The first hurdle

So...after doing some editing, tweaking and switching from wordpress to blogger I have created a basic design that I am happy with for now. Yes it still looks rather novice but I am still a learner at HTML and coding so it may take some time to get it looking like the pro's!

As I mentioned in my first post the main theme to this blog shall be reviews and sweepstakes updates. Obviously the first task for a new review blogger is contacting companies and requesting products to review. I plan on starting this process next week, and until then the goal is to research other successful bloggers set ups and see how their sites are working and learn from their professionalism. I have some great friends on OLS (online-sweepstakes.com) who are successful at this and have been very kind in giving me some tips and information to get started. One of the main tips I have received is obviously to start small, and not to expect to suddenly be receiving cameras and ipads! This makes sense, thus Some of the products I shall be firstly seeking to review are small food items, accessories and things from new companies seeking to get the word out about their products.

Another of my immediate goals is obviously to get the word out about this blog and to generate a group of followers. One of the main things a company looks at in a potential reviewer/advertiser is their stats; the number of followers they have, the number of unique monthly hits they have and the number of reviews they have previously done. So over the weekend I am going to try and spread the word about this blog in a number of ways; submitting it to blog databases, telling friends on my social networks, uploading a new youtube video and perhaps creating my first giveaway to bring in some potential new followers.

I am well aware that maintaining a blog and keeping it current and interesting so that people keep coming back is a great deal of work, and requires both time and effort but i'm prepared for that and cannot wait to get things going.