As a blogger, one of the best ways to build community is to comment on other blogs. We all have our favorites, and I’m sure you are always discovering new ones, just like I am. There are also lots of ways to follow blogs and bloggers. You have a choice of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, adding a favorite to your browser, keeping a paper list – I’m sure there are tons of ways that I can’t even think of. Of every choice I have, my favorite way to follow is through Bloglovin’.
After all, Bloglovin’ allows me to peruse over 200 blogs every day.
I know what you’re thinking – who in the world has time for that? Trust me on this, I don’t read every single one of those every day. There’s absolutely no way that would be possible. At the same time, I don’t want to miss any posts from my favorites or any potential favorites. The key is organization, and Bloglovin’ helps me do that.
I think a lot of people have Bloglovin’ accounts and just don’t use them – and it’s my own numbers that tell me that. My blog has 869 followers on Bloglovin’, but I get only a fraction of that in pageviews per day… which tells me that people aren’t using it effectively. To my knowledge, there hasn’t been a lot of information about how to organize your Bloglovin’ account, so that’s what I’m here for today – a quick look at how I utilize it.
So, this is the home screen when you’re logged into Bloglovin’ – pretty standard, right? I had all my blogs marked as read when I did this to not confuse anyone. All the unread posts appear in the main frame. But on the right-hand side you see my categories – and that’s my key to organization.
Categories are the only thing that allows me to keep it all straight. I’ve found that I have favorite blogs that I never want to miss posts from, fashion blogs I look at once in a while, food blogs where I find new recipes, mom bloggers I read sometimes but not always… you get the idea. Any blog that’s new to me that I’m not sure about yet gets put in the “new” category until I decide if I’ll keep up with it or not. The categories are automatically arranged alphabetically. Since I’m very visual and want my favorites to show up top, I name that category “all my faves” so it would be the first one.
So how to you organize blogs into categories? Easy. Hover over your photo in the top sidebar (if you haven’t uploaded one, you can do that in your profile). A drop down appears and you can click on “Edit blogs you follow.”
On this screen, if you’ve never sorted blogs before, it’ll look something like the screenshot below.
To sort the blog into a category, simply click change group. It’ll pop up with a list of groups you’ve already created or allow you to make a new one. Easy peasy. When you go back to your Bloglovin’ homepage, you’ll be able to click the category on the sidebar and only see posts in that category. It makes it SO much easier! I usually just go through from the top down. If I have no interest in a post, I just mark it as read so it no longer shows up in my feed, but if I want to read it, I click on the post and it opens in a new window, simultaneously marking the post at read.
Now, do I read every blog every day? Of course not, but this system definitely allows me to find what I’m interested in the fastest, without missing any of my favorites!
Do you use a Bloglovin’ system like mine?
37 Responses
This is genius! I use bloglovin’ for blog reading and love it but organizing my blogs will CERTAINLY help me!!! I feel like so many good posts get lost in my feed because of all the blogs I follow. Thanks for the idea girl – off to organize my blogs right now. 🙂
You are welcome! Hope you got it all set up!
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for this! I miss so many posts because I usually read blog through Blogger (where WMM is hosted) and I get emails from some blogs as well but those tend to get lost in my email. I’m going to set this up on Bloglovin’ and hope it helps me keep my favorite blogs in my daily reading list. Thanks again Jess!
I have to tell you, this post was TOTALLY written with you in mind when you said you didn’t know how to follow me. 🙂 Hope it helps!!!!
So agree, organization is key! I’m off to categorize right now 🙂
Good luck!!!
Good for you. I’ll admit, I’m awful at Bloglovin. I love finding blogs via Twitter and Disqus, but I don’t really utilize my Bloglovin account! I should, though.
It really helps me not miss anything!
I put all the blogs I want to follow on my blog’s blog’s i follow spot. Then I can catch up as I go. I follow way more than I read but those on there are ones I catch up on when I have more time.
Yep, I definitely read certain categories first and leave the others for later!
Oh my gosh! I LOVE this idea! I love Bloglovin’ for building community and just keeping up…but I hadn’t thought about using categories…or maybe didn’t even know they were there! THANK YOU!
You are welcome! Hope it helps!
GREAT post- I will be sharing this, because you’re right I think- most people aren’t utilizing Bloglovin’ as they should! I have categories in mine but still have a lot that need sorted.
Yay! Thanks for sharing, honey! 🙂
So smart! And you’re right, I have a bloglovin account and rarely use it! I mostly use Feedly for reading, and I do categories similar to yours!
Oh cool! I didn’t know Feedly did that since I don’t use it!
Huh…never knew you could do this and I’ve been a bloglovin’ member for like 3 years I think. Thanks for sharing. Yeah, I follow way too many blogs to be able to read them all daily. But this should help me at least get to the ones I really love. -Misty
Hope it helps!
Thank you so much for the tutorial. I think this is a great way to stay organized and pour through a lot of information in a relatively short amount of time.
It is! Without it I wouldn’t read anywhere near as much as I do!
BRILLIANT! I am off to try this! Thanks for sharing!
You are so welcome! Hope it helps!
This is a GREAT idea! I’ve never thought about doing that. I always just go down my list and read the ones I see. But by the time I get halfway through the list I’m done and over it. I think putting them all into categories would really help me read all of the ones I really want to read while seeing others that, if they catch my eye, I will also read. Thank you for this tip!
It definitely helps me get more done! Hope it helps you too!
I love Bloglovin’ for this same reason!!! I usually just look over the main page and click the posts I want to read, but I do have them organized by type as well. 🙂
Glad I’m not the only hyper-organized one!
So interesting! I have a Bloglovin account, but I don’t use it as my reader. I’ve been using Feedly, which I use like you do with categories, etc. So many blogs to read, so little time! 🙂
Categories make things SO much easier – it’s awesome that Feedly has them too!
Oh wow you keep up with a lot! I read about 50 consistently, and that is tough! I don’t have near as many Bloglovin’ followers as you, but my page views are higher so I guess I have the opposite problem. I tend to get quite a bit of traffic from Feedly, which I don’t use myself!
It’s really interesting to see how people read and I think it’s a great tool to find out how they get to you!
This is brilliant! Love the organization and how simple it makes everything. Going to work on this myself!
Hope it helps!
This is amazing! Thank you so much for posting this! I am totally not utilizing Bloglovin to its potential. Off to organize it! Happy 4th!
Hope it helps you and you had a great 4th!
I love bloglovin and so happy it helped me to find your blog. Thanks for showing us how to use it to its full potential.
You are welcome! Hope it helps you!
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