You Made It!!!

We have finally reached the end of the 30 Days to Build a Better Wedding Blog series. Can you believe it? Having a wedding blog for your business is much like a full time job. I hope that this series was helpful in improving your wedding blog, and providing each of you with tools to reach your blogging goals and aspirations.

With sincere appreciation, I’d like to thank each and every one of you who visited the iMatrimony Blog daily in anticipation of the next topic and task. I appreciate all of the kind words and comments you all shared by email and on Twitter. It made it so worthwhile to receive all of your feedback. 

Day 30 Task – What do you think??

Please, please, please share with me your opinions and thoughts on this series. Was it helpful? What did you enjoy most? What would you like to see more of on the iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog? I want to hear from YOU. Leave a comment below or send an email to info {@} imatrimonyblog.com. Happy Blogging!!!!

© 2009, iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog. All rights reserved.

This series has absolutely blown by for me. We are one day away from completing the 30 Days to Build a Better Wedding Blog. On Day 18.5, I promised to revisit the topic of “Protecting your Wedding Blog within Social Media”. It is no surprise that this series is not the first “30 Day Blog” series. There are many others available over tons of topics, industries, and genres. Wedding blogs have become a part of so many businesses in the industry, so I decided to share this series with the wedding industry as an effort to provide basic and common blogging knowledge to you, my readers. 

Social Media has its pros and cons, and can be used to build or destroy your brand. So, it’s important never to avoid a conversation about your brand within Social Media.  It is imperative to choose the “high road” and respond with specific intent to protect your brand. Below are  articles that address this topic first hand:

Mashable.com – A Guide to Protecting Your Online Identity

SocialMediaToday.com – Protect your Brand Against Negative Buzz

LifeHacker.com – Manage Your Online Reputation

Day 29 Task – Protect your Wedding Blog within Social Media

Take immediate steps to Protect your Wedding Blog within Social Media. Commit time to research your brand on a daily basis, manage your Google Alerts setup on Day 3, look into your @mentions on twitter, and most importantly, ask people you trust within the industry what others are saying about you.

© 2009, iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog. All rights reserved.

On Day 28, we’ll take a quick look at how to spread the word and promote your wedding blog using social media. What is Social Media?  In my opinion, it’s simply a platform for people to communicate and share information. Social Media is a great avenue to share information about your wedding blog, and increase your readership. Using Social Media, can take your wedding blog to places and people you may never have reached otherwise. So where do you begin?

• Link your wedding blog on your company website
• Place your wedding blog link on your business cards
• Place your wedding blog link in your email signature
• Publish your wedding blog on Facebook (NetworkedBlogs, Blog RSS Feed Reader)
• Publish your wedding blog on Twitter  (Twitterfeed, HootSuite)
• Add your wedding blog to directories (Technorati, StumbleUpon)
• Submit your wedding blog posts to bookmarking sites like Digg, Del.icio.us, Tumblr

Day 28 Task – Use Social Media to Promote your Wedding Blog

If there are any areas listed above that you have not explored to promote your wedding blog, do so today. Be careful with submitting your blog posts to bookmarking sites. Don’t submit each and every post, and encourage your readers to submit posts from your blog as well.

© 2009, iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog. All rights reserved.

On Day 2 – Measure your Wedding Blog Success, we installed a few analytics tools to track specific information from our wedding blog. Now that we are approaching Day 30, it’s time to take a look back on how much progress your wedding blog has made over the past 25 days. Below are the Top 10 Stats you Should Track:

1. Overall Visits
2. Overall Pageviews
3. Overall Pages/Visit
4. Average Time on Site
5. % of New Visits
6. Visits by Hour
7. Traffic Sources (Top 5 Referring Sites)
8. Keywords 
9. Top Content
10. Top Landing Pages
    

** Bonus Stat: Subscriptions/RSS  Stats (found on Feedburner)

Day 27 Task – Review your Wedding Blog Stats

Take the list of the Top 10 Stats to Track and compare the information from a date before the 30 Days to Build a Better Wedding Blog series to the current stats for today. Note stats that meet your goals, and other areas where you’d like to improve. Use this information to tweak your wedding blog strategy if needed.

© 2009, iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog. All rights reserved.

We’ve made it to the final week of the 30 Days to Build a Better Wedding Blog series. It is my hope that the information so far has been helpful in improving your wedding blog. It’s Day 26, and it’s time to backup your wedding blog. We’ve done a lot of work over the last 25 days, and as with most other business practices, you must have a plan if something fails. There are great companies who provide this service, like BackupMyBlog.com. BackupMyBlog.com will backup your wedding blog daily. Not only does it backup your posts, but images and comments as well.

Day 26 Task – Backup your Wedding Blog

Get in the habit of backing up your wedding blog. Be sure to add this to the Weekly Post Schedule you created on Day 7. If you have a Wordpress blog, creating a backup is very easy to do with the WP-Backup plugin.

© 2009, iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog. All rights reserved.

Welcome to Day 25 of the 30 Days to Build a Better Wedding Blog. Over the course of this series, I’ve been asked to share some insight on how to increase reader subscriptions. Here are 5 tips on how to increase reader subscriptions on your wedding blog:

1. Choose a “Subscribe” button, not a “RSS” button
2. Make your “Subscribe” button highly visible (i.e. in the Header or Sidebar)
3. Display the “Subscribe” button on every page of your wedding blog
4. Encourage Readers to Subscribe at the end of every post
5. Use subscription buttons to popular Blog (RSS) Readers (i.e. Google Reader, Bloglines, Yahoo)

Lastly, why not simply ask. 

Day 25 Task – Ask your Readers to Subcribe to your Wedding Blog

For today’s task, simple write a post asking your readers to subscribe to your wedding blog. In the post, give information on the blog, upcoming content, and reasons why you think your readers should subscribe. 

Are you a Subscriber? If not,  **Subscribe to the iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog Here –  **

© 2009, iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog. All rights reserved.

It’s a known fact that many brides are using the internet to aid in planning their wedding. Tech-savvy brides are using technology daily to research the industry in an effort to produce their wedding vision. No matter what your wedding niche, its nice to know when, or what time of day, your readers are spending time on your wedding blog. You can use this information to schedule special post updates, release new company or industry news, make giveaway announcements, and more. If you post to specific categories on specific days, your stats will reveal which categories your readers are most interested in, and where to spend more time creating content.

Day 24 Task – Review Your Visits Stats by the Time of Day

Review your blog analytics reports, and take note of the time of day your wedding blog receives the highest traffic. Use this information to tweak your wedding blog strategy, and Weekly Post Schedule you developed on Day 7.

© 2009, iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog. All rights reserved.

Not that you know who is reading your blog, and what keywords your readers are searching to find you. It’s important to know how often they are reading your wedding blog. When reviewing your web analytics, take a look at your stats on Page Views and Unique Visits. This can get a little tricky, and I often have people ask, “What’s the difference?” Page Views simple relate to how many times a page or multiple pages on your wedding blog have been viewed. A Unique Visitor is when your site is viewed by a reader for the first time. For example, If you have 15 Unique Visitors to your wedding blog, and 30 Page Views. By dividing the 30 Page Views by the 15 Unique Visitors, this means each unique visitor viewed an average of 2 pages before leaving the your site. 

Day 23 Task – Review your Page Views and Unique Visits

Take a look at the analytics reports for your wedding blog, and make it a habit to track your progress. This information will be important as you grow your wedding blog and track the changes you make in the future.

© 2009, iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog. All rights reserved.

It’s Day 22 of the 30 Days to Build a Better Wedding Blog, and we’re rapidly approaching the end of the series. To date, we’ve discussed building a foundation for your wedding blog, writing quality content, and tips on optimizing your blog. So what’s left? Your Readers.

Building an audience and improving your readership is key. You’re writing your wedding blog with the expectation that others will read it. So today’s task is focused on the readers. Who’s your audience, and who is reading your blog?

Day 22 Task – Identify your Readers

Know your readers. Why are they visiting your blog? What topics interest them most? What keywords are searched to direct them to your wedding blog? This is where your analytics come in from Day 2 and Day 3. Take a look at your visitor statistics and alerts. Brainstorm on topics in your wedding niche that connect with the terms and keywords your readers are using. 

© 2009, iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog. All rights reserved.

Involving guest bloggers to contribute to your wedding blog, is a great way to establish your blog as a trusted and respected resource. Inviting an expert blogger will help to increase traffic to your site. Also, the expert’s readers now become aware of your wedding blog as a new resource, and vice versa. Guest bloggers can address topics, or answers questions, that you as a wedding blogger may not be familiar with. Planning to take a vacation, or taking time away from the blog, is a great time to add a guest blogger to fill in the gaps. 

Day 21 Task – Invite a Guest Blogger to your Wedding Blog

Reach out to a respected expert in your wedding niche, and invite them to contribute a blog post in their specific area of expertise. Don’t feel you must limit yourself to bloggers, choose an expert from any arena that you feel can contribute or inspire your readers. Be sure to communicate that the post may be edited if needed. You don’t want to run the risk of insulting your expert. Request a few post ideas to choose from to ensure you receive a quality post.

© 2009, iMatrimony Wedding Technology Blog. All rights reserved.