April 19, 2016

A beginners guide to Blog Photography & Styling - What you need to get started

April 19, 2016/ Roxy Hutton

I've been blogging for about 6 years now, and I do so because I genuinely love providing free, useful content for people. This blog is not a diary showcasing my life but rather I hope that it is a platform for you to learn new things (like my blogging tips, travel guides and posts about owning a dog in Korea) as well as a place to be inspired (by my travel posts, recipes and my photography).

One thing that I have learned from all these years of tapping away at my keyboard is that the images on your blog can make or break your brand.

These days technology has advanced so much, there really is no excuse for anyone to have poor quality images on their blog. This doesn't mean you have to own the fanciest camera on the market, your cellphone/ipad/tablet will work just fine.

In this post I'm going to be sharing with you what I use to style & take photographs for my blog.

April 12, 2016

Introducing the #BeautifyYourBlog Handbook for Bloggers

April 12, 2016/ Roxy Hutton

I recently created and launched #BeautifyYourBlog an easy to follow, free online course for bloggers. Alongside this course, I created a handbook which I'd love to share more of with you today.

Making your blog look it's shiny best can be a difficult process...But it doesn't have to be.

When I first started blogging, I wish I had had someone show me the ins and outs of branding and what it means to build a brand around your blog.

I fumbled my way through the first 4 years of blogging, making so many changes and wasting so much time creating graphics for my blog that really didn't fit my style.

If someone had given me this handbook when I first started blogging, it would have saved me so much frustration, not to mention time.

This Handbook goes through the how's and the why's of branding your blog and most importantly, it shows you how you can do it yourself.

March 13, 2016

How to avoid the overwhelm in your creative business + a Helpful Checklist

March 13, 2016/ Roxy Hutton

About 3 months ago I started dipping my toe into the world of online business and passive income, and goodness me, it's a whole other world out there.

The idea of online businesses isn't new, people have been producing online courses and selling information products ever since the internet first began in 1969. What has changed dramatically is the people behind the courses. No longer do you have to have a doctorate in computer programming or some other fancy sounding degree, regular people like you and me are making money selling their social media strategies in the form of webinars, workshops and coaching packages.

Sounds wonderful doesn't it? Being able to make money doing what you love. Isn't that so many people are striving to do? Striving to free themselves from their 9-5's to make more money and have more time to do the things they love?

February 05, 2016

How to easily make photo collages for your blog and Facebook: A Blogstomp Tutorial

February 05, 2016/ Roxy Hutton

In order to build a cohesive brand, it's important to make sure the images & graphics you share are aligned with the look and feel of your business. An easy way to do this is to share groups of images (collages) that tell a story.

I use collages here on my blog when I want to share a lot of images, but I don't want to slow down my site loading speed.

Using full sized images in a blog post means lots and lots and lots of scrolling for your readers. Creating beautiful collages is an easy way to make your blog posts look better, and it helps the back end of your site by making it faster to load.

In today's blog post I'm sharing with you how I create collages for my blog and Facebook page using Blogstomp.

January 07, 2016

Motivational Quotes & Stock Photo Freebies

January 07, 2016/ Roxy Hutton

It's the beginning of the year and to celebrate the newness and freshness that comes with the month of January I would like to offer you a set of FREE inspiring quote graphics & images for you to use wherever you'd like!

I created these graphics using my own photographs and overlaying text with the Studio App.

I'm giving them away for you to use on your blog, on your Facebook page or on Instagram etc to help spread inspiration.

I would love to see how you use them so tag me in your post so I can follow along.

December 29, 2015

Help people find & connect with you on Disqus: Why you should update your Disqus profile

December 29, 2015/ Roxy Hutton

Are you a Disqus user? Do you use Disqus as your comment managing system on your blog or website? I've been using Disqus to manage my comments for the past 4 years and just LOVE the interface (and the fact that its FREE!) as well as how easy it is to leave comments on other peoples blogs. I also love how easy it is to track and reply to comments left my own blog. Before Disqus I was using the standard Blogger commenting system which was terrible at dealing with spam, and was just terrible with 'loosing' my comments. Disqus has made my life so much easier, and worked flawlessly when I was on Blogger and works perfectly with SquareSpace.

Apart from being a great system for storing and managing the comments on your blog, Disqus is a fabulous place to find and connect with other bloggers & readers. I haven't spent too much time delving into their voting system (you can recommend commetn discussions as well as 'upvote' comments) but what I do often is go through the comments on my site and click through to find the bloggers and lovely people who have taken the time to leave me a comment.

This is where I start pulling my hair out.

I can't tell you the number of times I've been left frustrated with people who make it so difficult for me to find and connect with them. Basically, if you don't update your Disqus profile and include links to your website & social media platforms, you are basically closing the door on future connections and possible business. And it's so easy to fix!

If you're a blogger or business owner, you know how important it is to have all your links (website/facebook/twitter/instagram) in an easy to find place so that people can connect with you and ultimately contact you if they like what you are all about. If you don't provide them with your details how are they supposed to find you? The amount of time I have wasted copying and pasting Disqus usernames into Google, only to have to sift through hundreds of search results leaves me stone cold and ultimately I click away and forget about them. Not out of choice but out of frustration.

So why not make it easy for people to find you. Disqus allows you to include your Facebook Account (at this stage only personal profiles can be connected), Twitter & Google accounts, as well as your website. Not only does this increase your chances of connecting with other like minded people, but it's great for SEO! The more your brand name and blog/business accounts are online, the more exposure your brand gets. It's basically free advertising.

So what are you waiting for?

Pop on over to your Disqus dashboard and get to customizing your profile. Change your name, avatar (the little picture that shows up when you leave a comment) & try to keep it consistent with your brand. Add in your links (under the 'Account' tab on the left hand side of your dashboard), write a quick blurb (biography) about who you are and what you do and then you're good to go! Drop a comment below once you've done so as I'd love to pop over to your site and leave you some social media love too.

Here's to helping you connect with more people, and to making your site easier to find for others.

Happy blogging!

#CGScreative free stock photographs for bloggers

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