AHA Moments from the NYC Mini Bloggy Boot Camp

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I recently received an invitation to a Mini Bloggy Boot Camp with the SITS Girls in New York City. The event was sponsored by Invisalign, and was free to attend due to their generosity! Being in Connecticut, New York City is easy to drive to, and so I was very happy to attend! Little did I know how much I was going to learn during that evening!

As luck would have it (or perhaps fate!), Lisa Heffernan and Mary Dell Harrington from Grown and Flown sat down at the same table! I’d been reading their blog for several weeks and had been conversing back and forth with Lisa in comments. I was so excited to meet them! Although my kids have not “flown” yet, I am nearing that stage with one son who will be a junior in high school next year. Then Christine Yu from Love Life Surf came in and sat down right next to me. Christine is a fitness blogger. I handle social media for a company that makes athletic training gear, and several times I have tweeted her posts! So it was fun to introduce myself and connect with her in person!

I also had the opportunity to meet Angela Gilmore from Working On / Working Mom, a blogger who lives in the same town as me, about 5 minutes up the road, and who I had just met online a mere two weeks prior. How funny is that?!

Then as I was tweeting away (my favorite form of social media!) during the boot camp, I got a “wave” tweet from Nellie over at Brooklyn Active Mama who I met via the SITS Girls and who I have been tweeting with and socializing online with for months! She was at the next table over. During the appetizer break, we took a picture! I’m looking forward to seeing her again at the Bloggy Boot Camp in Charlotte. One thing I really love about blogging is the connections and meeting new people!

I should have also taken a picture with my good friend Steph Rufa, who I rode into the city with. Steph, like me, is a new blogger. We live in the same town…her oldest and my youngest went to preschool together 9 years ago and are still friends. Steph blogs at “So, I’ve Been Thinking…”  We’re also traveling to Charlotte together so I will make sure we take pictures then!

Our hosts, Tiffany Romero and Francesca Banducci, the two women behind the SITS Girls and Bloggy Boot Camp, were a wealth of information. I learned more in one evening than I have ever learned at any conference I have ever been to, and I have been to a lot of conferences over the years! I liked the small group atmosphere…definitely conducive to learning. I left with a much better understanding of SEO, and a lot of ideas on how to make my blog better.

My three biggest AHA moments from the Mini Bloggy Boot Camp in NYC:

My About Page can use some work. I knew this. But I’ve been putting it off, because I wasn’t quite sure what I should do to it. Thanks to a little direction from our hosts, I now have a clear idea of what I want to do. I plan to sit down this weekend and actually get it done. There, now that I have written that in a place where the world (at least my corner of it) is going to see it, I know I will do it!

I should be linking back to myself more. I had no idea how important this was. I do link back to myself on occasion when it’s relevant…obviously we want people to visit other posts in our blog, but what I never thought to do was, add in at the bottom of the post something like this: If you enjoyed this post, you might also enjoy… And then attach links to 3 other related posts that you’ve written.

Go back and SEO old posts. I doubt this thought would have ever crossed my mind. Back when I first started blogging, I wasn’t paying much attention to SEO, so I know there are things I can fix, including adding links to pictures!

There are plenty of other things that I learned, but those are the ones that stand out most in my mind. I have pages upon pages of notes of things I’d like to implement and change! I can’t wait for Bloggy Boot Camp in Charlotte to learn even more!

What’s your best blogging tip?