I realized I haven’t written a blog tips post lately & thought I should rectify that right away! In a few months, Cuddle Fairy will be two years old! In that time, I have learned little tricks along the way which has made blog life much easier. I think back to things that used to be so difficult that are done quickly now.
So, today I thought I’d share some of my favorite blog hacks with you!
Note that Cuddle Fairy is a WordPress blog so some of the hacks might not work for you if you are using a different platform. Also, I wasn’t asked or paid to include any of these links, they are links to sites I use weekly & wanted to share with you.
Paste into the text / HTML screen rather than the visual
So, you want to copy & paste into your blog post. Maybe a fellow blogger sent you a guest post or maybe you are copying a paragraph from a brand they want to be included in your post. Sounds easy enough. But, after pasting in the content, your blog post now looks crazy – the whole thing is suddenly a mess!
The solution to this is to paste into the text / HTML portion of your screen instead of the visual part. By doing this, any formatting from the content is erased. Sometimes I will still end up with spacing issues, if that happens, grab the paragraph spacing code below.
Realizing this changed my blog life! Copying & pasting is made easy now. Woohoo!
When sending a blog post, copy the text portion
If you write a post in WordPress & want to send it to a fellow WordPress blogger, then may I suggest you copy the post in the text portion rather than visual. This way, all of the links, spacing, bolding etc all stay intact. Your blogger buddy will thank you when she easily pastes into her text portion & viola – instant blog post!!
Write in visual screen what you want to find when you go to the text screen
Say you are running a giveaway by using a Gleam or Rafflecopter app. You want to paste the giveaway app code into your post, in the text portion. When you get there, it’s a goobledegook of letters, numbers & it can be really hard to find the place you wanted the app to go.
What has saved me a lot of time is in my blog post under the visual screen, find the place I want the app to be placed & type “Gleam App” in that location. I always create a space above & below it by hitting enter. When I head over to text mode I simply scroll down until I find my “Gleam App” marker. Then paste the app code there.
Not only is it easier to find where you want the app located, but it leaves the space above & below that you want to be there. If unfortunately the spacing gets messed up, grab the paragraph spacing code below.
This tip is also handy for embedding YouTube videos or inserting any other type of code into your post. Simply leave yourself some space & a word you can easily find in text mode.
Paragraph Spacing Code
Say you forget to do one of the hacks above or despite best efforts, the spacing in your post has gotten messed up. Sometimes, hitting the enter button in visual doesn’t insert the needed code into text mode to create a space. So when you preview the post, you are missing a space where you really want one to be!
And, it’s always a critical space that is missing. This used to frustrate me to no end. Especially, when adding linky badges! To rectify the situation, simply paste the below code in the text screen where you want to create a space:
<p> </p>
And, as if by magic, a space is created in visual & preview modes. Yay!
Canva, PicMonkey & Backdrops
As a new blogger I had no idea how to create images. Then I found Canva & fell in love. It’s so easy to make graphics & it is free to use! The next issue for me was how to make images a smaller size & that’s where PicMonkey came in. I use the free version & am delighted with it.
I’d be totally lost without these two websites! I use them to create all of my feature images, Pinterest images (like the one below) & to size photos I take on my phone.
Also, using unique and beautiful backdrops is a trick of the blogger trade. You can create all sorts of amazing looks right from your home!
Master list of Instagram #’s
Instagram allows you to have 30 hashtags when you post a photo. It’s a lot of effort & can be time-consuming to gather the best hashtags for your photo. But, it’s good to use all 30 hashtags as much as possible because it gets your photo around to maximum amount of places it can go.
To save time, I have an Instagram note in my phone with hashtags divided by subject – food, healthy food, the kids, selfie, fashion, Irish landscape & so on. So when I post a photo, I simply find the category of the photo, ie: food, copy the food hashtags, paste into Instagram & carry on in life! It has saved me hours of time!
The initial work of creating the hashtag file is time-consuming but you don’t have to do it all at once. Every time you add a photo to Instagram, copy & paste your hashtags into notes with a label. Your future self will thank you for it!
For more Instagram tips check out my How to Grow Your Instagram Followers Post.
Create a large YouTube thumbnail for Facebook
Cuddle Fairy is new to YouTube & is still learning the ropes. When I shared my first video on Facebook it showed up as a tiny box with writing to the right of it. I wanted it to be a large thumbnail that took up the entire width of the Facebook post.
After a bit of Google searching, I found a website called link2fb that will create a link for you so that your YouTube video shows as a large thumbnail! The link only works on Facebook (not Twitter – I tried). The only hope for Twitter is to tweet the link with a photo from the video attached, ideally the video’s thumbnail.
Small photos & videos get scrolled past so it’s worth the extra few minutes to get yours bigger & seen.
Final Thoughts
I hope you found some of these hacks helpful! For more blog & social media tips, check out my Blog Tips page & follow me on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube & Instagram.
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments! And, if you have anything to add, I’m always up for a good blog hack…
