Diary of a Semi-Health Nut

ramblings + recipes of a semi-healthy nut

Blogging 101: Advice from the Purely Twins

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I have more words of wisdom to share from some of my favorite blogger friends!  If you’re looking to start a blog or improve the one you have…you will want to check out this Blogging 101 series.

Catch up here:

Blogging 101: Free User-Friendly Tools to Make Your Blog More Awesome
Blogging 101: Perspective from Maria Falls

I’m so excited to have the Purely Twins on the blog today!  I adore their positive attitudes and I have lots of fun trying out their workouts on YouTube.  Enjoy!

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Hello Semi-Health Nut readers,

We are Lori and Michelle, twin sisters who write for the blog purelytwins.com. And we are honored to guest post for Amanda today to share some of our blogging 101 tips. We do not consider ourselves to be ‘experts’ in blogging, but we have learned quite a few things over the past few years of doing it.

Let’s begin!

 

1. How long have you been blogging? Did you have any blogs previous to your current one?

We have been blogging since June 2009 with our first blog pure2raw.com and then switched over to a new blog on June 28, 2012 that we currently blog at purelytwins.com. Been blogging for over 4 years now.
Purely twins share advice on blogging

2. Where do you go for inspiration? Do you blog when inspired or do you blog daily?

For us inspiration is all around us. From all the social media outlets (twitter, facebook, instagram) to pinterest to reading fellow blogging friends blogs. We feel it’s very easy to find inspiration these days.
We blog daily, but some of our topics or recipes happen when we get inspired. We do have those moments when we want to discuss something different from either reading something or just had the urge to discuss that topic. We like being able to share all parts of our life and passions everyday on our blog. We write and create content all the time, we are always getting ideas constantly. 
We like to keep things fun and exciting on our blog through our recipes, daily eats, and workouts as well as sharing our struggles to overcome our health issues (acne, hormones, eczema, digestive health, etc).
We continue to blog and share as we realize that we are helping others on a daily basis and being someone else’s inspiration to never give up. Our readers inspire us everyday!!
purely twins share advice on blogging and getting social with bloggers

3. How has the blogging community impacted you personally?

We actually did a post recently on this topic. We received a blog question from a reader that asked us if we feel blogging has helped us to be healthy. And it has.
And having the amazing blogging community has impacted us on so many different levels. Some of our good friends are fellow bloggers, and we would never have known these amazing ladies if we did not blog or read blogs. We love connecting with others and blogging has allowed us to do so. Blogging has allowed us to be open to new things, learn new things and try new things. Blogging has helped us connect with people from all over. We have grown to be very close to some of our readers and we have learned so much from them.

4. Do you plan on continuing your blog for years to come or do you have other projects in mind?

We do plan on blogging for as long as we can. We do have other projects in mind -mainly growing our youtube and Purely Fit Life home workout program. And doing more cookbooks. But blogging will always be there. It is a great outlet for us. If the time ever comes that it is not working or fitting in our life anymore then maybe we will stop. But for now, we love it and plan to continue on sharing our life journey over on our blog.

5. What blogging platform (Blogger, WordPress, Self-hosted) do you use and why? Have you changed from one to the other? What was your experience with the change?

We use (and started with) wordpress.org. We love it. It was a learning curve for us but now we know it fairly well. WordPress does a great job in allowing bloggers to really customize their site and make it feel like their own. And being able to use plugins for different uses on our blog has helped in so many ways. We highly recommend wordpress. All you need is a hosting company and you are off to start blogging and designing a blog that fits your personality.

6. Do you use an ad agency? Which one and why? (or why not)

Yes we have always used an ad agency to help sponsor our blog. We don’t make a lot of money from them, but enough to cover our blogging expenses from hosting, to VaultPress to back it up, etc. We have switched around to different ad agencies over the years and currently use GLAM and so far loving it. Glam has been great to work with and made all the transitions very easy. We recommend them if you are looking to try out a new ad agency for your blog.
We did start with Foodbuzz our first few years but over time did not like what Foodbuzz was doing with payments and sponsors, so we left them and tried out FoodieBlogroll. FoodieBlogroll was good, their payments felt like they really changed every month. Not very consistent. But another good one to look into.
Blogging advice shared from the successful fitness entrepreneur twins known as the Purely Twins!

7. Do you have any advice to give to a new blogger? What is one thing you wish you had learned early on?

Tough question. Here we go with our tips for new bloggers —

  • start off simple —don’t try to do everything at once; don’t do things just because a ‘bigger’ blogger is doing it, find your own path and voice — do things YOU want to do.
  • figure out your blogs pattern -meaning write out how often you want to blog, and what topics you want to blog about, do you want to do any special series weekly, etc?
  • network with those in your same field of interest — try to connect with others who blog similar things, build up friendships — support others because in the long run they will come back and support you which can help your blog grow.
  • network with those outside your field of interest –read and comment on blogs that might blog about different things then you, great way to open up your audience
  • know how much personal things you are going to share –be okay with sharing your life with everyone and knowing that not everyone is going to like it
  • have an easy to read, well lay-out blog design —keep your blog design simple at first, and know over time you can change it and add things; make sure it is easy for new people to find things they are interested in off your homepage
  • always be yourself —find a way to showcase your personality on your blog; and make sure to have an about page (and keep it up-to-date)
  • and be consistent!!!

Well Semi-Health Nut friends, we hope you enjoyed reading some of our blogging 101 tips. Again blogging should be fun. Don’t over complicate things and always stay true to yourself. The more you are consistent with blogging not only will your readership grow, it will become easier for you.

We hope to see you over at purelytwins soon. Thanks again for reading. And thanks again Amanda for letting us be apart of this blogging 101 series.

xo

Lori and Michelle, the purelytwins

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Hmm…speaking of an “about” page…I should probably update mine sometime soon!  So happy to have the lovely twins on the blog!

PS Won’t you please donate a dollar to support Girls on the Run? You will get entered into an amazing Justin’s Nut Butter raffle!! I truly appreciate everyone’s support with this fundraising!! 🙂

*~Amanda aka Semi-Health Nut~*

Do you blog?  Pick one of the questions and answer it in the comments!
If you don’t, why or why not?

I love making new friends!  Feel free to comment below, or connect with me via Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram or e-mail: semihealthnut AT yahoo DOT com.  You can also follow posts via e-mail , Bloglovin, Networked Blogs, or my blog feed. Thank you so much for reading and God bless! 🙂

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