Thoughts on Blogging in the New Year

I'm not good with New Year's resolutions. We're not even going to talk about how last year's negative-stash-flow resolution turned out, because the results aren't pretty. So instead of new resolutions in 2011, I plan to continue focusing on something that occupied a lot of my thought in 2010: improving this blog.

Since the New Year is a good time for reflection and I'm sure that a number of my readers also have blogs, I thought it would be worthwhile to share my thoughts on blogging and a few blogging resources with you in this post. I hope that you will find something interesting in my musing that can help you also improve your blog in 2011.

I feel that I've made a lot of improvement here at 'Briney Deep Designs' in 2010 by simply focusing on three central goals:

• Posting on a regular schedule
  
• Taking better photos
• Trying to put up more original content

(If you want evidence of the improvements, just check out the posts from my first year of blogging; they're not pretty.) I think that these three goals are pillars on which to build a good crafting blog, but there are other resources that have helped along the way, of which the following three have been most helpful:

• The Craftypod blog - I can't recommend this sight enough as the go-to place on the internet for information on improving your craft blog.
• Google Analytics - A site that allows you to track what people view on your blog, where that traffic is coming from, and more. There is lots of interesting stuff to be learned here.
• Google Reader - Every member of the blogging community should have a way to easily follow other blogs and Google Reader is great for managing and organizing a lot of RSS feeds.

All of these resources should help you focus on improving your blog by examining the content that draws people to it and understanding how your blog fits into the larger community.


My goal for 2011 is to continue strengthening the three pillars of my blog, specifically working on better photography and more original content. With the help of my new DSLR camera and some good ideas, I'm hoping that 2011 with be the best year yet for 'Briney Deep Designs'!