Blogging is no walk in the park. There are a lot of elements that go into being a successful blogger. There are also a lot of voices out there giving you tips and advice on how to be an epic blogger. Which is why I’ve rounded up my favorite blogs to read for blogging tips. Not only do these people know their stuff, but they are also passionate about helping others. On each site, you will find real and actionable tips you can implement on your blog.
I’m sorry, but not sorry for all of the tabs you are about to open.
In no particular order, here are 16 bloggers you should be following to help take your blog up to the next level.
Design Your Own Blog by Marianne
Marianne’s blog is dedicated to helping you DIY your blog. On DYOB you will find step-by-step tutorials to help you build your blog + other helpful blogging artilces. Her hope is to help “women to build the life of their dreams by building businesses that allow them to simultaneously support and raise fantastic families.”
Posts to check out:
What is CSS: a beginners guide for bloggers
Create Stunning Blog Post Title Images
Free HTML for bloggers cheat sheet
by Regina
Regina is the self-proclaimed Ninja who is on a mission to “make sure other people find out how epic you are, how valuable your information is, and why they should buy from you.”
Posts to check out
How Not to Get Caught in the 6-Figure blogger Suck-in. Read it before purchasing a blogging related e-course.
How to Write a Blog Business Plan
How to Create Online Workshops for Free
How to Create an Email Course as an Opt-In
51 Types of Blog Posts to Grow Your Reach
The Branded Solopreneur
Andrea, or Dre, is the sassy gal helping bloggers out with their visual strategies. She’s accepted a mission to “help solo-entrepreneurs… create a vision for their voice.” She wants to “help you brand your business like a boss and profit from the work you love to do.” Dre is always offering free mini courses to help you be successful online. She tells it how it is and we all love her for it.
Posts to check out
10 Brand building mistakes you can learn from my fails
The Quick and Dirty Guide to Content Re-purposing
The Quick and Dirty Guide to Beating Self Doubt
Allyssa Barnes
Allyssa is “a web designer who is on a mission to make blogging and web design easy to understand.” She really does do a great job of explaining how to change things on your blog. Her tutorials are simple, short, and easy to execute yourself.
Posts to check out
How to Add a Horizontal Mailchimp Form to Your Site
My 3 Step Approach to Increase Blog Traffic
8 Ways to Style Links so They Stand Out
Why I Use Google Apps for Work (and Why You Should Too!), Plus a Setup Tutorial – Let’s not talk about the time I lost over a year worth of emails because I wasn’t using Google apps for my blog email…
Olyvia
I adore Erika of Olyvia and I’m sure you do to. Erika is on the web to “to help women take control of their digital image, get noticed, and make more money via a powerhouse combo of digital customer service + reputation + marketing savvy.”
Posts to check out
I Look Like an Imposter: An Open Letter Confessing My Secret Fears as an Online Entrepreneur
101+ Popular Blog Title Templates That Work
The Extra-Heroic Guide to Writing Remarkable Blog Posts – I recommend this post to everyone, all the time. Read it.
Earning An Audience: How To Be Irresistible + Grow Your Brand Online
Free Borboleta
Fran over at Free Borboleta is “passionate about helping strong women bloggers + entrepreneurs make their online spaces as awesome as they are.” She’s also a web designer by trade. Pinterest told me in my notifications (before they ruined notifications) that she is my Pinterest twin. Seriously.
Posts to check out
What Bloggers and Creatives Need to Know about the Spam-CAN act. Every times someone asks me, “Why does my newsletter provider want my address?” I make them read this post.
7 Steps to Take your Blog to the Next Level
What to do Before Publishing a Blog Post
Google to Start Penalizing Popups and those darn full screen takeovers (I added that). The Internet is going to be a better place come January.
XO Misse
Elaine, over at XO Misse believes that sites “should be more than just a pretty design. It should be organized, thought out and goal-oriented.” Which is why she shares easy tutorials to help you customize your blog and blogging/biz tips to help you grow your brand online. She also has a lot of great tutorials for bloggers on Blogger.
Posts to check out
Are you a blogger who receives free products for reviews? Google publish “best practice” guidelines.
How to enable the Search Description field on Blogger to increase page views
How to limit and disable post revisions on WordPress to save space
How to Improve Domain Authority
Simple Pin Media
Kate is one of my favorite people on the internet. Kate is on thew web to help “bloggers and business owners grow their business using Pinterest. She aims to teach actionable, simple steps that help business owners move forward successfully instead of feeling overwhelmed.” Simple Pin Media is also a full management teams, managing Pinterest accounts for over 40 bloggers. Being successful on Pinterest is a big part of being successful online, which is why I’ve included her on this list.
Posts to check out
How to Clean Up Pinterest Boards
6 Steps to Monetize Pinterest Traffic
Should I use Branded Images on Pinterest?
Kory Woodward
If you want to improve your email marketing or your branding, Kory Woodward is your go to girl. Kory is on a “mission to support and encourage you while you’re working toward those not-so-crazy dreams of yours.”
Posts to check out
What to Do When You Have too Many Ideas
The #1 Mistake You’re Making with Your Brand – umm… I am guilty of this one. Whoops.
3 Ways Your Resource Library Is Failing You + How to Fix That
5 Things to Do Better for Your Email List in 2016
Dustn.tv
I’ve loved Dustin’s blog for a long time. I stumbled across it through the StudioPress forum while I was building Blog Ambitions back in 2013. I sent a link and screen shot to my husband and said,”I like this guys look”. Talking about the website, of course. Dustin wants to “help you cut through the digital clutter and get your story the attention it deserves.”
Posts to check out
How to Make Visual Content That Doesn’t Suck: 3 Easy Prinicples
Blogging Process: This Is How I Create Epic Content
3 Design Elements That Will Make People Fall In Love with Your Blog
Pink Pot
Chaitra wants to “enable entrepreneurs and bloggers create an effective online presence to help grow their business.” She does this by providing helpful photography tutorial and blogging+biz tips. She also offers a free, monthly photo pack: Creative Convex
Posts to check out
20 Photography Hacks for Awesome Blog and Instagram Photos
12 Photo Backdrop Ideas for Instagram Under $20
The 6-step Process for Taking High Quality i-Phone Photos
Elizabeth Kelsey Bradley
Elizabeth is one of the kindest, most geniune people you will meet online. Elizabeth focuses on “helping you become a prolific blogger that crafts epic blog posts your Ideal Clients LOVE to getting traffic from Pinterest and networking in Facebook groups.” She is the founder of the largest blogging Facebook group: Blogging Boost
Posts to check out
The Ultimate Guide to Facebook Groups, naturally
Building an authentic personal brand
How to become a prolific writer
Kayla Hollatz
Kayla “teaches engaging, actionable courses & workshops on marketing, social media, blogging & online community building.” I like “actionable”. She is also the host of the oh so popular twitter chat #createlounge.
Posts to check out
How to Create a Comment Frenzy on Your Blog
Getting Back to the Honeymoon Stage of Blogging
5 Signs It’s Time to Stop Planning and Start Creating I am guilty of getting stuck in the planning stage, so this is a always a good reminder.
Amy Lynn Andrews
I like to think of Amy Lynn Andrews as the original ‘how to be a successful blogger’, blogger. Just Google “How to Start a Blog” and you’ll see Amy up there near the tip top. Her content is updated frequently and always helpful. She doesn’t blog very often anymore, but you can “keep up with what’s current in the online space” by signing up for the Useletter. A very helpful blogging newsletter.
Amy Lynn Andrews
Posts to check out
Head over to the contents page and look for something you’d like to know how to do.
Successful Blogging
Sue of Successful Blogging likes to “help bloggers make more money with their blog so they can work at home, be their own boss and spend more time doing what they love.”
Posts to check out
Do You Struggle With Growing Your Blog? 5 Steps That Will Help
6 Easy Ways to Leverage Social Media and Make Money Online
7 Things To Stop Doing If You Want To Make Money From Your Blog
Smart Blogger
I’m including Smart Blogger in this list because I pretty much think of Smart Blogger as the bloggers’ bible. Smart Blogger started out as Blog Boost Traffic by Jon Morrow. “Jon Morrow has asked repeatedly to be called ‘His Royal Awesomeness,’ but no one listens to him. So, he settles for CEO of Smart Blogger.” Jon writes frequently on the blog, but all of the guest posts are top notch too.
Posts to check out
So hard to choose just a few.
An Open Letter to Bloggers Struggling to Get More Traffic
The Ultimate Guide to Writing Comments That Open Doors with Popular Bloggers
Blogger Outreach: How to Get Influencers to Promote Your Content for Free
12 Blogging Mistakes That Make You Look like a World-Class Idiot
33 Ways to Find Freelance Writing Jobs – diversify your income
Follow them all on Twitter
That’s a wrap. This list isn’t all inclusive, there are others that have really helpful blogs too. I created a Twitter list with these 16 plus a few other awesome bloggers to make it easy for you to follow along. The others added to the list are: Mariah Coz, Melyssa Griffin, Pauline Cabrera, Lauren Hooker, Peg Fitzpatrick, Melissa Culbertson, Rebekah Radice, and Mel. You can follow the entire Twitter list here and start learning from these pro bloggers today.
Great list, the only one I would add is Aby Moore (Youbabymemummy.com)
I’ll have to check her out, thanks for the recommendation. 🙂
This is an amazing resource – thank you so much for sharing it. I am familiar with some of the names (HUGE fan of Kate, Amy & Regina), so I am excited to explore the blogs of the other bloggers. This is so very generous of you, and I for one appreciate it very much.
I’m glad you like this resource Kristine. If you love Kate, Amy, and Regina you are defiantly going to love the others.
Beautiful and very useful collection of information. Thank you very much for these 🙂
Your writing very well and provide a lot of useful information. But if you tap water more than half as compared to another article, I would definitely be great
Great list! I can’t wait until I have time to click through these!
Thanks for stopping by Heather. They are definitely sites to bookmark.
Oh, my goodness, this post is packed with information. I opened it, expecting a quick list of blogs and … that’s not what this is.
I definitely need to bookmark this so that I can come back and drill down all of those rabbit holes. Thank you!
I have not heard of any of these.
Hi Kristie! Thanks for the shout-out!! Love the list and love YOUR blog too!
Awe, shucks. Thanks Mel!
WOAH. I have a LOT of reading and learning to do! So many good resources – totally diving in to this!!!
Information overload, right? Luckily it is all quality content. 🙂
Thank you so much for the honor of being included, Kristie! Am I seriously the only dude who made the list?! I see Jon Morrow in the image, but not in the actual blog post.
Also super stoked to see that 6/16 of those you included are using Social Warfare as their sharing plugin of choice. Could my day get any better? I think I’m just gunna call it quits for today to be sure it ends on a high note. 😉
Haha, Jon’s in the post under Smart Blogger. So, two guys. Glad this post gave you the opportunity to call it quits. I think most of my B2B friends are making the switch to Social Warfare.
Kristie Hill, you’re just the best! Thanks for included me in this list. Completely honored.
You’re the sweetest for including me!! I’m in amazing company, too. Thank you so much, lady! 🙂
You’re welcome. You definitely deserve to be among the company.
Thanks so much for including me, Kristie! This is such a great list! I already follow a bunch of them, but there are definitely a few that are new to me. Can’t wait to check them out 🙂
You’re welcome. Thanks for providing uber helpful tutorials.