HiP Blog Challenge – Between Posts

Tara Gentile, from HandmadeInPA.net, recently announced her blog series on her website.  The series is called the HiP Blog Challenge – and Tara has shared some fabulous blogging tips thus far!

Tara created the challenge for those “looking to make your blog a little HiPper, or at least make it reflect your business and gain readership.”

Tara has discussed two topics (part one and part two), and will continue to discuss different topics each Saturday in April on her website.  “Each post will have both basic and more advanced tips, and a small homework assignment to take back to your blog,” Tara says.

While waiting for post number three from Tara, we wanted to learn more about why she started blogging, how blogging helps handmade sellers and her favorite blog platforms.

What made you start a blog? What is your favorite part about blogging?

“I started blogging in college (2003) to stretch my writing muscles,” Tara told us.  “This go around, I started blogging because I was at home with my new baby and to stretch my now atrophied writing muscles. I plan to use HiP as a basis for a freelance writing & social media consulting portfolio.”

How does blogging help your Etsy sales? Does it help others in the HiP community?

“Blogging helps sales by building relationships with potential customers. Readers will definitely come back to you because they know you,” Tara said.

What is your stance on blog platforms? Do you like Blogger? What about WordPress? Any recommendations?

“I use (self-hosted) Wordpress. I love Wordpress,” she raves.  “It is very easy to manipulate with a cursory knowledge of CSS & HTML. And by cursory, I mean you can Google what you to change and then copy and paste the code into your site! There is also a whole slew of plug-ins that extend your blog far beyond what the average Joe could ever code.”

“Blogger seems to be the preferred blog of sellers, although there are some problems with that platform when it comes to SEO,” Tara explains.  “Other than Wordpress, Typepad seems to be the platform I see used most often on really “sharp” blogs.”

Thank you for sharing your blogging experience Tara.  Counting down the days until Tara’s part three of her HiP blogging series.  Check back for part three later this week!