So way back on November 1st, I decided to create my November Blogging Bonanza – 30 posts in 30 days.  I got the idea from National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo) but with blogging, not realizing until about November 25th that NaBloPoMo (aka National Blog Posting Month) is actually already a thing.  Oh well.

As always, here’s what I learned over my month of daily blogging!

What I learned about me:

• Sometimes I really need to just sit down and force myself to write.  But when I do, it usually ends up being a good thing. 🙂  I really lost steam on November 19th (2/3 of the way through!) but didn’t give up.  I wrote a post late at night and got it up before midnight!  And it turned out to be a really great post, with a ton of hits!  (Check it out here: A Young Actor’s Toolkit.)
• I write best in silence.
• I tend to write the most late at night.
• If I have an idea, I need to write it down right away or I’ll forget about it.  Better yet, I really should just write the post right then and there.

What I learned/figured out about blogging and will now pass along to you:

• If you have a great idea for a blog post but can’t write it right then and there, make as many notes as possible so you can pick it up later.  (The Evernote app was really useful for this.)
• Blog posts don’t have to be super long.
• Try different types of posts (stories, lists, photos, videos, links).  Photo posts are awesome, but any posts with more than 4 photos take forever to upload!
• It’s really helpful to write blogs ahead and then schedule them to auto-post, especially if you’re going away.
• Cross-promote.  Use Twitter, Facebook, and any other social media to share your blog.  I always post my new posts on Twitter, but noticed that my views jumped when I started promoting on Facebook.  Which really should have occurred to me in the first place, as I have way more Facebook friends than Twitter followers right now.
• It’s weird, but I think that people can tell when I’m writing about something that means a lot or something I’m passionate about.  I got more hits on days that I wrote good articles and less on days when I just wrote whatever.  (Which seems fairly obvious upon typing it out.)  But always aim for quality over quantity!

I took down my Products page on November 28.  It wasn’t making any money, and it’s not what I want for my blog.  I’m not shilling random stuff anymore to make a couple of bucks.  I want to offer useful content to my readers!  So I replaced it with The Young Actors Series page – an easy to search archive of all the articles I’ve written for young actors.

Overall, my November Blogging Bonanza was a great success.  I got 942 hits to my site – more than I’ve ever had before.  My most popular post was my Medieval Times/Renaissance Hotel review.  I would love to write more articles like this – to be able to have the opportunity to have new experiences and adventures and share them with everyone!

After that, my most popular posts were three Young Actors articles: 5 Useful Things for Young Actors to Know, A Young Actor’s Toolkit and 7 Habits of Highly Effective Young Actors.  I definitely want to share more of these articles; I think that people are finding them useful and I love sharing what I’ve learned.

I also did enjoy posting on a daily basis.  Going forward I’m not going to post daily (some days were a stretch to figure out topics to write about!), but I would like to make it a goal to post at least twice a week.  Like I said before – quality over quantity!

Here’s to more blogging! 🙂