Tuesday, August 17, 2010

#31DBBB Challenge: 31 Days to a better blog - Days 30-31 Analyzing and Planning Your Next Steps


Problogger 31 Day Challenge to a better blog


This is my eleventh and final post in the series for the Problogger 31 Day Challenge with the SITS Girls Community.  This challenge gives bloggers 31 activities to do that will improve their blogs based on the e-book by Darren Rowse.

Day one's challenge was to write an Elevator Pitch for my blog.

The challenges for day two through day four were to Write a List Post, Promote a blog post, and Analyze a top blog in my field.

The challenges for day five through day seven were to Email a blog reader, read the Problogger 27 must read tips and tutorials for bloggers, and Write a Link Post.

The challenges for day eight through day ten were to Link to old blog posts, Join a Forum and Start Participating, Set up Monitor Alerts for your Blog's Niche.

The challenges for day eleven through day thirteen were to come up with 10 new post ideas, create an editorial calendar, and take a trip to the mall.

The challenges for day fourteen through day fifteen were to update key pages, find a blog buddy, and solve a problem for a reader.

The challenges for day seventeen through day nineteen were to perform a First Tim Reader Audit, Create a Sneeze Page, and Write an Opinion Post.

The challenges for day twenty through day twenty-two were to leave comments on other blogs, breathe life into an old post, and make a reader famous.

The challenges for day twenty-three through day twenty-six were a Call to Action, Read a Magazine to Improve your Blog, and Asking Readers a Question.

The challenges for day twenty-seven through day twenty-nine were to Hunt for Dead Links, Write a Review Post, and Develop a Plan to Build Your Blog's Profile and Readership.

I am now down to the last two challenges.

The challenge for day thirty was to Analyze The Stats on my Blog.  My first 2 years of blogging, I did not have any stats turned on.  I really did not want to know what was going on because I did not want to became disappointed and give up. By the time I turned on the stats, I found out that I had tons more traffic than I thought. A lot of my traffic comes from internet searches, Twitter, and links on other blogs. Once I knew my important numbers (pages views per month, unique visitors per month), I used that information as a tool to ask companies for giveaways and to attract sponsors.  I try not to look at my stats everyday, but it is hard not to look since looking tells you immediately which posts are a big hit and those that were not.  I use statcounter.com for my stats and also the new stats that come with blogger.com.

Today is day thirty-one and the last challenge is to Plan my Next Steps.  This is another one of those challenges that I find hard to do because it involves setting up a plan and following through with the tasks and I just like to wing it with my blog.  But I have found from following these 31 challenges that planning is the task that I need to do more.  So I plan to set aside time on Saturday afternoons to brainstorm posts for the next week.  Since content is king when it comes to blogging, I plan to work more on my content and see where it leads me.

So that's the final challenge and I am pooped. I hope you enjoyed following along with me and I hope my posts have inspired other bloggers. Follow the Twitter hashtag #31DBBB if you want to see how the 500+ women bloggers enjoyed this challenge.

Enjoy!



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