I have been pretty slack with the BIP these days. I kind of got side tracked with summer and the house and I sort of forgot all about the project. Now that all the distraction are gone, i'm ready to get back into the swing of things and continue with the assignments. So here is the next assignment...

"Since it’s summer in most places, and everyone (myself included) seems to be in a blogging slowdown, I thought this would be a great week to, possibly, get away from the computer for a bit.

No, we’re not going to just ignore our blogs — we’re going to look for blogging inspiration somewhere new.

Darren Rose at Problogger suggested something like this during the 31 Day Build a Better Blog Challenge, except he suggested leaving your blog behind and taking a trip to the mall for some inspiration with just a notebook and a pen. I like that idea, but I’ve got a lap top and so I want the chance to take my blog with me when I go out somewhere new.

There’s no real way to do this. If you’ve got a laptop, take it out of the house and write up a post somewhere different. If you don’t have a laptop, grab a pen and paper and do some brainstorming outside the house (check out BIP Week 2 for brainstorming techniques). Go to the park, a local coffee shop, the library, a friend’s house, your backyard, wherever you feel like it. Just get away from where you usually blog to see what inspiration you might get from a change of scene.

I’m feeling pretty loosey-goosey about this. If you want to write up a post talking about what it was like to blog someplace different, feel free. If you just want to write a post and not mention it was from a different place, feel free to do that too. Just leave some links to whatever you do in the comments on this post so others can be inspired.

As my favorite professor often said to me, “Go forth and do good work.”

P.S. Yes, I know I skipped Week #15. I forgot about it until it was too late to do effectively, so I just decided we could all use the break. Forgive me?

Do you have a favorite place to blog? A favorite place to write or read? Where is it? Does going somewhere new help you focus or get inspired?"

1/2 way through the BIP

Here’s the task for revisiting goals:

• Find your original BIP goals post and take a look at what your goals were. Or, if you came to the BIP late or are just joining now, look at the Week #1 assignment to learn about setting goals.

• If you’re feeling up to the task, I suggest looking at the ProBlogger list of 69 questions to review your blog. You can use these questions to look at how far you’ve come since January and see where you might want to go.

• If appropriate, reset your goals. Get rid of goals you’ve accomplished, and add new ones that make sense. Think about where you want to be at the end of the year. Or, if you’re new, set some goals for the remainder of the year. Write a post with your new goals, and leave a link here in the comments or sign Mr. Linky. Stop back to this post and revisit some BIP blogs to check in on their goals too.

Answer the following questions in your goal post, in the comments to this post.

1. What BIP task have you liked most? Least (including ones you have skipped)?
2. Which tasks have been the most helpful? Least helpful?
3. What are the top three things you still would like to work on this year?
4. Are there any blogging-related topics you feel like you know a lot about and would be willing to write a BIP guest task on?
5. Any other comments about the BIP?

So this is assignment #11 and I have to admit, I haven't been all that interested in the last three of the assigned tasks. This assignment does sound interesting so I shouldn't have trouble finishing this one (that is as long as I don't get distracted by something else).

This week’s task is a content analysis of book reviews to get some info about reviews. How long are they? How personal are they? How many paragraphs does the average book review have?

By comparing book reviews written by bloggers to reviews written by professionals, I hope we can come up with some interesting stats to know more about what makes a book review.

Add here’s the task:

* Pick a book review you’ve written that you’re particularity proud of. Then, search around until you find at least one other professional review of the same book. If you don’t write book reviews, compare a review of something else instead.

* When you have some time (I’d say 30-45 minutes) follow this link to a Google Docs spreadsheet (nice anchor text, right?). It should look something like the picture at the right (but hopefully with more lines filled in).

* Fill in your name, blog URL, and book title in the lines. Feel following the columns and answering the questions as best you can for both of the reviews you have.

* Once you’re done, spend some time thinking about what you’ve observed. This can be about the numbers, or it can just be general impressions of the two reviews. If you’re feeling excited, write a post explaining some of your findings and what this comparison helped you learn about your reviews or about reviewing in general. Leave a link back to your post in the comments.

* For extra credit, find a few more reviews of the book you chose (another blogger, or a professional), or pick another book and add the stats for your review and a professional review. The more entries we have, the more I think we can learn.

Linking with Anchor Text is a pretty easy thing to understand, and is important for blogs when it comes to Search Engine Optimization (how high up your blog appears when people use a search engine like Google to search for a particular phrase).

When you make a link, some of the text in your blog post will change to indicate it’s the link. Whatever words make up the link are the anchor text. In the second paragraph of this post “this post to find out what "Help Another blog is about” is the anchor text of my link to BIP Help Another Blog.

Here are a couple of articles that help explain the idea of anchor text in more detail:

• The Blog Herald: Sunday Morning SEO: What is Anchor Text and Why is It Important?
• WebProNews: Anchor Text Optimization
• Linking Best Practices via the Ning Book Blogs group (Thanks to Natasha from Maw Books for starting the topic)

Even if you don’t care about search engine optimization, creating good anchor text is just good blog practice. I would guess people are more likely to click on a link if they have some sense of what it’s about. Making link anchor text clear is a simple way to make your blog easier to navigate and more useful for your readers. With that in mind, here’s this week’s task:

• Read the two articles and one forum topic on anchor text and why you should pay attention to it.

• See if you can find out how to see what words and phrases people use in search engines that gets them to your blog. WordPress makes this easy, I’m not sure about Blogger. Can anyone help me out? Share your favorite keywords and searches here or on your blog.

• Focus on writing good anchor text for all your links. Instead of saying “You can read more here” and linking to “here,” describe your link in some detail and use that for anchor text. Try to make this a regular part of your blog practices.

This week is pretty simple, but anchor text is really a huge part of growing your blog. Getting good search engine rankings can bring more casual readers to your blog who can be turned into regular readers through your great content and other fun features. Anchor text is just a way to help get them there.

Make Your Blog More Comment-able

I failed at this assignment terribly. I read the articles, but really didn't put the effort into this one. For me it's about the quality of the comment not the quantity.

April 06 - 22: 11 post/106 comments
I'm happy with that :)

...the bane of my existence

Blogger's comment platform falls quite short for me. A few months back I tested a third party comment platform for my blog; Intense Debate comment system can be used to replace Blogger’s. I created a test blog and invited my readers to give it a try but they found it confusing. My readers don't like... I don't like, so I decided not to use it on Slightly Off-Center.

I like the Wordpress comment platform. I like the fact that the blog author can reply to individual comments left on his/her posts - gives a more personal touch, I think.

So now that the BIP assignment for the next few weeks is about "Comments", I will have to get the old thinking cap on and start doing some research on this topic again. Stick around to see what I come up with.

Week #7 is going to be all about making your blog more comment friendly. During the goal setting project (Week #1), a lot of people made it a goal to leave more blog comments. This is important, but I think it’s also vital that once you get a new reader at your blog it’s easy for them to engage with you by commenting on your posts. Don’t worry, Week #8 will more specifically address that because it’s going to be about leaving better comments.

One article about comments I found very helpful was “7 Reasons Why I Won’t Comment On your Blog” by Jamie Harrop. Some of his best suggestions include giving commenters direction by leaving some discussion questions at the end of your post, and responding to all comments on a post within the first 12-hours after it’s posted. Read the full post for some more technical suggestions that made me think about blog comments a little more strategically.

Darren Rose at Problogger has “10 Techniques to Get More Comments on Your Blog.” Some of his suggestions include inviting readers to comment, leaving your posts open ended, setting a clear comment policy, and reward commenters. Again, read the post to go through the suggestions in detail — it’s really good.

On other idea comes from Beatblogging.org from the article “The art of hoisting comments” which talks about techniques that popular bloggers to highlight user comments. This is one very specific idea, but sort of a cool one if you have the time.

The Assignment!

* Take an inventory of your blog comments. Write down how many comments you have as of today, then track how many comments you get per day over the next two weeks (I’m curious how well all of this is going to work).

* Pick 3-4 of the techniques from the articles to implement over the next two weeks (or more, if you’re ambitious). Print out the posts or write down a list of techniques to leave by your computer so you’re always reminded of them while you post.

* Spend the next two weeks trying to make your posts more comment friendly. By Saturday, April 18, write a post about which techniques you used and how well you think they worked. Sign the Mr. Linky below. I’ll do a wrap-up post to try and see which of these techniques worked best.

Completion date: April 20
Next assignment: Assignment # 7: Make Your Blog More Comment-able
March 16: Assignment #6 - Let's Get Social, Assignment #6 - Plinky Prompts
March 13: Assignment #5 -- Social Media, Use Facebook to Promote Your Blog
March 1: Blog Basics, Update
February 14: Content is King
January 19: Brainstorming Ideas
January 5: Setting Goals — What Is Your Blog For?

I have chosen to try Plinky Prompts for Assignment #6 -- Let’s Get Social.

What's Plinky?

Plinky makes it easy for you to create inspired content. Every day we provide a prompt (i.e. a question or challenge) and you answer. We make it simple to add rich media and share your answers on Facebook, Twitter and blogs.

My Plinky Answers
Zombies, Shmombies! - Blog Post

What will you do when the zombies come?
They'll be here soon. What do we do?

Social Media Carnival (BIP Week 5)
Check out the wrap up page for Week 5. There is a great collection of links to pages that offer tutorials and such for different social media applications.

Now on to week 6 for the Blog Improvement Project, trying out a new social media tool. While I don’t think there is a perfect way to do this, here are some guidelines to follow if you like instructions:

1. Pick out a new social media tool, or reacquaint yourself with a social media tool you already use. If you’re new, sign up and create an account. Make sure to include your blog URL in your new profile so you can connect across social media platforms.

2. Update your blog to include your new social media contact information. If you want, leave your contact information in the comments here so other BIP participants can connect with you. WordPress doesn’t like comments with a lot of links, so if it doesn’t show up right away be patient, I’ll fish it out of the spam filter ASAP.

3. Spend the next three weeks actively using your new social media. Use all those goals setting techniques we tried in week 1 to set some goals for your social media experiment. For example, set a goal of tweets per day or how many comments you’ll leave on GoodReads reviews to make sure you give it a good shot.

4. Don’t be afraid to connect with other people. Find authors, publishers, famous people, or bloggers that are “bigger” than you and connect with them via social media. Don’t be intimidated, just try it!

5. At the end of your three weeks using more social media, write up a post about how it worked for you. Sign Mr. Linky with your post, I’ll do another Social Media Carnival post at the end of March wrapping up what everyone learned.

Completion date: End of March
Next assignment: March 16 - BIP #6, Let's Get Social
Previous Assignments:
March 13: Assignment #5 -- Social Media, Use Facebook to Promote Your Blog
March 1: Blog Basics, Update
February 14: Content is King
January 19: Brainstorming Ideas
January 5: Setting Goals — What Is Your Blog For?

Sure Facebook has been a great way for us to connected with old friends and keep in contact with family members near and far, but did you know it can be a useful platform to promote your Blog? Here some ideas to utilize Facebook to promote your site or blog.

First thing I did was...

Click here to read the entire post.

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BIP Assignment #5 -- Social Media

Our task was to:

write a post about a social media tool that you currently use. If you don’t currently use any social media, pick one you’re interested in, do some research, and write a post about what you’ve learned. Posts should be as specific and experience based as possible. If you’re stuck on what to write, here are some ideas — how do you use this particular tool to improve your blog or relationship with other bloggers? How do you balance time between blogging and using social media? What are some specific things you wish you’d known before you started your chosen your new tool?

March is going to be Social Media Month for the Blog Improvement Project. For the next 31 days, we’ll be focusing on using social media to improve your blog.

There are a lot of social media options to think about. There’s Digg, StumbleUpon, Technorati, Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Ning, and about a million other options I don’t even know about. In that spirit, Social Media Month is going to be about educating each other about social media. Our first project is the much-anticipated Social Media Carnival!

These are not the only questions to answer, in fact they aren’t even that great, but they are just a few ideas. How to start, check out this post about StumbleUpon by S. Krishna over at S. Krishna’s Books as a great example.

Completion date: March 13
Next assignment: March 16 - BIP #6, A task about joining social media.
Previous Assignments:
March 1: Blog Basics, Updated
February 14: Content is King
January 19: Brainstorming Ideas
January 5: Setting Goals — What Is Your Blog For?

These are the changes I made regarding the Blog Basics assignment.

This week we’re going to focus on blog basics — when a new reader gets to your site, how easy is it for them to find out basic information about you and what your blog is about? In retrospect, this is something that should have happened a lot earlier in the project. However, I got so excited about other ideas that something like blog basics slipped aside.

• Write (or update) your “About Me” Page — Make sure you can see your About Me from the main page of your blog because someone just arriving at the site should be able to easily see a little information about you

• Update your contact information

• Add some sort of picture of yourself (if you’re comfortable with that)

• Update your Blogroll — Blogging Startup has a good series on blogrolls starting with “Does My Blog Need A Blogroll?” — check out some of the other entries, they’re pretty short and interesting

• Create a link to your Archives on your front page (there are a lot of widgets for this, or you can find other ways to do it — either way, it’s important to do so people who want your archives can find them to get a sense of what they can expect from your blog)

• Add a link (or make sure a link is there) so readers can subscribe to your blog via RSS

• Get to work on other basic blog maintenance you’ve been meaning to do

March is going to be Social Media Month for the Blog Improvement Project, so start looking forward to that!

Completion date: March
Next assignment: March
Previous Assignments:
February 14: Content is King
January 19: Brainstorming Ideas
January 5: Setting Goals — What Is Your Blog For?

Oops, didn't complete this assignment. Below are the post types we were assigned, and the ones I have put a link beside are the post types I have completed.

I have decided I will continue past the deadline and finish all the post types listed. I had a great time with this task, it really gave me some great ideas for blog post and I'm sure I will use this as future reference.

1. A Link Post - A link list
2. A Short Post - Pass It On!
3. A List Post - 13 questions [weekend update]
4. An Opinion Post
5. A Poll or Question Post - Synchronicity or Coincidence?
6. A How-To Post - Illuminated Photography {a tutorial}
7. A Long Post - Who's up for a game?
8. A Review Post
9. A Definition Post - Synchronicity or Coincidence?
(not sure this one will count as I have already used it for my Poll Post)
10. FREE SPACE (Meme Post) - Wordless Wednesday, Friday Fill Ins

This is the new assignment for the BIP, and it's a doozie!

It's a lot to accomplish in under 2 weeks, but I'm going to give it a good try. I will cross them off and link to the post as I complete each one.

Completion date: February 14th
Next assignment: February 15th
Previous Assignments:
January 19: Brainstorming Ideas
January 5: Setting Goals — What Is Your Blog For?

Mind mapping
Attempt #1:

• Get a piece of paper to write on.
• Draw five circles across the middle of the page.
• In each circle write the titles of the last five posts on your blog.
• Brainstorm on ways that the post could be extended or built on.
  
• For each idea draw a line out from the circle, and write the idea inside of it.
• Let yourself be as creative and outside the box as you want. Any idea is allowed at this point.

Content is king

One of the biggest struggles for me is providing content that will keep people coming back. With all the other blogs out there, blogs that stand out are few and far between.

The blogs I like to read on a daily basis I keep going back to because I like the content they provide. So, how do I come up with new ideas every few days to keep people interested enough to visit on a regular basis?

Our Assignment

Read these helpful links provided for us by our host Kim

• 24 Things to do When Stuck for a Topic to Blog About
• Brainstorming Techniques for Bloggers
• 9 Steps to Better Blog Post Ideas

Given that information, the second task in the Blog Improvement Project has two parts: brainstorming ideas and blogging your ideas.

Part 1 — Brainstorming Ideas:

• Read the articles above and find a technique that you think will help you brainstorm, then spend some quality time brainstorming.

• Keep track of the topic ideas you’ve brainstormed for a time in the future when you need some ideas.

• Come back and comment on this post or sign the Mr. Linky below with a post about brainstorming techniques you found particularly helpful or other brainstorming techniques you use.

Part 2 — Blogging Your Ideas:

• Use your brainstormed ideas to come up with a new, regular feature for your blog. There are a lot of memes and stuff out there to participate in, but I think it’s cool when a blogger has a feature that is unique to them. Think about what makes your voice different, then come up with a feature that reflects that. There aren’t any “rules” about the feature — just be yourself.

• Come back and sign the Mr. Linky with a post about your new feature.

Completion date: February 1
Next assignment: February 2
Last assignment: January 5 — Setting Goals — What Is Your Blog For?

What Is Your Blog For?

It's been nearly a year since I started this blog. In the beginning this space was mostly a spot for personal reflection but as time passed it became more then that. I started using my own photographs and digital art to accompany blog posts but lately, I've been falling short when it comes to writing journal entries. I'm excited to see where this project takes me and looking forward to achieving some, if not all, of the goals I have set for my blog.

1. Journaling - This is the area where I need the most help. I would like to plan ahead, post more frequently, and write about a variety of subjects.
   
2. Connecting with others - I would like to increases reader interaction by offering some projects as a way for other readers to interact and promote themselves as well.
3. Add a tutorial section - A spot where I can post photoshop tutorials, offer textures and brushes for download and possibly have a Q&A section.
4. De clutter - This one is pretty much self explanatory... clean up CSS codes, archives, and improve the all over flow of my blog (hmmm... wonder if there is such thing as blog feng shui?).
   

I would love to hear feedback ... and please feel free comment or add any suggestions you might have for me.

Next assignment date: Monday, January 19

Sophisticated Dorkiness is hosting a Blog Improvement Project which I have decided to participate in. The 2009 Blog Improvement Project is a year-long challenge that will consist of twice-monthly activities to improve my blog. Every first and third Monday of the month there will be an activity on her site that will related in some way to making my blog better. I will then spend the next two weeks focusing on that aspect of my blog. Possible topics include goals setting, writing better content, building community with readers, getting more readers, and blog layout and design.

Because this project is a blog building/strengthening exercise, I have decided to post my progress in a separate area from my main blog. The link is in the menu at Slightly Off-Center if you would like to keep track of my progress.

If you wish to participate, you can check all the details out on Kim's blog... Sophisticated Dorkiness.