I wanted to caveat today’s post by saying, I am in no way a true expert here. I’m constantly learning and making improvements based on what I know works for me, my blog and my audience. With that being said, I wanted to pull together a few simple tricks I’ve learned along the way and small changes that could be beneficial to other bloggers. These are things I see every day within the blog world and affect my own experience as a reader of other blogs, and keeping your readers happy is important, right?

Five little things I’ve picked up on that make a big difference:

1. Nix the CAPTCHA: I beg you all with this one – please, please, please turn off the “CAPTCHA required” setting within your comments (CAPTCHA’s are those awful little jumbled word puzzles that are required before submitting the comment form). I know your blog platform may recommend this in order to prevent spam comments, but trust me, the spam will not be that bad. As bloggers, we all LOVE comments from readers so let’s just make it easy on our audience for this to happen. The higher the barrier, the less likely you are to receive comments.
2. Buy a URL: Making your blog easy to find is important and having a URL that aligns with your blog name and usernames across social channels is important. Ideally you did your homework before deciding on a blog name and the URL is available but if not, consider some alternatives like adding “blog” after the domain. Whatever you choose, keep things consistent to avoid confusion when your readers are trying to get in touch across various social channels.
3. Add a “pin it” button: This may require a bit of research (you bet it did on my end) but adding a “pin it” button to the images on your blog makes things really easy for your readers to share the content you work so hard to create. Pinterest is an amazing marketing tool for your blog in general, so why not let your readers help you out and do some sharing?
4. Make it easy to search: If I like your blog posts, please make it easy for me to find others that are related. Most blogging platforms have widgets that are super easy to install – make sure this is in a prominent location within your layout so your readers don’t have to search for the search field itself. In terms of searching it’s also important to be consistent and descriptive with your post tags so similar posts are grouped together in search.
5. Consistent image sizes: A blog instantly looks more polished and professional when all of the images are the same size and aligned the same way. Use a simple online photo editing tool (like PicMonkey) to quickly check image sizes and resize to a consistent width.

What little tips have you learned along the way that have made a big difference in your blog? Do you have any advice for other bloggers that you’d like to share?