Tiffany Washko

Here are the next 5 days of the Become a Better Blogger Challenge:

Day 17. Think up 20 post ideas you can use. Once you know what you’ve got to write, starting becomes a lot easier. Set aside a day to brainstorm 20 post ideas you could definitely see yourself using on your blog.

I have a running list of post ideas, and keyword phrases that I collect for all my web sites and blogs. When I am running low on inspiration I just wade through that list and find something to write about. I also have an Outlook file called “Blog Ideas” where I save emails with products tips, leads, and ideas. This is a real time saver.

 Day 18. Thank your readers. Set aside a day to say thank you to your readers — even if it’s just a short sentence at the bottom of your latest post. Of course, if you can be innovative in the way you say thanks to your readers, it’s a lot more likely to leave an impression.

This is a good idea. I have never done and I guess I should eh? I have a post set to go out tomorrow with a thank you!

Day 19. Update your blogging software to its latest version. Out of date blogging software can be vulnerable to bugs and attacks from hackers. Just make sure to back up your previous install (and that you know what you’re doing). You might need to spend some time researching the transition before you actually begin the process.

 I do this regularly. Most of my blogs have a one click update feature which is a lifesaver. Although my NatureMoms blog is heavily hand coded so I always trust my designer to do those upgrades. Right now I am waiting until the new version of Wordpress comes out and I test it with a few other blogs but then I will update.

Day 20. Create strong, alpha-neumeric passwords for all your accounts. If any of your blogging related passwords are single, Dictionary words or letters only, it would be quite easy for a determined hacker to break into one of your accounts. Set aside this day to strengthen your passwords by using combinations of letters, numbers and punctuation that exceed 8 characters in length. Make sure to keep your new passwords written down somewhere in a safe place (and write them down carefully).

I have a system for my passwords. They are alpha-numeric and I can remember each and every one for my dozen or so blogs because they have personal significance and blog significance. I used to just store the original passwords that came with the blog but that got old having to look them up all the time.

Day 21. Sit down and analyze your stats for the last month. Statistics can tell you a lot about what worked and what didn’t. Analyzing stats over an extended period can reveal visitor trends, popular posts and which of the promotional activities you undertook were worth doing.

Yes! Analyzing traffic is what tells me what is working really well on my blog. I can see what type of posts get the most searches and traffic and duplicate those “type” of posts. I attract hundreds of people each day looking for BPA free products. Did I set out to be the BPA free queen? No. I wrote a post about the issue and got lots of hits from search engines…so I decided to do reviews of BPA free products and got tons more hits…..rinse and repeat. Analyzing traffic is just as good as doing surveys in my mind…they really give you insight into what your visitors want.

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Day 15 & 16 of the Better Blogger Challenge…

Day 15. Write a 10-page report or mini eBook. A few hours work will result in a free report you can distribute to feed subscribers only, give out to your readers and encourage them to share, or otherwise leverage to bring more traffic back to your blog. If it’s really useful, it might even go viral.

Day 16. Try adding a new income stream to your blog. If it wasn’t clear already, blog advertising programs can be unreliable. You might be on to a sweet thing with one form of advertising at the moment, but what if the service changes, or goes bust — taking your income with it? If you’re monetizing your blog it’s a good idea to have at least two strong income streams in place, so that if something goes wrong with one, you’ve still got backup.

I am working on the report right now. It will be more of an e-book and I am putting it together to meet a previous challenge to give away something free on my blog. It will require and opt-in and it will be full of affiliate links so hopefully it will be a source of income as well.

As for monetizing my blog I think I have that down too. My primary money makers for my NatureMoms blog are Amazon, Adsense, BlogherAds, and various affiliate programs. I also opened up my blog to private banner ads too and have some regular subscribers now. So I am not looking to add any new revenue streams…just keep tweaking and tuning the ones I already have in place.

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I have taken a few days off from the challenge. Everyone in the house got the flu and we had my daughter’s fourth birthday to celebrate…so blogging had to take a back seat. This went for my main blog at Naturemoms too and I haven’t posted since Thursday…but the beauty of passive income is that the money doesn’t stop coming in because I couldn’t work. In fact, I had some record breaking days and stats.

So I need to do 5 days of challenges to keep up. They were pretty easy.

Day 10. Pitch a link to one of your blog posts to three other blogs in your niche.Take the most popular post on your blog and pass along the link to the bloggers behind three popular blogs in your niche. If they like it, they may link to it in their next link round-up.

Well….I don’t really do this anymore. I don’t need to. I get oodles of backlinks for my most popular posts already but if my blog were newer I would definitely do that.

Day 11. Add social media links to the bottom of your posts and to your feed.While most people will vote for your posts via the toolbar, social media links or icons can remind people to vote for your post if they liked it. It’s even more essential to add these buttons to your feed, because there’s no easy way for people to vote straight out of their feed reader. Using a FeedFlare to put an ‘Add a Comment’ link at the bottom of your feed items is also a good idea. FeedFlares are available under the ‘Publicize’ tab in your Feedburner control panel.

I have the “Share This” plugin on my blog so there are social media buttons on the actual blog posts but NOT in the feed. So I did need to take advantage of that missed opportunity. I added several FeedFlares and I added them to some other blogs too while I was at it.

Day 12. Participate in the comments on one of your own blog posts. Readers will feel as if you’re interested in what they have to say, you might learn something, and you’ll also increase the comment count on your post.

Do this already. 

Day 13. Work out an editorial calendar for your blog. It’s a lot harder to put off writing a post when you know exactly when your blog is due for an update. Working out an editorial calendar can help give your blog a sense of rhythm. It can also make you more productive through setting firm deadlines for new posts.

Generally I post Monday thru Friday for the Naturemoms blog. I take the weekends off. So I think it has a sense of rhythm already.

Day 14. Prune your feed subscriptions.I suspect some bloggers spend as much time reading feeds as they do writing posts. Pruning your feed collection can help you save quite a bit of time. If you find yourself regularly skipping feed items from a particular blog, or if you can’t think of one thing you’ve learned from reading a particular blog’s posts, it’s probably best if you unsubscribe.

LOL. I needed this bit of advice. My feed subscription list has gotten quite massive. So I spent some time today pruning and removing some of the blogs I read as an after thought really. Many of my subscriptions are actually recon work…I am scoping out my niche and some are blogger friends but TONS are political (liberalism, libertarianism, etc), personal interest (frugality, crafting), and faith or faith/politics. I read entirely too many blogs. I pruned…probably 100 blogs from my reader…sorry guys.

Mission accomplished….

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