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Happy Birthday The Finishing Touch!

A year ago, I started my blog with one main goal – I wanted to get back some creativeness back in my life. I have always loved fashion + writing and I watched bloggers on the screen all day living a life I have always wanted to live. So In December of 2016, I decided I would regain a little creative freedom that I was missing in my job by starting to design a blog. Truthfully I didn’t start working on my blog with the goal to ever publish it… I don’t know if it was nerves or the feeling of not wanting to start just to end up stopping but after a ton of coaxing from Russell and my mom, The Finishing Touch went live on February 28, 2017.

Since that day I have had so many life changes. I have changed jobs, I have met so many amazing girls that I now call friends, I have gained confidence where I didn’t realize I was lacking it, I have worked with some amazing brands and people, developed a love-hate relationship with Instagram, and so much more!

So many girls ask me how to start their own blog, what are the secrets to starting growing traffic, and what I wish I would have known before I started so I am going to wrap those all up in this post (sorry it will be longer than normal haha).

Starting a blog:

If you have been wanting to start a blog but haven’t I have one question for you – what is stopping you? This is something I encourage you to ask yourself. Write down the why’s and start looking for solutions to them.

Every blogger will probably tell you different things when starting a blog but here were my first steps:

Decide a niche but don’t limit yourself.

Mine is Fashion & Lifestyle – Why? Because I hope to blog for a long time and there is so much more to life than style so I want to be able to share real life and experiences with you all.

Find a hosting platform:

I choose WordPress.com for business- while I can be techy I didn’t have the time or resources to back up my blog daily or weekly so be sure to take all things into consideration and do your research ahead of time. I love the business account because you have a ton of freedom with the guaranteed support of WordPress for help along the way.

Design

Before you go live play around with tons of designs and wait until you find one you LOVE. I changed mine a few times and felt like I was settling so I finally purchased one and it was definitely the right move for me.

Content & Consistency

This is the bread and butter of your blog. I started with 3 posts before I ever pushed Publish on my blog. That way people joining you for the first time can get a feel for you and your content. After that find a consistent posting schedule that works for you. I try my best to post M/W/F.

Growing Traffic & What I Wish I had done in my first 60 Days

These questions both go hand in hand. In my first 60 days, I was really relying on Instagram & Facebook to bring my traffic. With the funky algorithms, this is just unrealistic. Try doing these things instead or in addition to those platforms:

Pinterest

Pinterest will be your best friend. Head to Pinterest and search how to be successful and you will have so many great resources pop up. Most people find Tailwind to be the most successful. I love Tailwind but I also try to pin consistently and pin Pinterest graphics I create linking back. The more you pin the more views you get and the better chance you have of your pins getting clicked on.

Find Facebook Groups

There are so many great blogging Facebook groups that help you with from everything from questions to helping start getting traffic to reciprocation threads!

Post-Great Content

Content is key, not only in your writing but in your images. Clear and high-quality images seem to perform the best on any platform. If you can’t always create your own images try getting stock photos. There are tons of great resources out there.

Canva is a free platform for Creating Pinterest, Facebook, Instagram, Etc. graphics. Y’all this has saved my life not only on my blog but at work. with built-in templates, you have the freedom of photoshop with the greater ease.

Engage

Engaging is key, always tell people on your social channels about new posts but also try to find people in your niche (and other niches) and comment / like / share their posts. I promise so many people want to help each other succeed so they will do it for you to which helps everyone! In my first 60 days (minus social media) I was a lone ranger and it is hard to keep a blog going if you feel you aren’t getting enough traffic!

That is all I have for you today! If you have questions or would like to see more post on this topic please let me know! I would be happy to 🙂 Thank you all for sticking around for this post and this amazing journey!