Today I came across the Ultimate Blog Challenge. The idea is to start on October 1 and post 31 times in 31 days. Uh….for me, this is not a challenge. I post everyday, come what may, so in my mind I have already completed this challenge. Then why even bother with this, you might ask. Well, I spend my time posting each day and there are alot of other things I should be doing with my blog that I have been avoiding for two years. One member of my blog group, who always keeps me on my toes, says I really want to do blog promotion and I insist I don't. I maintain that if my blog is supposed to be read by someone, it will find itself in their search engine on it's own. She says that I really care about getting my blog out there, because being an aspiring author, we all know a platform is everything. She's right. I do care about promoting this blog, but the reason I don't make an effort is a flaw in my personal opererating system.
It's simply too hard and time consuming. First of all, I hate reading directions. I just like all my stuff to work when it's supposed to. Second, I like working from my phone, and learning all the stuff requires me sitting at my computer; something I avoid at all costs. So how does this apply to the Ultimate Blog Challenge for me? Ahh. Surprise. There's an objective to the challenge that goes beyond just simply posting 31 consecutive days. The challenge is to teach you how to promote your blog, put you in touch with other bloggers in your category, and learn to use the stuff your blogging program gives you to improve your blog. Therin lies my challenge. I signed up and got my blog listed on the challenge site. Step 1 to promotion. Next I wanted to tell you about it. Step 2 – here goes:
See this banner? I had to learn to go into my dashboard and learn to hit HTML, copy and paste the banner where I wanted it, switch back to Rich Text, and Voila! there it is. In the process of doing this I learned to go into my layout and create a widget and put the banner in my sidebar permanently for the 31 days. Sounds techy, right? You bet it is (for me, anyway) and I'm damn proud of myself for the work it took to sit here and learn it and now apply it. (Except the banner won't fit nicely into my sidebar, so I need to seek help in blog group this week.) The best thing? I actually have something to seek help with. (My Blogger Babes will understand – they've put up with my passivity about this for a long time, and, yes, we did name ourlselves the Blogger Babes.)
And so, as another day goes by, my shoulders are aching from too much time in front of this computer, the sun is out and the beach is beckoning, I've had enough challenge for one day, and ….I have written.
Wanna see it one more time? 🙂
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