NEW* 2015 Blog Planners

Now that 2015 is here and the Resolutions are here, getting more organized is #1 on most of our lists. I know it’s on mine, I have a problem staying organized if I don’t have a planner in front of me. I’ve took it upon myself to gather the best 2015 Blog Planners. Most are free, but there are some that are paid. There are even some other downloads such as blog goals, tax info, etc..

Free 2015 Mega Printable Blog Planner

This Free 2015 Mega Printable Blog Planner from SweetCSDesigns contains calendars, monthly income and expense tracking sheets, conference pack lists/ vendor networking sheets, invoice templates and tracking, as well as tons of to-do lists that are fantastic even if you aren’t a blogger!

Printable Fill It In

 

I also really like this 2015 Printable Fill-it in Planner from Color Me Meg. I am a sucker for all things colored, I just wish my printer ink wasn’t so darn expensive. I mean $30 per color cartridge? I call BS. LOL. Oh well, it’s better than buying a $40 that isn’t half as good as one of these though!

2015 Blog Planner (very detailed)

Image Source: confessionsofahomeschooler.com

Confessions of a Homeschooler made this bright, colorful, and totally FREE 2015 Blog Planner. If you’re ready to get going for the new year, then you definitely need to find a planner that fits YOUR needs. That you KNOW that you’ll use, something you LIKE.

2015 Blogging Goals

To make your (and my) life easier and more organized, The Nectar Collective created a two-page blog planner to help you work through what you’d like to accomplish with your virtual space this year. It’s a free, printable PDF and she includes any questions that she thought could be valuable.

 

If you are new to blogging you also need to read

these articles..

Protect Your Work:

Basic Legal Protections Every Blogger Should Know!

Work a full-time job?

How to Work Full-time and Blog

Hope this gets you on the path to successful blogging in 2015! Leave me links to posts that you’ve found helpful to YOUR blogging goals and dreams!

Blog 101: Create a Giveaway Winner Template

After you post your review, you will want to post your giveaway item. There are different giveaway lengths, depending on how long the company would want to run the campaign. Most giveaway sites will randomly choose a winner for you after the giveaway has ended.


I use Giveawaytools, which chooses a winner for me and then emails me. It makes is a lot easier for me. Then all I have to do is confirm the entries and email the winner. You want to send them something they can get excited about, don’t you?

You can make this process easier by creating a template for your emails, so you aren’t freehanding them every single time. You can create a template in any word processor. Most computers come with Microsoft Word sample, but I usually buy the CD every couple of years through Best Buy. Either way, you’ll need a document creation software.

-------------Document Creation Software-----------------------------

If you don’t NEED Microsoft Office, you can find free downloads to other word document software online. You can use Microsoft Online, but it isn’t the same as having it downloaded.
With other FREE software, you will have limitations that Word doesn’t- like text and image insertion will definitely be different. You can always use Google Docs, which I love.

Here are some to download that resemble Word but are free: OpenOffice, AbiWord. & Jarte
. It does take some creative thought, so it’s better to work with a sample to begin with. Here are some things to include:

• Let your winner know that they won your contest/giveaway/sweepstakes, and let them know how they were chosen.
• Were they randomly selected? Or were they selected manually because you chose them as the winner of your (recipe, photo, or other) contest?

    Ex: You have been randomly selected as a winner in the Softsoap Giveaway on Stylish Southern Mama.
               or Out of all the photo entries, yours was chosen as the winner because it was… (the best. the cutest, most inspiring… etc)

              You can see here: INSERT GIVEAWAY URL

• Explain that you’ll need their address and phone number to send their prize (and that it’s FOR shipping purposes only and you won’t give out their information- that it is strictly confidential.

          (and include whether it’s coming directly from YOU or from the company)

• Also give them a time limit to accept the email and respond. I know stuff happens and people miss emails; I’ve done it a thousand times.. but your company is going to want you to choose a winner pretty quickly. Normally winners have 48-72 hours to respond to the winning email.
• You’ll want to close with a signature and information to your blog + social media, so your winner knows your email isn’t a fake one. There tends to be a lot of spam sent and they need to know you’re legit.

Here I will show you with Google Docs.
Click the blue link above.--------

You will see Documents that you’ve already created. Look to the right, down at the bottom. You’ll see a little + circle

When you hover over that circle it will say… New document. Click it.

Start thinking of what you want to add to your giveaway template. You can always go back and change it if you need to, don’t worry.


Make sure to end the email with a signature and your links to your site/social media.
How to create an email signature
Google Apps Email Signature

After you create your signature, you’ll want to insert it into your Document


Look at the top of your document and click insert.. it will dropdown- then click image


You’ll find your image located in your folders.


I keep mine in a file named “signature”.


Now you can save it… label it “giveaway winner template” so you can easily get to it.
You could also insert an image before the email to grab the email recipient.


I whipped this one up and added it to the top of my Google Docs without a problem.


If you just want to use mine you can see it: Giveaway Winner Template
copy and paste it into your own document-please do NOT edit mine…

Now to create your email.


Copy your google document and paste it into your email. This isn’t going to insert your images, you’ll have to manually do that.

Thanks and good Luck

11 Awesome Places to Promote & Submit Your Giveaway

As bloggers, we ask the same question every time – where are the best places to submit giveaways? Where will the giveaways will get seen by people who want to enter? But isn’t spammy and gets considerable traffic?

Here are the answers. These are websites that are up-to-date with their postings (meaning the authors have recently been posting to their sites), and get tons of traffic who want to see your giveaways. Post away!

Also, if you’re a reader LOOKING for more giveaways, by all means visit these sites. You cannot join the FB groups, but you can enter giveaways on the websites. (and good luck☼)

 

Giveaway Promote- Giveaway Promote is ran by a good blogger friend of mine, Bridget Gillian. She has an amazing site for both adding your giveaways and finding others. If you’re a blogger, she will let you submit your giveaway for free. You can pay just a small amount to be promoted at the top of the site as well. (which is better because MANY people are looking to her for the most amazing giveaways). You’ll find everything- gift cards, money, electronics, kitchen gadgets, cloth diapers…etc. SO much more.

Submit your giveaway here: Giveaway Promote

 

Makobi Scribe- Makobi Scribe is a blogger just like the rest of us, but she put a new giveaway linky up monthly I think. You just submit your giveaway to the linky list, takes about 3 seconds.

Submit Your giveaway here: Makobi Scribe

 

Contest Corner- Another blog dedicated to bringing the best giveaways and letting you submit them. Doesn’t take very long, captcha is required (although it’s the 3 number captcha)

Submit your giveaway here: Contest Corner

 

Mom Bloggers Club- You’ll have to sign up for Mom Bloggers Club, but it’s something you want to do as a blogger anyway. Mom Bloggers Club is filled with sources of information and some amazing bloggers along the way.

Submit your Giveaway here: Mom Bloggers Club

 

Etsy Giveaways- This is just what it sounds like, a place to submit your giveaways from Etsy shops. So that people who want to win handmade goods, don’t have to sift through a giant pile.

Submit your giveaway here: Etsy Giveaways

 

Giveaway Monkey- This site is dedicated to giveaways and contests, although it isn’t like a sweeping website (which I find a little spammy and hard to sift through). This is a great website! Submit your giveaway right at the top!

Submit your giveaway here: Giveaway Monkey

 

Giveaway Bandit- This is an amazing giveaway submission site, although it’s more than that. It’s a regular blog as well, but people definitely visit to see the giveaways. I definitely love how everything is organized within certain categories right in the tab. Makes it easy to move around.

Submit Your Giveaway here: Giveaway Bandit

 

Bloggy Giveaways- This is also a site dedicated to the blog giveaways floating around.. Your giveaway must be live and at least $75 to be able to submit it. But the site also has a linky to submit those that aren’t.

Submit your giveaway here: Bloggy Giveaways

 

 

FB Groups

Blog Giveaways-List Yours Here

Blog Giveaways & Sweepstakes

Giveaway Listings

 

Know any more amazing sites to list or find giveaways? drop me a comment..

 

Blog Tip: Figure Out a Link for a Scheduled Post on Blogger

 

In the blogging world, being able to schedule posts is a god send. It allows you to have the freedom of writing whenever and wherever you want. Say you know that you’re going on a vacation in 2 weeks, you could schedule posts for that entire week. They would post while you were away on vacation and your readers will still be happily reading what you write. There won’t be a gap of no posting.

Or say that you have a fixed schedule for writing. You write on your schedule that you have 2-3 hours every couple of days dedicated to just blogging. You could write out all your posts in those couple of hours and still have free days. Genius, right?

Well, what if you have signed up with a company that need their review or giveaway URL? What do you do then? There is a way to figure out a link for a scheduled post, so no worries. You could write it AND give them the pre-determined URL so you are on track for EVERYTHING.

This is also handy if you post other bloggers giveaways. You can go ahead and schedule it even if the giveaway doesn’t start until a week from the time you posted. I tend to forget if I don’t send the link ASAP.

SO- now onto HOW to find out what your link will be.

Step 1.

Go to your blogs homepage URL. Scroll down a bit and click on a post that you recently posted.

AS you can see the last thing I posted was a review of the Sol Republic Deck Speaker. SO if I click on it, I get the URL of that review.

If you look closely you can see that the title of my blog post “Sol Republic Deck Bluetooth Speaker” matches the URL. http://sewcraftable.blogspot.com/2014/09/sol-republic-deck-bluetooth-speaker.html That tells you what you need to know.

You’ll need to look at the patterns. For instance, The Blog Post

 

becomes the URL>> http://sewraftable.blogspot.com/2014/09/office-organization-with-post-it-review.html

the common denominator will always be your homepage (mine http://sewcraftable.blogspot.com) plus the /year/month that the post is made. The date is always separated by slashes /.

THEN you’ll start with the first word. See how my URL is highlighted in yellow? Followed by the year/date in red? THEN the blog post title separated by hyphens in blue?

If your post starts with “A” or “The” you will not add those in. It automatically adds the first REAL word, skips A and the every time. For instance, If I was to write a post called “The Sample Post” my URL would be http://sewcraftable.blogspot.com/2014/09/sample-post.html

Get my drift? It isn’t that hard if you’re willing to shoot a little guessing at times. It isn’t that hard once you get the hang of everything!

Did this help you? I’d love for you to share it.

Check all the other Blogging Tips and Tricks I’ve written!

 

Until next time,

Jessica