Wow! Who would have thought that I am already on my 100th post?  I mean, I ❤ blogging, but 100 posts, here, already? If I wanna be scholastic about my numbers, I am actually on my 264th blog post (cause I have two blogs), but it is 100 here. So, what does that mean? What have I learnt? Any tips?

Realisations & Reflections

Difference between edu-blogging and ‘lifestyle’ blogging.

Blog number 1 is an educational blog. That one is an oldie. It (now) only has to do with topics connected to teaching or ‘kinda’ teaching. My readers are teachers of English. I have a niche blog (you gotta have a niche blog).

Blog number 2, this one, is still learning. My ‘lifestyle’ blog doesn’t have a voice yet. I am still trying to figure out what I like to write about and I don’t even know if this blog is a lifestyle blog! I’d love it if there was a niche/blog category called “personality blogging”. That’s what I’d fall in. My blog is me (I seriously have a problem with calling this blog a ‘lifestyle blog!). My readers? I dunno who you are. I see numbers, but who are you?

Tips, Wins & Flops

Choosing what to write/Inspiration

So far, I have been inspired/ got ideas from:

❤ My life (my me, me, me fest)

❤ YouTube (youtubers who talk about makeup, beauty and planning)

❤ Other blogs

Helpful tools/tips & some random blogging realisations

I have learnt a lot about blogging and taking photos and while I still have a lot to learn, these websites have proven to be my blogging saviors.

Picmonkey: I edit all my pics there. I watched a few Youtube tutorials and learnt how to add banners and pins. I am still a learner. Life saver: I also use hex codes to determine my colour choice (I am colourblind).

Samsung Photo Editor: I edit my pics on my phone first and then edit on picmonkey as well.

Stumbleupon: I have had a lot of traffic from Stumbleupon. I have also read lots of interesting blog posts there.

Giveaways: I organised 2 giveaways cause it was my birthday. I did get quite a bit of exposure/followings. I also got to interact with a lot of you. My lucky winners should be getting their pressies soon. Is a giveaway a way to get more readers? Yes, but only temporarily, me thinks.Was it easy to organise? Well, kinda. I used rafflecopter to pick a winner, but it was not as easy as I had wanted it to because lots of readers did not end up qualifying for the gifts. Were my rules not clear? Dunno. Have to think about that one.

Buffer: I now schedule my posts. Yayay!!

My hashtags: I do internet searches for popular hashtags when I tweet a blog post. I have also followed accounts that often retweet my posts cause they have to do with a particular interest. My faves?

For planner-related posts: #planneraddict #plannercommunity #scrapbooking #cblobloggers (also for DIY).

For my beauty/lifestyle: #fblchat #lbloggers #bbloggers #beautytalk #beautychat

Back to Realisations

Daily blogging

I tried to do daily blogging in December. It was very interesting to read other people’s #blogmas posts (blogmas means blogging every day till Christmas/ New year’s), but very challenging for me as a blogger. I wasn’t good at it. I did miss a few days. I did like the kinda daily blogging though.

Addicted to stats/ page views:

I do check my page views but I am not sure why. I started on the 10th of September 2015 with 950 page views and today 25th of January my January views are 3600. In total, I have had about 12.000 views (4,5 months). For me, that’s fine. As I said,

• I don’t have a voice yet.
• I dunno what I want to gain out of all this blogging.
• I am enjoying myself so numbers are interesting, but not why I am blogging.

Numbers?

Numbers are just numbers. They can change. Rome was not built in a day. Slow and steady wins the race, and yes, I do know my sayings. Yes, I want people to read my posts. If I didn’t, I would have been writing in a diary, to myself, but that’s weird ( or is it….? :P). And anyhow, I am not losing sleep over them. When I start losing sleep, then I will worry (about me, not my numbers!).

Info you didn’t need, but I am gonna share anyway

Most of my readers/ visitors are from the US. 2nd place the UK, then Greece, Canada, Australia and Germany. Why is that interesting? Well, out of my top 6 countries 4 use English as their mother tongue. I am Greek, but I blog in English, so 700 Greek people have read my English blog posts, same goes for my German readers. I have also had page views from a country called “European Union”. Seriously? Where is that????? Search terms that have led to my blog? Free stickers, planners, functional stickers and yeah… a lot about stickers.

Tips, Wins and Flops part 2

Social Media

What have I been using and doing in my life?

Facebook groups: I joined lots of groups in order to interact with other bloggers. I am in the groups: show your blog love/ blogging boost/ blog passion project and a few more. For new (and old) bloggers, these groups can be extremely helpful. Join them!

Twitter chats: I have taken part in lots of twitter chats that have allowed me to connect with other bloggers and actually talk about blogging quite a bit cause my friends/family here (on my little island) just don’t get the whole blogging thing!!

Faves: #lbloggers (lifestyle blogger chat/ #fblchat (Fab chat)/#bdib (for bloggers).

Pinterest has proved to be a good way to get ideas and get blog traffic. I post a lot of posts about planning and DIY, so most of my traffic is from Pinterest. I still need to learn how to make good pins!

The good part: Wins

I have interacted with you guys (<3 my readers)and have ‘met’ lovely bloggers.

I became part of a planner team ❤ (Just Jaimee: the Lily pad) and I have had the opportunity to chat with lovely Etsy store owners from the planning community (seriously if you are not a planner, you must be baffled with all this planner/planning talk :D). I also got to share a lot of planner-related printables/ coupon codes and giveaways with my readers.

Monetizing? 1 person ordered something from Amazon (I am rich!!! I made $0,27 :))

I will be writing a collab post about planning (exciting :))

I got to do a book review where someone actually sent me the book to review. You can view that post here.

Me, Me, Me

My most popular posts (toot tooting my own horn): Plan with me November 23rd. Gabis Planner prints gave me an interview and shared a printable.

The one closest to my <3: Feeling like a Unicorn: a day in the life of a colourblind gal.

Post that almost no one has read (I thought these were funny, but no-one else did :P): Greek gal in the UK: itsy bitsy spider.

You done yet?

What about the future?

Well, I don’t know what to expect. I mean, I see people hitting 10k or 200k views per day and I wonder, “How?”

I am a teacher. I ❤ teaching. When asked, “would you give up your full-time job to become a full-time blogger?” My answer is” No” ,but I still enjoy blogging. It is my creative outlet, my childhood dream of being a writer. This is as close as I can get to that aspiration.

So, that’s what I’ve learnt. You have my  wins, my flops and a lot of me, me, me talk.  I hope you found at last one thing interesting. Again, this is the part where I beg for some sort of …. connection ❤ <3.Do subscribe to my blog if you like what I have to say (it does help me out and thanks if you do). Connect with me on Pinterest / Twitter/ Instagram.Maybe even give my Facebook page some TLC? Don’t forget to ‘pin’ this post 🙂 Remember the comments section is all yours. OK!! Enough with the promo!

Thanks for stopping by

xox

Jo

P.S. I hope I don’t have too many typos. I really wanna press  ‘publish’ now, cause, yes, I am that kind of blogger……

P.S. 2 This is blog post 101. Thank God I became an English teacher cause I’d suck as a maths one!

❤ ❤