Posts Tagged ‘problogger’

It’s the final day of the problogger challenge. Whew! No more writing after this right? Wrong. That’s why his final task is entitled the next steps for your blog. Now is when I have to make sure that I maintain stamina and keep posting as often as I have been, and with the quality (or better) that I have been.

I have tried to maintain a blog calendar in the past, but I always failed. I either forgot I had it (I tried google calendar and hated it), or didn’t want to write what I had planned and just scrapped the whole calendar. This time, I’m integrating it into my outlook calendar. Hopefully that will help me keep on track, as I will see it all day, and can add/change/edit more easily. The second thing I am doing is I am sharing my calendar with you. Why? Because it puts the pressure on me to make sure I do the post, because I already said I would. It is much easier not to do something if no one knows you were supposed to. If you tell everyone what you’re doing, then don’t, it is not only a let down for you, but you let down others as well.

So here you go, my calendar for the month of May:

I kept it small so it wouldn’t ruin the surprise with the actual topics of the post, but you could still see that I did it. If you’re like me and don’t actually like surprises and want a sneak peek, just click to enlarge the calendar. Oh, and just in case you’re wondering…yes, the calendar may change (in fact it probably will as time goes on). That’s what makes it such an awesome tool!

Do you have a blog calendar? What do you do to keep yourself organized?

With only 2 days left of the Problogger challenge, it is time to analyze the traffic to my blog. If you have never looked at analysis statistics and want to know what to look for, he gives you 17 different metrics to look at.

Analysis of my stats is one of the reasons I love wordpress – there are great plugins that make it so much easier! I use both google analytics and statpress reloaded plugins to monitor visitors, feeds, posts, etc. Why do I use both? They both serve different purposes.

If I just want to take a basic look at my stats, statpress allows me to do so without leaving my dashboard. It gives me weekly and monthly visit numbers and compares them to the prior week and month. It gives me the top visited pages, the number of visitors vs pages viewed and where they came from. I can also see prominent search terms that get people to my site and which search engines and browsers they use. Of course I can also see what sites refer people to my blog (twitter is #1, no surprise).

For a more in-depth analysis, where I can customize the comparisons, check on what links inside of a post have been clicked or which post is most popluar via rss feed, I need google analytics. It can show me seasonal trends, referral sources from months back, and I can transfer all the data into a spreadsheet. Lastly, it will also show me the time spent on my site – what pages they were on the longest and what pages they left from most often. This allows you to check those pages and see of there is a way to keep people there longer.  Of course, all of this is in addition to the stuff that statpress can do. The upside to google is that I can get way more data than statpress gives me. The downside? I have to go to google analytics’ site to see the data.

Basically, I use statpress on a daily basis, to watch for changes and trends. I use google analytics about once a week to delve indepth and see what is really going on with the traffic on my blog.

What do you use to track your stats? If you don’t track your stats, why not?

We are getting to the end of the problogger challenge, and as such, it was finally time for him to cover social media organization. The concern has always been where to spend your time and what to do while on those sites. Today’s challenge is to  develop a plan to boost your blog’s readership through the social media channels, without spending all your time on it. The post that he wrote is packed with information – I had to read it a couple times to get everything to sink in. I would definitely recommend checking this one out – it was really well done and had some killer ideas.

Anyway, the basic point I got from it was to focus on a select few networks where you can gain the most exposure from the right audience and hopefully gain more of the same type of readers. A few months ago, I analyzed my social media strategy, and what I did on a daily/weekly/monthly. But, the analysis wasn’t focused on what I did to promote myself. I took a look back through it, and a lot of what I do is to promote, but indirectly. The promotion exists because I am active in all the sites that I am a part of. This is the key. You can be a member of thousands of social media sites, but if you don’t interact and use them, then they area waste of time. The sites that I choose to spend my time on are:

And of course, I am a guest blogger on a few sites that help to drive traffic back to my blog. Not only does this improve my writing (and pay well), it gives me one more place that people and search engines, can find my name. Lastly, it also creates links between me and the blog, which improves my overall SEO.

Personally, I feel that I have a strong social media strategy and wouldn’t change how I spend my time. But, this article was definitely worth reading as it gave me reasurrance that I was doing the right things, and reminded me to stick with them.

Are you managing your social media strategy correctly?

Problogger’s challenge is giving me deja vú.

The 31 days to a better blog challenge is supposed to be 31 days of advice/challenges to improve your blog and your writing. It’s also supposed to have a unique suggestion every day. But today’s challenge is not only focused on someone elses blog, but the ideas in the post replicate many of his other challenge posts. Not really what the challenge should be, right?

For example, today he suggests leaving helpful and interesting comments on a post, but he also suggested leaving comments on day #20. Another suggestion from today (oh, and from day 5 as well!) is to email a reader. And one final ‘duplicate’ (although there are more), he suggests today, just like he did on day 22, to recommend them to your readers. Now I understand that ‘improving someone elses blog‘ sounds different then all these challenges on the outside, but when you really look at it, it’s not a different challenge at all.

C’mon problogger, I thought you were supposed to be the professional here. You have over 10,000 people doing this challenge, and this is the best you could come up with for today? I’m sorry, but when you have that many people trusting you to lead them in the right direction, you should take them down a path they haven’t already done a few times! Unless, of course, you tell them that it’s the same path, just wearing different shoes.

Now that I have cleared the air, I am sure many of you are thinking “well, if you’re so smart, what would you suggest”?

So here you go ladies and gentlemen, Kirsten’s take on day #26 of building a better blog:

Write a post that has nothing to do with your niche.

We spend so much time writing about what we know and what we love, what happens to learning something new? Today, I challenge you to do some research on a topic you know very little about, and write what you learned. Not only is it a great exercise for improving your writing abilities, but it is a great way to open your eyes. So, how do you decide on a topic to research?

1. Scan through stumbleupon‘s top pages and see if a topic catches your eye
2. Is there an activity you have always wanted to try or a hobby you’ve wanted to explore?
3. What about a location you’ve never visited but want to learn about?
4. Do you find yourself asking a lot of questions about a certain thing?
5. What did you dream about doing as a child but never pursue?

What did you decide to write about? What do you think of problogger’s ‘cop-out’?

Today’s challenge from problogger is one I like – Asking questions of your readers! I am a huge believer in interaction and participation (if you haven’t noticed on twitter), so I find that asking questions of my readers is a great way to learn. I have written a few ‘questioning’ posts in the past (I’ve asked readers to act, and test their creativity) and almost every post I write ends in a question. Actually, now that I look back through posts, I end every post with a question!

Anyway, back to the challenge. Of course in problogger’s traditional matter, he gives long descriptions on 10 reasons to ask them questions and 12 tips for asking those questions. The brief overview of why to ask? Interaction with your readers! Of course there are couple other reasons, like incoming links, answers can create new post ideas and they are fairly easy to write. The brief overview of how/what to ask? An answerable question that will benefit both you and you readers.

So, what question did I decide? The question that haunts the minds of all of us:

MAC or PC?*

My choice?  A PC. I love Vista (I am not crazy). I love my Sony Vaio (pink of course). I can run all the programs I need to run. And most important?  It was half the cost of a comparable mac!

So what is your choice? MAC or PC? Oh, and if you have a thought on the commercials, feel free to add those thoughts too.

*Hey, I could have gone with coke or pepsi, but I figured I should keep it tied to my blog topics.

Problogger is worried about passive readers. I was too, so I asked all my readers to de-lurk. A lot of them did But problogger says de-lurking isn’t enough, your readers need to act and they must be called into action by you (okay, by me, but you get what I mean).

For his challenge today, he offers a solid list of ways to get readers to act, including asking them to donate to a charity, purchasing a product you support, writing a comment (de-lurking post covered that!), hiring you for services or even asking readers to visit someone elses blog.

So I had to think about it. I get once chance – one shot to get you to listen and ask for you to do something. But what is it that I want you to do? Well, I could use it selfishly and ask you to donate to my goal to get to BlogWorld 2009 (it’s that green widget below recommended blogs) or to ask that you send out a tweet, recommending my work to someone you know (or hiring me yourself). But I trust my readers and know that if you could help, you would be (or at least I want to believe that so I will!).

So, I decided to use my ‘ask for action’ in a way that would benefit someone else (hopefully a lot of someone elses).

Here is your call to action:

Post a link in your comment to a blog or twitter profile of someone that you respect and enjoy reading, but that doesn’t have a lot of traffic/recognition. Tell us a bit about them, and why they deserve us to visit them. Then, visit at least 1 other commenter’s recommended person.

Lights! Camera! ACTION!

Today, problogger challenges us to pay special attention to one (or more) of our readers. The point of paying special attention to an individual reader is 2-fold. First, it benefits the person that you recommend by showing your other readers more about them and it shows that you value them. Second, it shows your readers someone new and interesting, and that you value your readers.

The problem? I want to pay attention to ALL my readers! So, I chose one of the techniques he recommends for paying attention to a reader, that allows me to pay attention to a lot of readers.

1. Run a Reader Poll and Highlight Answers in a followup post

The Question: What makes someone a creative expert?

Your responses to the poll will be put into a post later this week, with your answers (and links) and my thoughts on the questions as well. The question is one that I have wondered throughout my experience on twitter (as many claim to be one) and through my writing (as I believe I am fairly creative). So, what are your thoughts?

Not all of my writing is perfect. I know, *gasp*! But in all honesty, it isn’t. The biggest culprit? Laziness. I have written a few lazy posts. The idea was there, the execution just wasn’t up to par. Yesterday’s task from problogger was to breathe life into an old post – to fix it up and make it better. It would have been done yesterday, but I traded blogging for spending the entire day with my hubby and our families. A much better choice I thought

Anyway, the goal of breathing life into an old post is to correct errors, improve on the writing, and beef up the research. I chose to work on a post that I wrote about doing things, rather than just waiting for things to happen (click for the original post). The post has a good basic idea, but wasn’t well thought out. I talk about the easiest and the hardest parts of creativity, but not many details on it. The title is boring and the sentence structure could use some work. I could have also done a bit more research and shared some good links. After re-reading the post and making some much needed changes, here is the new version:

Is creativity easy or hard?

Creativity requires effort, it requires time and patience, and it requires doing something. Creativity is a double edged sword. It can be easy and it can be difficult (and often can be both at the same time). Let’s take a look at both sides of creativity by answering a couple questions:

1) What’s the hardest part about creativity for you?

2) What’s the easiest part about creativity for you?

I’ll go first:

1) Getting started is the hardest. How many times have you wanted to write but haven’t been able to come up with an idea? It is often difficult to get motivation staring at a blank page. A blank page is unforgiving. It stares back at you, daring you to type that first word or put in the first picture. It’s just waiting to see what you do so it can tell you it doesn’t work.

2) Getting started is the easiest. On the other side, sometimes the easiest way to be creative is to have  the complete freedom of a blank slate. For example, re-writing this post is difficult because I am trying to keep some of the original text in it. If I could just delete the entire thing and start from a clean slate, it would be much easier. There would be nothing to contend with, no structure I had to try to keep. I could just let my creativity flow.

The moral of the story is creativity can’t exist if you do nothing. Whether you are working from a clean slate or an already created design, just do something with it. Do something, anything, and creativity will follow.

Share your thoughts, what are the hardest and easiest parts of creativity? Do you believe creativity can come just from making yourself start or continue the task?

What do you think of the new post? Did I improve it, or just change the words? What can you do to improve some of your past writing or do you think you should just leave the past posts alone?

First: What is followfriday? If I’m not mistaken, it was started by @micah (Micah Baldwin) with one simple tweet. He catalogues what happened next…

Of course, since it was picked up by some of the big dogs on twitter, it got going pretty quickly. So quickly that it spawned a series of websites, top among them:  followfridays.com and topfollowfriday.com.

Today, @bigheadasian questioned whether the trend of followfriday was wearing out… and since today’s problogger challenge post was all about opinions, I figured I should share mine as well. First and foremost? I’m thinking I need to go buy boycottfollowfriday.com as all trends come to an end, and it might be a really good url to own! Second, I am getting a little sick of the people that offer up 20-30 people every week as their followfriday list. The more and more I see followfriday, the more and more I want to be like @swoodruff who has has boycotted it! Instead of putting tons of names out on twitter, he created a segment on his blog just for his followfriday recommendations. In his first post, he explained why he chose to eliminate the recommendations on twitter, and take them to his blog. I love his reasons, they make perfect sense. Just seeing a list of peoples twitter names with no explanation why is not beneficial to anyone. Social media is about communication, connection and community – so lets work on recommendations with reasons so the community can understand them better! I have made it my goal to only recommend one or two people each followfriday and include a little reason why. Not only does it make it easier for people do decide whether to follow them, but it is more special for those that I recommend.

What do you think of followfriday? How can we make it better or should we all boycott it?

Oh, and for those who think this opinion is due to a lack of followfriday’s for me, that isn’t the case. Also, I do appreciate every single one of my followers that does recommend me!

We all know what a squeeze page is – those irritating one page sales letters that start out ‘dear friend’ and end with something like ‘it will change your life’. But problogger’s challenge today teaches us about sneeze pages. He explains it is a term that he created in the 2007 31DBBB challenge.

The way that a blog works is simple – the newest articles are at the top. So what happens to all your archives? Most likely, they rarely get looked at unless you link to a specific post in a new post. A sneeze page fixes this problem. Basically, a sneeze page is a page on your blog with a collection of your top posts about one topic, or from one period of time (he uses the example of his ‘How to make money blogging‘ page) to make it easier for people to find past archived articles.

He recommends to think about the top questions your readers or clients ask, or a type of post that you write a lot – then create a sneeze page for that topic. I did a bit of brainstorming and came up with a couple topics. I finally decided that the best option was to create a page that answered the most common question I get from clients and readers: “how can I improve my writing“?

What can you create a sneeze page about?