I'm a new blogger and I was hoping that you could give me some advice...

[Heavenlyveganbaking]

Hello everyone

I just started up a blog about becoming a vegan and vegan recipes and I was hoping that some of you more experienced bloggers could give me a few pointers on what I'm doing right or wrong.

My blog is: heavenlyveganbaking.wordpress.com

It has been going for less than a month, and I've been putting up content fairly regularly, but I'm not sure how I would be able to build up a regular readership (like getting people to follow my blog via email) Any advice?

I'm getting quite a lot of hits, but people aren't staying around to explore the blog for very long (i.e. they only view the one page usually) is there any way to make it so they want to have a look at other things too?

Sorry for all the questions, just thought this might be the ideal place to get a little help

Thanks!

Hi

Welcome!

The best way to get followers is to follow others, Tweet and Facebook, be social.

Maybe find a less 'standard' layout and create a personalized header.

As for getting people to stick around...that's the bane of the bloggers. [bugrin]

Hey

Thanks for your suggestions. I just changed the layout last night because I had a personalised header (that I made myself, and looked pretty good) but it was forcing down the content on my page so looked a little messy. Not sure how to replace a header text with a header image without the image going underneath the category tabs, any ideas?

I have twitter and a facebook page, and the hits I was getting from them have been getting smaller and smaller recently, not sure what I'm doing wrong.

Thanks again

You probably need a different theme that allows for custom headers. There are millions of free themes, even with a non-self hosted site, you just have to dig through to find a good one!

Hi HVB, I've taken a peek at your blog - it's very nice! Tweet often, build backlinks and tell as many people as possible and... eventually you'll start to get more interest. Nothing wrong with your content - very readable. :)

I've tried going vegan before - so difficult! If you find a really awesome vegan cheese, please let me know! The only vegan foodstuff that is vaguely cheesy is nooch (nutritional yeast), which you can buy as Engevita from H&B and various other places. I could (and have) eaten nooch straight out the tub. But all those soy cheeses are gross and, whatever they claim, I haven't come across a single one that melts. The soft vegan cheeses are so-so but the hard ones are just so disappointing. :(

Oh, and I left a comment on your blog about egg replacers. Forgot to add, the best thing is actually to use a vegan recipe in the first place. Any of the Moskowitz & Romero cookbooks are fab. If I could successfully live on cookies alone, then I'd be an extremely successful vegan! lol