To fully know the livelihood of your blog, I recommend setting up a Site Meter. This is relatively easy to do and free, so you can know where your visitors are coming from and how many pages they viewed.
If you’re hosting your own site and using Wordpress, your server might have something like AWStats, or you could use Wordpress’ global stats for more information. Either way you do it, you’re going to be able to easily track who comes to your site, where they’re from, and where they outclicked to (if at all).
You can see my site meter at the bottom of the page. I don’t have many visitors just yet, but traffic is something we’ll worry about later. Now, let’s not get into the habit of checking our site meters like psychos just yet, if your blog is still new. This is a trap that some of us fall into, because we want our blogs to be successful. If you write something valuable or something that people can relate to, the visitors will come.
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In blogging, it’s pretty much a survival of the fittest game. You can win in this, but you have to be consistent. And, of course, you have to write something noteworthy.
If it’s something to do with the war or the color of Paris Hilton’s sunglasses, if you write about a particular subject, stick with it. If your blog, like this one, has several facets, then you don’t have to narrow yourself down to just one thing. An example would be that I like blogging about blogging, but I also like collecting coins, pewter dragons, and having a goal of buying an 1896 $5.00 Silver Certificate:
My point is this: No matter what, stick to your blog and stick to your goals.
P.S. Isn’t that some pretty money?
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To find out what you’re really good at writing about, sometimes it’s best to sit down and start writing. Find something that you’re passionate about and go from there.
You can have a blog (maybe on blogger) that is just for your random thoughts. You can have as many categories as you like and you can write about whatever you want. Maybe after a month or so, you’ll know what your niche is.
Your niche is really going to be what you’re excited about and probably what you wrote about the most. So have fun with it, get out there, and write! Maybe you’ll find something that makes your personality shine. Whether it’s celebrities, fashion, blogging, or just some random stuff, your blog is yours to do with what you want.
Enjoy that.
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While I’m not going there and putting my picture up just yet, I would conclude that there’s something to be said about being personable.
Check out one of my prime examples, ProBlogger. Darren has his picture right there on the main page and he puts his personality into his posts. After time, you get to know someone by their tone and writing and you can somewhat know what type of person they are in real life. Typing and reading lend nothing to voice inflection and body language, so this is how you’re going to get to know someone online, by their writing talent.
When you’re being reviewed by someone else’s site or have agreed to do a link exchange of some sort, always read what the other person has written about you. If you’re not involved and you don’t get back to readers or commenters, it looks bad on your part.
So, be personable.
When others have taken their time to read what you’ve written and comment on it, say thanks, comment back, or maybe even skip on over to their site. You could always add some link love.
Read on, reader.
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The Franklin Mint and 20th Century Fox have really minted an official U.S. quarter with an image of the Silver Surfer on the obverse. What kind of nonsense is this?
Legal tender coin is a California state commemerateive quarter minted by the U.S. Mint and color-enhanced by Franklin.
One side of the limited edition collector’s quarter features an image of the Silver Surfer character, while the name of the movie’s Web site appears in tiny lettering.
So now it must be okay with the federal government to use money as a marketing ploy? Jeezus, what will they think of next?
Update: The Mint is ticked off and may find the Franklin Mint for this stunt:
The U.S. Mint said in a news release Friday that it learned of the promotional quarter this week and advised the studio and The Franklin Mint they were breaking the law. It is illegal to turn a coin into an advertising vehicle, and violators can face a fine.
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Don’t jump into blogging if you don’t have a sense of what you want to write about. I narrowed my topics down to music one day because I found that’s all I was writing about, it’s what I’m passionate about.
If you’re in a slump, however, and you’re looking for something, anything, to write about, don’t do this: Don’t write a post just to say “me, too”. What I mean by that is don’t just grab text off of someone else’s site, blockquote it, link it, and say, “I totally agree, this is stupid.”
Like so:
You gotta love Kurt Cobain, who doesn’t, right? Nirvana was the biggest name in Seattle grunge.
So why are these clowns at Doc Martens are taking dead rock stars and photoshopping them into their dumb boots?!?? Bad PR move, retard.
Yeah, Doc Martens are dumb, don’t buy this crap.
See how I just agreed with myself? Don’t do this, if you have nothing insightful to say, don’t say anything. Keep your trap shut. Now, open your trap and leave a comment.
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Some of you may know my posts at PureBlogging as a guest blogger. I decided to put my junk out there for your public consumption.
Who will win when it comes to Wordpress vs. Blogger? Let’s let them duke it out and see for ourselves.
Wordpress:
Pros:
- Easy to use.
- Updatable
- Flexible
- Themes galore
- You can brand yourself
- Free
Cons:
Blogger:
Pros:
- Instant setup, two minutes and you’re blogging
- Free
- You don’t have to be a hardcore designer to do updates
- It’s a place to muck around & find your voice
Cons:
- The yournamehere.blogspot.com
- When you get serious, you may want to migrate to your own domain
- No real branding
- You’re promoting Blogger, not yourself
Any thoughts?
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