Blogs can be very easy or very hard. It depends entirely on the individual. First of all, I will tell you that most importantly, you must blog about things OTHER than your shop. A lot of people don't do this. Lots blog exclusively about their shop and nothing else, and that makes it hard for people to read, which results in few followers, and, worse, losing some you already have.
First of all, think about blogs you like. What do you like about them? Personally, I like blogs that share life stories - good and bad - and tutorials, and some are quite interactive, asking you to participate in small challenges. Therefore, I try my best to make sure I do these things in my own blog. It's working for me so far. And if you create tutorials, I urge you to pin them to pinterest. I've gotten a lot of followers that way.
You have to keep it interesting. I read a really good post not too long ago about blogging. She says that you should never compare your blog to anyone else's, as there is no number of followers you have to have in order to be successful. And a point I have myself to add onto it is this: dance like no one's watching, and write like no one is reading. Don't worry about people agreeing or disagreeing with anything you have to say, if they don't like it, they don't have to read it, but it's important to be yourself, and to let people know that there's more to you than just a shop. The best thing you can do is mention your shop infrequently, unless you have a sale or some new items, but otherwise keep a mini Etsy in your sidebar. I have mine at the top of my sidebar, so when people come to my blog, they can see it easily. It's worked for me!
This is my blog:
http://peachesandpebblesweekly.blogspot.comThis is the post regarding blogging:
http://www.thecuriouspug.com/2012/02/advice-for-bloggers-whats-worked-for-me.htmlAnd this is another useful post that can give you ideas of what to blog about, which I sometimes refer to myself:
http://www.thecuriouspug.com/2011/05/things-to-blog-about.htmlAs for promoting my blog, I added the link to my business cards, to my listings, and by creating tutorials and posting them on pinterest, that also helps quite a lot. Also, if I sponsor a giveaway somewhere, I request that following my blog be counted as an entry. I might lose those followers afterwards, but it's brought my blog to their attention at any rate! When I get my blog's header made and I've bought a domain name, I'm going to start buying advert spaces on some of my favourite blogs. It's going to be expensive, so I'm only going to buy one advert slot a month, but the blogs I'll be buying from don't just stick you in their side bar, they give you a proper feature at the same time.
Good luck!
