for and how to pitch. I had NO idea how to pitch a piece.
I had some opportunities I blew because I had no experience pitching big publications and I had no fucking clue what a CMS was. I mean, come on, I was still operating on a Blogger site. Do yourself a favor and learn how to pitch. I’ll give you a hint: A hot trending topic with a news box + an original angle and don’t be afraid to say what’s really on your mind. I could have used that advice 2 years ago.
So, I’ve compiled a little list of things that might be helpful to any blogger who is still trying to understand it all.
Here is my list of people and things that every blogger should know
Good paid opportunities for bloggers:
The Mission List
Tap Influence (formerly Blogfrog)
Clever Girls
SITS Girls
Great People to work with for site Advertising:
Federated media
Deca
Tips for blogging:
How Much to Charge for Sponsored Posts
**I’m compiling a list of best plugins for WordPress sites that will be going live in the next week or so. Stay tuned.
Great Places to Guest Post:
Daily Buzz moms
Mamapedia
Mom it forward
BlogHer
Scary Mommy
Places to get Free Legal Photos:
Photopin.com/ commercial
Flickr/creative commons
Must have for easy photo-editing and watermarking
picmonkey.com
Great Women to follow who really know what they are doing and engage with their followers:
Jessica Gottlieb (JessicaGottlieb.com)
Ree Drummond (ThePioneerWoman.com)
Jill Smokler (Scarymommy.com)
Anissa Mayhew (FreeAnissa.com)
Great blogging friends to have:
Alexandra Rosas (Good Day Regular People)
Jessica Escobar (Just Jess in ATX)
Jenni Chiu (MommyNaniBooBoo)
Gigi Ross (KludgyMom)
Natalie Hoage (Mommy of a Monster and Twins)
Naomi de la Torre
Melissa Culbertson (MomComm)
Fadra Nally (All.Things.Fadra)
Laura Willard (AnUncommon Family)
Jessica Watson (Four plus an Angel)
Tracy Morrison (SellabitMum)
Erin Margolin (Erin Margolin)
Jenny Brandt (Perfectly Disheveled)
Jenny Feldon (Karma Continued)
Lori Garcia (Mommyfriend)
**Honestly, this list could go on for a very long time but these are some great ladies who we all could learn a lot from and happen to be on my mind today but I assure you, if you are looking for other greats just check out my Twitter stream.
Best places to work (I can only speak from personal experience):
Brightline Media
Everyday Family
Where to find me if you want to connect?
Last but not least, I have the very huge honor of being nominated for BlogHer’s Voices of the Year. Full disclosure, I have self-nominated for a couple (I recommend you do the same if you have a piece that you are proud of) and have nominated other great pieces of fellow bloggers (as I encourage you to do as well). It’s a blogger love fest and I love having the opportunity to let nominate pieces that have touched me, made me laugh or cry.
Anyways, here are the pieces I was nominated for:
Some Things Change You Forever
A Day in the Life of a Girl with Eating Disorders
I would be honored if you would check them out and if you like them please vote for me. I think you can vote for as many posts as you like but only one time each. I don’t normally ask for votes but after 4 years of blogging, it would be my dream come true to read one of my pieces on the stage at Blogher 2013. It is time. Thank you to those who nominated me. These pieces are near to my heart, especially Some Things Change You Forever and All I can do is Cry because the anniversary of that fateful day is quickly approaching (May 1) and the love and support that I felt from this community of bloggers and those on social media, saved my life that day. I will be forever grateful. XOXO
Also, if you have any great tips, sites, plugins or people that you want to share with me and this community, please leave it in a comment below.
It’s really great that you put this together. I have been blogging since before it was a word. My level of blogging was sporadic at best. I’d blog a lot then forget about it for a while. It’s only been about a year or so, that I made it a regular part of my life. Then for me it became a platform for my fiction writing. It’s now part of my business so it forces me to stay on top of it. Up until the transition to writing fiction, I had done some guest posts and paid post, but never really thought of building anything out of it other than a creative release and therapy. Though a lot of this would have been very helpful along the way. Thankfully I stumbled on some of those resources and people myself. But I wish I had earlier, it would have helped make it an easier and regular part of my life, ultimately improving my writing all around. While my blog has really soared in readers over the last year, I wish I had built that audience before it became a tool for my fiction sales. On the plugin list, here are some of my favorites, assuming WordPress – Comment love is huge. Its a great way to drive traffic and build traffic. W3 Total cache, is pretty easy to set up and you will see speed improvements. Google Analiticator for easy Google Analytics integration. Google XML sitemaps for better search engine recognition. Some sort of SEO type plugin or one that is built into your theme. Genesis Framework if you don’t mind spending the cash, and makes it easier to make changes without digging into code. Hotfix, which provides selected bug fixes to the WP core, so you don’t have to wait for an upgrade to get a security bug fixed. WPtouch for mobile users, I use the pro version for more features. WP-Polls fun for integrating polls into your post without using a 3rd party service. iframe, great for embedding content into a website. Copyrighted post, simply adds a small copyright notice at the end of your posts. Jetpack if you are on a self hosted WordPress install versus wordpress.com. Any of a million social sharing plugins. Any of the Facebook integration comments that are out there. I use on that combines it into my regular comment box, but I like yours as well. The there is one I hope you don’t recommend. Whatever plugin you are using to stop right clicking. I get it, it’s for content protection, but it also stops you from using spell check!
I absolutely love this series! I think you are super inspirational and I hope one day I can be as cool as you 😉
Corazon! I’m honored! And I love this post. I’m gonna pin it at home. I can’t wait for your plugin post!