Tips to Get Ready for the May UBC

Are you ready for the May Ultimate Blog Challenge? It’s only a few days away! Throughout my years of participating in this challenge (I started in January 2016 and have completed every challenge since then) I have learned many tips and tricks to blogging. Some I have learned on my own, others I have learned from bloggers that have shared ideas. Today I’m sharing some past blogs I’ve written that may help the newbie challenge blogger or be like a refresher course for the seasoned bloggers in the challenge. I hope my tips to get ready for the May UBC are helpful to you!

The first tip is adding photos to your blog. Photos make your blog pop and give it more eye appeal. All the photopgraphs I use in my blogs are my own. I don’t use stock photos but if you do, make sure they are from a site that allows you to share them in your blog. I am always snapping pictures so it’s easy for me to come up with pictures to coordinate with my blog. This is one of my favorite photos I used in a popcorn blog. I took a picture of my granddaughter near the cornfield in her backyard and had a picture of a bucket of popcorn. I then added the popcorn to the cornfield photo for a one of a kind, eye catching photo! These are so tips for adding photos. http://themarthareview.com/tips-for-adding-photos-to-reviews-and-blogs/

A few more blog tips both for newbies and seasoned bloggers. There are times when bloggers share links in their blogs but when you click on it, the main blog dissapears making it hard to get back to if you’ve clicked another link for the link you first clicked. This next blog will show you how I open a blog link in a new window. (This is for WordPress, may be similar for other blogging sites) I consider this a very important tip because once someone clicks off your site, they may not get back to it. Another cool tip is if your content mysteriously dissapears and you haven’t typed anything new, just click “CONTROL and the letter Z” at the same time and it reappears! The last tip in this blog is how I use secret words when letting a blogger know I left a comment on their post. If FB see too many “comments and tweets” as a reply to a post, they mark it as spam. I came up with different words and sayings that high-light the initials that start the words. When I post that I’ve commented and tweeted, I might write something like, “greaT Content”. The capital T and C mean I shared to Twitter and I left a comment. http://themarthareview.com/blog-tips-for-newbies/

One more VERY IMPORTANT TIP. Blog readers like to leave comments and share your blog. Make sure the comment section is available for them to do so. On WordPress I make sure the boxes on the right side bar are clicked to allow comments.

This is Lia’s and my Gravatar that you will see when I comment on your blogs, we are a team now and Lia even has her own name as author when she posts her blogs! I’m looking forward to my 22nd Ultimate Blog Challenge and hoping some of these tips to get ready for the May UBC will help you when writing your blogs. Lia and I will see you in a few days when the challenge begins!