Tag Archives: #blogging 201

500

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I noticed last night that I was at 499 posts. So this is my #500 post since I started this blog.

For some reason, I keep thinking of Molly Shannon doing Sally O’Malley (I’m 50!). 🙂

I was little surprised to see that number. That’s averaging a little over 1 post a day. I did try to do 1 a day for a while. I did a post a day challenge a while back. That was for the Zero to Hero challenge. That was just too much for me. It was stressing me out trying to keep up with the blog while I was also offshore working.

Since then, I’ve given up on the once a day posting and have settled for the once a week challenge instead. That seems to be working out just fine. 🙂

I tried to do the Blogging 201 challenge, but I was too busy with other things and could not keep up with everyone else. I didn’t get as much out of it as I had hoped to. I am still working on the last couple of ‘assignments’. Maybe I’ll actually finish it up here in the next week or so. 🙂

I don’t feel like I have to find something to post about. I post something when I have something interesting to say. Something I think is interesting. You all may or may not agree, but I hope it’s at least something to distract you for a minute or two. Maybe even get you to think about something a little bit different than your usual day to day stuff. 😉

So, here’s to the next 500!

Poll: How Did You Find Capt Jills Journeys?

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I’m still working my way through the Blogging 201 challenge. This is my attempt to complete the assignment for Day 12 (create a poll/survey to gather feedback from your readers on your site and its content).

The Blogging 201 challenge actually ended a couple of weeks ago but I wanted to finish it anyway. I’m hopeful that by following through I will continue to learn how to make my blog better.

I hope that will help me grow my audience.

So, here’s a poll. Please feel free to add anything you’d like to say in the comment section below (as always!). I’m interested to know how people found my blog (and also what they like about it).

Thanks!

Blogging 201: Day Eleven- Buddy Up

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Late to start. Late to finish. That’s just typical for me. 🙁

I started the Blogging 201 challenge a couple of weeks late. Too late to really get into the whole community aspect of it. IMHO, that is the best part of it. Interacting with all the other bloggers working on the same challenge and all their different takes on it.

Since I was so far behind, everyone was working on totally different things than I was. I just kept an eye on what they were doing and tried to catch up.

The challenge ended a couple of weeks ago, but I hate to quit anything I’ve started. So, here I am again, plugging on with the Blogging 201 challenge.

The assignment for Day 11 was (is) to “find a blog buddy”.

I did read the assignment only a few days late. 😉 I’ve been thinking about it since (in the back of my mind). I haven’t yet come up with anybody specific to ask to ‘be my buddy’. 🙁

I wonder if it would be better to try and buddy with someone with similar interests (offshore, maritime, travel, politics, nature, sailing, boats, philosophy, liberty, food & drinks, music, books), or someone with interests that I really don’t post about much here (fashion, beauty, celebrities, family, kids, relationships, sports).

I think for now, I’ll still just keep this idea in the back of my mind. I really haven’t had the time to work on this blog as much as I would like to lately. I’d hate to have someone else depending on my being able to keep to a writing schedule right now. 🙁

At some point in the future, I’d like to try to use the guest blogging idea. I think either way (like/unlike my blog) would work to try a different audience.

Has anybody else been participating in the Blogging 201 challenge? Did you complete the assignment for Day 11? How did it go?

Does anybody want to be my buddy?

Behind the Scenes: Capt Jills Journeys

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I’m still home. I’m still on the hook, waiting to hear if/when I’ll be going back to work. I’m still having computer issues. 🙁

I thought it might be a good time for me to catch up and reflect a little on what I’ve been doing here- on my blog.

I started this blog last August. August 15th, to be exact. I was going to a travel writing/photography workshop in Boston which had an add-on blogging workshop and I wanted to have something to work with there.

By the time I got to the workshop (which started Aug 21), I had my blog up and running and already had 1-2 followers. I had it linked with my personal Facebook page which is where most of my ‘followers’ come from. Now I had actual BLOG followers! I was so excited just to see my first real follower!

The next month I was thrilled to see my numbers increasing across the board! I had steadily increasing viewer numbers and a total of over 1000 views for the month! I was really excited to think my blog might be one of the few to grow so fast. 🙂

But the next month I had to go back to work and so I couldn’t keep up with the posting like I had been earlier when I was home and could concentrate more on my blog. My numbers fell off a cliff. 🙁

I joined the Zero to Hero challenge in January, which helped me grow my blog. 🙂

January turned out to be my best month yet, even to this day. It really was a challenge for me. I was at work, so I lost a lot of sleep. Not that the tasks were that difficult, they were but I had already figured out how to do most of them on my own after a lot of time and stress. I wish I had known about this challenge BEFORE, when I was first starting my blog, it would have been a lot more useful to me then. 😉

Since then, I have been noticing that when I can find the time to post a lot, once (or more) per day, then I get lots of views. When I can’t manage to get here to post something for a few days, my numbers take a dive.

I’ve been working on this for 9 months now, my stats show I’ve made 480 posts which have received  614 comments (thanks everybody!). According to my blogs home page I have 841 ‘followers’. I don’t count all of them as followers tho, since they are coming from a few different places.

For instance, 388 of those 841 are just Facebook contacts (from my personal page). Contacts may never even see what I’ve been posting. I do have a few regular people who like and comment on my Facebook page, but I’m sure it’s nowhere near 388 people!

I recently learned that the Facebook page I started for my blog has not been working at all. I just started a new one. Now I’m trying to build traffic there instead of only on my personal page. I hope more people will find it and ‘like’ it. 🙂

I also started a google+ account and page. I just started it so there’s not really much there yet.

I have 12 followers on Tumblr. I have never seen anything from any of those people, so I have no idea if they’re really seeing or liking my posts.

I have another 90 on Twitter. I do see a little bit of interest from Twitter, but I really would expect more interaction with 90 people looking at the kinds of stuff I post. Especially to Twitter! I think I put more out there than to anywhere else (check out the feed at the bottom right of my blogs home page). Maybe most people are like me and have a hard time limiting themselves to only 140 characters so they never comment?

The followers I’m most happy to see are the ones who follow this blog. Today (last night) I passed a milestone. I now have 351 followers of this blog! Plus another 8 that follow “comments” (I’m not sure what that means).

So, in 9 months, I’ve managed to grow my audience from a low of 0, to 350+ followers of my blog. If I keep going like that, I could hope to double that by this time next year. Maybe I can increase my followers on my other networks by the same amount or more. 🙂

I wonder if there’s anything else I could do to increase my reach? Other than just posting more since I already post as much as I can find time to do. Does this seem  normal? high? low? for numbers?

I’ve been trying to sort through my stats to see if there are certain things my viewers like more than others. From what I can tell, they actually seem to be interested in a lot of the same things I am. 😉

I was a little surprised to see that they liked the maritime stuff as much as they did. People really liked the videos of the Costa Concordia and the Rat Infested Ghost Ship. 😉

I’m glad to see they appreciate my photos. 🙂

I’m not too sure where they stand on my politics, but since that is such a huge part of who I am I’m just going to keep on with that anyway. 😉

I did notice a big (relative) increase in traffic when I was involved with any of the blog challenges. The photo challenges, the blogging 101 (zero to hero) and blogging 201 were all great for getting out there into the blogosphere. I did (barely) manage to finish the zero to hero challenge but still haven’t finished up the blogging 201 challenge. 🙁

I was traveling (in Korea) for most of the time it was going on and so I just didn’t have time to check in and do the assignments every day. I started on it so late that I missed out on the whole community aspect of it. That is really the most important part IMHO.

I’m still working on it, it’s still in the back of my mind, but I hope the people behind it at WordPress will do another one when I’ll have the time to really focus on it. I do think their challenges are helpful in making better bloggers. 🙂

I’m still trying hard to improve my blog and hopefully to increase my numbers. In the meantime, I’m still having fun with it and love to hear from people whenever they want to comment. 🙂

So, that’s what’s been going on behind the scenes here at Capt Jills Journeys.

 

 

Blogging 201: Day Eight- Create a Social Schedule

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I am working on the assignment for Day Eight in the Blogging 201 challenge. The task is to “create a 30 day plan for how you’ll grow your presence (and your blog)” on Facebook, which is the social network I chose in the Day Seven assignment.

I’m not really sure of any “plan” yet. I just read over and followed the directions on todays assignment post (here) and created another Facebook page. I thought I already had a Facebook page that was for my blog. I wondered why it never had anything show up on it.

Turns out I didn’t really set it up correctly. I remember it being a major pain in the ass when I was trying to get it started. Now that I can just follow the directions, setting up the page was pretty simple. Its there now and seems to be working so far.

I haven’t yet posted anything to it directly from my blog. This post will be my first test. 🙂

Now for the hard part. The PLAN.

OK, I plan to ‘publicize’ all of my posts. I already do that! Now, I just need to see if they actually show up on my new Facebook blog page. They have (mostly) been showing up on my personal page (except sometimes they don’t. I think I figured out they won’t if I do a ‘gallery’ post).

I used to get quite a few referalls to my blog from my Facebook page, but I haven’t for the last couple of months. I can’t figure out what’s up with that. I hope this new page will correct that situation.

What else for the PLAN? I’ll stick to the goals I made during Day Ones assignment. And, of course, I’ll continue to do what I’m already doing on Facebook. Sharing all the interesting stuff I see that I think other people would be interested in (and generally pissing people off). 😉

I just learned something when I checked the ‘publicize settings’. It will only allow me to post to ONE Facebook page at a time. I guess thats why nothing shows up on my other page I created for this blog! So now what? Do I need to post it once on my blog page and again on my personal page? If I do that will it post twice on my other networks (Twitter, Tumblr, etc)?

I can’t really think of anything else to do with it. Does anybody else have any suggestions?

 

Blogging 201: Day One- Set 3 Goals

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I’m late again (sigh), but I’ve been so busy I just haven’t been able to get around to this project til now. I had high hopes for this Blogging 201 challenge, but I’m thinking since I’m so late to join, that I’m probably not going to get as much out of it as I had hoped.

Maybe they’ll do it again some time. I hope so. I’d like to be able to start with everybody else. I think it would help to be on the same page. I’m going to jump right in anyway and hopefully I’ll at least learn something, even if not as much as I could have if I’d been able to get started on time.

So, to start off on Day One (when it’s actually Day 10), the task for the day is to come up with 3 goals for your blog. To “write down 3 concrete goals you want to achieve”.

I’ve actually been thinking about this for a while. Not in specifics. Not “concrete”. But here’s what I’ve come up with now that I’m trying to be specific...These will be my goals for the next 3 months. After that, I think I should think some more and re-assess.

1. Increase traffic to my blog. I’d like to see at least 30 views a day and/or at least 1 new follower a day.

2. Get more organized. I tried to set up an ‘editorial calendar’ while I was doing the original Blogging 101 challenge. I was going to do a post called Wild Wednesdays (or Creature Feature). I was going to post something about some sort of interesting creature I thought other people would think was neat. 🙂

I was also planning to do a series of “Songs of the Sea”. Hopefully every Saturday. So far, I have fallen WAY off the schedule for both of those things. My goal is to get back on track and get at least those posts done every week.

3. Spend at least an hour a week on the Reader, checking out other blogs I’m following. I already get a lot of emails from blogs I follow and I read all of them (just not all on the same day they come in the email). I follow more blogs in the reader and I’d like to keep up with them better.

I spend a lot of time trying to keep up with people who’ve visited my blog so I’m not really sure how much more time I can afford to put into this right now, but I think I ought to be able to commit to at least an hour.

OK, so those are my goals for the next 3 months! On to the next days challenge!!