Courtney L Sanders

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Welcome to my series, “What I’m into Wednesdays” (WII2W)! On Wednesdays, I’ll be taking a little time to go in-depth about products, concepts, or ideas that I’ve been “into” lately. Whatever it is that I’m into this week, hopefully it inspires you and you can get into it to!Over the years, I've blogged about my goals and how I've managed (or not managed) to achieve them. While I've been surprised at my success in some areas (like working out and managing money), I've really struggled in other areas, such blogging consistently.Honestly, I'm not sure why blogging has been such a struggle! I'm very passionate about growing my blog because I eventually want it to be an on- and offline personal development company for women. You would think that would be motivation enough to blog consistently, but I never really took the time to develop the "blogging habit."Well, all that's changed this year. I don't know if I just got tired of my blog not being where I wanted it to be or what, but lately I've had a sense of commitment that I haven't had before! Here's what I've been doing to be a better blogger:

Getting Back to Basics

Though I've been blogging for a few years now, things change so quickly on the internet that it's important to stay sharp. Since I initially hadn't been blogging consistently in a while, I figured I need to go back to basics and pretend like I was dealing with a brand new blog here. Basically, I put my ego aside (I've been blogging for 5 years!) and decided to have a beginner's mind.I'm really happy I've approached improving my blog this way because I have come across a TON of great blogging resources. Some of my favorites are:

Connecting with other Bloggers

I found all of the above resources by just stumbling on one blog, which happened to mention another blog, which happened to mention another, and another...and so on. If you notice, most of the above links aren't written by "blogging gurus" per se, but by lifestyle bloggers who have really interesting blogs. Because I could relate to them and I appreciated their blogs as a whole, I made it a point to connect with many of them by leaving a comment, tweeting their article, participating in their link-up or whatever. Supporting and building a rapport with other bloggers is really important to the growth of your own blog; here's how I'm keeping tabs on bloggers I want to connect with so far:

Feedly

Feedly is an RSS reader that is filling the void left by the now defunct Google Reader. When I come across a blogger that I want to connect with, I just add them to Feedly and save them to my "Tribe" list. I've created several category lists (natural hair, blogging, entrepreneurship, writing, fashion, etc) to organize the blogs I follow in Feedly, but I always pay special attention my "Tribe" list, as this is a collection of all the bloggers that blog about similar things and really resonate with me.

Private Twitter Lists

This is really easy: if I find a blogger I like and want to connect with, I just add them to a private twitter lists that I've named "super follow" and I follow them. Before I even look at my regular timeline, I always check my "super follow" list to see what those I'm actively connecting with have to say. If I can offer something of value to what they are tweeting about, I tweet them back! I've found that this is a really easy way to foster connection with other cool bloggers.

Investing in my blog

I first got the idea to seriously invest in my blog after reading Melyssa's "How I Grew My Blog" post over at The Nectar Collective. One thing she said that really struck me was that she NEVER hesitated to invest in her blog. I thought that was really profound -- I had no problem spending money on clothes or random trinkets at Target, but how often had I spent money to improve my blog? Outside of purchasing hosting and my theme, I hadn't.

Skillshare Classes

Inspired to change that, the first investments I made in my blog were Skillshare classes. If you haven't heard of or tried a Skillshare class yet, you don't know what you are missing! Skillshare is a platform where really knowledgeable, everyday people (and a few "rock stars" like Gary Vaynerchuk and Seth Godin) teach the rest of us cool skills via video lessons and class projects. The classes are really affordable (like $19-25) and there's a lot of cool stuff to learn, like hand lettering or how to decorate a room like an interior designer.Anyway, I decided to signup for three classes:

Become a Better Blogger: Content Planning (It's pretty self explanatory why I joined this class!)
Fundamentals of Design: How to Think Like a Designer (So I can make sure my blog is aesthetically pleasing and well designed.)
Street Photography: Capture the Scenes of Your City (So I can get better at taking my own pictures for the blog.)

Bright Eyed & Blog Hearted

Bright Eyed & Blog Hearted from ROOSTfilmco on Vimeo.Bright Eyed & Blog Hearted is a comprehensive 6 week online blog course ran by Rachel MacDonald of the blog In Spaces Between. I forget how I came across her blog but I pretty much instantly fell in love with it. I love all her self-improvement articles and how well designed her blog is, but most of all I really admire that she was able to turn her blog into her business after 3 years of blogging, which is what I want to do. So when I saw that she was offering a super in-depth e-course on how to build your blog, I jumped at the chance to take it.The course is somewhat pricey -- it's $247 AUS which is about $222 USD. I didn't mind the price though because (1) it's something I can afford and (2) I've been looking for some high-quality "blog coaching" for a while now. It doesn't start until March 3, 2014 so we'll see if my investment pans out, but so far, I'm really excited!

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