Steph

Every year I trial (and sometimes fail at) a variety of different trends, and every year a few of those trends manage to make their way into my not-so-capsule wardrobe. This time last year I was coveting baggy beanie hats, slip on sneakers and questionable culottes, whereas this year I'm favouring feminine shapes and - wait for it - super floaty dresses. Having this blog has done a lot of good for me, but it's also allowed me to document every outfit (both the good and, ahem, the not so good) that I've sported over the past twenty four months. I posted a photo of myself wearing my first ever bardot top - a trend that has gradually made it's way into my every day wardrobe.

It always feels a bit strange writing the first line of a blog post when I haven't really been around for a while. I was taking on as many jobs as I could to make sure I got a decent start at doing this whole full time blogger thang, and that resulted in my blog turning into sponsored post central. Now, of course I only worked with brands I wanted to that fit with my blog style (I mean, I'm not quite desperate enough to start advertising continence pads..yet), but because I was posting so sporadically it felt that every other post came with a disclaimer. So the thing that I could usually turn to when I was feeling stressed (AKA this blog) wound up being something that I had to fully rely on  to ensure I didn't get behind on my rent or - worst of all - not being able to prove everyone wrong who said I could never do the internet as a job.

Don't worry, I'm not going to reel off all the magical things Google Analytics can do (because I've already written a blog post about it, heh) but I will graciously direct you over to Behaviour> Post popularity doesn't just stop at a blog post - in fact, a lot of your readers probably come from the big wide world of social media, like Facebook or Twitter. You want to make sure you scope out what people are saying on your own posts on social media, as well as what their friends are saying on their profile (if they share your post of course). All you have to do is type in the URL you want to track and there you have it - an overview of your social shares from pretty much every social networking site imaginable.

I don't know about you guys, but as a blogger I'm constantly inundated with hundreds of emails each and every day (granted, a large percentage of those emails are mostly centred around penis enlargement pills and/or Candy Crush invites from my Mum..) asking me to promote a product, review a service or simply guest post on someone else's website. I mean, sure, it's all down to you and how you feel bout what's on offer, but if you want to keep your blog to a certain standard ten it's best waiting around for the better, more relative opportunities to come about. There are so many laws and rules that come with blogging these days (check out my blog post all about blogging rules to follow for more info) that it can be hard to stay u to date with what's what sometimes. Sometimes of course these emails may just look spammy, as opposed to actually being spammy, but I always think that, if they can't even bother to write an email to me by name as opposed to 'Dear blogger' or (my personal favourite) 'Dear webmaster', then they're probably not the best sort of company to work with in the first place.