Oct 6, 2014 / Intermediate

Ready for a new challenge? Time for Blogging 201.

Let’s dive deeper into branding, traffic, and growth to build your blog. Blogging 201 starts Monday, October 20.

Please note: the content of this edition of Blogging 201: Branding and Growth is the same as the challenge offered earlier this year. If you’re looking for something new to tackle, more Blogging U. courses will roll out this fall and throughout 2015.

Blogging 201: Branding and Growth is a two-week challenge to build on the great foundation you developed in Blogging 101 and give your blog’s growth a serious kick start. We’ll help you:

  • Define your blog’s brand and make sure it’s effective and consistent.
  • Build your audience both within WordPress.com, and without.
  • Understand and use your blog’s stats to grow your traffic.
  • Make the most of your existing posts, to bring them ongoing attention.

You’ll get a task each weekday, along with links to helpful resources and our best advice on how to tackle the assignment. Weekends are time to catch up, explore a new tool further, or just blog. As with all Blogging U. challenges, you’ll also have access to The Commons, a private, staff-moderated space to chat with other participants, share works-in-progress, ask questions, and give feedback.

At the end of the two weeks, you’ll have a strong sense of your blog’s brand, some new readers, and a to-do list you’re excited to attack. Most importantly, you’ll have more focus and motivation to keep your awesome blog going! (And if you’re worried about doing it all: this challenge wraps up before NaNoWriMo and NaBloPoMo begin.)

You’re welcome to join Blogging 201 whether or not you participated in Blogging 101 — there are no prerequisites at Blogging U. It’s also open to any blogger, whether you blog on WordPress.com, have a self-hosted WordPress site, or use another service entirely.

Interested? Fill out this quick form to register. You’ll receive a welcome email before the challenge kicks off:

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  5. Just signed up and look forward to getting started. I hope not doing Blogging 101 first doesn’t hurt me but I plan on taking it too. By the way, I did have trouble completing the survey on my iPad but when I logged on to my laptop I was able to fill out the form. How long does it take to get the email? I thought it would be instant.

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  6. Still can’t sign up – it says the embedded link is from an unsafe server; got the message on my phone, home, and work computer. Is there another link/portal I can access?

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    1. If you’re on a regular computer/laptop, you should be able to see the form embedded right in this post and use that instead of the link — if you can’t, let me know.

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  14. For some reason, every time I try and fill this out it says that it doesn’t exist or that the server isn’t there or something. I really want to do this. Help!

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    1. A couple of thoughts, Sophie. I really like the header a lot. You might want to change the word “aspiring” to something more positive like “young.” And saying that, do you want to be seen as a journalist or a memoirist? In other words, your topics are all about you, which is fine, but I’d like to see more of a journalism emphasis in the posts. Like maybe some facts/reasearch to back up the problems/conflicts in love. That way you’re reaching towards journalism but still exploring your personality. i.e. personal journalism. Hope that helps!

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      1. Thank you for the feedback- I’m definitely starting to develop that now, I’m currently handing out a questionnaire to gain some research and figures for my next blog post to sixth formers to find out if they knew what they wanted to do eg. What subject to study at university before choosing their alevels. Thank you for the advice that’s really helpful and will take it on board !

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  18. I fell behind with my Blogging 101 Assignments and have copied each of them to catch up. We have 1 week before 201 starts, should I complete 101 assignments before I sign up?

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  19. One of the things I want to learn is how to reassign or delete Categories I no longer use. I don’t want to delete the posts – they are easy to move to other categories, but I’d like to delete the categories I don’t use.

    Does anyone know how to do that?

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  20. Can’t wait for the challenge to kickstart ! I couldn’t b a part of blogging 101 even though I had registered but now I really want to give this my heart and soul ! đŸ™‚

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