Blogging Win: We Won a Liebster Award! Wait, What's that?

Blogging win: We won a Liebster Award! It’s little a win, but it’s a small, important one. We accepted the Liebster Award from Polished on Purpose! Kristen the voice and face behind Polished on Purpose and writes about everything home based. If you want lifestyle, beauty and home articles then she is the blog to check out.

Our blog has been around since we left for New Zealand to explore the North and South island back in 2015. This year we started taking our blog more seriously and joining Facebook groups to help our growth. Honestly before today we had never heard about this Liebster Award, so we did a bit of Googling and we can certainly get behind this idea.

What is the Liebster Award?

It’s not an award with a panel of judges or anything like that. Alternatively the Liebster Award is a way for bloggers to recognize other bloggers. Especially up and coming blogs. In other words it’s all about exposure. AHHHH The golden word!

Blogs are all about finding and growing audiences. The Liebster Award allows growing blogs to be exposed to a much wider audience via their blogging companions. Simply put, it’s a way for bloggers to recognize new blogs, discover new audiences, and welcome new bloggers to the community.

What an awesome community!

While the Liebster award is not a physical award you can display on your shelf, it instead lives on the internet. Much like 90% of the 21st Century. Amiright?!?!

What do you do when you get one?

While there are ‘rules’ for receiving the Liebster Award, is no specific ones. It appears as though they change every once and a while. But when you get that coveted e-mail and outbound link on another blog this is what you can choose to do:

Think of it as a way to discover and get to know other blogs and their writers. Then accept it and answer the questions and pass it along.

OR

You can find it annoying and useless, delete the e-mail and stop the chain.

What if I want to accept the Liebster Award?

Well that’s awesome! Here are a few things you should do next:

Write up a post to thank the person who nominated you. Check out their blog to discover a bit about them if you don’t already know anything about their blog (since that’s the point of this whole thing). In your post write a little snippet about their blog.

You’ll also want to upload the Liebster Award image somewhere in the post. Or perhaps on your sidebar if you want it to stick around on all your pages for your audience to see. Another bonus of this award is the moment people see that word but don’t know what it is they get all excited and find your blog a lot more credible. Afterwards just answer the questions your nominator sent you.

That’s where a bit more of the work comes in.

Now that you’ve answered all the questions you will want to pass it along. After-all the Liebster Award is a chain meant to expose your blog and other blogs. Can’t do that without nominating others right? Pick anywhere from 5-10 new-ish bloggers to nominate. If you’re wondering what to consider new, we would say a blog with less than 1,000 followers or whatever you see suitable. Create a list of these blogs at the bottom of your post and link to their pages.

Google loves links, so that’s a huge bonus to this program.

Once you’ve picked your nominee’s make sure you let them know they were nominated! Send them an e-mail that states they were nominated and give them the list of questions and a set of directions about what they are suppose to do.

Here is more of a simple breakdown of what to do:

1. Write a post and thank the person who nominated you. Talk a bit about their blog and link to it.
2. Upload the Liebster image to your post of sidebar.
3. Answer the questions you received.
4. Pick 5-10 newer bloggers and nominate them. Write their blogs at the bottom of your post and attach a link to their site.
5. Ask your nominees the basic questions and perhaps spice the questions up a bit and personalize them if you’d like.
6. Let those bloggers know you nominated them so they can choose to accept or not!

With all that being said. Thank you to Polished on Purpose for nominating us for the Liebster Award. Here are our answers:

1. What is your blog about?

We are a travel blog focused on adventure travel and checking off items from our bucket list. Authentically living is our motto and we truly believe it’s important to follow your dreams and live to your fullest extent.

2. What do you feel like your biggest accomplishment has been this year?

Turning more of our focus towards our blog and really making it a priority in our lives.

3. What are your biggest goals in life?

To live authentically and just be happy. That’s what life is all about!

4. Where is your favorite place to travel?

We probably have to say New Zealand right now. It was just one of the most SPECTACULAR countries. It completely blew us away, from Milford Sound to Wellington, to Hobbiton.

5. What advice do you have for new bloggers?

RESEARCH, RESEARCH, RESEARCH. Know what you are getting into from the beginning so that you don’t waste time trying to grow your audience to no avail. There is a lot that goes into blogging. Be active in the communities because those are the people who will help you grow your audience.

6. What has been the most challenging aspect of starting your blog so far?

Growing your audience! It’s not easy to find people who just show up to your blog, love it and end up clicking every single article. Marketing is so important for blogging. You aren’t just a writer when you own a blog you play a variety of different and important roles.

7. What has been the biggest lesson you’ve learned in life?

Everyday is a new lesson. The biggest lesson would have to be just letting things go and going with the flow.

8. Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Hopefully travelling the world, writing about it, and inspiring others to do the same!

9. What’s your guilty pleasure?

Coffee, although we are pretty damn open about our love of coffee.

10. What makes you happiest in life?

Our friends, family and each other!

Now for the most fun part of all! Here are five blogs we want to pass this along to and thing are worthy of checking out!

Travels & Treats – A great blog about traveling and great eats along the way.

Boho & Blush – A beautiful lifestyle and travel blog that has a bit of everything.

Kristen Sarah – If you need lifestyle tips, then this girl has got you covered.