I’m very excited to have the opportunity to host a Mini-Challenge for the 3rd Edition Bloggiesta put together by Natasha of Maw Books. The last Bloggiesta was my very first and I accomplished so much that I knew I wanted to participate again. So, without further babbling on my part…

As a book reviewer or someone just looking to improve their overall site, stats can be a very useful tool. This can also be a source of great stress and confusion for most bloggers, even those of us who have been doing it for some time now. So in an effort to help sort through the numbers and get to the information you really need to know we’re offering up this mini-challenge. The overall goal here though is to have fun, learn something new and hopefully improve on your already fabulous site!

Your assignment: Set up one account with a Stats Site and have some fun with it!

• Google Analytics (Personally, this is the one I use and I really like how easy it is to use.)
  *Added* WordPress users may want to install this plug-in to make it really easy to access your GA stats: Google Analytics for WordPress
• Woopra (Similar to Google Analytics just a different style.)
• Site Meter (I also use this as a backup, easy to grab stats. They also email you once a week.)
• StatCounter (Simple to use counter showing number of hits and location daily. Also, one of the few that work with Wordpres.com websites.)
• IceRocket by Blog Tracker (Suggested by Stacy from A Novel Source)

Let’s Play Around with That Great Data Now: There are a few “Big” things that can get you started off in your journey with stats. Below is a list of suggestions to start with as well as some tips on where to find the information you’re looking for. Remember that the data you are looking at will only be from the date you started your Stats account, most don’t go back to your blog start date.

• Average Daily Hits. The number of people visiting your site everyday.
  Using Google Analytics click on the “Visitor Trending” Tab and then “Visits”. This will tell you the average number of visits per day based on the dates you put in the top right box.
• Average Monthly Page Views. The number of “pages” viewed each month. Pages can be tabs, menus, archives, anything that takes them away from the home page.
  Using Google Analytics click on the “Visitor Trending” Tab and then “Pageviews”. This will tell you the number of pageviews for your site based on the dates you put in the top right box. If you want to calculate your monthly number, just pull out your calculator and divide the number by of months during this time.
• Average Monthly Unique Visitors. The number of “brand new” visitors to your site.
  Using Google Analytics click on the “Visitor Trending” Tab and then “Absolute Unique Visitors”. This will tell you the number of unique visitors for your site based on the dates you put in the top right box. If you want to calculate your monthly number, just pull out your calculator and divide the number by of months during this time.
• Current RSS Subscribers.
  Make sure to head over to Puss Reboots Mini-Challenge to set up your RSS feed. Once this is done you can install a button that tells you how many subscribers you have or just check it from time to time.

Additional Tools:

• Problogger: If you haven’t subscribed to Problogger’s site, I would highly recommend it. He always has a ton of great tips for improving your site. His article 17 Statistics to Monitor on Your Blog is perfect for anyone at any level and will give you some extra fun things to look at with your blog stats over time.
• Google Analytics Blog: This is perfect because if you have a question, they’re sure to have an answer. If you are a beginner, they even have a category to use to get started called Beginner Topics.
• YouTube also has a great video by Google called, Beginning Analytics: Interpreting and Acting on Your Data, just don’t pay attention to the bit about e-commerce unless you’re really interested in it. There are also some other great Analytics videos on there you can check out.
• Smashing Voice also has a fantastic Guide to Using Google Analytics and Tools.
• Woopra has a great set of posts all about Using Woopra, as well as a video review that has me thinking about trying it out.

Remember, this should be fun! Play around with the stats and use them to make your site better. If you notice a particular month has low visits, take a look at what you blogged about and compare it to a more visited month. You may find that your visitors like a certain post more than another. Use these tools to keep improving and enjoying your blogging experience.

I’m by no means an expert, but if you have questions, again, feel free to contact me either on Twitter, via email (the1stdaughter {at} gmail {dot} com) or on my contact page.

Natasha has some wonderful prizes for those of you who participate in these challenges so once completed this challenge come back and let me know how it went in the comments below. You have until the end of Bloggiesta to complete this mini-challenge and report.

Enjoy the Bloggiesta festivities and ‘Ole’!

While you’re at it take a look at these mini-challenges new to this round of Bloggiesta:

• Kim and Jackie at the Blog Improvement Project (@kimthedork and @farmlanebooks) – Take a step back and view your blog as a whole.  Where do you want to go from here?  On goals and analyzing your blogs (I’d do this one early and first).
• Jennifer at Girls Gone Reading (@girlsgonereadin)- Do you have a review policy?  Do you even need or want one?
• Sarah at Puss Reboots (@pussreboots) – What is RSS and how to make it so your feed is easily discoverable.
• Pam from MotherReader (@MotherReader) – Be brave in your writing and push the limits of what your comfortable with.
• Cass at Bonjour Cass (@bonjourcass) – It’s often said the best part of book blogging is the community.  Go discover them in this commenting challenge!

Sorry I’ve been MIA for the last couple of days. I know you’re all devastated! Now that I’m back and starting to feel a bit better I thought I’d take some time to get things spruced up around here and focus my efforts.

During the Bloggiesta event a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to join a Book Blogging Community Forum called The Bloggie Cult. The main purpose is to provide bloggers (mainly book bloggers, but anyone is welcome) the opportunity to share and gain knowledge from others in the online community. Be it technical or just emotional support, the forum is there to help. So, in an effort to make my site better for my readers I decided to join and hopefully acquire a “Blogging Mentor”. Well, the day has come and I’m excited to say I was given the great opportunity to work with Kate from The Neverending Shelf! To say I’m excited is putting it lightly. She has a fabulous blog and I always love her reviews. To begin she asked that I put together a post detailing some of the things I’d like to accomplish over the next few weeks through this process. So, I’m going to first list my goals, but I’d also like to ask you as my readers, What would you like to see more of? Is there something in particular you’ve like or not that you’d like to see? Any feedback is welcome and I can’t wait to hear what you have to share!

The list:

• Gain a better focus. I’d like to not feel so scattered. This may come by way of a more structured schedule or something else, but I need to hone things in.
• Be in touch with what my readers are interested in. Is it the newest thing or something else entirely, I just don’t know at this point.
• Improve the sites accessibility. I’d like to make sure everyone enjoys coming to the site, that it’s easy to navigate and doesn’t take too much time to load.
• Stats. I’d be lying if I didn’t include this in some of my goals. I graded the blog over the Bloggiesta weekend and came up flat. Honestly, I’ve tried it before and I just don’t know how to make it better. So, I need some help in this area.

I’m pretty sure that’s it. I don’t feel like delving too much further because I don’t want to overstretch myself. So far I’ve really been loving book blogging. The comments I’ve received and friends I’ve made have been fabulous. It’s what is really driving me to make things better.

So, like I said, if you have any suggestions…even things like “I can’t see the entire background, the reviews are too short, etc.” let me know! Any constructive input is welcome. Thanks again to all my readers and here’s to hoping things keep going wonderfully!

Kelly over at YAnnabe had a great idea to preview a few Young Adult titles that may have been passed by in our hurry to pick up the next hot book. So, the above are a few books that I can honestly say I would recommend and enjoyed reading, although they may have been passed over by something more flashy. Enjoy! And check out Kelly’s site for more great recommendations from around the book blogging community.

I have recently reviewed both Flash Burnout by L.K. Madigan and The Maze Runner by James Dashner, make sure to check them out!

These books were purchased for our home library and/or reviewed from a library copy.
Purchasing products by clicking through the links in this post will provide us a modest commission through our affiliate relationship with Amazon.com.

Yes, I know, “wonderfulness” is not a word, oh well! I have to say I feel like I’ve climbed a mountain with a mariachi band in tow. It was a blast and I feel like I was able to accomplish more than I ever thought I would. Whew!

Here’s the short list:

• Hours Spent: 26
• Mini-challenges completed: 14
• Comments Left: 50+ (I think it was more, but I stopped keeping track.)
• Favorite Part: Feeling of accomplishing SO much!
• Least Favorite: Not taking enough time to write.

My long list of all I did:

• Pam’s mini-challenge on copyrighting.
• My favicon IS working! That’s was over at Trish’s site for those of you interested.
• Finished my Google Reader with Rebecca’s mini-challenge on how to get things under control. And boy did it help! My GR is amazing now!
• Over at Farm Lane Books Blog Jackie is hosting a super-easy mini-challenge that will be a life saver in the event you lose your blog sometime. I did it in a matter of seconds, honestly, it took longer to write the follow-up comment. Check it out and back up your blog!
• Great way to get your site organized: Label and categorize your posts! Check out Beth’s post at Beth Fish Read’s and start labeling. I was lucky enough to start doing this from the get go and man does it make a difference!
• Checked out my deadlinks with Karin at Karin’s Book Nook. Great reference material for future use as well!
• Jill’s comment challenge coincided nicely with Mother Reader’s and I was able to complete that as well. I’ve actually commented on well-over 20 new blogs and more than 50 total this weekend.
• Got listed at Kidlitosphere! Wohoo! Thanks to this little challenge at The Infant Bibliophile. And set up my button!
• Set up my Google Alerts thanks to Emily at Emily’s Reading Room!
• Completed the Anchors Away mini-challenge at GalleySmith’s site and know it’s been helping, my site is actually showing up in a Google Search now!
• Had my site graded and only received a 78…again. I’m thinking I’ll work on this for next Bloggiesta again. Thanks though Bookish Ruth!
• The Comment Challenge hosted by Mother Reader this has been really fun! I plan on keeping it up past Bloggiesta through the end of her challenge.
• Set up a few more feature spotlights. I’ve actually set up an extra months worth so far, but I’d really like to have more. If you’re interested in participating just let me know!
• Set up an RSS email feed option as well as added some new pretty buttons for them.
• I’m set up and ready to go in Kristen’s blogging mentor program.
• Made my blogging buddies “official”, learned all about that from Amy!
• Fixed my contact page. I think. If you notice any problems try and let me know, I’d really appreciate it!
• Chatted with tons of great new friends in Twitter land!

What I didn’t get done and am still going to be working on:

• Believe it or not, I did not finish my own cheat sheet! I did get a lot of it put together, but I still need to do some tweaking.
• Jenn had a great post all about creating 10 Post ideas that I wanted to take advantage of. Alas, I will be working on this one as time goes forward.
• Write at least this weeks worth of posts. This means I will be up typing away this week, but that’s probably okay since The Baker is still studying away for his Bar Exam.
• Update Goodreads, Glue, and Amazon with reviews.
• Clean up my archive page.

All in all I feel really great about all I was able to accomplish. I can always write more and that’s the large majority of what I didn’t get to. The technical stuff I’m really happy about and it was great to have such wonderful resources available to get through it all, as well as everyone on Twitter. Next time around I think I’d like to see more about what I didn’t do great on: writing, more on grading your website and how to improve visibility. I also think it might be fun to have a challenge to see how many review we can get transfered to sites like amazon, glue, goodreads, etc. It was all great though!

Thanks again to Natasha at Maw Books Blog for organizing Bloggiesta, getting all the mini-challenges together and gathering all the wonderful prizes that will be awarded. It’s been a fabulous weekend and I’m looking forward to it again in June!

Here it is, Day 3, wow! This really has been a whirlwind of a great adventure! Let’s start off with all the fabulous things I’ve been able to accomplish:

• Pam’s mini-challenge on copyrighting.
• Make sure my favicon keeps working, it comes and goes like it’s visiting other sites or something. That’s at Trish’s site for those of you interested.
• Finish my Google Reader with Rebecca’s mini-challenge on how to get things under control. That’s the first thing to get going! Yay! I did it!
• Over at Farm Lane Books Blog Jackie is hosting a super-easy mini-challenge that will be a life saver in the event you lose your blog sometime. I did it in a matter of seconds, honestly, it took longer to write the follow-up comment. Check it out and back up your blog!
• Great way to get your site organized: Label and categorize your posts! Check out Beth’s post at Beth Fish Read’s and start labeling. I was lucky enough to start doing this from the get go and man does it make a difference!
• Checked out my deadlinks with Karin at Karin’s Book Nook. Great reference material for future use as well!
• Okay, so I just keep adding and adding, but Jill’s comment challenge coincided nicely with Mother Reader’s and I was able to complete that as well.
• Got listed at Kidlitosphere! Wohoo! Thanks to this little challenge at The Infant Bibliophile.
• Set up my Google Alerts thanks to Emily at Emily’s Reading Room!
• Completed the Anchors Away mini-challenge at GalleySmith’s site and know it’s been helping, my site is actually showing up in a Google Search now!
• Had my site graded and only received a 78…again. I’m thinking I’ll work on this for next Bloggiesta again. Thanks though Bookish Ruth!

What I want to accomplish today:

• Keep going with the Comment Challenge hosted by Mother Reader, yesterday I made about 20 comments at all new sites I’d never commented at before and I’d like to keep that up. It has been really fun!
• Set up a few more feature spotlights. I’ve actually set up a few so far, but I’d really like to have more. If you’re interested in participating just let me know!
• Write at least this weeks worth of posts.
• Jenn has a great post all about creating 10 Post ideas that I’m going to take advantage of!
• Set up my Kidlitosphere button! I just found out today that I’ve been added to the site, which also helps to knock off another challenge!
• Believe it or not, I need to work on my own cheat sheet and get a little more organized that way!
• I’m really interested in Kristen’s blogging mentor program.
• I need to make my blogging buddies “official”, learn more from Amy! Done! Wohoo!
• Clean up my archive page.

Wow! That’s a lot to do today, but I think I can manage to get quite a lot of it done. If not, I’ll just keep going through the week. Thanks again to Natasha at Maw Books for organizing this event, it has been fabulous!

On a side note, I’d like to mention that Kristen over at Bookworming in the 21st Century is featuring yours truly! If you have a minute, take a look!

Well, here goes day two of Bloggiesta! Day one was fabulous even if I feel like I spent most of the day on cleaning out my Google Reader (and it’s still not done, almost). Hopefully today I’ll be able to accomplish quite a bit since I have no kiddos to keep track of for the most part. I do have to make a quick run to the library and to the store, but the rest of the day will be spent with my eyes glued to the screen. Here’s what’s on the agenda for today:

• Keep going with the Comment Challenge hosted by Mother Reader, yesterday I made about 20 comments at all new sites I’d never commented at before and I’d like to keep that up. It was really fun!
• Pam’s mini-challenge on copyrighting.
• Jenn has a great post all about creating 10 Post ideas that I’m going to take advantage of!
• Make sure my favicon keeps working, it comes and goes like it’s visiting other sites or something. That’s at Trish’s site for those of you interested.
• Finish my Google Reader with Rebecca’s mini-challenge on how to get things under control. That’s the first thing to get going! Yay! I did it!
• Set up a few more feature spotlights. If you’re interested in participating just let me know!
• Write at least this weeks worth of posts.
• If I get done with that I’ll refer to my first day’s list and go from there.

Just Added:

• Over at Farm Lane Books Blog Jackie is hosting a super-easy mini-challenge that will be a life saver in the event you lose your blog sometime. I did it in a matter of seconds, honestly, it took longer to write the follow-up comment. Check it out and back up your blog!
• Great way to get your site organized: Label and categorize your posts! Check out Beth’s post at Beth Fish Read’s and start labeling. I was lucky enough to start doing this from the get go and man does it make a difference!
• Checked out my deadlinks with Karin at Karin’s Book Nook. Great reference material for future use as well!
• Okay, so I just keep adding and adding, but Jill’s comment challenge coincided nicely with Mother Reader’s and I was able to complete that as well.

Good luck to everyone participating and I’m sure I’ll be seeing you around! If you haven’t signed up, it’s not too late, go do it!

So, here it is! Bloggiesta! Wohoo! I have a long list of what I want to accomplish and a pretty free weekend ever since I informed The Baker of my voluntary exile behind a computer screen for the duration. First things first, mini-challenges. There are so many, including the one I am hosting that you definitely need to check out if you are at all interested in saving time. I don’t think I will be able to get to them all, but here are a few I’m really looking forward to sinking my teeth into:

• I’m already in for the Comment Challenge hosted by Mother Reader, I just need to sign up on Mr.Linky.
• Believe it or not, I need to work on my own cheat sheet and get a little more organized that way!
• Definitely going to check out Pam’s mini-challenge on copyrighting, I’ve already seen some of my images and words dragged places I don’t want them.
• I’m really interested in Kristen’s blogging mentor program.
• Even if my site is relatively new I really don’t want to lose any of it. I’ve never had this problem with past blogs, but I’ve never used WordPress before so who’s to say it can’t happen? So, I’m heading over to Jackie’s post on backing up your blog at some point.
• And who doesn’t need an excuse to have posts saved for a rainy day? Jenn has a great post all about creating 10 Post ideas that I’m going to take advantage of!
• Done!!! YAY! I highly recommend doing this, so easy: I’ve really, and I mean really got to figure out my favicon thingy. It’s all added but for some reason, not working. So, that’s on the list over at Trish’s site.
• I need to make my blogging buddies “official”, learn more from Amy!
• Listed a few places, but could probably use some more. This is where The Infant Bibliophile comes in..
• Boy do I need to clean up my feedreader! Rebecca has got an excellent post on how to get things under control and I’m going to take full advantage of it.

That’s the list from all the places I plan to go this weekend, it may be more I just have to see how much I can get done. Here’s the list I want to accomplish all on my own:

• Get my business cards set up and ordered.
• Manage and set up all the reading challenges I plan on doing this year.
• Set up a few more features I want to have lined up and ready to go.
• Write at least 5 review posts.
• Clean up my archive page.

Those are just a few things, but I’m already getting worried so I think I’ll stop there for now. If I get it all done, maybe I’ll treat myself to a new book! Either way I think this is going to be a great weekend and one where I will be able to accomplish A LOT! I’m loving Bloggiesta and if you haven’t signed up, it’s not too late, go do it!

I’m so excited to have the opportunity to host a Mini-Challenge for the 2nd Edition Bloggiesta put together by Natasha of Maw Books.

My blog is relatively new, but I’m slowly learning that information can pile up before your very eyes. When I started out, my intention was to write reviews and do a few features, but oh how they can pile up when you get bogged down with the “little things”. And I’m not talking about doing the dishes or watching the kids, although those I can’t really control. But here’s something you can control: A CHEAT SHEET!

Your assignment: Create a cheat sheet for your blog.

Your cheat sheet could contain url’s, links, and html code or it could just be a template that you use every time you want to write a review. It’s also a good idea to have one available as a text file on your computer and another as a Google Doc so you can access it online if needed.  The great thing about having it set up this way is that it’s searchable.  If you want to refer someone to a book review or a post that you wrote a year ago, you don’t have to search your blog every single time you’re looking for the URL.  Rather, you can just do a CTRL-F in your cheat sheet and have the URL in seconds. I’ve created a “mock cheat sheet” of some simple headings you can use to get started, but I suggest starting your own page just for your site. Use tabs you already have set up in your blog as an easy guide and list any documentation under each heading.

Here are a few questions to think about when creating a cheat sheet:

• Are there URL’s that you are constantly looking for?  (Authors, publishers, archives, etc.)
• Links that you are continually referencing? (Affiliate relationships, photo sharing sites, meme links, etc.)
• Do you use the same format every time you post a review? Would it help to have a form/template ready to go?
• What happens if you lose content, a side bar or my about page? Can you throw together a new page or would it be easier to have the code saved somewhere?
• Do you have a template for author interviews or features you’d like to be more easily accessible?

I’m sure there are a lot of other questions you could think of when putting your own cheat sheet together. If you think of any or have any other tips let us know! I’d personally love more help on the subject, as someone whose fairly new and wants to get ahead of the game.

Natasha has some wonderful prizes for those of you who participate in these challenges so once you’ve put together your cheat sheet come back and let me know how it went. You have until the end of Bloggiesta to complete this mini-challenge and report.

Added: When you’re done here make sure to check out these other mini-challenges new this go-around.

• Rebecca from The Book Lady’s Blog – 2010 Resolutions.  You know you got them!
• Pam from MotherReader -  Blogging is about community, so check out this Comment Challenge (watch for a Mr. Linky to be up on Saturday for you to complete this challenge).
• Pam from Bookalicio.us – There is nothing worse than seeing your post on somebody else’s blog.  Talking about blog copyright and what you need to be doing to protect yourself.
• Beth from Beth Fish Reads – Using categories & labels to find what you’re looking for.
• Jackie from Farm Lane Books – Do not lose it all!  How to back up your blog.
• Karin from Karin’s Book Nook – There is nothing worse than landing on 404 error pages.  It’s time to go on a dead link hunt!
• Chelle from Tempting Persephone – You have some great content.  But can people find it?  Here’s showing off the best of the best.
• Kristen from Bookworming in the 21st Century -  Introducing a new blogger mentoring program and forum.
• Jenn from Jenn’s Bookshelves – Got nothing to say (not likely – that’s why you’re blogging in the first place!) but here is an opportunity to brainstorm blogging topics.

Enjoy the Bloggiesta festivities and ‘Ole’!

This weekend marks the 2nd annual Bloggiesta hosted by Natasha of Maw Books and There’s A Book’s 1st year of participation. I can’t wait! I’m even going to be hosting a Mini-Challenge you will all HAVE to check out if you want to make your site a breeze to keep organized! It begins at 8am on Friday January the 8th and continues to Sunday the 10th. Direct from Natasha’s post about Bloggiesta here’s what it entails:

Some of you may be asking what is Bloggiesta?  In short, it’s a blogging marathon.  A opportunity to cross those nagging items off of your to-do list and improve your blog while in the good company of other awesome bloggers doing the same thing.  Break out the nachos, enchiladas, drinks, mariachi music and whack a pinata or two!

What to do during the Bloggiesta?

• Write reviews.
• Write backup posts for a rainy day.
• Write that great post idea from three months back.
• Work on series posts.
• Write guest posts.
• Put out invitations for guest posts.
• Conduct and edit author interviews.
• Create template posts for your future reads (ie: title, images, linking, tags, etc,) so you can open up, write review and post without being bogged down with technicalities
• Clean up your tags, archives, books reviewed list, etc.
• Create a text file (or Google Doc) of cheat sheets (html codes, post url’s, etc)
• Improve your blog template, clean up sidebars, add a favicon, install those plugins that you’ve been meaning to do.
• Add or edit your about me page, review policy, disclosure policy, privacy policy, create landing pages (for example – an about me for Twitter readers page) or any other pages you might have.
• Any bloggy type housekeeping that you’ve been neglecting.
• Clean up and update your challenge lists.  Link up your posts with hosts.
• Make sure all of your social network profiles are up to date.  Brand yourself through those profiles with color scheme, images, etc.
• Go get a gravatar.
• Visit the Blogging Tips group on the Book Blogs Ning and find ways to improve your blog.
• Work on any specialized projects that you may have going.
• Clean out and organize your feed reader and blog subscriptions.
• Create an elevator pitch.
• Make business cards.
• Find a blogging buddy.
• The sky’s the limit!

It truly is a great chance for any type of blogger to get things in order and the perfect time of year. What better way to start your New Year and all those resolutions than by signing up for bloggiesta and sprucing up your site? You don’t have to be a book blogger, you can be any type of blogger looking for some time to fine tune your site or work on those projects you’ve been putting off. For me I’m focusing on writing reviews, putting out invites for my feature, working on my template (of which I will be hosting a mini-challenge you will WANT to check out), and making business cards in preparation for BEA this year. It’s going to be great, so make sure to sign up and participate as much or as little as you can! It’s going to be a blast!

Check out Natasha’s site for more info on how to get involved!