31 Day Blog Challenge Progress

Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow

                     what should have been done the day before yesterday.

                                                     Napoleon Hill

Due to family commitments, I have been away for over a week, so I have been trying to catch up for the last two days as well as trying to read other blog posts to see how my fellow bloggers are doing.  So, bearing that in mind, I am still a little behind!

Day 5:

List posts

My last blog post covered a list to do on day 4.  I have also posted various other list posts before so for now I am going to accept this as done. 

Day 6:

Social Media channels

I have accounts on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  I use Facebook the most as my recovery friends from around the world share on there.  I have also joined a few recovery groups on Facebook so it is nice to read posts and motivate others by sharing.  Twitter I have not found helps in this topic but I do follow other tweeters for motivation, quotes and internet marketing ideas.  LinkedIn I have not followed too closely – it is more business orientated which is not really the topic of my blog but did help when looking for work.

When it comes to a subject like addiction or depression, I have to be careful what I share on my main Facebook page as it could affect me personally when applying for a job or getting involved in work related activities such as my accounting business.  I have learned to accept the fact that people have a negative approach to addicts or alcoholics whether you are in recovery or not.  Sad but true!

There are another couple of social media channels that I would like to join in the near future:

Pinterest – I have been invited just need to find the time to set up my pins and link backs.

Google+ - I need to make an effort to join this as I have a button on my blog for starters!

Day 7:

Forums

I searched Google for  “addiction forums” and came up with the following:
Addictions Forum - Uncommon Knowledge
This is a psychology forum which covers all the topics I write about from addictions, depression and anxiety to relationships and self- help – I have registered.

When I searched Google for “recovery forums” it came up with various options from car towing to computer problems!  I did find a forum including topics I blog on and areas where you can also post poetry and articles:
Recover You Life
It also looks like a busy little site and interesting so I have signed up.

I had previously signed up to a recovery forum on Yahoo groups and as I follow a few Facebook groups which are really discussion forums, I think that is enough for now.

Day 8:

Set up alerts

I managed easily to set up Google and Technorati alerts but I could not find the RSS feed button on my Twitter page.  Can anyone suggest something here?

Day 9:

Write an opinion post on your blog

I still need to do this – brainstorming at the moment!

Day 10:

Update a key page on your blog

This was a rather daunting task as my blog only has one page besides the blog posts!

What I did do was add categories to my articles so people can choose what they want to read about.  Another thing I need to do is add a RSS feed button to my blog but not too sure how to do that – again suggestions will be welcome.

Day 11:

Write an elevator pitch for your blog

I had already done this and I am quite happy with it but any feedback is welcome:

“Recovery is all about change. If you are suffering from addiction, depression, anxiety or just finding life overwhelming, I hope to make a difference in your world. To be yourself is to become yourself”.

Day 12:

Make your blog mobile-friendly

I will have to ask my son to check on his mobile phone to see if all is okay.  Everything is fine on my tablet.

Day 13:

Hunt for dead links

Thanks to my blogging buddy Jan Coghan, she had posted about brokenlinkcheck.com for blogger.  It is an online application which I ran and it came up with the following result:

#	Broken link (you can scroll this field left-right)	Page where found	Server response
1		url src	404
2		url src	404

 It appears to be a problem with my personal profile – but when I click on it everything seems fine.  I have no idea what to do to change the html coding so any feedback from others would be appreciated here.

Conclusion:

Outstanding issues:

Day 8 - Set up Twitter alert

Day 9 – Write an opinion post

Day 12 – Check the mobility on a cell phone

Day 13 – Check the profile links again

A New Blog Challenge

I have decided to do the 31 Day Blog Challenge.  I have been thinking of changing from Blogger to Wordpress but I have no idea what the differences are.  Hopefully, as this challenge is to improve your blogging results, I will be able to make a decision during the 31 days or after. Here is my overview of the first four days of the challenge.

Day 1:

Setting up Google Analytics

I downloaded various instructions on how to install Google Analytics on Blogger.  Well they all said I must go the end of my HTML page and find certain words where I would paste my code – they were not there!  Then one site suggested going to the beginning of the page and find the word <head>.  That was there!  So I posted the code and my Adwords said it was receiving information but there was no data!  This bothered me for the next couple of days and on Day 3 I decided to tackle it one more time.  Well lo and behold, I found a spot where it said <html> without the <body> before it, but it did mention something there about Google Adwords.  So I cut and pasted the same code and voila it worked.  I am presuming that the results only start from the day that this was installed as I have nothing for July.  Sad looking stats but that should improve – I mean that is the purpose of this challenge right?

Day 2:

Finding your Blog Buddy

I spent most of the day clicking on blogs and looking for someone who wrote on a similar subject to mine – nada!  Then one little lady commented that she liked my blog very much and after rethinking the purpose of the challenge – find someone who you can be accountable to – I asked her to be my buddy.  A fellow South African in the challenge also wanted to partner up as buddies – she also had her own buddy – so we ended up in a group of four.  These are my three wonderful yet so different buddies:

Retha Groenewald: http://www.discoverbibletreasures.com/

Jan Coghan: http://myjourneyandpassions.blogspot.com/

Sara Duggan: http://saraduggan.blogspot.com/

Day 3:

Planning your blog posts

I have not written a blog post since I finished the Ultimate Blog Challenge two weeks ago.  It just goes to show that if you are not motivated to actually do it, you will find all kind of excuses not too!  While planning my blog posts, I looked back at the last challenge, and was always falling behind due to work commitments.  So during this challenge I am going to obligate myself to two posts a week.  If I do more, then that is great.  I have also taken up a 31 day book writing challenge at the same time which I guess will keep me busy as well.  My plan is to try and stick to the lessons each day and post whenever I can.  The objective here is to learn how to blog better – I am sure there is plenty of daily tasks to make that happen!

Day 4:

Brainstorming 10 new blog post ideas

Before I started the challenge, I was going to start a new blog and keep Recovery Corner just for personal use.  The idea was to expand my writing into a new challenge of changing oneself and ultimately contributing to the new movement going on around us of making the world a better place.  But then recovery is all about change.  So I am sticking to the same site.  What I really need to do is set up categories and link my posts accordingly – another techie challenge to conquer!  

Here are 10 ideas I would like to cover:

Depression / Anxiety

Resentments and fear

Letting go

Spirituality

Thinking from the heart

Relationships

Inspiration and passion

Meditation

Transformation strategies

Soul mate series

Conclusion

This challenge is all about learning.  At the same time whatever I write will be ideas for a book I will one day put together.  Thanks so much to Michelle Schaeffer and Lisbeth Tanz for putting this together.  I am most grateful for the opportunity to broaden my knowledge base – especially the technical side!

“The results you achieve will be in direct proportion to the effort you apply”

Denis Waitley