Bloggiesta! Finish Line

This is my wrap-up post for the Bloggiesta Weekend. Danielle of There’s A Book and Suey of It’s All About Books hosted the event! Don't worry if you missed this Bloggiesta, there will be another one from September 28-30!
I had a list of 20 things I wanted to accomplish this weekend (I put off the time consuming and scary things). I accomplished 13 of my 20 goals though, and decided that one wasn't really needed during this Bloggiesta so it will be postponed and put on the list for September's weekend event.

Here's what I accomplished:

• Organize/Purge Google Reader, I haven't looked at my reader in months because it scares me, so I'm going to tackle that this weekend
  • Went from 365 to 280 subscriptions & all are organized into folders now :)
• Edit posts to new template, some of my old reviews are still in my old format so I want to make everything uniform (or try to)
  • Finally done! Man I had some BAD coding on some of those posts.
• Edit sidebars, I have to go through what I have on my sidebars and see what can be changed/removed
  • Removed some unneeded content
• Find new social media icons, I only have 4 featured of the 8 that I would like to feature, and I'd like to make them all match so that'll be fun
  • Got 10 of my social media/follow buttons up now :)
• Set up Google Alerts, if I can figure these out I might do this (anyone with tips please let me know, I've read the tutorials and the keyword concept still confuses me a little)
  • Decided I really don't need these.
• Spread the word about my current giveaway, I have a giveaway going on (here) and it has little to no entries right now (which makes me sad)
  • I'll keep spreading the word, but for now I'm going to let it go and hope for the best
• Add Stats, like a hit counter, blogoversary countdown, and any others I can google to find more about
  • Added pageviews & visitors stats (not sure what else to add - suggestions welcome)
• Redesign layout, I need to make some changes to how the sidebars and overall design is laid out
  • I am pretty happy with the layout as is, I need to make a slight change to the blog roll (or delete it) since it doesn't work in IE, but that's more design than rearranging
• Organize Goodreads Shelves, I only have a little more organizing to do, but I want to keep on top of the blog's GR account
Run Blog "Grader" & Google Analytics, found this one through one of the mini challenges and it sounds interesting
• I scored an 84% on WebGrader, I'll continue to work on the things it told me to work on, but most of it is blog promotion. Google analytics is also now running in the background here :)
• Update review archive page
  • made a page for this since I actually deleted it a while ago. & I love how it works now!
• New (non-review) Post Ideas, I've been at a loss as to what I should focus attention on other than reviews on the blog, so I'm going to work on brainstorming some ideas.
  • I'm still open to suggestions for non-review posts!
• Promote the blog via Social Media, Pinterest is new for me, and kinda foreign, but I'm going to get "Pin It" buttons, and "Like" buttons for all my posts
  • Pin It & Like buttons are now on all posts :)

What I still need to accomplish:

• Type & Schedule reviews sitting in blog binder, I started hand writing my reviews (with a template) during my classes and have a bunch to type up and post so I want to get to this for sure this weekend
• Cross post reviews to Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, Shelfari accounts, I need to catch up on cross posts, then keep up with them from now on
• Review current Review Policies, my current policies are long and could probably use some work
• Create Contest Policies, hopefully I'll need these soon and want to be prepared for my first physical giveaway as well as other giveaways
• Plan Swag Giveaway, I have TONS of swag at my house, so I think I want to have a giveaway this summer, but I'm not sure what it will include, how many winners, etc so I want to plan that out
• Rewrite my "About" page
• Design: button (maybe), background, header, overall blog theme/design, I changed the blog design a couple months ago, but never really finished what I wanted to do with it (because I got lost and don't know where I want to go with the design actually). I need a header because just having the title up there isn't cutting it for me anymore (I like fun things) so now I have to figure out how to design things :)
• Decided I really don't need a new design right now... will postpone this until September Bloggiesta :)

I am still working on the last few items on this list.  I hope to finish most of the rest this week.  This has been a TON of fun, and it's been a lot of fun meeting new bloggers.

I feel like I accomplished a lot this weekend, even if it was just little stuff.  My updated social media buttons and the new "like"/"pin it" buttons are my favorite thing that I learned this weekend.  I loved the Twitter chat parties, even if I only caught 1.5 of them! (I sleep too late on the weekends, but that's okay).  Following the #Bloggiesta tag was great, I was always able to get help when I needed it.  I don't think I'd change a thing about how the event was run this time!