Blog Improvement: Mid-Year Review

I should have written this post a few weeks ago, but I've been very lazy with writing posts this summer. Going back and reviewing the goals I wrote for this blog back in January has helped me re-focus on Tboughts from an Evil Overlord.

Here are the goals that I have met:

• Select a new blog design that shows more of my personality.
• Include relevant links in posts.
• Host some giveaways.
• Participate in memes such as Blue Monday, Vintage Thingies Thursday, and Pink Saturday
• Promote content through craft tutorials submitted to sites such as Tip Junkie
• Investigate ways to make money through my blog, without losing its current personality/charm.

Not going as well as they could:

• Post daily whenever possible, having posts scheduled in advance. [I was doing great with this until the summer started. I even posted 31 times in February!]
  
• Promote content through Stumble Upon, Blogarama, Blog Catalog, .etc. [I really slacked off on this because I wasn't seeing results either in my ratings or my number of visitors.]
  
• Work on content that will encourage comments and return visitors. [I don't know if it's working, but Followers have more than doubled since January.]
  

Unexpected Happenings:

• One thing that I did not set as a goal was to be sure to visit blogs and leave comments. I was doing just fine with that, but in the last 2 months I have really slacked off. I don't want to make excuses, but I started noticing how I was racing all over the blogosphere visiting and always commenting, and the majority of the people I visited never visited me, or at least didn't leave comments. I found this blatant on Pink Saturday which usually has over 120 participants. I was visiting at least half every Saturday and commenting, yet I was only receiving 10-20 comments, many of which were from people I had not yet visited. That kind of got me down and then I started noticing similar patterns on VTT and Blue Monday, just not as great a disparity. So I was bummed and stopped visiting and commenting. But I'm back and fresh and determined not to let people get me down!
• Another thing that was not an original goal was to start something special like a meme that would be unique to my blog. I started the New England Bloggers and we have more than 60 members now. We have done a giveaway carnival as a group and among ourselves a little "getting to know you" game where I gave out some small prizes.
• The third thing that has changed since January are the book reviews I have been doing for Hachette publishing. Some weeks I have one, sometimes up to three. It has opened my blog to a new niche and I am enjoying being part of the book blogging world. Hopefully, with my blog being so eclectic I am passing on information about books to folks who might not necessarily read a book review or visit a book blog.

Is there anything I can do to make my blog more interesting to YOU? I've had several people say they'd like me to write more about myself, what I like, my family, newsy/folksy kind of stuff. I'm having my second cataract surgery on Monday, so I'll be sure to tell you all about that next week, maybe with some more bloody eyeball pictures!
The Blog Improvement Project is hosted by Kim @ Sophisticated Dorkiness. Even if you don't want to officially participate, there are lots of great ideas for improving your blog and seeing what others are finding successful. You can also jump in and participate at any time, so take a look at the topics!