You've Done All You Can, So Just Go With The Flow

A common theme across most bloggers is this feeling that we should all be doing better than what we are actually doing. So at what point do we say enough is enough? When can we just sit back and admire the fruits of our labour? Maybe never. 

I always talk about SEO and marketing and those things are something we have to keep on top of and monitor frequently, but the trouble is, we end up doing nothing but that. We work continuously hard on our posts, our optimisation and our promotion purely because we never see instant results. We keep pushing as hard as we can but whilst we're pushing, we miss the tiny progress we are making. 

Seeing the results of your blog, both in followers and in your analytics takes a lot of time and patience. Set up blocks of time, this could be a day, a few days or even a week where you focus solely on your SEO, come up with that months promotion schedule and marketing plans. I like to do this at the beginning of every month, I usually spend a day purely on updating and optimising my social media, a day working on my SEO and analytics and two days coming up with a content schedule, a promotional plan and updating my progress reports (I like to use excel to keep track of followers, traffic, post likes etc). 

Once you've worked you butt off for a few days, relax and let your hard work run its course. By all means, keep an eye on how things are going, do a quick check to make sure there's no major faults and do general maintenance whenever you have a spare second. Then, when the next month rolls around, you can have a look and see wether last months work has had any effect. If you find your stats have gone down, have a look into why that might be and rectify it. If your stats have increased, take a look at what areas haven't done as well as others and tweak them slightly to give them a little boost. 

If you take a look at your analytics and followers and find that nothing has changed, leave them be and check back the following month. It might be a case that your hard work needs a little more time to develop. 

It's so important, especially if you're trying to balance a blog with a full-time job, that you don't burn out. You don't want to get so caught up in stats that blogging becomes a stress rather than a release. 

In March's newsletter, I'll be including a FREE content audit sheet to help you keep track of which content is doing well and which subjects you should focus on more. A content audit sheet is a great way to start off your blog reporting, especially if you only have time to focus on one area every month. It'll be released at the end of March with a few handy tips to get you started. 

How A Blog Can Boost Your Filmmaking Career

I talk a lot about blogging and marketing your blog on this space, but I also throw in the odd film marketing post as well. As a blogger and film graduate, I've come to see how the two can work hand in hand to really boost each other. 

Blogging is usually seen as a very personal space, more like an online diary than anything truly productive, but that is so far from the truth! Blogging is quickly becoming a must have digital marketing tool. Creating useful and interesting content around your business subject can hugely enhance your visibility and boost your sales. This is also true in the world of filmmaking. 

During our final year at University, we were encouraged to write a blog around one of our projects, we were to write about what inspired us, what are processes were and document the overall production of the piece. This is an excellent way to gain exposure for any filmmaking project but also shows your skills as a filmmaker. So what can a blog really do for your filmmaking career? 

Positions you as an expert in your field. By showing that you have a knowledge and passion for filmmaking and film in general, people will start to see you as an expert in that area. Make yourself the place to go, for people who are also passionate about filmmaking, to get their information when they're stuck or need inspiration. 

It can be used as your online portfolio. Many filmmakers have showreels but very few of them show their processes. If you are a cinematographer, director or editor, it can be hugely beneficial to document your processes and sources of inspiration. This will give any potential collaborators an idea of who you are, how you work and wether you will be a good fit for their crew or as a collaborator on a project. 

Increases your visibility as a freelancer. Most filmmakers, no matter what area they work in, will be freelancers. Being a freelance filmmaker is all about who you know so it can be difficult to really get yourself out there and get work. Creating a blog and promoting your content will greatly increase your reach and will get you noticed by people you never would have met under normal networking circumstances. Using Twitter and Facebook to promote new blog posts (the helpful and informative content mentioned in my first point) can open you up to an international audience and will show that you are active in the world of filmmaking. 

Blogging is a great way to support your brand and it should always be considered in any digital marketing pal, wether that is marketing your film, marketing a product or marketing yourself.

Have you ever considered starting a blog to support your filmmaking? Have you always thought of blogging as a bit 'wishy washy'? 

Best February Posts To Show Your Blog Some Love

February is always the month of love, with Valentines Day being celebrated for far longer than it needs to be (I'm not bitter, I promise). As a singleton, I did enjoy the massive amount of self-love and blog love posts that were popping up on my feed, all with super motivating and helpful content. So here are just a few of the posts that really made me think about giving my self and my blog a little bit of extra love this month. 

Jen recently posted this awesome post about The Three Biggest Secrets To Creating A Blog You And Your Readers Will Love. Jen always writes with authenticity and the tips she shares in this post really gets you thinking a bit more deeply about your relationship with your blog and your readers. 

Kenzie over at Hello Neverland posted 14 Ways To Love Your Blog Right Now, which really made me think about the little changes to spruce up and refresh my blog. All of her suggestions are so simple and easy to do, but make such a huge difference to your blog as a whole. 

6 Ways To Love Your Blog Or Business This Valentines Day was written by Melyssa over on The Nectar Collective and gives you a few more handy tips on how to not only love your blog, but also your business. Some really great practical tips to get you not only loving your blog but also enjoying it. 

The month of love may be over, but that doesn't mean we have to stop showing our passions some love. I think it's really easy to let your passion carry you a way, so it's good to reminded of why you were so in love with it in the first place. 

Did you show your blog or business some love this month? 

5 Things To Remember When You're Re-Focusing Your Blog

If you are one of the few followers of this blog that has been around since the early days, you'll know that this space has changed dramatically over the last 3 years. Just before Christmas I read Jenny Purr's post on How To Refocus Your Blog Without Rebranding and it pushed me to make the difficult decision to completely change my blogs focus.

Of course I didn't do it without re-branding, I went the whole hog. It was something that I didn't really want to do and it was very hard to say goodbye to Lilac Ghosts, a beauty blog I'd been building for the last 2 years. I did it because it felt right, my gut was telling me to just do it. There is no part of me that regrets making the decision to re-brand and re-focus, but during that time I had a lot of concerns and niggling little feelings I had to get over to move forward.

You may lose one audience, but you'll gain another. I was very worried about alienating my beauty and fashion audience, but in the end I had to trust that my new content would bring in a brand new audience that would be just as supportive. I know I've lost a few of you along the way and that's ok, because I've seen a whole host of new readers drop by and leave amazing comments, so it's all worth while.

Schedule your change over date and stick to it. One thing I found really helpful was to give myself a firm date of change over. I knew that the beginning of January was going to be when I completely made the switch and it gave me a deadline to have everything ready by. I'm not usually very good at sticking to personal deadlines, especially when I know I can move the goal posts as much as I like. However, I pretty much plastered it all over my social media that I was going to be changing at the beginning of Jan and that gave me the motivation to stick to it.

At least have a rough plan and content diary. Before I made the switch I made sure I had at least 1 months post ideas lined up ready to go. I was so worried that I was going to change my focus and then not be able to think of ideas, it turned out to be the complete opposite. I now have post ideas leading all the way to July and I still have loads more to pick out of my creative brain. If there's anything that reassures me I made the right decision, it's that generating ideas comes a lot more easily now.

It's ok to have a bumpy start. The actual content on this blog has switched quite smoothly, but the branding, redesigning and social media side of things weren't quite as smooth. Nobody hits the ground running and doesn't stumble a few times. It's always difficult to re-brand and I don't think it's ever an easy transition, especially when you're as indecisive as I am!

You're changing to make you happy, no one else. My blog has always been fairly personal, not so much a diary of my life, but somewhere I could express my creativity and passion. As I grew and my interests changed, what I wanted to write about changed as well. I wasn't happy writing about beauty and fashion anymore, I was no longer passionate about it, so I decided to do what would make me happy. I did worry that a lot of people wouldn't like the change and I had to remind myself that my blog is first and foremost for my own enjoyment, not the approval of people on the internet.

Are you thinking of re-focusing your blog sometime this year? Are you currently un-happy with the content you're producing and find you really want to change? 

How To Include Keywords Without 'Keyword Stuffing'

In my last keyword post, Finding Keywords and How To Use Them, I touched upon something called 'keyword stuffing'. 'keyword stuffing' is when you try and fit as many keywords as possible into your content, so much so that your sentences no longer make sense. People tend to give this a go when they're trying to quickly boost their SEO, but Google does not take kindly to these people.

Google wants us all to play nicely and not cheat at the ranking race, so they penalise those who try and cheat the game. Websites who get found of 'keyword stuffing' get pushed down the rankings and are eventually impossible to find, we do not want to be one of these people now do we?

To prevent yourself from 'keyword stuffing' without noticing, make a list of keywords and phrases

and sort them in order of importance. These might be keywords relating to your posts subject if you're a blogger, or keywords and phrases relating to your websites subject if you're a freelancer or small business. Order these by average searches (see the post linked at the beginning to learn about using Google keyword planner to do this) put the most searched for keywords and phrases at the top and the least searched for at the bottom.

Choose your main keyword or phrase for your title. This can be the most popular keyword on your list or one that you feel best fits your subject matter.

Pick 4 more keywords that you think will fit seamlessly into your page/post content. Nobody really knows for sure how many keywords Google likes to be included in content, but it's a safe bet that if they make perfect sense included in your content, then you're safe. Sometimes I will work backwards, write out my post and then try and fit in keywords where they make sense and add to the sentence, a bit like a word jigsaw puzzle.

Proof read until you can't proof read no more. Read over your copy as many times as you can, leave it and go back to it the next day if you have to. This is so you can make sure it makes complete sense to humans, if it feels clunky or doesn't quite make sense, then you'll notice it whilst you're proof reading.

Have you ever found yourself 'keyword stuffing'? Have you had a practice finding your keywords and including them into your posts or website text? 

Find Confidence In Being Your Own Brand

One thing you have to accept when you decide to work for yourself, is that you immediately become your own brand. This can be a horrifying thought, especially for those of us who hate to talk about ourselves, as being your own brand means marketing yourself as a product. You have to be the sales person of you, you have to make yourself the best thing anybody could ever want and that isn't everyones cup of tea. If you've not even thought about branding yourself as a freelancer or blogger yet, head over to my post on Personal Branding and Why It's Important to get an idea on how to get started. 

So how do you find the confidence to really sell yourself as a brand? You might already be the most confident person in the room, but for those that are shying away in the corner at the thought of selling yourself (and I mean that in a non illicit sort of way) here's a few things you could do to boost your brand confidence. 

Create a list of all your achievements up till now. Focusing on your achievements and the goals you've reached so far can really boost your confidence. You'll be able to clearly see where your strengths and weaknesses are and it'll give you a better idea of what you need to improve on. The better you know what you're good at, the more confident you can feel completing those particular tasks. 

Plan, plan, plan. Create a plan of where you want your business to be in 1 months time, 3 months, 1 year or even 5 years! Then come up with the smaller steps you need to take to get to those milestones. Having a strong idea where you're going will give you a better idea of how your brand should develop month by month. If you can create a detailed plan for just the next month, then you will feel a lot more self assured about what you should be doing to get there. It'll also give you points to get back to if you find yourself straying off the beaten track, which you most likely will at some point.

List your USP's. One of the hardest but most rewarding things to do. If you can pinpoint your unique selling point (USP), creating your brand will be a hell of a lot simpler. You'll be able to structure your content/business plans around your USP and know what areas to push on with. 

Don't compare yourself to others. Something that every body says when talking about confidence and self esteem, but it's so important to drill into our own heads. Comparison is the thief of joy as good old Theodore Roosevelt once said, if you keep comparing yourself to others in your field, you'll never feel confident with what you have. Admire, take inspiration and network all you like, but when it comes to comparison, put those blinkers firmly on and focus on improving your work based on your last project, not someone else's. (something I still need drilling in to me as my last Sunday Strip Down post suggests)

Have you developed the confidence you need to grow your own business yet? Are you struggling to really sell yourself to your clients? 

*Wondering what some of the more technical words and acronyms mean in this post? Head to my glossary page for a full list of technical jargon and some explanations on what the hell I'm talking about. 

5 Benefits Of Having A Unique Domain For Your Blog

One thing I spent a very long time deciding when I first started my blog, was whether to pay for my own domain name. Investing any money in your blog, especially when your followers are still growing and you're trying to find your feet, can be a scary thought. Luckily, domain names are not too expensive, for 2 years I pay around £15 for both my .co.uk name and my .com name. So is it really worth getting a domain name? Does your blog really need one that badly?

It all comes down to what your blogging goals are, do you want to make it a business? Is it something you want to take seriously and monetise? Do you want to be able to work with brands and PR companies?

There are so many benefits of having your domain name that a lot of bloggers overlook. It is the next step in your blogging career and it can have a dramatic impact on its growth.

Increases credibility  - Having your own domain name gives you that extra look of professionalism. By getting rid of your .blogspot or .wordpress extension you are showing you're ready to stand out on your own and take things a little more seriously.

Easier to swap your blog over to a different CMS - If, like a lot of first time bloggers, you've started your blog on blogger and you now feel you want to move to Wordpress, having your own domain will make the switch a lot smoother. One of the trickiest parts about moving from one CMS to another is keeping all your back links in tact, if your domain is the same no matter what hosting you're using, then it's one less thing to worry about.

Branding - Using your blog/business name as your domain can further cement your branding. By bagging your blog/businesses name you have made sure your brand is completely sacred to you, no one else can call their business the same name, as you've already claimed it.

Makes you more appealing to PR company's and brands - Having your own domain means that you are building your own domain authority and trust flow (how trusted you are as a website). These are two elements that brands and PR agencies will look at before deciding whether you're worth contacting. These businesses are looking to build good strong links back to their own website, which means they need to know your site is worth linking from.

Memorable for you and your readers - This ties in pretty much with the branding and credibility points made above. Typing out your whole blogspot domain or wordpress domain can take a long time, it can also be hard for others to remember. If you have a short and snappy domain, it is more likely that people will remember you and they will find it easier to link back to you. It's always safer to assume everyone is a little bit lazy (I know I am), so make everything super easy for them.

If you haven't got your own domain name yet and you've been on the fence for a while, hopefully I've given you a bit more to think about to help make that decision. If I've managed to sway you with my magical words, there's a few sites I can point you to to get you set up. The first is GoDaddy.com, which is the site I manage my domain on. I find it fairly easy to set up and they're also reasonably priced. Or, one that I've heard a lot of people talking about is Bluehost.com, another site that offers domains and seems to be used by a good few bloggers and business owners.

Have you bought your own domain yet? Have you seen any noticeable changes in growth since you switched to your own domain? 

4 Apps To Keep You Organised and On Track

I am one of those guilty people who have their phone stuck to their hand 24 hours a day. I check it before I go to sleep and I check it again as soon as I wake up. But I have an excuse, so hear me out. I'm currently doing a full-time internship in Manchester, as well as working weekends at a part-time job and running this blog (which I've been working my little butt off on these past couple of weeks) oh, and I'm training for my first ever 5K. 

As you can see I'm fairly busy, which means that I have to be more organised than I have ever been in my life. To do that, I need a trusty handful of apps to keep me up to date on what I'm doing that day and anything I'm yet to get round to. 

Calendars - My first priority is to keep my time scheduled. On my iMac I use Google Calendars to keep all my posts, admin, intern work and extra blogging stuff scheduled down to the minute, but unfortunately Google haven't released a Google Calendar app yet. So instead I use the Calendars app, it syncs perfectly with Google Calendars and allows me to see everything I have to do and edit anything that needs moving around. 

Evernote - You can't have a list of super helpful apps without mentioning Evernote. It took me a while to really get into the swing of using it, but now it's a must when new blog ideas come popping into my head. I love that they are cross platform, so I can look at all of my notes on my iPad and on my desktop, making it easy to keep track of all my ideas. 

Google Drive - I used to be an avid fan of good old Dropbox, but recently I've really been loving Google Drive. It just feels a little easier to use and I've been using it to store PDF's on my phone so that I can easily apply for jobs on my job apps. If you have to share large files with a team or a client, this is super easy to use and easy to keep track of what you've sent and what people have sent to you.

Pocket - This is a great one for bloggers. This handy little app allows you to save any articles you find or videos and keep them all in a little 'Pocket'. It's great if you are on your daily commute and find a really interesting article you want to reference in your next blog post, you just click save and it goes zooming over to the app. 

What are your favourite apps to keep organised? Do you like to keep as scheduled as I do? Or are you more of a 'go with the flow' person? 

January Reads: Posts that have inspired and motivated

As you can probably tell, blogging is a huge passion of mine. When people ask me where I get my inspiration from it's simple, blogs. I love what blogging has become and I especially love the amazing business minded young women who have popped up and are taking the internet by storm. 

This month, with the change of focus here on my blog, I've been reading more blogs than ever. Here are a few of the posts that have really inspired me this month, both in my blogging life and in my personal, non-digital life. 

Creating Catchy Headlines by Elle & Co - Such a great post to help anyone struggling to nab those catchy headlines. Your headline is one of the most important aspects of your post, its purpose is to grab your potential readers and bring them into your world. Getting it right can be a little tricky, but Lauren makes some excellent points to help you out. 

7 Signs You're Blogging About Too Many Topics by xoSarah - Something I think all us bloggers should keep in mind as we grow and develop our blogs. I've been guilty of it in the past and all of the signs Sarah pointed out, I can relate to 100%. Now that I've changed my blog focus and narrowed down my blog subject, I've noticed a huge difference in my creativity and ability to come up with post ideas. Sarah really hits the nail on the head and gives you something to think about when planning your next few posts. 

5 Resources For Learning To Code by Alyssa Barnes - I'm all for encouraging people to learn to code and this post from Alyssa lists some amazing resources for those of us that don't have the time, or endless funds to go back to school. I encourage you to give this a look and check out some of the sites Alyssa recommends, especially if you're a blogger or online business owner. 

Calligraphy Beginnings by Teresa Watts - A bit of an odd one out in my list, but a very important one that has had a massive effect on me this month. For 2015 I decided I wanted to spend a little less time on the internet and get back to my more practical, analog creativity. I've always loved drawing and painting (my grandad was a watercolour artist and my sister is an artist and photographer, so you could say it's in the blood) and after finding Teresa's post about learning calligraphy I decided to give it a go. In case you're wondering, it's a lot harder than it looks. Teresa recommended a great beginner book (which I instantly bought off Amazon) to learn copperplate and so far I've been loving it! 

What posts have you read this month that have inspired or motivated you? Have you taken up a new hobby due to an amazing blog post? 

Personal Branding & Why It's Important

When you think of branding, what do you think of? Big businesses? Fancy logos? Coca Cola? 

It can be hard when you're a freelancer, blogger or small business to think of yourself as a brand, but you are one. If you offer any kind of service, whether it's informative blog posts or a small Etsy shop, you need to start thinking of yourself as a brand if you want to push your business to the next level. 

Personal branding can take a lot of time and patience, but a lot of it is all about the planning. You might feel eager to get straight into the interesting creative part of branding yourself visually, setting up a website and getting those all important business cards printed. Before you can do any of that, you need to create a brand identity for yourself. So where should you start?

Personality
You first need to understand the personality of your business. I find that the easiest way to do this, is to think of my business as a person and ask a few important questions like:

What would they wear?
How would they talk?
What kind of music do they like?
What's their favourite colour?

That way I can get a clear idea of who this business is and what style it should have, both visually and its tone and approach to clients.

Goals and beliefs
What are your businesses main goals? what do you want to achieve with your venture?

Make sure you know exactly what kind of service you're offering and why you're offering it. Is it because you want to help others like you build a career? Is it because you want to be the best in your field? Once you know the reason behind your actions, you will have a better idea what tone of voice you want your business to have.

Having the right tone of voice is crucial as it determines what kind of clients and readers you attract. For example, if you decide your business should have a very formal and serious tone, then you will most likely attract corporate clients. If you decide you want a more informal and friendly tone of voice, you may attract more laid back creative types.

Visual branding
This is the fun part (well, for me anyway). Getting the visual part of your branding right is extremely important, as it tends to be the way people remember and associate with you. It's also extremely difficult to finalise!

To help you come up with the visual aspects of your branding, take a look back at your personality profile and keep it in mind whilst building a mood board. You can use a few different tools to do this, my favourite being good old Photoshop, but you can also use PicMonkey's collage tool.

Some of the things you want to touch on when making a mood board are:

• Fonts for main body text, headers and logo
• Your colour scheme
• Any design elements you want to include e.g. logo images 
• Any patterns and textures you want to use
• Any images of style inspiration

Once you have that you can use it to design business cards, newsletters, emails, blogs and websites. Or, if that seems a little daunting, you can always look at getting a professional graphic designer to take a look and come up with some awesome ideas.

These are just the foundations of personal branding and you may find that once you get going you come up with a whole notebook of ideas for your brand. These little notes should give you a firm idea of who you are as a brand and hopefully get you noticed by your target audience.

What would your brand look like? Have you sat down and really thought about your personal branding yet? 

Creating An Archive And Why Your Blog Should Have One

Since changing the focus of my blog to marketing and SEO for bloggers and creatives, I decided that I needed a good archive page to make sure my older posts don't get lost forever.

You'll notice on the navigation bar a page called 'Archive' this houses links to all of the labels I've used on my blog over the last few years and also categorises the posts into month and year. It's very similar to the blogger widget that used to grace my sidebar, but a lot nicer to look at. 

Having a blog archive never seemed too important to me until now, but there are a few reasons why you should think about creating your own unique archive page. 

It conveniently groups your posts by their label, allowing for an easy to navigate experience for your readers. Someone may stumble upon your blog and want to read more posts on that particular subject, if you make it easy for them to find it, they'll spend longer on your site, which will improve your sites bounce rate (the average time readers stay on your site). 

An archive can increase views on older posts. Sometimes a post you are really proud of can get lost or not receive the views it deserves. If it is archived correctly and is easy to find, its views could be greatly improved over time. Someone may have read the post when it first went live and wish to find it again to link to it or mention it on their social media, how terrible would it be if it was impossible to find?!

Increases your blogs credibility by showcasing its history. In the world of the internet today, there are blogs and websites popping up all over the place, so which one should you trust? By human nature, people will gravitate to sources with a firm history, if you can show that your blog or website has a long established history, you can gain a degree of credibility. 

Try and make your archives as visually engaging as possible, if your readers are looking for something in particular, their eyeballs want to to see a simple, easy to read archive. That is one of the main reasons why I designed my archive like I did, it's pleasing to the eye but simple to understand and navigate.

Have you given any thought to your blog or website archive? Do you find yourself looking in other sites archives to find relevant content? 

SEO Tips For Beginners

The world of SEO has always been a tricky ocean to navigate, the reason being is that it is ever changing. Don't let that put you off learning all about it though, it still plays a massive part in the success of your blog or website. 

Let's start with what SEO actually is and how it works. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, which refers to where your blog/website ranks in the search engines. If you own a beauty blog and you type 'beauty blog' into Google, are you amongst the 1st page results? Those that are will probably have worked on their SEO to get there. 

Search engines send out tiny 'spiders' to catalogue the gigantic amount of information on the internet, so that they can store it in a massive online warehouse and pull it out when someone is searching for it. These 'spiders' can only read though, they can't look at pretty pictures or watch cat videos on YouTube. This means that you have to make sure you are including relevant text in your posts, in your HTML and in your descriptions, because without it, the 'spiders' won't know how to catalogue your information in the giant internet warehouse.  

There are a few ways you can quickly and easily improve your SEO no matter if you're a blogger using Blogger or Wordpress or if you have an awesome website for your business. Here are a few basic things you can think about to get you started in the world of search engine optimisation. 

Name your images before uploading them. This is so important and easy to do. When you name your images on your computer, be sure to give them relevant names that correspond with your post or web page. You will often find images from blogs and websites on Google Images and they show up when you search because they've been named relevantly to what you're searching for. 

Target your keywords. I wrote a post all about finding your keywords and how to use them, which will help you to make a list of your blog or businesses keywords and phrases. You should use these in all of your posts, page descriptions, social media descriptions and in your image titles. It's also great if you can squeeze one or two into your page/post title. This will make sure the 'spiders' know what your page or post is all about. 

Use Title and ALT attributes in your HTML. You don't have to be a HTML wizard to do this, simply head to your HTML and find any links, tables or any structural elements and give it a title. It will usually look like this: <a class='Link' href='https://URLHERE.com' title='title of link'>

The title tag explains what the element is about, it's great for naming specific pages on websites and you'll see it a lot in the <head> section of your HTML. 

The ALT attribute is used for images, it helps catalogue images for those poor 'spiders' that can only read text. it comes inside the <img> tag before the last > e.g. <img src="http://URLHERE.com" alt="image for post">. You can make sure your blog images have these by going into your blog HTML. If you use blogger, you can do it by creating a new post/edit post and adding your image, switch to the HTML view in the post and add it to the image HTML.

Build your backlinks. Search engines love a good strong backlink and they can be tricky to get your hands on if you're relatively new to the game. The best way to get a few links under your belt as a new blogger or business, is through guest posting. Contact a handful of blogs you really love and feel like you could write a small post for and see if they would like to feature it. 

Another way is to make sure that you're posting amazing and helpful content that people actually want to link back to. This might sound extremely difficult at first but if you have patience it will be more rewarding than anything else you do.

You can of course pay for an ad space on other blogs, the only thing you will have to be wary of is if those links have a 'no-follow' attribute in the code. If the links on your ad space have 'no-follow' in them, then the link won't be counted as a back link. You can do a bit of code research to find this out by using Google Chrome web browser, going to view > Developer > View source and searching for your ad link.

Are you new to SEO? Are you putting some time aside to really focus on optimising your website for search engines?

5 Top Tips For Finding Your Twitter Audience

As hard as it is to believe, there was once a time when I wouldn't touch Twitter with a barge-pole. I never really understood the benefit of posting short sentences about my mundane life, why would anyone be remotely interested? However, since starting my blog, I've found that Twitter is the most useful and engaging social media platform for bringing in you lovely readers.

Twitter now has over 250 million users worldwide, all posting an average of 230 million tweets every day. If you have a small business or blog, that is 250 million people who could potentially find your services of use. Obviously not all of them are going to be interested in what you have to say, so it's about becoming a master fisherman in a very large pond.

There's a lot of 'black hat' ways to get more Twitter followers and even though they gain you hundreds of followers, they'll usually ruin your reputation in the long run. Here's a few ways you can gain twitter followers and build your audience, all whilst keeping a healthy online reputation.

• Invite your existing connections. If you have a few different social media accounts, ask your followers to head over to Twitter and follow. It's important you include a link to your Twitter account or a 'follow' button on your blog, YouTube and website so that it's easy for people to find you. You can even create Twitter specific content like infographics and behind the scenes pictures and videos to encourage people to follow.

• Replying to tweets and taking part in Twitter chats. I always notice a huge difference in my follower count when I've taken part in a Twitter chat. Starting conversations with your followers and people you follow is essential, Twitter is after all a social media, so why not be as social as possible?

• Retweeting & Sharing niche tweets. Retweeting is a great way to get noticed, when you retweet someones content it appears in their notifications, allowing them to see who you are. More often than not, that person will check out your profile as a consequence. It will also allow people searching for the topic you retweeted about, to find you in the Twitter search. For example, I once RT'd a tweet about Gyms, I then had about 3-4 people who had Gym related accounts follow me within the space of 10 minutes. 

• Do your hashtag research. When you write a piece of content, figure out your keywords and then search for related hashtags you could use to promote your tweet. There's no point using a hashtag that relates to your content but no one else is using. Head over to my post 'Finding keywords and how to use them' if you need a hand finding your own keywords.

• Time your tweets carefully. Using tools like Google Analytics should give you some insight into what times your viewers are most active. Use this information to schedule your tweets around those 'peak' times to catch your audience whilst they're online. 

How do you interact with your Twitter audience? Are there any tricks you have up your sleeves to bring in those followers? 

5 Ways To Breakout Of A Creative Drought

Ever since leaving school when I was 16, I have always known I needed to do something creative with my life. Since then, I've gone on to do courses in Audio Production, Media and a degree in Film Production. However, despite always dropping myself into the creative person category, I do have a lot of moments when creativity just isn't flowing like it should. 

It used to rear it's ugly head a lot in college and University, a lecturer would point their finger at me and say 'come up with an idea for...' and I'm sorry, but my brain does not work that fast, it freezes under pressure. One thing is important to remember though, creativity isn't something that just comes to you one day out of nowhere, it's like a river, it is constantly flowing. Your creative juices are there waiting to be released, but sometimes they need a little coaxing.

You may be sat at your computer screens or in front of your tablet or smartphone and not feel creative in the slightest. I'm here to tell you that right this second your brain is being creative, it's always thinking of something, even if you're not conscious of it. 

If you are stuck in a drought and desperate to tap into some of that infinite creativity lurking in the back of your mind, try these 5 ways to turn on your creative tap and get ideas flowing (see what I did there, drought metaphors).

• Create a mood board. Mood boards are a more visual way to brainstorm ideas, they tend to work best for designers, but they can be used for any kind of creativity. It's up to you how you create them, maybe you prefer to do it digitally via tools like PicMonkey or Picasa. Maybe you'd prefer a hard copy, in which case you can get a large sheet of paper and start sticking, or buy a scrap book. 

• Create a Pinterest board. I am forever creating Pinterest boards to inspire me. Not only does Pinterest provide visual inspiration but it's also a great way to find blog posts, a lot of bloggers now post their main post image to Pinterest, so it's definitely worth having a browse and seeing what you can find. 

• Take a trip somewhere new. It doesn't have to be a full on holiday to the Bahamas or Disney Land, it could be something as simple as visiting a new town or landmark. Living in Cheshire, I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by beautiful scenery and in close proximity to loads of landmarks and architecture. I always feel more inspired once I've explored a new location and it get's you out of the house and away from your computer. 

• Watch a visually stunning film. As a Film graduate and lover of beautiful cinematography, I gain a lot of inspiration from movies. It can be anything from Life of Pi (2012) to a more recent discovery The Fall (2006) (thanks to my current Lee Pace obsession). I always get inspired by the vivid colours, wide angles and epic film scores. Put on The Lord of the Rings soundtrack and tell me you don't feel epic.

• Create a calming playlist. Music is another medium that has the power to control mood and really tap into your subconscious. My love of discovering new music has allowed me to find some truly amazing songs and artists over the last few years. I love heading to Spotify to browse through the genre playlists and just listen to whatever pops up. Creating a calming playlist and just sitting and listening helps you to relax and when you are relaxed, your brain is relaxed and things flow more smoothly. 

The worst thing you can do when creativity just isn't flowing, is to force it and get yourself frustrated. By taking some time to yourself and time away from a project, you will find that things start to become a lot clearer. 

How do you get your creativity flowing? Are you guilty of getting frustrated when creativity just isn't playing ball? 

Finding Keywords And How To Use Them

If you're starting to get serious about your blog or small business, you might want to delve a little further into SEO. Yes, for someone who isn't all that clued in on digital marketing, SEO looks like one of those scary, complicated abbreviations that only men and women in business suits throw about. In truth, it can be a little difficult to navigate, which is why it's always good to start with the basics. 

SEO simply means Search Engine Optimisation and one of the best ways to ensure search engines are noticing your blog or website, is by targeting specific keywords. Keywords are not the be all and end all however, SEO is a combination of many different things all working together to give a ranking. Understanding your keywords can help you understand where your competition lies and can also help to focus your business to a more niche audience. 

Google Keyword Planner

The best (and free) keyword tool you can use to do a spot of keyword research, is the Google Keyword Planner. The Google Keyword Planner searches for your chosen keywords and lets you know the average monthly searches for those keywords, the competition for those keywords and how much they cost if you were to run a PPC campaign. 

The best way to use the Google Keyword planner is to compile a list of keywords you want to target in you blog post or website page and find the ones with the highest average searches and the lowest competition. 

Keywords or Key Phrases?

If you are a small business or blog starting out with very low domain authority, it's usually better to target phrases rather than keywords. Unless you are targeting a very specific keyword, a key phrase can help to really focus your content and ensure it is reaching the people who are searching specifically for your type of content. For example, instead of targeting 'makeup' you could try and target 'cruelty free makeup' or 'makeup tips for 20 somethings'.

Targeting key phrases can help you to get your foot in the door of SEO. By targeting your niche, you have a better chance of building your sites authority, gaining quality back links and it will eventually allow you to be a competitor for some of the more popular keywords. 

Keyword Rich not 'Keyword Stuffing'

It can be very easy to get carried away with keywords, you want to include a healthy amount of keywords in your content and not 'stuff' your content in hopes of better rankings.

Here's what Google says about 'keyword stuffing':

"Keyword stuffing" refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site's ranking in Google search results. Often these keywords appear in a list or group, or out of context (not as natural prose). Filling pages with keywords or numbers results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site's ranking. 

Examples of keyword stuffing include:

• Lists of phone numbers without substantial added value
• Blocks of text listing cities and states a webpage is trying to rank for
• Repeating the same words or phrases so often that it sounds unnatural, for example:
  We sell custom cigar humidors. Our custom cigar humidors are handmade. If you’re thinking of buying a custom cigar humidor, please contact our custom cigar humidor specialists at custom.cigar.humidors@example.com.

Google does not take kindly to sites that value keywords over content, make sure you are writing around your keywords and not to purely 'promote' your keywords. 

Have you ever given a bit of thought to what your keywords and phrases are? Do you keep them in mind when writing your posts or website copy? Do you think about them when writing your 'about' profiles on your social media profiles?

New Years Blog Resolutions For 2015

The new year always means a new start and after the year I've had, a new start is exactly what I need. Not only has my health and personal life been a little rocky these past few months, but I've also had to deal with the idea of choosing a life long career.

I mentioned in my last post that I was feeling a little disheartened with my content. I've been writing beauty, lifestyle and fashion content on this blog for 2 amazing years and I've loved every minute. But as my blog has grown, so have I and my focus has shifted considerably. 

I should also mention the change in name. I will no longer be known as Lilac Ghosts, I'll only be known as my actual name, Cat Crawford. It just means that my blog feels a little more personal to me. I never could come up with a name that accurately represented my personality, so I've stopped trying. 

I owe blogging a great deal, it's improved my writing, my photography and even my social skills. It's given me an escape and a place to flood with the creativity I never really express in everyday life. Blogging has opened so many doors to me and in 2015, I'm hoping it can help to open a few more.

So, what are my blogging resolutions for 2015?

• To keep on top of my content by scheduling and planning in advance. 
• To change the focus of my content to something I am passionate about and write posts that not only entertain but also help other bloggers. 
• To attend more networking events to allow me to meet other bloggers with the same passions and interests. 
• To have more confidence in my own creativity and stop doubting my ability to create good content. 
• To push myself to explore untouched blogging territory. Just because other people aren't writing it, doesn't mean people don't want to read it. 

There's probably a few more floating at the back of my brain, but for now, these are the key resolutions I want to focus on in the new year. 

I would just like to say a very big thank you to everyone who has stuck around during my little break and I hope you'll all stick with me as I develop this blog into something I can truly be proud of. 

Happy New Year everyone!

Working 24/7

Blogging is currently just a hobby for me, but for anyone who blogs or makes YouTube videos you'll know how much time it takes up. Not only does it take time to take photographs for the post and edit them, but then you also have the time it takes to write the post and promote it. Plus, if you also do YouTube videos like myself, then you have the massive amount of time it takes to set up, film, clear up, edit and upload. 

Doing all these things and having a part-time job can feel pretty hectic, I have no idea how you bloggers with full-time jobs do it! But blogging and working isn't all I do, I also try and do part-time marketing internships and I'm currently designing blogger themes, trying to learn how to code for Wordpress and design blog headers, YouTube and Facebook banners. 

Don't get me wrong though, I'm by no means complaining, if I didn't enjoy every second I wouldn't do it. What does make me chuckle is when friends and family members think I sit in my room and watch YouTube videos all day. On a busy blogging day I will work from 8am till about 7-9pm with a good few mini breaks and food breaks. Sometimes I'll be working on blog stuff from 8am till 4pm have dinner then head to work till about 10-11pm. Even at weekends I take what free time I have and turn it into promo time for my posts and videos or finish off a bit of editing. 

Even though the people around me don't realise how hard I work (and don't get paid for 90% of it) I just laugh it off and carry on. Blogging has already given me so many new skills, opportunities and made me realise my talents in certain creative areas. I love how busy I am all the time, I'm being creative and that's what I want to do with my life. Even if I never get paid for any of it.  

Blog Inspiration

Like many, I go through stages of creative nothingness, my brain refuses to do its job and becomes incredibly lazy. That is when I crack out the inspirational material, sometimes it's a good old fashioned hard copy magazine, sometimes it's a beautiful Tumblr page.

I'm more of a visually creative person, I learn best through visuals and I take in more information visually. I can read article after article to try and gain inspiration but that eureka moment will never strike. Let me let you in on a little secret of mine, I start with the photography. If I can take a picture that I'm really really happy with and is visually interesting then the blog content usually comes like an oncoming train. 

That's why I prefer Tumblr pages, not just other peoples Tumblr blogs but also my own. I tend to look at images a fair amount whilst I'm surfing the web, this leads to me adding a mountain of inspirational photography to both of my Tumblr blogs, perfect for referring back to later. I don't know wether it's a bit narcissistic to say I inspire myself (it probably is) but it's true! Past me has a lot of great inspiration to pick from. 

This of course, is just my own personal way to kick start my creative brain. I don't know wether you guys did this in school, but we used to study these things called thinking hats, they were basically tests to find out how best your brain takes in information. These tests would tell you if you were more numerical, visual, practical or something like that, I don't really remember all too well. It may be an idea to have a google though and do some tests to find out how best your brain takes in information, it doesn't just refer to learning stuff, it can be used to get creative as well! 

If like me you tend to get your inspiration visually, check out Tumblr and We Heart It, find photography in the style that fits your blog style and see where it takes you. Also check out bi-annual magazines like Love and Lula and more expensive bi-monthly mags like Wonderland. I always find the pricier they are, the more intriguing the photography. 

Good luck with your quest for inspiration! Let me know in the comments where you get the most inspo from.  

Tips & Tricks For Brand New Bloggers | Planning Your Layout

This post is a bit like blogception, I wanted to use a photo of my layout but now it looks like when you see the reflection of a mirror in another mirror. But never mind all that, today we are talking layouts, one of the most important aspects of your blog (even though some people will say otherwise). The layout of your blog is the first thing people see when they go to your page, we always get told to never judge a book by its cover but it's in our nature to be attracted to visually pleasing things. Let's go through just a few things you might want to think about when looking for a layout template. 

How many columns? 

The structure of your layout needs to be simple and easy to navigate, a reader doesn't like to have to go on a hunt for what they want, they want to be able to get the info quickly and easily. The favoured layout is the 2-column layout, the main section, which houses the post and then a sidebar with all of your widgets, profile info and social media links. It is completely up to you as to what you think looks best for your blog but I would advise having either one sidebar with all of your info in or 2 sidebars, one with all of your widgets and the other with just profile info. I always find 2 sidebars full of widgets and images is too distracting, we want the focus to be on the posts.

Colour scheme

This really is personal preference but generally people like a blog to be a lighter colour, something that is bright and airy. People usually read blogs to relax and being greeted by a vibrant pink or neon orange doesn't trigger the relaxation feeling. It's basically colour psychology; bright vibrant colours can feel aggressive and can also be too much for the eyes if someone is looking at it for too long. The best way to plan a colour scheme is to pick a minimal white layout and then add colour through headers, banners and widgets. 

Font

Your blog is all about the content so make your font as easy to read as possible. This also refers to the font of your post headings, widget headings and page headings. Look at magazines; they all use a fairly standard sans-serif/serif font to make their content easy to read. By all means use a slightly fancier font for your headings, but you must make sure that it is clear so maybe stay away from the handwritten styles. If you want a splash of fancy font on your blog, use it in your header. Make sure to also use either black or dark grey for your font colour, this makes sure your font stands out from the background, there is nothing worse than having to strain your eyes to see really light grey font that is virtually blending in with the background. 

Header

Your header is where you can really get creative and give a blog its signature style. The best way to create a header is in Photoshop, that way you can test out lots of different font styles and add in splashes of colour or images. There really aren't many rules when it comes to headers, you do have to make sure your blog name is relatively readable though otherwise your readers wont know your name! If you aren't a dab hand at Photoshop you can always ask a friend or buy a custom header package from Etsy, there are loads on there.

And that's pretty much all there is to it. The basic rules are to make your content the focus, keep your font clear and legible and keep the colour scheme non-aggressive. Remember that you need to be happy with the way it looks but always keep your readers in mind; they are the ones that will be visiting after all.