Chic in Carolina: 5 (Easy) Ways to Grow Your Blog

After blogging for over a year and a half, I finally feel like I have the swing of what to do in terms of blog "work" that doesn't include writing posts for y'all. For all of y'all who don't blog, blogging is a big time commitment for me and includes lots of little odds and ends to ensure that Chic in Carolina is the best that it can be.

I don't use the term work in describing the things that help your blog grow because it honestly does not feel like work to me because I love to do it, but if I do slack off it definitely adds up.

There's lots of things you can do to grow you blog so today I am sharing with y'all 5 easy things to do to grow your blog because honestly easy is best haha!

image from this blog post

1. Comment on other Blogs (and leave your link in the comment!)

Everyday, I go on Bloglovin' and read all of the blog posts in my feed. For all the posts I really like or have something to comment, I leave a comment on. Odds are the other readers of that blog are fairly similar to your blog so commenting and leaving your blog link (I typically do: xoxo, Katie chicincarolina.blogspot.com) can expose your blog to your target audience (well I assume your target audience is fairly similar to you). Not to mention, this is a great way to build community among bloggers!

2. Pin your images on Pinterest

Even before I started blogging, I loved Pinterest as it was (and still is!) my go to for quick breaks at school whether it's between classes or to decompress for a minute during my free period. Taking a few minutes a day to pin images from that day's blog post to any boards that fit (for instance, I'll pin the images from this post to my blogging board as well as to group boards I belong to) helps because you never know what pin will "blow up" and bring tons of traffic to your blog.

3. Join Blogging Networks

I've joined a few blogger networks over the past 1.5 years and I can't tell y'all how beneficial they have been to you. I'm a member of both bigger groups like the Influence Her Collective and then more support based groups like the Millennial Blogger Network. Through Influence Her, I've been able to meet up with other Charlotte bloggers (which you can read about about here, here, and here). I would definitely suggest joining a few groups as most have Facebook groups where you can promote your posts as well!

4. Schedule your Social Media

Promoting your new blog post is so so so important for increasing traffic as the more people who read it, the better right? For Twitter and Facebook, I always schedule posts ahead of time so that way they automatically post (less effort on my part and y'all still see them- which works out for everyone!). For Twitter (and sometimes Instagram), I use Hootsuite and for Facebook, you can schedule posts straight from your profile!

5. Reply to Comments on your Blog/Social Media
Personally, I never want to come off to my readers as the blogger who is totally unrelatable and distant from her readers. Responding to comments on both your blog and your social media channels (especially Instagram) boosts community in your blog and can be very beneficial to your blog as a whole. Yes, it does take a bit of time to respond to everyone but for me, it has paid off so far.