How Would I Use $750 to Grow My Blog?

The question has been asked by the National Association for the Self Employed (NASE), they want to know “How will you use $750 to grow your blog?” and my answer is this;

When I started this blog it was a venture into the unknown, a friend from my direct sales days became more like a sister to me and encouraged me to get into this Mom blogging world as a means to make some extra income and meet amazing people.  Since December 2008 I have changed the name of this blog once and grew it to nearly 2,000 subscribed readers with a following of over 16,000 on Twitter with my main account @brandyellen.

For little old me, living in New Hampshire all of my life, I honestly never thought that what I had to say would capture so many but it has. Many look to my blog as a way to see that life can suck sometimes but life can get better if only you learn how to focus on your positive energy found within. My mission is clear cut & relatively simple; I want to spread happiness one blog post at a time. I know I can make the life of others better simply by sharing my experiences in life, whether it is parenting troubles or other challenges tossed at me, writing about them and sharing how I overcame them really helps others to see that there is a light at the end of whatever they may going through.

With a grant to get my blog moving onto the next stage in it’s life I would start by making a change to my theme, at the moment a WordPress update broke my theme which is causing some errors, fixing this and updating my theme to a more user friendly and SEO version would be on my top priority list.  The next thing I would like to do with part of the grant money won is to make my blog more user friendly, create ways for people to share with me anonymously or not, what they are going through; sort of like a “what would positive Brandy Ellen do” series so that my readers can be more in touch with me on a personal level.

Last but certainly not least I would invest some time into cleaning up my design such as creating a new header by purchasing better picture editing software. Once all of the theme, design and interaction elements were done, I would work to create a web show whether via webcam or audio using one of the online websites that host such services. I would need to purchase a more reliable webcam and upgrade my current computer with some needs it has such as memory and processor speed to complete that step.

With the $750 grant from NASE I could easily complete all I have listed here and be able to better serve my readers in a more interactive way and take my blog to the next level of income.