MISTAKES I'VE MADE AS A BLOGGER

Believe it or not, this platform has been sat here, in this corner of the internet, for over 5 years. It's crazy and, a lot of you may think "5 years?! So where are all of your followers?" but, this is mainly because I don't consider myself starting to blog until the middle of 2017. I made so many mistakes between 2013 and 2017 that, honestly, it's really not what I feel is worth showing. The content that I've created for my blog in the past 12 months is the best content that has been published in the entire 5 years. Here are some of the mistakes that I've made as a blogger that you should avoid:

Thinking every image needs a white background.
Or marble, for that matter. Admittedly, it took quite a kick up the backside for me to get this ideology out of my head - it really isn't a bloggers' necessity to have every image with a white background and, quite frankly, it's a difficult thing to do. I've previously spent many agonising hours boosting the exposure of images in an attempt to have some sort of white background. I always wanted my images to flow into the white background of my actual blog but, when they won't turn from an off-white colour without messing up the entire exposure of the image (and, may I add, I'm not camera expert) it caused a LOT of frustration. It wasn't until I found my ground with my own style and creativity that I realised that it doesn't always take a white background to make something look uniform - in fact, it just takes a little more consistency. I edit all of my images to look the same - in a matter of minutes I can have 20 photos edited on VSCO - and that is what makes my blog flow. Just a lot less stressful.

Not being savvy.
By this, I mean that there was a time where I'd publish a post and that's as far as it went. I may have promoted it on twitter once, and maybe a picture on my personal Instagram where I only followed a couple hundred of my school friends. There was no technicality - no scheduling my posts, no reaching out to other people or spreading my words.
As well as this, only recently in the previous months, I have started editing HTML text and using internal links to boost my SEO. If you had told me in 2013 that I needed to 'boost my SEO', I wouldn't have known two hoots what you were saying. These days, I have a better understanding of how I can do little changes to make a difference to my blog and thus attract more viewers.

Holding back my Creativity.
It took a long time for me to show my face on my blog which, I guess, is understandable seeing as though I was only 13 years-old when my blog started. Now, though, I understand that showing my face on my blog/social media, just here and there, is really beneficial for relating to my audience. Nowadays, I scroll through Instagram feeds and struggle to feel like I can relate to the person if they haven't shown their face even once. Of course, I'm not saying that we all need mugshots plastered on our homepage, it's just nice to know that you are more human-shaped and less robot-shaped.

With showing my face came a lot more creativity, I feel. I found that it helped me write about myself, my own opinions and thoughts. As well as this, there is just something that makes me so proud when I scroll through my blog and see that the face in those images is my own.

But it wasn't only disclosing my face that I found was holding me back - until I found my style with editing, got my own, more personalised blog layout, and upped my photography game, I wasn't entirely myself. As I said previously, I would painstakingly edit and edit photos to give them a 'white' background but now edit it them until I look back and think 'Yes! I like that'. It seriously is true that, if you like your own content, others will too.

Using my Personal Instagram
When you start your blog, I think it's always important to have a personal and a blog Instagram. I've had my blog Instagram for just under a year and the growth that I've seen from that platform in the past 10 months (in comparison to the views/growth from my personal Instagram (or lack of)) is astounding. And, of course, I get it - Instagram isn't the friendliest nor easiest platform to be on at the moment, but it sure as hell does make a difference to make an account specifically for your blog.
This is especially useful for if you have friends following you on Instagram. As I was in school when my blog began, I always refrained from posting anything related to my blog on my Instagram because I was afraid of people mocking me or gossiping. Now, with a specific account, I have full confidence to post what I like, when I like.

Comparing myself
This is something that I've made mistakes with in general life many times before, let along my blog. However, more specifically, I have found that, on more occasions than necessary, I've moped about numbers, I've sulked about quality, and I've huffed over other people's stunning photography. It's almost certainly the green-eyed monster arising but there are times when I have compared myself to unrealistic situations. For example, there have been a few times when I've looked at a blogger working with world famous brands and felt a bit detached from the idea of succeeding, but deep down I know that it takes a lot of hard work and determination to get there. Overall, I fix this mistake every day, over and over again. We're human, we compare ourselves and we get jealous, but the most important thing is that we realise that we can get ourselves there if we want to and the matter is more about how we will individually do it.

What mistakes have you made as a blogger?