31 Days to Build a Better Blog - Challenge Link-up, Week Five

We pause for a short interruption to our regular programming...

As I mentioned, I'm currently hosting and participating in a blogging challenge - 31 Days to Build a Better Blog. (There's still time to join in - we end December 3rd.) Participants are encouraged to report on each day's tasks in the AP Freewriting BlogFrog community, and each Thursday during the challenge, those participating will have an opportunity to link up their #31DBBB posts for the week on this blog.

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As many of you may remember, I'm currently taking an independent study class this semester on blogging - Blogging as a Ministry. One of the assignments for this class is to read the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog ebook and to journal at least 100 words per chapter/day.

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This is actually a link up of last week's task and this week's task since I was such a slacker last week!!

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Day 16: Solve a Problem

There are a lot of different problems that I could solve. In fact, I’m often known as a problem solver on Twitter and Facebook. However, due to the nature of my blog, I’m not sure what being a problem solver looks like. Darren suggested making a list of everything I’ve “learnt, overcome, discovered or solved.” In reality, this is what my blog is about. I basically share what God is doing in my life – what I have learned and discovered in my study of the Word, and how that has helped me to overcome sin in my life. But how does this solve a problem for my readers? If they are struggling with a similar issue, it can give them encouragement and suggestions about what their next step is., but there’s not an easy “10 Steps to Overcome Sin” that I can post. It’s different for each of us.

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Day 17: First-Time Reader

I didn’t have the opportunity to watch a first-time reader use my blog, but I pulled up my Google Analytics site overlay to see what people were clicking on the most. I found out that since I made the change from the blogspot.com domain to my own domain, I was no longer able to track the individual clicks that were being made on my site. I was still able to determine the number of hits on various posts and my referrers and such, but the actual site overlay would load. I need to decide if I want to start a new Google Analytic on my blog now or wait until I move to WP (hopefully this spring) before starting the new analytic.

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Day 18: Create a Sneeze Page for Your Blog

Sneeze pages look to me to be very similar to what I do at the end of each month with my monthly recap Top 10 posts – taking the “hot” posts from the month and showcasing them all at once. I also did this for awhile with weekly recap posts, especially for my Friday only readers. I need to figure out a way to create appropriate sneeze pages for posts in my archives, giving them “new life” by bringing them back in focus. I think a “devotions” sneeze page might be appropriate – creating a devotional calendar of sorts from devotional-eque posts I’ve written.

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Day 19: Write an Opinion Post

I do a lot of reviews on my blog, so writing an “opinion” post isn’t that new of a task for me. But, as I was reading about this task in the book, I was prompted to share my opinion about a “hot topic” that has needed to be addressed within the greater Christian blogging community. I took a few minutes to sit and record a vlog for my upcoming Caffeinated Conversations post. I share something that needed to be shared, even though I know the potential for negative feedback is there. It may even make some people mad, but it’s God’s truth, and the truth hurts if you’re not willing to look it in the face sometimes. I’m praying that my “opinion” post will be received with grace, as it was recorded, and that God will use to encourage women.

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Day 20: Leave Comments on Other Blogs

I’m a firm believer that leaving comments generates more traffic, especially a quality comment. In fact, I’ve written a few posts about building community and conversation through the use of comments. But Darren’s 11 Tips for Getting Your Comment Noticed on a Popular Blog was a bit eye-opening to me. Sure, I understood the need to leave a comment that was more than “nice site,” but I hadn’t thought about a number of the other suggestions he included. I plan to utilize this list in my commenting over the next few months to build up readership and “expertise” in my niche. I want to start devoting “x” number of minutes each day/week to reading and commenting on other blogs, building relationships and getting inspired.

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Day 21: Breathe Life into an Old Post

Reading about this task, I wasn’t sure how I wanted to tackle it. Did I want to pick an old post and “revamp” it, only to leave it hiding in the archives? Did I want to dig through my archives to find a “good” post and rewrite it completely (as a new post) and then link back? Honestly, when I got to the end of the reading, I was relieved to find that I wasn’t the only one who didn’t like the idea of “sprucing up” my older posts – that wanted a record, of sort, about where’d I been and where I’m heading. All that to say, I would like to be able to refer my readers to older posts without worrying about the look/feel not being “up to par” with the current material. Perhaps when I move to WP, I won’t move everything with me – only the quality posts or posts that have brought in traffic.

Also, I really enjoyed reading a few articles that Darren linked to in the reading. The post about adding depth gave me some really good food-for-thought, and it linked to another post that I’ll come back to about giving your readers an assignment. Maybe this is where I’m headed with my blog – down a “teaching” road.

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Day 22: Pay Special Attention to a Reader

As a rule of thumb, I connect with each reader who connects with me in a “personal” way by emailing a response to any comments I get. However, I would like to develop a way to show “reader appreciation” on a regular basis for all my readers to see, and thus encourage greater reader participation and interaction.

A few ideas that I’m playing with are:

1. Doing a “Featured Reader” post every week or so, highlighting a regular commenter.
2. Having a blog/twitter/facebook link-up party.
3. Contacting readers who leave quality comments and/or write quality blogs that I read regularly about guest posting.

I want to build up the community, and I want each reader to feel important. I also want to find ways to encourage greater interaction with my posts and the other readers. I want to create a community, not just a soapbox for me to stand on.

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Day 23: Call Your Readers to Action

The majority of my readers are quite passive. I often include “calls to action” within my posts, yet only a small number of my readers faithfully act on what I ask of them. I need to find ways not only to build readership, but also to bring the readers out of the woodwork, so to speak. I need to turn my passive readers into active readers.

One of the things I’d like to see is a greater number of email subscribers. I’d like to start a weekly or monthly newsletter, but I need to build a bigger database of email addresses than what I currently have now. I need to work on seamlessly incorporate a call to action to subscribe via email within my post content. Simply having my connection buttons on my blog isn’t enough – the most passive of readers won’t ever click them. I need to find a way to encourage connection through my writing.

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Day 24: How to Use a Magazine to Improve Your Blog

The only magazines I have sitting around are Parenting and all you. So, I went online to see if I could find any Christian magazines that might be more applicable to my niche. I discovered Kyria, and I spent some time browsing their online site, trying to learn more about the magazine and how to be an active member of their community of influential Christian women. I’ll be back there often in the next few months, especially leaving comments on their blogs.

I decided to go ahead and use the December edition of Parents to do the actual assignment, and my brain picked up a few ideas.

• First, there are pictures everywhere – I need to start taking quality photos and using them in my blog posts. 
• Secondly, the use of colors and fonts make their heading (and subheadings) really pop and catch the reader’s attention. I need to rethink how I’m using headings and reconfigure my headings to work for me. 
• The obvious “numbered posts work well” went a step further – not only did they publish lists, but they made them aesthetically pleasing. 
• One of the key elements I noticed was that the advertising almost blended in so well that you didn’t realize that it was an ad – it seemed like another page of the same text. This is something I want to do better with on my blog. 
• I also liked the use of pop-out quote boxes {give %, quote from the article, twitter chatter on the topic, Q&A on the topic, etc.} – it drew the reader’s attention to the smaller article text by hooking them with the larger graphic. 
• Another feature I noticed and liked was the ability to “take it with you” – an article that had cutout recipe cards. I want to find ways to encourage my readers to share my content offline as well as online.
• There were also a few layout ideas that I thought might be able to add a bit of spice to my blog – something to make it unique and intriguing. 

Lots of great ideas, overall, and definitely an exercise I’ll want to go back to again.
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Day 25: Ask a Question

In an attempt to invite more comments, I’ve started asking questions at the end of each post – my way of attempting to draw the readers into conversation about the topic I’ve just discussed. While I do have a few readers that will faithfully comment, I find that most of them stay hidden in the woodwork. I find that I almost have a better response on Twitter when I promote my post with the question, getting feedback from Twitter followers directly, than I do on my actual blog. I want to incorporate the idea of an “assignment” in with this idea of a question – giving my readers something to do and something to think about. Maybe my questions are too “rhetorical” and not “practical” enough.

Day 26: Improve Another Blog

I have had the privilege of directly influencing another blogger’s blog on a few occasions now. One blogger in specific has come to me with design questions, brainstorming needs, and for other blogging advice. I love to be able to help others out with their blogging questions and concerns.

Just today, I noticed a typo on a fairly static page on a blog I was visiting, so I let the blogger know about the typo. Other times, I’ve received auto-response emails in error, and I’ve let the blogger know that they had auto-response on when they didn’t intend. It’s the little things like these that not only build up the other blogger but that create trusting relationships between bloggers that can lead to positive results for my blog down the road.


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How'd you do this week? Did you get through all the tasks? Link up below and let us know!