2015 was an interesting year for me as a blogger. I started off blogging New Year 2015 strongly, but then waned in the second half of the calendar year. I am excited to increase my participation and be blogging more this new year!
Happy Blogging New Year!
What Worked
I had such a great first half of the year. I took advantage of some great blogging challenges which connected me with other educational bloggers and helped me find a voice with which I was comfortable. Read more about these challenges here. I am particularly grateful to Akevy Greenblatt, John Hardison, and Chris Crouch for their encouragement and support through their challenges and friendships.
When I took time to write out, organize, analyze what I really thought about the topics which fill my days I found I was happier. I knew my opinion and I could tolerate/appreciate other thoroughly/examined views as well. Too often I noted when I was not writing that I only was able to explore a topic when there was a group discussion about it – and I want to roll it around more than that inside my head to really know what I believe about these topics I care about so much.
As always, there are opportunities which I was not yet able to fulfill. However, I look forward to participating with blogging initiative such as TeachThought’s 30 Day Blogging Challenge for Teachers, #ReflectiveTeacher, and The National Blogging Collaborative this year.
What Didn’t Work
However, I really failed myself in the second half of the calendar year. I had a considerably heavier workload. I still had the same amount of time outside of work in which I could have been blogging. However, I did not set myself up to succeed. I stock piled topics, but then was overwhelmed by the drafts and often ended up submitting old content to social media outlets and then logged out with out writing at all.
I found I was a little caught up in how others saw the blog. I don’t know what that was about, but I don’t think I will worry about that this year.
What I Plan to Do
I want to learn more about SEO, Search Engine Optimization, for my own understanding and to maximize my blog posts to the correct audience.
I want to create a newsletter/asynchronous course through my blog. I have not nailed down that idea yet, but I hope to find some inspiration and good role models who will help me develop that idea further.
One tool I identified last year which served me well was the (WordPress) Editorial Calendar. I have many started posts in it from the past few months which I never finished. I plan to spread them out to 2-3 per week and *schedule* a set amount of time to write. I will not set a number of posts, because I fear that intimidated me by the varying time investment. 20-30 minutes of writing (not putzing around the blog, but actual writing) seems reasonable.
I hope to be blogging more in the New Year and interact with you more in 2016!
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2016-12-31 at 5:02 pm
As I reflect on my blogging year of 2016 I am pleased with my increased content on my blog this year.
I did work toward better optimized SEO posts, I continued to utilize social media (especially Pinterest), and did receive increased page views this year.
I did not incorporate the newsletter signup and content for the newsletters – I still have that to accomplish going into 2017!
I did use the Editorial Calendar well this year. I ddid not get overwhelmed – I contribute that to the ease with which I can reorganize the Editorial Calendar plugin in WordPress.
I hope to accomplish even more in 2017!