Blogging 201: Branding and Growth is coming to a close. It was a fast two weeks and it was as thrilling as ridding the Verruckt water slide at the Schlitterbahn Waterpark in Kansas City, Kansas.
Verruckt – Worlds tallest water slide.
Well, may not that thrilling, but the course was well done and a great learning experience. The course moderator Michelle Weber and the team of Happiness Engineers Lisa and Alex were right on and very helpful and supportive.
Today’s assignment: create a poll and/or a survey to collect feedback from your readers on your site and its content.
Designing and implementing this survey will be my weekend plan. I just need a little time to think about what questions to ask. In the meanwhile, I thought I would give you an indication how Blogging101: From Zero to Hero and this Blogging201 course have impacted Tales From The WagginMaster and me.
In addition to an increase in readers, page views, and followers, this blog has gone through a large visual and content transformation. It would be great to sustain this level of activity and hopefully I can adjust the content to make this happen.
Another area that has had a big impact on this transformation is you the reader. Without you, well, you get the idea. You, the readers, are what makes this blog a success. In Blogging101, we were given an assignment to ‘publish a post for your dream reader‘. Of course I had to know who that was. At that time, my dream readers included family, friends and RVers. Tales From The WagginMaster has not picked up new RV readers but that is OK. Perhaps the content has not be suitable for that audience mix.
At the beginning of Blogging201, we had to publish goals. My blog goals were:
- In 90 days (May 1, 2015), implement three branding techniques that will double my blog’s reach and readership.
- In two weeks (Feb 16, 2015), write a post that summarizes my blog stat page.
- In four weeks (Mar 1, 2015), write a post introducing two blogger accountability partners.
As of today, readership has tripled and my brand is now consistent across several platforms. I wrote a post discussing a part of my blog stats on Feb 5 (Analytics). And I am in the process of engaging two accountability partners.
I’ve published 37 posts in 6 weeks, compared to 50 post published in all of 2013 and 2014 combined. This year’s content has shifted from RVing to general information. I was not sure if that was the direction I wanted to go. Having received positive feedback is an indication that the content change was justified.
I have become more confident in writing blog posts that are interesting and informative. I’ve learned new techniques that will build content variety. I still need to get better at proofreading each post BEFORE hitting Publish. I’ve built relationships with some cool bloggers out there and am learning from them. I feel like I have a new group of life long friends who share a common joy in blogging.
As Blogging201 comes to a close, I am excited to see what the next beginning will bring.
Thanks for stopping by. Y’all come back now.
Tales from the WagginMaster 
Congratulations! Success has come your way! I had to drop out of 201 as we traveled. Hopefully I will share some pictures of where we traveled too.
I will keep checking back with you to see your continued success!! 🙂
Thank you Nancy. The course content remains online so you will be able to go back and review. I love your travel pictures.
Thank You… and yes… I am going to go look back at the course content and see how I can apply it to my blog.
You’ve definitely done well Jerry. Your blog looks and feels entirely different to how it was when i first ‘met’ you. Don’t worry too much about the change in content – I’m sure you will refine that dept over and over as time goes by and put all your knowledge about RVing ‘out there again’. If nothing I’ve discovered readers come and go and what appeals to one on one day doesn’t interest them in the same way another lol
My stats increased, not as much as yours but I will admit to maybe not putting as much emphasis on all the assignments by not disclosing the fact I was doing the course and more just trying to adapt some of my ‘normal’ content to see what would happen. No excuses though! I did the course to try and understand various issues i had with customising my theme in general. I found the answer to most of them and enjoyed the trip along the way 🙂
Cathy, I truly appreciate your kind words. I’ve learned from others as well as the two courses. One of my favorite Bible verses is “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” Proverbs 27:17. My new found friends are have renewed my interest in blogging. Thank you for representing those ‘down under’.