3 Blogs You Should Be Following

Whether you're a crafter, regular ol' family blogger, or whatever kind of blogger you are, there's always a few key blogs you should be following, whether it's for their tips or for your own exposure. Here are a few that I've found to be the most helpful in some of these situations.

If you want more exposure for your blog: 

The Sits Girls

The Sits Girls are (and I quote from their website): a group of 40,000 women bloggers dedicated to supporting one another by leaving comments & learning about blogging. They feature a blogger every day, they share tons of amazing blogging tips, and their main goal is supporting bloggers and helping them gain exposure. I've found a lot of amazing bloggers through their daily featured blogger.

If you want to become a successful seller on Etsy:

Everything Etsy

Everything Etsy has more tips, tricks, tutorials and advice than you could ever ask for when it comes to Etsy. From packaging, to advertising, to creating your shop banner, to product photography, everything is here. When I first though about opening my Etsy shop, I got stuck on this website for hours reading articles. I may not have yet put to use a lot of the advice, but I still couldn't seem to get enough.

If you're a huge crafter / DIY fan: 

Tip Junkie

Tip Junkie is a gold mine if you're into anything crafty. There are a million tutorials, featured projects, recipes, etc. Every Tuesday she hosts Tip Me Tuesday, where literally hundreds of people link up their projects and recipes. 

What are some blogs you've stumbled upon that have helped you along your way? 

Can I respond to YOUR comments? Don't be a no-reply commenter!

I believe I've complained about this on my previous blog, but never here, so let's address this again, shall we? 

Are you a 'no-reply commenter'? Maybe you don't know what that is. That is when you have your email address hidden from your blogger profile. Typically, when you comment on a blog, if the author (like me) gets their comments emailed to them, they can respond to you directly just by hitting 'reply' right in their email. If your email address is hidden, it looks more like this when they try to reply to you:

[ Photo 1 ]

And that makes me sad, because I can't write back to whatever awesome comment you left me, because it would just get lost in space. Or something. Basically, if you've been a follower of mine for awhile, and I've never written back to you then you are a no reply commenter. 

If you're interested, this is how you can change this. 

How to Let People Respond to Your Comments Via Email on Blogger

1. From your Blogger dashboard, go to the top right hand corner and click on your name to make a new box pop up (see photo 3). 

[ Photo 2 ]

2. Click on 'Blogger profile' as shown below. 

[ Photo 3 ]

After you click on 'Blogger profile', click on the orange 'Edit Profile' button in the top right corner (no photo shown). Your privacy settings will be the first things at the top. The first box is to share your profile, and the second check box is to show your email address.

3. Put a check mark in the box labeled 'Show my email address', as shown below.

4. When that's done DO NOT FORGET to scroll down and save your changes. 

When that is all said and done, I should be able to respond to your next comment. If you happen to be a no-reply commenter and change your settings, let me know so I can send you a response asap. There are a couple of you that I would love to be able to respond to more, and especially lately I've had a few new people comment and haven't been able to respond to them as well. 

Don't hate. Let me talk to you.