blogging201

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Welcome (Blog)

I hope you enjoy your visit to my site – reading, listening, and watching … and come back often.

Menus

Use the menu tabs above to access posts and pages in the Music, Photos, Travel, Writing,  Recipes, or Blog sections. There is an About section with additional information about this blog and me, helpful tips about using the Menu, Sidebar, and Phone, as well as a Contact form.

Music

There is a lot of music available on my site to listen with Spotify and watch related videos on YouTube.

Check out my personal playlists.

Some alternate Music Players may be used instead of “Spotify” to select highlighted artists or albums.  Additional information is also available about using Spotify.

Photos

The Photo Gallery highlights some of my photos, including a lovely panoramic full Morning Rainbow. My 10 most popular photo posts are listed in Favorite Photos. A Photo 101 Calendar displays all 21 photo blog posts during the Photography 101: A Photo a Day workshop in Nov 2014, organized in calendar format with day of week, date, and theme/title. There’s a Photo Summary that lists all photos in reverse date order.

Travel

Travel posts feature photos from an 8-day Viking Rhine Cruise from Basel, Switzerland to Amsterdam, Netherlands, as well as an extended 2-week Germany Trip with visits to Munich, Salzburg (Austria), Romantic Road (Nördlingen, Dinkelsbühl, Rothenberg ob der Tauber), Leipzig, and Berlin.

Writing

Writing posts includes my Poetry assignments in the Writing 201: Poetry course in Feb 2015. Best Stories features a few articles with stories, short quotes, and thoughts about my grandchildren, children, and parents.

Feedback

I would like to know what you like and what I can do to improve your experience. Comments and likes are encouraged on posts and pages, and general feedback about the web site and suggestions for improvement can be provided on the Contact form.

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Blog Goal Achievements

Here’s a summary of milestone achievements for the Blog Goals that I established during the Blogging 201 workshop on Branding and Growth.

1. I have reached my milestone targets to expand readers and traffic on the following dates. I show the current statistics (on Nov 6), as well as the starting base count (on Oct 21), along with the percentage growth over those 15 days.

Milestone Goal Current Base Growth %
Oct 22 100 Likes 200 50+ 400
Oct 27 100 Posts 136 78 174
Oct 31 50 Followers 59 26 227
Nov 2 1,000 Views 1,170 603 194
Nov 5 100 Comments 101 58 174

2. Also, I have successfully extending blog access into Facebook and Twitter social networks. In fact, I now have 3 Facebook followers and my Twitter posts have even been favorited and retweeted by several music artists.  Furthermore, I have extended my readers more with members of my Photography 101 course, as well as my participation in National Blog Posting Month (NatBloPoMo) during November where I have received multiple referrers to my blog.

3. Finally, I have enhanced my web site by integrating many new features to improve access to my archives based on monthly statistics analysis, as well as reviewing likes and comments. In additional to Music, I extended my web site with posts about other topics such as Travel, Photos, Writing, and even Recipes.

Thank you for helping me reach my goals.

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100 Comments

I reached my final Blogging 201 goal of 100 Comments on my web site.

My other blog goals were 100 Posts, 100 Likes, 50 Followers, and 1,000 Views, which I have also achieved.  I had set ambitious targets to be completed by the end of Blogging 201 on Oct 31, so I was only 5 days over that.   Not bad, considering that I just started my blog on Sep 17. I summarized my milestone achievements in Blog Goal Achievements, and updated my original Blog Goals post to indicate that they had been reached.

I appreciate all your comments, and I have thoroughly enjoyed meeting so many new friends.  Thanks for reading, listening, and watching my blog.

 

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1,000 Views

Fantastic! I have reached another milestone in the growth of my blog since I now have over 1,000 views on WordPress.

1,000 Views

I had set this target for Oct 31st, so I was only a few days short on getting there (and I still consider that good).

I had already reached my other goals of 100 posts, 100 likes, and 50 followers.  Now I only have one remaining; I currently have 85 comments (target 100 – only 15 more), so I’m very close to making all my ambitious goals.

Thanks for following my blog, reading, and listening.

50 Followers
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50 Followers

Wonderful! I have reached another milestone in the growth of my blog since I now have 50 followers on WordPress. I also have 54 followers who receive updates with Email, as well as 3 via Facebook and even 1 from Twitter.

While reviewing progress for my remaining goals, I currently have 935 views (target 1000 – just 65 more), and 81 comments (target 100 – only 19 more), so I’m very close to making my ambitious goals by the end of today.  I think I can make it (maybe with a little help from my friends).

Thanks for following my blog, reading, and listening.

100 Posts
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100 Posts

 

100 PostsWow! I have reached another Blogging 201 milestone toward the October 31st targets set for my Blog Goals. I have now written 100 posts for my blog.

I am closing in on my remaining goals.  I now have 44 followers, with only 6 more to go.  There have been 850 views, and I should reach 1000 over the next several days.  I have received 68 comments, so reaching 100 might be a little stretch.

Also, I have written 47 pages, but that doesn’t seem to measured by WordPress.  Since my archives are growing, I have spent a lot of time this past week adding additional features and capabilities to provide better access to my posts and pages.

I appreciate the response to my blog over the past month since I started it.  I have met many new friends and found many interesting blogs that I enjoy.  Thanks for reading and listening.

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Most Likes in One Day

WordPress informed me yesterday that I now achieved another personal record with 12 Likes in one day on my web site. Looks like I might be on-track for my ambitious goals.

Most Likes in One Day

Thanks for letting me know what you like. This will also be helpful when I conduct my next blog statistics analysis.

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Assignments

I added an Assignments sub-menu under the Blog menu.  These represent the top 10 Blogging University workshop assignment articles viewed most on my blog as of October 24, 2014.

These are the blog posts which I have written for Blogging University workshop assignments. They are included on the main Blog menu tab above, which shows all of them in reverse chronological order.  Also there are sub-menus for just those associated with Blogging 101 and Blogging 201.

Some results are fairly understandable and would be expected. However, there were some surprises with this analysis and associated insights.  I have included some observations based on reviewing the results, and I have already started making changes.

Enjoy reading my responses to the assignments from the workshops, and see which ones that other readers like the most. I will update the Assignments hit results weekly.

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100 Likes

Fantastic! WordPress informed me today that I now have 100 Likes on my web site. Looks like I might be on-track for my ambitious goals. Thanks for letting me know what you like. This will also be helpful when I conduct the statistics analysis assignment we just received this evening.

100 Likes

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My Blog Goals

I just started my blog on September 17, 2014 during the Blogging 101 workshop. Currently, I have created 78 posts, had 603 views by visitors to my site, there are 26 followers reading my blog updates, I have received 58 comments from them, and there have been more than 50 likes on my posts (I don’t know how to find out more about likes beyond the milestones).

I have thoroughly enjoyed this experience far more than I expected. I thought I would take the course since I had been thinking about trying a blog for a long time but never got it going. So I registered for it and decided this was the time to get started. I am really amazed how much progress I have made so far, and feel I am just beginning.

So I signed up for this follow-up Blogging 201 workshop on Branding and Growth.  In our first assignment, we were asked to think about our blog and identify three goals that we would like to achieve. Although it’s still early in my blog’s life, I have determined I would like to accomplish the following by October 31.

  1. Expand readers and traffic. This translates into these specific targets, which I should be able to measure with WordPress Site Statistics and/or Trophy Case Awards: 100 posts, 1000 views, 50 followers, 100 comments, and 100 likes.
  2. Grow blog access into social networks. Expand first into Facebook friends, then add Twitter, and finally include Pinterest or other communities.
  3. Enhance my brand and improve my writing. Increase range and diversity of my content beyond music so that there will be more travel, photo, writing, recipes, and other blog topics that will interest my readers and realize the focus described on my About page

After I finish this course, I’m looking forward to the Photography 101 workshop that will be held starting November 3rd. I have been wanting to get better with photography, and that would also be helpful for my blog. For now, I’m just trying to get my blog to the next level after getting off to a good start thanks to Blogging University and all my fellow bloggers.

I appreciate all my followers, their comments, and enjoyed reading so many great blogs. Also, it has opened new areas for me, such as composing articles, writing stories, and reading poetry. And of course, there’s still the music and I want to keep making continual improvements as I refine my blog’s brand and extend its growth and reach a wider audience.

Thank you for helping me reach my goals.

NOTE: By Nov 5 (in 15 days), I achieved all these goals set on Oct 21 (target: 10 days), and I have summarized the results in Blog Goal Achievements.