therunnerwithin

This past weekend I was able to attend a conference from the comfort of my own home. The inaugural Blog Well Summit is a virtual conference for healthy living and wellness bloggers. This summit covered topics regarding Blog Design, Development & Branding. It was an intriguing concept as the conference covered one blogging topic in depth with a series of video learning sessions, interviews with leading influencers, panel discussions and social media events.

The organizers kept things social, regardless of everything being virtual, by hosting a Cocktail mixer via Google Hangout, Twitter Chat, Instagram Bingo, Virtual 5K, and a LIVE Body Blast and Cardio workout.

I joined in on the Cocktail mixer, minus the cocktail lol, I didn’t stay too long as my connection wasn’t very good and the video stream kept buffering but it was great to be able to come together at the end of the day to recap the days sessions, ask questions and discuss what is on the agenda for the next days events. I also got involved with the Twitter Party, Instagram Bingo and the Virtual 5k!

So you may be asking, ‘how does a virtual conference work?’ To answer your question, each of the conference session were available for 24 hours. This was a free service to most followers, however, you had the option of upgrading to full conference pass where you could purchase lifetime access to all the video sessions plus receive special workbooks and resource guides.

The sessions were filled with valuable information that I am looking forward to applying in revamping my blog and for future use of my blog. It’s hard to narrow down which session in particular was my favorite, but some that make my top five include:

Planning Your Design by Laura Williams

Laura discussed web users and how to understand them as well as the patterns they follow when it comes to viewing your site. She gave great advice on how to clean up my bog via the homepage and sidebar.

When You Start on Social, a live panel with Carly Rowena, YouTuber & Personal Trainer and Tosh McKinnon over at Dumbbell Divas

These wonderful ladies gave some awesome advice on how to build your fan base from social media to your blog. For me, I had the blog first and am trying to jump on the social media platform. I feel I can still take their recommendations and apply them to my situation. Some of their tips included sharing your information across all social media platforms, offering giveaways, having good descriptions for organic search, replying to your followers to keep traffic going, etc.

FTP: How to Fix You Blog if it Breaks by Lance Williams

Lance showed us how to fix the “white screen of death” via FTP (file transfer protocol) and provided several free links that offer FTP services. I will definitely be keeping these notes on file, should I ever need to access them 😉

Creating a Simple Header by Rita Barry

Rita chatted about the pre-work involved when designing a header like the dimensions needed, potential background color and font as well as your color hues. She then used a pretty cool site called PicMonkey.com to give viewers a tutorial on how to create a simple header. My blog definitely lacks a header and tag line, so I am very excited to put this site to use in creating a header for my blog.

Creating Stand Out Blog Graphics by Rita Barry

Again, Rita gave viewers a tutorial, this time on how to create some great graphics on PicMonkey.com. Along with the tutorial, Rita kindly shared a list of helpful resources for free photos, fonts, textures and patterns, etc. Without a doubt, I will be taking advantage of these resources and compiling a master list of bookmarks in my web browser so I can always access these sites.

I am so glad I was able to attend this event, a special Thank You to Lance and Laura over at Girls Gone Sporty and Rita with Blog Genie for organizing and hosting this one-of-a-kind event!  I can’t wait to put all the tools and tips to work in redesigning my blog. 🙂

Did you attend the Blog Well Summit? If so, what was your favorite session?