At the beginning of August 2007, Problogger Darren Rowse began a series of posts on how to build a better blog. Although I'd been a long-time fan of Darren's blog and had bookmarked a number of his posts before, I realized that I'd never really tried to implement the kinds of changes he suggested.
On a whim, I decided to conduct a learning experiment where I would follow along with Darren's posts each day, implementing them on my blog, and then I would share with my readers what I had learned. I then took it a step further and invited other bloggers to join with me. Thus was the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Challenge born.
Over the next month, about 40 other brave bloggers (including a class of 9 year-olds from Australia!) went through each of Darren's exercises, sharing our experiences along the way. All of us built a strong bond to one another. We also found that our blogs improved dramatically. I wanted to share what I learned with others, so this page archives my experiences.
If you're interested in learning and growing as a blogger, you can join us at the Building A Better Blog community where we now do weekly blog challenges and discuss blogging issues, like how to manage your boss when he/she finds out your blogging and how you can use blogs to support personal and professional development.