When I first entered into the blogging world, I was like an innocent doe–wide-eyed and bushy-tailed–with very little idea of what the heck I was doing. I just wanted to write stuff people could relate to and gain a following I could interact with just from being awesome.
About three years later, I realized I wanted to become seriously serious about this whole blogging thing because I enjoy it, and although it’s a lot of work, it’s fulfilling to me. So, I finally purchased my domain name [homemadeexperience.com] and amateurly continued stumbling along.
Turns out, blogging isn’t just throwing words onto a screen and hitting publish. It’s actually very intricate and time consuming if you want to do it right. Aside from the actual writing, I have an email account I spend a good portion of my day sifting through, a calendar and apps I use to organize and schedule posts and reviews, subpar photography skills that must be utilized for each post’s photos and just enough background in design and html to scrape by with my branding and blog layout. Throw in promoting your blog daily and keeping up on just about every social media platform in existence and you just might have a full-time job … no, seriously, people really make a substantial full-time job out of blogging.
So, in order to sharpen my professional edge and climb up to the next level, I believe it’s important to build a solid platform by researching and learning from those who have been and are currently successful in the areas I strive to be, which in this instance is blogging professionally.
By creating that knowledgable platform and continuing to devour tips and tricks from those around me who are successful, it allows me the opportunity to take my creativity, ideas and personal uniqueness, confidently, to the next level.
With that in mind, here are 8 blogging gurus whom I admire and am constantly striving to learn from:
Chic Geek Academy A great resource for taking the basics that every brand and blog needs and making them as powerful and useful for your blog as possible. For those who are trying to become successful in the blogging world, or simply just level up in some areas, Dre offers some great tutorials and simple step-by-step advice. She’s also pointed me in the direction of several of my other blogging gurus.
Rebekah Radice The all-encompassing social media guru. Rebekah offers tips and tricks on how to navigate and market using the major social media platforms, engagement, visual content and various other clever tricks.
Peg Fitzpatrick Another great social media expert. Peg, however, is primarily geared towards marketing and appearance, which is also insanely important and helpful. She gives GREAT tips and very specific step-by-step advice on branding your stuff for social media with some great techniques that can easily step-up your blog game.
Anna C. Bennett | White Glove Social Media Your absolute go-to for becoming a Pinterest queen, or king. Anna gives great step-by-step guides on how to market yourself on Pinterest and use Pinterest to better your business, image and following. She has an awesome Pinterest marketing video and online course, and really, if there’s absolutely anything you can think of that’s Pinterest related–and probably 100 other things you haven’t thought of–Anna covers it. Great resource to strengthen your blog on that social media platform.
Regina Anaejionu | By Regina Regina offers awesome advice and tools on how to blog efficiently. Whether that means utilizing your blog budget to its fullest, gaining paying clients or simply how to write, her blog and published works are a great go-to. She offers superb advice on how to be creative and organized, along with great worksheets and resources to do so.
Elle & Company A seriously amazing resource all around. Elle & Co. offers an entire library of worksheets, files and templates, archives with over 100 tutorials, tips and how-tos, e-courses and weekly posts on general blogging, professionalism and design. Very organized and easy to find exactly what you’re looking for to help boost your skills or organize yourself.
Pauline Cabrera | Twelveskip Pauline is all about strategy, numbers and getting noticed based on your technical and branding abilities. She specializes on how to present your blog/yourself, website and graphic design, website review, website marketing and content marketing. Pauline also gives great advice on how to generate more traffic, plan ahead and several of the other little tips that make blogging easier and more efficient.
Copyblogger Founded by Brian Clark, Copyblogger covers the tech-y tech side of blogging, because it truly does make a difference. The information this site provides–that a lot of others don’t– is primarily over SEO, email marketing, keyword research, landing pages, etc. I’m sure there are several successful bloggers that aren’t huge into the tech side of their websites but knowing more about the technical aspects of blogging can really be the cherry on top and the thing that puts your blog one step ahead.
Homemade Experience 