Holy smokes… If there is one thing that gets me excited, it’s Bloggiesta! I’m not sure if it’s the amount of work I get done, the fact that I have an EXCUSE for spending countless hours on my blog and ignoring everyone, or meeting new people but I love it ALL. I am even more excited to participate this year because I am also hosting a challenge 🙂 If your interested, please stop over to learn “How to Organize Your Reviews Using Excel“!! There is a giveaway for anyone that completes the challenge at the end!
Also if you haven’t signed up yet, what are you waiting for???? It’s SOOOOOOOOOOOO much fun!!!
My Goals
My goals aren’t as crazy as previous years(but they might be by the time I visit all the starting line posts… I always get major inspiration from others :P) due to the fact that I’m a challenge host. I really want to interact more this time around and want to be readily available if anyone has any questions so I haven’t gone CRAZY with what I plan to do.
-Participate in the following challenges:1. Jump Start Your Traffic With StumbleUpon (AMAZING)2. Feed Readers3. Through a Visitor’s Eyes4. Declutter Your Sidebar5. Reviewing in Many Places
-Look into Bookish Charities challenge(Might not apply as I’m a Canadian blogger)-Participate in at least one Twitter chat-Visit a TON of participant blogs & find new blogs to follow(I found so many new blogs to follow, and I’ve been hopping around since Friday!!)-Update mobile settings for my blog-Update categories/tags and get rid of old junk-Add featured image to all posts-Add ALT tags to all images-Look into the Book Blogger Plugin/Potentially get it & set it up(Play later 🙁 haha)
-Schedule posts one month in advance(mid April)
-Update Hootsuite for auto social networking-Update SEO for all old posts-Sort through WordPress plugins/add a few new ones that have been recommended
-Start working on Blogroll-Update review policies
-Add Giveaway Policy-Update all pages/reorganize pages-Update sidebar-Empty out Google Reader & comment on Stared posts(this took so long… holy hannah)-Empty out email & pending emails(wow… this also took an insane amount of time)-Organize April posting calender
Hahaha… And I think it’s not a lot 😛 I’ll be updating as I complete/adding more to the infinite pile of things to do!!!
Challenge Posts
1. Feed Readers hosted by Picky Girl:
So one of the main things I was looking for was an Android app for my reader. I love to go through my subscriptions when I’m watching TV in the evening on my Tablet so having an App that will sync with my desktop reader was a huge Pro for me. I loved the way the Pros & Cons for each reader were listed. The two I’ve narrowed it down to are Bloglovin’ & Feedly. I love the look of Feedly so much more, but the App I’m still trying to love… I adored the web version though. For Bloglovin it’s very simple but I’m still not totally hooked on the App either. I’m going to use both over the next couple of weeks to see which one I’ll be sticking with. The challenge is super helpful, I had no idea about most of these options and they were really laid out wonderfully to see what we might like about each one.
Finishing Line
Well, I’m done. Phew. First off I want to say a HUGE thank you to everyone who added me on Facebook, twitter, followed my blog, participated in my challenge & commented on my post 🙂 I was really feeling the love in the book blogging community this weekend <3
I am very happy with my results. I have a few tasks left undone but actually I am using this upcoming weekend(4 days in Canada!!) to work on some more unfinished tasks. I purchased the Ultimate Book Blogger Plugin and holy smokes! There is SO much you can do… so I will be spending at least one day next weekend getting that up and running and functioning properly. I also will be switching to mail chimp I believe as it seems like Jetpack does not support short codes for mail so… yah. I’m going to switch. I also need to schedule posts at least a month in advance, I didn’t get to that this weekend. I didn’t start the blogroll but I will be using the one in the UBBP so I left that alone.
The thing I was most excited about accomplishing was putting my SEO on all old posts, updating the featured images and updating all missing ALT tags. Gosh. It was so freaking annoying. But it is done now and I won’t have to think about it again. Just a small tip, if you need to check your ALT tags or are missing some and want to know which ones you can use the Marketing Grader at Hubspot to help you. I had actually did the this on the September Bloggiesta and forgot that it shows you which ALT tags are missing until about oh… halfway through :S Ah well, I remembered and then it went swimmingly! Turns out I was only missing 9 on the whole blog!
And i’m done 🙂 I had so much fun this time! I loved being a challenge host & participating in the Twitter chat on Friday. I also interacted with so many people and that was probably my favorite part! Please link up your finish line posts… I’m dying to see what everyone accomplished !!
Oh, and if you participated in my challenge, I will be drawing a winner tomorrow(Monday) night and the announcement should be late(ish) tomorrow. I work tomorrow, boo 🙁
I really like your blog, it’s when I see blogs like yours that I wish I had gone with WP. New follower! All the best for this weekend and your mini-challenge was fantastic, thanks!
My Bloggiesta Goals
Have a great Bloggigesta weekend!
Awe, thanks so much Angelica! I’m glad you enjoyed the mini-challenge… thanks for stopping in 🙂 Happy Bloggiesta!
Having an excuse to spend hours on our blogs is one of the best parts of Bloggiesta isn’t it? 😉 Love that! I hope you’re having a great weekend!
Lol, it is 🙂 Thanks Jenn… I’m having a blast so far, I hope you are too!
I had a great time! I see you accomplished a ton of stuff, way to go!
Wow, that’s a lot of goals! I’m not participating in Bloggiesta because I didn’t hear about it until now but I’ll definitely look for it next year!
Oh, it’s so much fun! I hope you participate next time!
Good luck with your list! You have some great tasks to complete. I’m hosting the charity mini-challenge, and a great place to look for international stuff is World Book Night (they have some great resources). Also, Books for Soldiers can be done from anywhere. I hope you check out my Bloggiesta To Do List!
Oh, I will definitely look into World Book Night, and I didn’t realize that Books for Soliders is from everywhere. Oops… for some reason I was under the misconception it was for US only.
I like that Bloglovin sends email updates lately which are easy to check from my Android phone. I don’t usually do much sharing to social media from my phone cause it’s a pain but at least I read and comment on blogs. I like using the WP reader since I can copy any website into it and get them all in one place.
i’m impressed with everything you’ve accomplished so far. Keep up the good work!
Thanks Tanya!
I actually didn’t know what the WP reader can have other websites added… I’ll have to look into that because I really like there reader. I’m still experimenting with all of them, so we will see what I end up with come July.
Have you checked out Taptu? It wasn’t on my list, but another blogger posted about it, and it looks pretty awesome. You might try it and see!
Thanks Jenn, I’m going to check out Taptu as well 🙂
ALT tags are the bane of my blog, I swear. I hate adding them, but it has to be done! I totally get what you mean about the Feedly app, I love the web version but the phone app is not great. Congrats on completing so much this far!
Thanks Hollie! I’ve realized that ALT tags, SEO updates on old posts and featured picture for the posts was the worst freakin idea ever. I have learned a valuable lesson… I will never forget that stuff again, haha.
I’m hoping maybe they will add some new features to the app due to the increase in subscribers now.
[…] Bloggiesta March 2013 […]
I appreciate your thoughts on the Android app for a feed reader. That aspect is going to be important to me, too.
Thanks Joy! I actually like the App now since I’ve been playing around with it more. And Blog Lovin’s “app” is awful so Feedly wins on that count!
You achieved so much this weekend. That’s wonderful! And you say this is down-sized from previous years?
SEO is something I need to work on, as well, although I didn’t this weekend.
Lol… actually it WAS downsized but then I added a trillion things to it haha.
SEO is evil… gosh it takes SO long ;; I will never forget again, lol.
Good job on finishing everything up. I never got around to the SEO stuff. Still trying to figure out what it even is. SO I might actually do that tomorrow (even though Bloggiesta is over).
Angie
Angela’s Anxious Life
There is ALWAYS work once Bloggiesta is over, lol.
I’m not 100% sure what SEO is either but I still add it to all my posts, and I’ve noticed it has increased traffic so it seems to be working, lol.
Wow. You say your goals aren’t as crazy as in the past, but that’s a pretty hefty goals list. And ALMOST completed! Wow. My list was very, very short. And one of my goals was to visit all the participants and see what their goals were. As you can see, I’m running behind. 🙂
My Bloggiesta
Well it started out small Rachel but then I kept adding… and adding… and don’t feel bad, I also am running behind(obviously lol).
I really need to look into SEO again. I love the look of your blog and am a new follower via Bloglovin’.