May & June Reader Questions

Here are some reader questions that I received in May and June that I think might benefit you, too! Enjoy!! :D

Q: Through last few years I've been constantly coming back to idea of starting a blog... I did read through your post about how to start a blog.. and I know my content, I also know what I want my label to be and almost decided on a platform... 

the part that I'm struggling with is that what if nobody's gonna read my blog at all.. what is normal and what is not, I know that I will not get tons of people as I start, but how do you promote your blog and if you could share how did it go for you, how many people read you when you just started, how many people are reading now? 

I guess I wanted to ask you to please share the story of your blogging with me. 

Things like how did you start doing it, how did you decide that that is what you want to do, what did you struggle with what were your mistakes?

A: At first, I was having about 15-30 readers a day visit OC. I had think I hit 1,000 pageviews around my first month or two of blogging. Just watch your stats in the beginning: What are people reading? What are they not reading? Keep refining your content to fit your specific readership. 

Additionally, always check where your traffic is coming from! One of my tumblr posts was lucky enough to be reblogged by the Organized College Student (who had many more followers than me). This helped OC grow a lot very early on! As far as promoting posts, most of my traffic comes through Pinterest! 

So building up your Pinterest account is one of the best things you can do for your blog! Another great thing to do is to share smaller amounts of content and more photographs on Tumblr. Because Tumblr. uses hashtags, you can get your content in front of people who are already searching for it! 

Pinterest and Tumblr are great resources because they're easy to build up even if you don't have a ton of your own content yet... so you can kind of build your brand by reblogging and repinning content that's relevant to your niche (just be sure to always link back to the original content creators)!

Finally, for mistakes- I still don't promote each post as much as I should. Blogging is not my full time job, you know? So, it's hard to justify taking the time to share every post across every social media channel every time. You can never promote your content enough! 

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Q: I am going to be a sophomore in high school next year and I was wondering if you had some tips on my organization of my notes and handouts. This year I took six classes and did 1 inch binders for each class. It was a bit bulky to have all of those binders along with textbooks in my narrow locker and then into my backpack when I had to take them home.

A: For notes and handouts, I would suggest following the systems in this post:

http://organizedcharm.blogspot.com/2014/04/class-folder-organization.html

And for note organization, I would suggest following the system in this post:

http://organizedcharm.blogspot.com/2014/10/note-organization-checklist.html 

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Q: Most of my classmates do a folder and notebook for each class. I like that idea but I like to go home and rewrite my notes in colorful pens. I am afraid I would run out of pages in my notebook quickly and it would be unorganized because I would have the class notes and then the notes that I rewrote at home. 

A: Get a folder and a notebook for each class. Keep the handouts on the left side of the folder and your graded assignments on the right side. Take "sloppy" notes in mechanical pencil in the notebook. When you go home, rewrite the notes the way you want them to look. Then put them in a "study binder". Save all of your neatly, rewritten notes in this binder, use tabs to divide the different classes, and refer to this organized notebook when you're preparing for a big test! 

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Q: I am entering college as a freshmen in 2 months, and Im terrified. I need amazing grades to get into graduate school, and amazing grades come with organization. 

A: Don't even start worrying about grad school until your senior year! Once you get into the rhythm of semesters, college won't be scary at all! Just have fun, relax, and work hard.  

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Q: I noticed your post on Top 10 Semester essentials, and I was wondering if you could elaborate on your "4-calendar" "color-coded" "obsessive organization" system. 

A: For the sake of "college life", I would only suggest 1-2 planners. 1 for normal everyday life and one for schoolwork. I like to be veeeery detailed when planning out my study time, so that's why I have an academic planner just for that! My husband and I also have a calendar in our house (the Post-It one), where we keep track of each other's schedules and social commitment, etc. The 4th one I use is my lesson planner for teaching.