Ahhh, the last day. Becoming a Better Blogger says:

Take a day off blogging. You’ve earned it! Set aside some time to reflect on the thirty things you’ve done this month to improve your blog. You really should be proud of yourself.

I have learned so much this month and hopefully my blog is better for it. I have a few things I still need to implement and I will be working on those this coming month. Hopefully you have been making changes to your own blog. If not I hope that you do your own 31 Day Challenge. Good luck!

Today’s Becoming a Better Blogger is a fun one. Everyone loves to win something.

Hold a small competition with a modest prize. Whether it’s an eBook, a free consultation, a DVD or a CD, a small prize and a small competition can help boost reader engagement and participation in your blog without denting your finances too much.

This can be a very low cost way to get more traffic to your blog and reward one of your readers. The pirze doesn’t have to be costly. I found a really helpful link from Lynn Terry about running a blog competition. It has 9 tips on everything from choosing a prize to setting requirements for the contest. I found it very helpful and I hope that you do too.

Today’s Becoming a Better Blogger task is about networking.

Start a dialogue with another blogger in your niche. Say hello, offer your help, comment on a post they’ve written — however you do it, send an email to another blogger in your niche and don’t ask anything of them. If you can strike up a conversation (or at least a connection) there may be future opportunities where you can do a favor for the other blogger and, later, have that favor returned.

This task is a great way to build your network of contacts. I have found that who you know in this business can make a huge difference in your success. It is also nice to have someone you can talk to and commiserate with on a personal level. Sure I have friends in real life, but most of them do not understand what I do. The people I have met in the business have been so helpful to me on both a professional and personal level. If there is a blog in your niche that you have been reading or just discovered, send that person an email saying hi. Everyone loves getting a nice email.

This is a task that I normally have a very hard time with. Becoming a Better Blogger recommends emptying out your email inbox today:

Process your email inbox to empty. You’ll need to answer your emails eventually, so why not do it today? An empty inbox is a welcome sight for any blogger.

Tons of unanswered email in your inbox is like any other clutter in your life. A small pile becomes a big one until it becomes so overwhelming you don’t know where to begin. Start with the newest first and the just get through it. If your inbox is anything like mine, then the majority of it is spam and expired ads anyway. Get this task over with and you will feel so much better. Then keep it up and make it a goal to answer your email everyday.

Today’s Becoming a Better Blogger task may seem like a large one but it could payoff in the end.

Spend two hours or more on a single post. If you spend a lot of time on a single post you’re likely to end up with a lot of value in one place. Investing extra time in a post can result in some pretty cool rewards.

This is a great day to work on a larger post, say the resource list from Day 8 or a product review. A several part “How to” article is also a great idea. You want to write something that gives value to your readers and may draw in new ones as well. Block out some time today and start writing!

Today’s task focuses on ways of bringing traffic to your site by joining forums that pertain to your niche.

Join a popular forum in your niche. A link back to your blog in your forum signature can generate more incoming traffic than a dozen comments spread over multiple blogs.

It can be super easy to find a forum in your niche with a quick Google search. It is a good idea to find a few quality forums though and work on being a valuable member of the community rather than spamming your link all over the boards. Most allow you to place a link in your signature. People will be much more likely to click through the link if you are courteous and helpful. Plus you may learn a thing or two and make some great friends!

Having an easily identifiable brand is very important in business. The authors of Becoming a Better Blogger believe this is true for blogs as well.

Design a custom logo for your blog, or get someone to do it for you. Blog branding is essential. If you’re using a free theme without any distinct branding, your blog will probably end up looking like at least a dozen other blogs using the same theme. If you have any ability with image editing software, design a custom logo. Even using a distinctive, free font to write your blog’s name in big letters can do the job adequately. If you want to go the extra step, you can pay a freelancer or logo design company to brand your blog.

No one wants their blog to look just like someone else’s. That would be like showing up at a party and wearing the same dress as three other girls. Creating a distinct look can be as simple as having a logo made. I have used Got Logos in the past and been very happy with their work. And with a pricetag of $25, it fits into many budgets.

This is also a great opportunity to barter work with someone. Or maybe try your own hand at creating a simple logo using graphics software. There are some great graphic design tutorials out there.

My blog already has a custom logo. I imagine I will change it someday as my blog becomes more popular (and income goes up). For now it works. And I like my cute little elf

Advertising to draw visitors to your blog need not be expensive. In fact the authors of Becoming a Better Blogger say that you can get a sizable amount of traffic by spending just $5.

Buy a $5 StumbleUpon advertising campaign for your best post. $5 buys roughly 300 visitors. If some of those StumbleUpon visitors end up adding more votes to your article, the result could be a traffic snowball much larger than the one you paid for!

They even add a link to a great tutorial on Problogger for advertising on StumbleUpon. I have not done any advertising for this blog yet. Mostly because it is my online progress report for myself. I do hope that someone will learn something here though. The tutorial even offers tips on what kind of page that StumbleUpon users are interested in and one that will get them coming back with free traffic once enough people vote it up. A $5 advertising campaign is a great start though and gives you a lot of room to see what works and what doesn’t.

The month of March is flying by. Here it is, day 23 of the Becoming a Better Blogger project. I feel that my blog is in much better shape and I have a much clearer to do list of things to finish. Today’s task is about SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, for your blog.

Do some SEO on your blog. SEO can be tricky, but if you know a little bit about it, set aside a day to revise and tweak your blog’s SEO.

They even provide a handy link on a beginner’s guide to search engine optimization. This can be a large task, so set aside a few hours to read and then implement what you learn. This could also be a great opportunity to barter work with someone in the field. You may have a skill that is useful to an SEO expert such as designing a logo or writing some great content for them.

Day 22 of Becoming a Better Blogger talks about a great way to add fresh content to your blog while possible bringing in new readers as well:

Ask someone to guest-post on your own blog. If you’re friendly with another blogger, invite them to write on your own blog. If your blog is more popular than theirs you’ll have a better chance of being accepted. A guest-poster can inject a bit of freshness into your blog and, most importantly, allow you to focus on tasks other than content creation for a day.

I have never had a guest blogger on my blog. The mechanics are pretty simple in WordPress. You can create a new user account in your Dashboard and set that person to author level. That would give them access to post their own words. Or you could cut and paste. Make sure you include their byline and give them a link back to their website or blog. Most likely they would post about their appearance on their own blog bringing you traffic and an incoming link.

The difficult part is finding someone to guest blog. Most likely you know a fellow blogger and you could ask them. Maybe even ask to do a blog swap for the day where you post on their blog and they post on yours. Which would also take care of Day 7′s task. It would be best to find a guest blogger in your niche. It may be as easy as contacting someone from your blogroll or that regularly comments on your site. Or you could do a search for blogs in your niche and find an author that you click with.