1. Stay true to yourself - It sounds silly and obvious to say but it's true. If you try and put forward a distorted version of yourself you will not only have trouble keeping up the false appearance but you won't be able to express what you're really like. Trust me, there are people out in the blogging world who will want to read your blog no matter what. There's no point hiding your true self.
2. You don't need the latest camera/laptop/equipment - I wouldn't suggest to anyone who has recently started blogging that you should go and splash out on the latest DCLR or iMac - if you already have them when you start blogging then that's great but it's certainly not a 'blogging essential' by any means. I've actually been using my iPhone 5C for taking photos recently as our laptop has decided to mess around and you know what, the quality of my iPhone pictures aren't all that bad. As long as you have access to the internet and a digital camera that you can upload pictures from then you're pretty much good to go.
3. Everyone starts out with '0' followers/starts small - If you are the type of person who is obsessed with needing 'X' number of followers by a certain time or are after 'freebies' then perhaps blogging isn't for you. However, if you are prepared to put in the effort, time and dedication then who knows, maybe one day you could reach a big milestone through blogging. The important thing to remember is that everyone - even Zoella started right at the very bottom with zero followers. On that note you'll find that your blog will (hopefully) grow over time and more people will start to read it.
4. Be kind - Pretty self explanatory. Kindness opens doors and makes friends, being rude and unkind to people will give you a bad reputation and in this day and age of social media all it would take is one tweet/Facebook post from a fellow blogger who you've ticked off and then it's goodbye readers. No one wants to read a blog of a mean, ruse person.
5. It helps to learn some basic HTML - This is mostly for when it comes to first designing your blog and choosing how you want it to look. You could save up some pennies and pay someone to do all the 'techie' stuff for you but I personally find it more rewarding (and a hell of a lot cheaper) to do it myself. There's a million and one different tutorials all over the internet that show you how to do HTML and computer coding and once you pick up a few tips and tricks it's surprisingly not too hard.
6. Don't buy something just for the hype - I'm utterly terrible at doing this, I'll confess that I bought the whole Babylips collection as soon as I could get my hubby little paws on them! Now, the number of times that I've bought something that I've seen hyped up all over Beauty blogs, liked it and used it a few times but then I've forgot about it and moved onto next craze is downright silly. It's great that said product is getting such love from the blogging community but do stop and think: 'do I really need another lipstick?' It would be better to wait till the hype had died down to go and buy it when it's on offer somewhere. That way your carefully written and thought out review won't get lost in a sea of reviews about the same product and you could end up saving some money too. Just because you didn't rush out to buy it the day it came out doesn't mean that it won't be there a few weeks later.
7. Get involved in blogging community - Incase you didn't know it there are tons of different 'chat' evenings on Twitter every night of the week for different types of bloggers. Not only is this a great way to get more involved in the community but it's also a fantastic way to make new friends as well. Why not try the #bbloggers chat which is held every Wednesday & Sunday at 8pm GMT or the #fbloggers chat which is every Monday & Thursday at 8pm GMT
8. Don't be afraid to do a bit of self promotion - Sending out the odd tweet with your blog link once or twice a day is actually a good idea, I mean how else will people discover your blog if they don't know about it? However, this leads onto my next point...
9. Don't spam people! - Seriously. Please. Don't. Spam. Not only is it annoying, takes up space in people's comment boxes but I also find it quite rude, not going to lie! The amount of times that I've read an amazing post on a blog and then I look at their comment section and it's just full to the brim of pointless 'f4f?' (That's follow for follow to you and me) or people just leave their links with no actual mention of the topics that the blogger has spent time writing about. Now, it is ok if you comment with a nice, thought out comment and then stick your link under your name or at the bottom as a 'PS.' But to blatantly just swoop in like the 'f4f attention brigade' isn't cool one bit as not only will your comment be deleted/ignored but other people will not want to actually look at your blog either.
10. Comment on the posts you like - It let's people know that you like what they are doing and it's also another easy and fun way to make friends! Also it makes people smile when they find a lovely new comment waiting for them - well it does for me at least.
11. Don't be embarrassed about your blog! - I used to be embarrassed about my blog and no one (part from my dog, but who's he gonna tell?) for probably the first nine months-year. I don't know exactly why I felt like that and had the urge to keep it a secret, maybe I thought that people wouldn't understand it but actually letting people know that I blog felt quite good. I know for a fact that if I hadn't had told my God-Mother for example that I would have never had the chance to go to London Fashion Weekend. I've found that 99% of people are really supportive if it - especially my Mum and best friends who now take great pleasure in asking me about what I'm up to on my blog.
