Blog Improvement Project – Setting Goals
January 6, 2009
It’s the first week of the Blog Improvement Project. Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness is hosting this and it’s not too late to sign up. This week’s assignment is to set some goals for your blog in 2009. Here’s what I’ve come up with:
- Publish interesting posts daily
- Write better reviews that aren’t too lengthy
- Learn how to use Stumble Upon and technorati to help the Book Blogging Community (thanks for the idea, Cathy!)
- Continue reading and commenting on other blogs
- Encourage new bloggers
- Limit memes – I currently participate in 2 and I think that’s enough
- Learn a better way to list my blogroll – it currently takes up too much of my sidebar
- Learn more html
I hope to support the wonderful Book Blogging Community and improve my blog both. I feel like the two go hand in hand.
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Bermudaonion's Weblog 
Hey! Nice goals.. don’t cut down too much on the length of your reviews though. I love as they are now..:) And yes.. please do continue commenting on our posts.. we love hearing from you!:)
I like your goals. I also decided to limit my meme participation. I want to focus on books, challenges and reviews while improving my content.
These are awesome goals. I am going to sit down on January 15th and come up with my schedule for reading. And one of my goals is to make sure that I am also reading things I want to read and review from my own shelf. Great Goals.
Good luck with your goals! What I did with my blogroll was make it scroll. I also like the “recent updates from friends” widget that some other bloggers use.
Also, as someone who doesn’t know the meaning of “concise”, I agree with Ramya 😛 Don’t worry about length!
Admittedly that’s one thing I love about blogger…the blog list that shows only the five most recently updated….beneficial for both bloggers!
Good solid goals. And I particularly like the idea of encouraging new bloggers. It can only help the whole book-blogging community — and it’s a way to make new friends!
Good goals! Thanks for encouraging others! I really like that one.
Nice goals! I’m thinking about making my blogroll a tab of it’s own at the top.
Good goals. I lot of people have mentioned learning about Technorati and those sorts of sites, so that’s on tap for a future BIP topic (once I learn a little more about them)!
Thanks for participating!
Great list, Kathy! I have to spend some time thinking about this, and probably will have my list up over the weekend.
You are an amazing commenter! It seems yours is the first name I see on the blogs I visit 🙂
Definitely a great set of goals. Until yesterday I had trouble with my blogroll as it simply took up so much space, but on the other hand I need it to keep up. And voila, I found that button making only the five most recently updated blogs show, while still keeping the rest there an easy click away. What a revelation 😉 I look forward to follow your progress.
My blogroll is really long too, but I don’t mind, lol. If you go to your widgets, you might be able to make it a ‘drop-down,’ depending on your layout.
I was going to say not to worry about review length either. The most ridiculously long posts I write usually get the most comments! 🙂
Wow Kathy – you’ve got it so together! I loved your goals. There is so much I would like to do with my blog, but I just don’t have the time. I hope you’ll share some of your knowledge ( pretty please…..) I want to do the stumble thing too….
When you understand Stumble Upon, please share. I still don’t get it.
Great list Kathy. I was thinking of doing this one but I am thinking of passing on it for now. Can’t wait to here your progress. Keep up the great work. I love your reviews.
Great goals. I have to admit, I’ve been trying to find your blog for ages! I always see you comment on other people’s blogs as “bermudaonion” but they’re usually Blogger blogs, and there is either no link for you, or it’s to a blogger profile. I’m glad I finally found your blog!
I’m with J.Kaye too! Do you find StumbleUpon and Technorati useful?
I absolutely need to learn more html this year, and StumbleUpon is still a mystery to me, so I could use lots of improvement in those areas.
I’m not fond of too many memes, but awards are another matter. I’m sending you The Great Buddy Award . Thanks, Kathy!
Congrats on the award. I have 19th wife in my TBR pile, I want to read it but some other books keep interfering..
I wish I could figure out how to do the scrolling drop down menu for my blogroll.
And I would definitely nominate you for the awesome commenter award. Your comments always brighten my day.
I’d never even heard of Stumble Upon or Technorati until I read your post – I have a lot to learn!
Ooh – I forgot to add leaving more comments on other blogs to my 2009 blogging goals!
What a great list of goals Kathy! I am working on mine. I appreciate that you are so supportive of other bloggers and that you take the time to comment!! I don’t have a clue what stumble it is so you’ll have to write a post about it when you figure it out. I’ve avoided Twitter as I just don’t have the time.
Blogrolls are interesting things, aren’t they? Mine is really for me to remember to go look at them if I can’t quite get myself over to Reader to add them there. So I balance between. (You must have me in your Reader – you are SO GOOD about visiting me – thank you.) Your blog is popular because you are so generous and good-hearted, imo.
I just “stumbled” your review of BEAT THE REAPER.
I’m working on my goals, might need to borrow some of yours! (Not the daily posts, though–I’d never get any other writing done!)
Those sound like excellent goals to me. Maybe I can learn from you as you do these!
I’m not really a big fan of the weekly memes–I tried to do Booking Through Thursday a while back but found it was too difficult to post on a specific day. Really great goals–I especially like the one about encouraging new bloggers.
Great goals. I participate in Mailbox Monday, but that’s about it. Let us know what you learn about Stumble. I have no idea what that is.
Great goals! Personally, I wouldn’t worry about shortening your reviews – I think longer ones can be more informative. You’re already a great commenter and encourager of other bloggers, so just keep on keepin’ on with that one :-)!
The best way I’ve found to stumble is to add an “add this” button to the end of each of my posts.
http://www.addthis.com
it basically lets whoever visits your site use whatever social medium they like (facebook, stumbleon, digg, myspace, etc., the list must 20 things on it)
You can also add the buttons individually, but this takes up more space and realistically, it limits the number of things people can do with your post.
I always stumble and digg my own posts and get a few hits, although my post about GenderAnalyzer got probably 30 hits through stumble (digg I haven’t been so successful with, but I just started)
Basically, the more people that stumble/digg your post, the more times the site will send people to you/the higher you’ll be on the list, so if you like someone’s post, Stumble it! It helps out everyone that way.
Hope that helped!
Those sound like good goals to me! I just joined technorati, still figuring it out.
Great goals. I need to learn some html too. And I am trying to decide which memes I want to do. I like few of them but I can’t do them all.