Blogging Journal (Month 2)
Published February 25th, 2008
Well, the last 4 weeks have flown by, have made big progress in some areas, and beating my head against the wall in other areas. I accomplished most of my goals for the month, and the site is continually growing, so I am thankful for that.
What I did accomplish
Well, I’m starting to get a feel for my posting and writing style. I wrote some good articles this month. Among the most popular were 5 Things You Never Thought Were Negotiable, How to Survive Losing a Job, and You Are Not a Quitter. Although, it was one of the first articles written, 25 Ways to Save Money also sees regular traffic. I wrote less articles than I wanted, but I am still focusing on the quality, and only putting my best work up on the site. I hope that my readers will come to appreciate longer articles, but posted less often. I will experiment with the odd shorter post if it’s something I really want to talk about.
I opened a Google AdSense account. Not much activity on this front since I just set it up, but thanks to the AdSense Deluxe Wordpress Plugin I was able to configure everything. It is a very user friendly plugin and I highly recommend it if you have limited HTML knowledge. I’m sure that the pay per click advertising can be a good little source of income once there is enough traffic…one day in the future!
Instead of further playing with my current theme, I took a good look at my theme and decided that it was time for a change. I would like the site to be a bit more aesthetically pleasing, and be and more reflective of my personal style. So I looked, and looked again for many hours, and then many more, until I found something that is close to what I’m looking for. I still have a few things I need to work out before I make the switch over, but don’t be surprised if the next time you visit, things might look different. Some changes will include: A section in the sidebar for recent articles, article summaries in each category so you don’t have to scroll down forever, and better colours.
I did figure out how to upload and embed a picture into a post. The first picture is of me and Naula on my About page. As I remember to take digital pictures of some of my featured dishes, I will start to embed pictures along with the recipes.
I was accepted into a few great blog carnivals such as the Festival of Frugality, Carnival of Personal Finance, Personal Development Carnival, and Canine Carnival. I think that I have picked up a few quality readers and subscribers with these first couple rounds of carnival submissions, so I am going to keep working at it. I appreciate the sense of community from these other bloggers as well.
What I’m frustrated with
I have not yet sent out a monthly newsletter. I have enough material ready to go, but cannot find a user friendly newsletter program that I can easily configure. I downloaded phplist, and create a database, but have zero idea how to configure it despite the instructions. Ofcourse the have to use general instructions so they apply to everybody. Unfortunately, I just don’t feel comfortable configuring all of those settings with my very limited coding knowledge and knowledge of the file hierarchy. Sending out and setting up an email newsletter is turning out to be much more of a task than I thought it would be–the security features alone make my head spin. If any readers or fellow bloggers have any suggestions of a idiot-proof free newsletter program I can easily use along with my self-hosted Wordpress blog, it would be much appreciated.
Because of the nature of my type of posting, I’m having difficulty setting a aside big chunks of regular time in my irregular schedule for writing. Being a self-employed veterinarian, I often do irregular shifts, which makes it challenging at times to do what I want when I want with the writing. I carve out time to do all of the blog housekeeping duties first thing in the morning, but it’s hard for me to just sit down and get in as much time as I want with the writing every day. I have started doing a couple of things that are helping a bit: 1) I’m keeping a notebook with my ideas, so I jot down notes when I get the chance, and give it time to percolate, making the end writing process a bit smoother. 2) I’m trying to go easier on myself and just publish the posts when I feel inspired and ready to share them. For now, it may be only 2-3 good quality posts or articles a week, and I will work up to 3-5 when I am ready. This blog is always going to be more about quality and value than quantity, so I am just going to have to learn to take some of the pressure off myself.
Goals over the next month
1) To find an easy to use and configure newsletter program, and get my first one finally sent out.
2) To email my social network of friends and let them know about the site (I was pretty self-conscious about since it was all new and out of my comfort zone, but I’m now ready to share with people I know).
3) Subscribe to some RSS feeds of interest and figure out a bit more how the feeds work.
4) Do a post calling out to my readers and feed subscribers so I can connect with them.
5) Tweak and publish the new design of the site.
6) Do more research on blogs in my subject areas.
7) Read and follow up on more of the Problogger posts that get sent to my inbox.
Continue to focus on my writing and building traffic.
I will check in with you again next month and let you know how I made out. In the meantime, please email me if you have any suggestions about a newsletter program for me at valueforyourlife@gmail.com
Sincerely,
Amanda
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