You see, while I was off for several months spending my time learning about systems of exponential inequalities, meiosis, Edgar Allen Poe, and the Black Death, I happened to leave my personal life (AKA everything I do other than school) in a state of jeopardy. Don't worry, regardless of what it may sound like, it's nothing tragic. It was simply this: I didn't have time to even think about anything non-academic at all. I don't hate school, so don't misunderstand it that way; I think its great that society has figured out a way to educate future generations to make sure that the knowledge they gain will shape a better future. It's far from perfect, but I'll take it. Anyways, I have gotten quite sidetracked, but I am trying to get to one particular point. What was it? Oh yeah, the title of this post, of course! What, you think you were going to have to continue to listen to a kid whine about how school reduces his free time, for another dozen paragraphs? Of course not! The title of this post and the reason you clicked on it in the first place was so I could talk about one thing: Summer.
When you hear the word "summer", you may be thinking of quite a few different things: The season that happens during the months of June-August, relaxing at a sandy beach with friends, and when you can take a break from school/work (depending on your school/job). The main reason I made this post was for the latter: Taking a break from school. Why else would I spend a paragraph talking about the cons of school?: Because it's finally (temporarily) over, that's why!
The arrival of Summer Break means several things for me, all of which are positive. It means the beach, good weather, going to visit my family in Turkey during August, and the one thing that school couldn't give me: Free time. That's right, now I have two full months to myself, free to do anything I want without worrying about having to complete work or get good grades. What will I use this time for? First of all, typical summer stuff: Going to the beach, hanging out with my friends, going to camp, and playing on my Nintendo Switch (Breath of the Wild isn't going to finish itself, you know). Second of all, and perhaps the most important: Blogging. In case you haven't noticed, over the past school year, my blog hasn't exactly been doing so great. And I'm not talking about the quality of my writing; That has so far been great, perhaps at my all-time greatest. I'm talking about how much exposure it has gotten. You see, while views aren't exactly everything when it comes to blogging, a good piece of writing isn't that good if no one gets to read it in the first place. If you don't have much exposure, then how are other people going to be able to see all your hard work, and find out about your wonderful ideas (which is the sole purpose of blogging, by the way).
Due to the fact that in 7th grade all I had time for outside of school was sleeping, eating, blinking, and breathing, it stands to reason that my blog already had one problem: Barely any posts would happen, and once I finally did post them (which wasn't very frequent, only once or twice a month), my blog traffic had slowed down so much as a result of my writing drought that they gained only a fraction of the amount that they used to. Despite how terrible this all seemed, I still had hope. Why? Because summer was on the horizon.
Its a cycle I am used to, after experiencing it for four years over and over again. School starts, I make a few posts per month and my views are decent. But once summer comes around, I have the freedom to write every single day, producing quality content and gaining an exponentially greater amount of views than I ever could have if I was still in school. This is a process I have repeated every single year since I started this blog back in 2014 (which seems like a lifetime ago, I know). Last year, though, was something special. In the summer of 2017, posted just about every single day (which was normal, considering it was summer), but not only that, well... Dang, those views!!!, would be exactly what my thoughts were the moment I published a new piece of writing. My brain was overflowing with ideas, and what better way to use them than to turn them into content for my blog? I got a total of around 38 thousand additional views, which in case you can't tell, is an awful lot for just three months of time! In addition to that, July 2017 ended up having my highest amount of monthly views I have had so far: 14.8 thousand additional views in just a month! Judging by what I have told you so far, I am sure that you can deduce for yourself that if summer is so amazing for my blog, then school would be the opposite. And how right that was, in the worst way possible. Instead of describing it in words, let me just show you a good ol' fashioned graph:
Yep, as soon as school came around, that chart went sinking to the ground faster than a ship full of anvils in the middle of a lake. So you can probably tell why I am so happy that summer has finally arrived once more. Now that I have plenty of time on my hands, I will be able to make much more posts. More time leads to more posts. More posts lead to more views. More views lead to more blog exposure.
Seeing as I am already one month short on time due to my road trip that happened immediately after I left school (meaning I couldn't make more posts in June), I only have two months left of summer. In August, however, I will be spending most of my time on vacation in Turkey so I may not be able to post very often. This all leads to one shocking conclusion: July will basically be the only month this year that I will be able to blog every single day.
Last year, I had all three months available, so this wasn't an issue. However, this year, with just over a month of summer in which I can blog frequently, I decided that I must create some sort of strategy. You know, a plan of attack, a master technique, something that will ensure that this month I can give it my all when it comes to blogging. Last year, I just blogged about whatever I felt like, and it worked out fine view-wise. However, it isn't always easy to find something to write about, and sometimes I would make similar posts for several days in a row (example: two solid weeks of video game posts), leaving my viewers with not much variety to boot. So that is why I came up with the ultimate strategy: A blogging schedule.
My Summer Blogging Schedule (and Upgrade 8.5)
NOTE: The image above was edited entirely by me, and I put a lot of effort into it. It is my brand new background for my Google+ Profile, and I even used it to make my brand new summer profile picture (shown below).
This summer, I will post once every day, but with a very specific schedule. That means that on certain days of the week, the genre of posts I make will be different. On Wednesdays I'll post stories, on Thursdays game reviews, Saturdays will be dedicated to Star Wars, etc. If you would like to see the specific schedule, you can read each of the descriptions below.
Sundays: Talking about my life- To start out each and every week, I will discuss a bit about my personal doings that previous week, what I did, and what my plans are for my blog. This will be my place to just have a casual talk with my viewers, make a few announcements, and discuss what I am working on. This is also the day that my blog schedule for the specific week will be posted, so stay tuned until the end of each Sunday post to see it. Since I wasn't able to make a post yesterday, which was Sunday, due to my road trip in Maine, this post counts as today's official "Sunday post", even though it's technically a Monday right now.
Mondays: Movie/Book Reviews- Seeing as they proved to be quite popular when I made them last summer, I will continue my tradition of making weekly book reviews this time around as well. I read books quite often so this will be my time to talk about them, critique them, and discuss my thoughts on them. Every once in a while, Mondays may also have a movie review instead of a book review, but that won't happen quite as often.
Tuesdays: Nintendo News Roundup- I will talk about the recent happenings concerning Nintendo, the Switch, and sometimes even gaming as a whole on Tuesdays. This will talk about the happenings of the previous seven days (at the time of each post) only.
Wednesdays: Story Time- You probably know by now how much I love to write stories, so each Wednesday I will share all of you guys a new one on my blog. These will either be fictional stories or true stories that talk about what has happened to me before during my life. After the first story, which will be this Wednesday, I will invite my viewers to make story requests and vote for which one they would like to see next through Google Forms linked at the end of each story.
Thursdays: Game Reviews- I happen to have a lot of video games at my house that I would love to make reviews on. On Thursdays, I will give my thoughts on certain games, rate them, and discuss whether or not I enjoyed it and thought it was good.
Fridays: RANDOM- Of course, not everything in life has to be perfectly scheduled. Sometimes there is breaking news that I really want to talk about, or just posts that apply to none of these categories, or even ones that I wouldn't have time to share otherwise. When you look at my blog on a Friday, you will have no idea what to expect; It can be anything! Think of Fridays as a "free space" on the bingo board known as my blogging schedule.
Saturdays: Star Wars- I talk about anything that has to do with Star Wars, whether its news that I want to talk about having to do with the franchise, or just my random thoughts and theories. Sometimes there might even be Top 10 lists or rankings of characters, movies, etc.
Why did I choose to make a blog schedule?
Good question! Having a schedule for blogging is better for many reasons. One, it lets me do blogging in an organized way where I don't have to waste time thinking of ideas to write about. Two, it provides my viewers with variety every single day, so there is always content that is unique and different rather than several days of the same thing. And finally, it lets users choose what type of content they want to see. How? Well, think of it this way: Let's say that Bob (who I made up, by the way), really likes my book reviews. He only likes reading my book reviews and doesn't really care about anything else my blog offers. Well, with my brand new blogging schedule, Bob no longer has to keep checking my blog to see whether I made a book review. He just knows to look at my blog on Mondays, since then he will be guaranteed to find a book review. This can be applied to just about any other of the categories shown above. Don't care about Star Wars, but love Nintendo? No problem, just check out my blog on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This is so much more flexible for a variety of viewers, and I am not isolating my audience just because I happen to have too many different interests (I admit it, its the truth lol).
What other new features did you add to your blog in Upgrade 8.5?
Upgrade 8.5 is one of the first few upgrades that will revolutionize my blog, AKA making a new thing altogether. By the time September rolls around, let's just say that I will begin a "Blogging Renaissance", changing my blog's identity for the better. But that just can't happen right away and needs to be slowly worked out over a steady stream of small upgrades. Upgrade 8.5 fits that exact description. While a part of it is only temporary, such as the summer schedule and my brand new summer logo (shown above), a few things are also permanent.
Without further ado, here is the full list of features!
TTHT Upgrade 8.5 Changelog:
- A temporary summer logo, complete with vibrant, fun, summer-themed colors! The top half is a light teal, accurately representing the color of seawater at the beach. The bottom fades into a bright neon yellow, which is a perfect symbol of all things summer: The sand at the beach, sweet and yummy pinneaples, and the sunshine that shines every so brightly when you are outside!
- Now will be the first time that I will be regularly taking advantage of Blogger's post labeling feature. What does that mean? Think of post labels as ways I can categorize each post. For example, the tags at the end of this post are "blog upgrades", "personal blogs", and "summer". If you want to see other similar posts to the one you're reading right now, just click on any of the tag links on the top right side of any post. Clicking on them will take you to a list of other posts with the same labels. For example, if you liked one of my Star Wars posts and wanted to find other SW-related posts quickly, just click the label "Star Wars" to be brought to a list of other similar posts. I am going to add labels to each and every one of my summer posts this year as a way to catch up, but I happen to be four years late on using this feature! Once I label all my summer posts, my previous years of posts will slowly have labels appearing below them, one-by-one, but keep in mind that it will take some time before my dream of neatly labeling and sorting all my blog posts will come into fruition.
- I will post daily during the entire month of June, and the last week of August, following the specific schedule that I discussed above, right above the "Changelog" title. I highly recommend you read it. If you want to see it on a separate page, go here: http://www.arcabaran.com/p/summer-2018-blog-schedule.html
_________________________________________________________________________________
Every summer post will have a part at the bottom, underneath a horizontal line, that marks the end of my post and the start of the description. In the description, I will say stuff like this:
I hope you enjoyed this post! If you liked this personal post that I made today, be sure to view again on Sundays to see more of them. I also happen to post every single day during the summer months, so be sure to click the subscribe button at the top of my blog so you can receive email notifications whenever I make a new post. (These notifications even contain a very convenient preview of the post before you click on my blog!) Tomorrow is Tuesday, meaning that it is Nintendo News day on my blog. Tomorrow I will write about the Nintendo news of the past week: Smash Bros Ultimate ignores Waluigi, a brand new special edition cardboard-designed Nintendo Switch console, and more. Feel free to leave your thoughts and suggestions in the comments below, but remember to stay positive as I need to approve comments before they become public. Stay tuned, and I hope you enjoy the vast amount of blogging content that is soon to come! :)
Here is a link to my previous post, in which I talk about leaving for my road trip to Maine: http://www.arcabaran.com/2018/06/but-wait-theres-more.html
Here are some other blogs you may like.
Onur’s Blog- First Step, Next Step, This Step: My little brother got inspired by me to start his own blog too! He writes mostly about Nintendo and posts just as often as he gets to take turns using my computer. Here it is: https://onur3.blogspot.com/
Burak’s Blog: My AABO buddy Burak has written about very similar topics that I do, over on his own blog. I highly recommend you check it out, so here it is: http://biloglu.blogspot.com/ He even figured out how to intricately code and host his own website, and I have to say I’m quite impressed by it: http://buraksblogmore.com/
My YouTube Channel: I also happen to have a brand new YouTube channel, and will post videos there from time to time. It is called ArcaVids, and you can see it here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeLK4m7tp3K1q2eMxkbQ91g
My Google+ Profile: This is the place to go to see links to new posts, exclusive behind-the-scenes information on my blog, and sometimes there will be polls to decide which blog posts you want to see next. I also post plenty of spicy memes, if that's what you're into. You can tag me via +ArcaBaran Here it is: https://plus.google.com/+ArcaBaran
This is Arca, signing off. Bye for now!
Comments
Post a Comment
Feel free to give positive feedback, reactions, or suggestions in the comments! All comments can be seen by me before they are public. I can choose to approve them or not.