Bonnie's Heart and Home: Blogging…What’s It All About? Part 3

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This is the last installment in my series. It covers promoting a blog post once it’s been published.

Blogging..What's It All About--Part Three #blogging,#graphics,#pictures,#picmonkey,#windowslivewriter,#categories,#labels,#proofreading,#edit,#hashtags,#socialmedia,#pinterest,#twitter,#facebook,#alternatetext,#alttext http://www.bonniesheartandhome.com/2014/08/bloggingwhats-it-all-about-part-3.html

In my last installment, Blogging...What's It All About? Part Two, I shared about renaming blog post graphics to match the title of a blog post. Doing so is changing the Alternate Text of the graphic. Why is this important? It’s important because it helps in reaching out to potential readers.
Since I’ve connected my blog to Pinterest, readers can hover over a graphic and a “Pin It” button will appear. The button can then be clicked and the graphic pinned to the desired Pinterest board of the reader.
Remember, I’ve already changed the Alternate Text of that graphic to the address of my blog post. When that graphic is shared on Pinterest and clicked upon, the Pinner will automatically be taken to my blog post and can read it.

More About Alternate Text

Including a detailed graphic description, along with the blog post address, in the Alternate Text helps those who aren’t able to view the graphic. Perhaps they have vision problems and use a screen reader. Maybe a slow connection is preventing the graphic from loading. In these cases, a detailed description is very useful.
Using strong keywords in Alternate Text will increase SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for a blog. Here’s what that means: When someone types the keywords of their choice into Google Images (for example), any images that have those same keywords in their Alternate Text will be brought up for that person to choose from. This can bring more traffic to a blog which is something we bloggers love to see!

Making The Connection Between Blogs and Social Media

In some cases, social media platforms can be connected to each other. Why would a blogger do this? To save time!
My Bonnie’s Heart and Home Facebook Page is connected to my Bonnie’s Heart and Home Twitter Page. Whatever I post on the Facebook Page appears on the Twitter Page, too. That includes when I share my latest blog post. My Pinterest page is also connected to my Bonnie’s Heart and Home Twitter Page. As a side note, if you enjoy the content on my social media Pages, please “Like” or “Follow” the above-mentioned Pages. :-) You can also “Share” with your family and friends so they keep current on my postings.

Hashtags in Social Media

Hashtags were first used on Twitter. Their usage has grown to include other social media platforms. Their purpose is to categorize keywords so social media users can find more posts on the same said keywords.
When I share on my social media platforms that I’ve published a new blog post, I include hashtags pertaining to topics covered in that blog post. For this series, one of my hashtags is “#blogging”, so those searching for “#blogging” in the social media platforms I post in will see my “Share”.

Is Blogging for You?

There is more to blogging, but my goal has been to cover the basics in this series. I hope that doing so informed and perhaps inspired some to start blogs of their own. It’s a lot of work, but can be fulfilling.

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