Last week, I, along with many other bloggers started the two week Blogging 201 course which focuses on Branding and Growth. Here’s a quick recap of the week that was:
Day 1 – Set Three Goals – The first day of the course was dedicated to setting three goals that we need to achieve to make our blog successful (the definition of success is different for everyone so goals are set differently too.) My blogging goals have been posted here.
Day 2 – Audit Your Brand – Having a look at the design of your blog from the header image to widgets and making sure it is consistent and conveys what you want it to convey. I had a look at my blog and the social media sites I was promoting my blog at and started to fix a few kinks that affected the look of my blog. I am not entirely done but getting there. Overall, I am quite happy with the way it is looking so far.
Day 3 – Getting Read All Over – This meant making your blog tablet and mobile friendly for people on the go. This was a learning experience for me because the header I had previously designed wasn’t exactly laptop, tablet or mobile-friendly. I received so many great suggestions on how to fix it but something wasn’t working. I realised the mistake I was making when one of the site engineers Alex suggested that I use the “Site Logo” feature in Customizing instead of the “Header” function. This worked perfectly and now my blog is friendly and kind to all devices. 🙂
Day 4 – Give ‘Em What They Want – I – This included conducting a simple stats analysis to find out what kind of posts, tags, topics are more popular and which days of the week or time of the day are we likely to receive more views. From the brief analysis I conducted, I found that when I post anything during midnight hours or thereafter, (I am from the timezone GMT +4), I am likely to get more views.
Day 5 – Driving Traffic To Your Archives – Making sure that your older content does not sink into a black hole and gets some lovin’. This includes strategically linking old but related content in your new posts, adding the Archives and Categories widgets, activating the Related Posts bar which shows related content at the end of each post et cetera.
I am really enjoying this course and have learnt so much already. Also I’ve met some wonderful bloggers through it. Looking forward to the second week. 🙂
You can email me at thistlesandwhistles@hotmail.com
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Thistles and Whistles 