I’ve been following along with Sophisticated Dorkiness’s Blog Improvement Project since the beginning of the year, and I’ve enjoyed reading everyone else’s posts about their efforts to make their already great blogs better. Here’s my quarterly recap:
Project 7: Make Your Blog More Comment-able
For this project, I focused on the Problogger article 10 Techniques to Get More Comments on Your Blog.
I am trying to make my blog more open-ended and to include a discussion question at the end of non-review posts.
Project 8: Leaving Good Comments
This mini-project was to focus on the comments I leave for other people. I have made a goal to leave five insightful and relevant comments per day on the blogs to which I subscribe. I don’t always meet that goal, but I try.
Project 9: Help Another Blogger
This mini-project was one of my favorites. I was paired up with another blogger, Mrs. Sophisticated Dorkiness herself, Kim. We traded emails with questions on how to improve our respective blogs. I really appreciated her insights and implemented many of her suggestions. Working with another blogger is something I definitely suggest.
Project 10: Linking with Anchor Text
This mini-project was to focus on the language used to link to other places on the internet.
This is something I really needed (and still need) to work on. I often use the check this out “here” link, which is not as effective as it could be. I’ve made it a point, now, to use anchor text when I link.
Project 11: Book Review by the Numbers
This mini project was to analyze some book reviews, both on book blogs and in professional publications.
I didn’t submit my information, but I did take a look at reviews. Book blog reviews tend to be in the following format: introduction/reason for reading, plot summary, analysis. Professional reviews tend to be longer and spend more time on the author and the author’s previous works, but also follow the same general format: plot summary then analysis. It was interesting to compare the purpose behind the reviews. Book bloggers generally review books that they’ve read for the purpose of sharing whether the book was worth reading or not. Professional reviews also do this, but also tend to try to figure out how the book fits in the grand literary scheme of things.
Project 12: Midyear Review
This mini-project was to evaluate our progress so far in BIP. I read the BIP blogs and biweekly projects, but I haven’t been as good at actually doing the project with everyone else. However, I feel that I have really learned a lot and implemented little things that make my blog better.
I’m having a great time with the Blog Improvement Project. I hope you enjoyed this recap.
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{ 3 comments }
I think you have a fabulous blog. :)
I love the BIP! I think it has been so helpful and have seen massive benefits from taking part. Good luck with the next quarter!
I had a lovely time working with you too. I’ve been slow to implement suggestions, but definitely have been keeping them in mind.
My goal for comments has been 5 per day, but I haven’t met that in a really long time, especially this summer. It’s sort of frustrating because I want to do better, I just seem to run out of time to pay as much attention to blogs as I’d like to. Oh well :)
I’m glad you’re enjoying the BIP!
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