Friday, April 17th, 2009

Refresh & renew your blog’s growth

janeblogs-regrowyourblogI’ve just finished read this interesting post by Sue at Sueblimely, discussing her lack of motivation and the need for her blog to adapt to the changes in her life & in the blogosphere.

Sue’s post inspired me to share my own experiences with my craft blog here.  Granted, I’ve got a much smaller audience than Sue, but I’ve had a somewhat similar experience to hers of late.

Things were going along pretty well, until I took a break in December {our son was having major surgery}. When I got back into blogging in January, I found myself blogging “for the sake of it”; frequently, but without purpose.

My readership dropped off, my stats went through the floor, and that blog has now dropped down to #77 in the Top 100 Aussie Women Bloggers {it was #45 at one stage}.
Don’t even ask about Technorati… {shudder}

Recently, I’ve taken some time to review & refocus things. As a result, I’ve made two major {but simple} changes already.

I decided to post much less frequently

The Quantity versus Quality issue is constantly discussed among bloggers, and I’ve come down heavily on the side of quality.

Instead of just blathering on just so that I could update my blog daily, I now publish between two and three quality posts per week.

I’ve returned to basics

I’m refocusing on my readers’ needs, since I already know what interests them, and how to reach them effectively;  I’ve done it once already.

So when I do post, it’s on topics that are of value to my original target audience.
{I got way off track for a while there}

And it’s already showing results.

My stats are the first place to show the change, of course.

My visitors have doubled in the last two weeks, and while that’s still nowhere near where they were six months ago, I’m quietly pleased.

My next step is to start reaching out again to the networks and relationships I let slip when things got crazy.

In sharing these experiences with you as I refresh & renew my own blog, I hope to help you to regrow your own blogs, too.

Wednesday, April 1st, 2009

Join Darren & 7000+ others to Build your Blog

Filed under: Build Your Blog — Jane Blogs @ 7:43 pm

31 Days to Build a Better BlogIt’s been a couple of weeks since I last updated here at Jane Blogs, but this news was well worth waiting for.

Darren Rowse is once more running his 31 Days to Build a Better Blog program at Problogger.

Given that this thing only happens every two years, I strongly urge you to get on board and learn everything you can from this very knowledgeable blogger.

And he’s an Aussie, too. So he must be nice.

The 2009 event will run from the 6th April to the 6th May, with daily posts and actions to help us regular bloggers reach Darren’s giddy heights of success. Or get a little closer to it, at least.

There’s even talk of a forum, which would give us all a great chance to talk over the points in Darren’s BABB posts and meet other aspiring bloggers on the move.

I’m in, and I’ll see you there!

Powered by WordPress