Random Thoughts

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It’s 6:30 a.m. and I’m knee deep in stuff. I HATE MOVING. Fortunately we have movers coming at 8a.m. to pack up our stuff in boxes, put it into a truck and take it somewhere to store for 2 months while we live in a hotel. Can’t say I’m disappointed that we’re living in a hotel for 2 months. No cooking, no cleaning, but NO JOB either. On Monday when my wife heads off for her first day at her new office, I’ll sit and think hard about what I’m going to do.

Meanwhile, traffic on the blog has been very slow. I need traffic! Part II of my post will come tonight when we’re in the hotel.

I’ve been reading about a website called Stumbleupon and how imporant it is to the life of a blogger. I signed up and am now “stumbling” on websites. What a great hobby! I’ve found so many interesting sites that I would have never found just searching the web on my own. I’m going to write more on the subject once I learn more, however for now…check out this article from Problogger. net

I tried installing one of Amazon.ca’s widgets on my blog’s right sidebar. I was a little disappointed that the scrolling widgets had to be so large, but unfortunately there wasn’t an option to make a small, scrolling widget. If you’re like me, when I’m reading, my eyes gravitate toward the Amazon widget because it’s moving. This can be good and it can also be bad. It’s good because it draws the eye toward the products being offered, however it does take my attention away from reading the posts.

After that I decided to go with an easy to use Wordpress plugin/widget called Amazon Showcase Wordpress Widget 1.1. I found that this widget actually does what it says it will do, doesn’t take much room and can easily be updated. All you have to do is install the widget as instructed on the authors website. Once you have it installed, place it on your blog using the widget function of Wordpress and you’re set. To add products to it, go back to the Widgets function in your Wordpress Control Panel . Click on the Widget and window opens that gives you the option to add your commission code and the ISBN number of the product you want displayed.

For my blog the sizing for the Amazon Showcase Widget was a little off and was not changeable; Back to the Amazon Widgets again! This time I went with a “My Favorites” widget. The color, size and number of items can all be changed. Once I had a widget that I was finally happy with, I pasted the code into a Wordpress Text Widget and VOILA….Finally I had the look I was going for. I’m sure there are better solutions out there, and as I become more experienced I’m sure I find something else, but for now this one works great.

Today is Monday, mid-morning and I’m not at work! On a usual workday I would currently be knee-deep in insurance claims, but not today. “Today is the first day of the rest of my life”. Just kidding…what does that actually mean? Each day is quite different and builds upon all previous experiences so to say today I’m starting over is just silly.

Since Friday was my last day of “paid” work, now I have other things to attend to. With our move coming up in 3 days and plenty to do, I really shouldn’t be writing on my blog. My wife is slaving away at work while I write (I’m feeling a bit guilty). There is a reason that I am writing though…actually two. Content and Consistency.

Content

Each day it’s important to post. How disappointing is it for people to log onto a blog only to see that nothing has been written. Unfortunately this appears to be the case with over half of the blogs in existence. People start out with plenty of steam and then it fades. Many have grand ideas of making big money just writing a few posts and sticking some ads up. I’m finding that it’s much harder to get traffic to my blog than originally thought therefore we come back to CONTENT. It’s vital to any webpage or blog. Without fresh content, the “bots” that hold all the power won’t think that your page is worth visiting often.

Consistency

For me this is very important. I need to set aside time each day to actually post. Sometimes I can easily get caught-up in the technical or advertising side of things, and forget that I actually need to write something meaningful here. You know the old saying “an apple a day keeps the doctor away”. I’d like to suggest a new one; “a post a day makes the googlebot stay”. I know that’s REALLY lame, but true. Post often and set aside time to do so. Then soon enough you’ll be sitting on the beach on some tropical island. Let’s be realistic about that too. Even the most experienced and wealthy bloggers realize that this thing takes work. It’s not an ATM machine.

Well, I’m off to lunch with a friend. No more half-hour lunch breaks in a lunchroom for me. At least for a few weeks!

I ran across an article about a 12 year old blogger named David Wilkinson. What an inspiration! At only 12, he’s considered a professional blogger and has developed quite a following at his blog www.techzi.net

It’s a great looking blog which apparently earns a tidy sum for a 12 year old. He mentioned that he earns a few hundred dollars per month. When I was 12, I received about $10 per week! What an entrepreneur. I highly recommend reading his blog and taking note of the vast amount of information that he has provided on the subject of making money online. He’s even been asked to write for Problogger.com, which would be quite an honor for anyone.
I found it fascinating that most of his earnings are generated from private advertising and affiliates programs, and not from adsense. So far, the only affiliate program that I belong to is Hostgator.com’s affiliate program. It pays well for a successful sale however I will have see if those colorful banners translate into money in my pocket.

Pinging a directory/search engine to let them know that you’ve made changes to your site can be an effective way to make sure that more of your pages get indexed. Each time you update your site, try one of these great pinging services. The more pages that get indexed, the higher your pagerank will be. Apparently pagerank isn’t as important as it once was, however I think it helps…but we’ll see.

Check this out!.

http://pinger.blogflux.com/

If you are using Wordpress, you can set set this to automatically happen each time you post. Here’s how:

1. Go to your Wordpress Dashboard.

2. Click on “options”

3. Under the “writing” tab at the bottom of the page your will see “update services”.

4. In that box, enter: http://pinger.blogflux.com/

5. Click update on the bottom right and you’re done.

Now each time you post to your blog, the major blog directories and search engines will be notified.