As many of you have probably noticed, I've been writing practically nonstop (except for unusual circumstances) for well over a year. The problem I'm having with it now is that I can't expand into other areas if I spend all my time writing for this one blog. I can't even keep up with my other blogs. There's just too much real world stuff going on.

I'm attempting to write articles in advance. I'm working towards having 7 or more articles in the queue at all times so that I can budget my time more wisely. Back in January, I wrote that the road to success is paved with stones of failure and put forth my intended goals.

I have yet to reach any of my goals and I don't believe reaching them will happen any time soon.

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Weekends

What is that ancient commercial slogan? Weekends were made for Michelob? Something like that, I'm sure. If you monitor website traffic, have you ever noticed that your traffic slows down from Friday night until about Sunday afternoon?

I didn't say it stops. It just slows down. I see about two thirds of my normal traffic (and what's normal?) from Friday night to Saturday evening in the US. I know quite a few people back in the states and I know they don't hop back onto their computers until later in the weekend. Friday nights are for movies and running around with friends doing God knows what.

Unlike my counterparts over there, I don't have many friends here in the Philippines and movie-going is a major outing and not to be done at night. There's only one local theater and the choices are limited.

Keyword Order

Does the order of keywords in a post title make a difference? How about in the content itself? I have verifiable proof that it does. Just Google for "twitter twirl" and see where my previous post, "Twitter, twhirl and Guy Kawasaki", shows up in the results pages and then do it for "twirl twitter".

The first search showed my post at #19. The second showed it at #5. Your mileage may vary. It's amazing that it showed in the index this quickly. It hasn't been 24 hours since it was posted. I was confused about ranking in the wrong order until I figured out that I had misspelled "twhirl" as "twirl" in the post content. Apparently, other people misspell it when searching for it too, as I noticed in the searches for it in my log.

Changing the search to "twitter twhirl" and "twhirl twitter" yielded #4 and #52. I rank better for "twirl twitter" than "twhirl twitter". Amazing.

Website Traffic Changes

I started experimenting with keyword stuffing, density and different types of posts and topics in January of this year. I've also reduced my social interaction with other blogs and websites, without becoming completely antisocial.

I've noticed my daily search traffic rising and my social traffic sinking. It's exactly what I expected to happen.

There's Always A Reason

The biggest reason I'm become less socially active in the blogosphere is because I'm reading the same things over and over again. Rehashes of rehashes. I'm looking for things that inspire me and I'm not finding the inspiration I'm looking for.

On the flip side of that coin, I completely understand that people won't want to return to visit this blog for the exact same reason. If I continue to harp about the same things over and over again, and then rehash what someone else already wrote about (even unintentionally), it makes for a mundane reading session.

"I just realized something, Uncle Ricky. You're a nerd."

That's what my 19-year old niece, Jamie, said to me yesterday when I was explaining some computer stuff to my 42-year old little sister, Tammie — her mother. Resisting the urge to choke the life out of her for calling me Ricky (a nickname for Richard that I've always hated), I corrected her to tell her that I was a geek, not a nerd; specifically, a computer geek. Nowadays, however, geek and nerd have come to mean pretty much the same thing.

I really am a Geek!

According to the some of the geek definitions listed at Wikipedia, a geek is:

• A person who is interested in technology, especially computing and new media. Most geeks are adept with computers, and treat the term hacker as a term of respect, but not all are hackers themselves.
• A person who has chosen concentration rather than conformity; one who pursues skill (especially technical skill) and imagination, not mainstream social acceptance.
• A person with a devotion to something in a way that places him or her outside the mainstream. This could be due to the intensity, depth, or subject of their interest. This definition is very broad but because many of these interests have mainstream endorsement and acceptance, the inclusion of some genres as "geeky" is heavily debated. Persons have been labeled as or chosen to identify as mathematics geeks, engineering geeks, sci-fi geeks, computer geeks, various science geeks, movie and film geeks (cinephile), comic book geeks, theater geeks, history geeks, gamer geeks, music geeks, art geeks, philosophy geeks, literature geeks, and roleplay geeks.
• And more.

In this decade, geeks wear the term as a badge of honor instead of avoiding the previously negative connotations that came with the words "nerd" and "geek". While I agree with some of the definitions, I can't completely identify with all of them.

Geek Fishing

My niece is into hand-drawn art. She does it on paper and then scans it and uploads it to the computer. I told her she may not be a computer geek, but that she's definitely an art geek. I didn't count, but she has to have at least a couple of hundred drawings stored at deviantART. Don't ask me which account, because I didn't look at the name. It doesn't matter anyway because she's moving them to her own, brand-spanking new blog at Blogger (blogspot.com).

Jamie was trying to sell her art at deviantART, but isn't selling anything at all. Her talent is improving as the years pass, but she still can't contend with those with professional artist software and better supplies. She decided to pick my brain and learn how to make money online by using a blog, fishing for as much information as possible.

Proper References

While I'm familiar with blogging and blogs of different kinds, as well as Google AdSense, I'm not familiar with the Blogger platform. I've never worked with the different templates, layouts and inserting any kind of ads.

In order to give her the best sources, I started her off with the best source I knew of for Blogger blogs and how to make money with them: Make Money Online For Beginners.

Grizzly knows how to optimize Blogger blogs and make money online with them. I told Jamie to concentrate on getting 10 or more blog posts in place and set up her blog properly by reading everything on his site. When it's a month old, I told her to put the AdSense ads into place and to read Adsense For Beginners, as well as everything else on Grizzly's blog about it.

And Finally!

I told Jamie not to list her blogs with any search engines and explained about sandboxes and such. She understood. I will check her blog periodically and see if I can find things wrong with it and then do a full blog review with my new "Blog & Article Reviews" blog around May 1st.

This is all I can do for her. I'll be too far away (the Philippines in fact) to give her more "hands-on" assistance by this time next week.

[Update March 2009: It looks like blogging didn't turn out to be her "thing". She gave up after 4 posts in March and April of last year.]

Okay, since today is Friday and I'll be flying out on Sunday, it's time for me to start preparing posts and articles in advance. After tomorrow, I won't have time to be writing anything of any importance until Wednesday in the US.

Coming Up:

• Blog Reviews: These will be the same as always, but screenshots and articles pointed to may appear to be older than normal.
• Article: Social versus search engine traffic.
• Article: Plugins that show related posts or similar posts and how to show neither at times with a simple WordPress hack.
• Article: Use of the nofollow and target attributes in links.
• Article: Blogrolls and alternatives.

Those are just some off the top of my head. When I finally settle down in front of a computer in 1 of 3 places, I'm sure more will come to mind. I'm looking at 5 weeks away from my normal (?) environment, so I'll have to get used to it really quick.

If you've ever wondered what the best route to take when setting up a new blog, and you don't have much experience with the different options available for hosting the blog, it can be quite confusing. Let me see if I can help. While I'm no "guru" by any stretch of the imagination, I've worked with this stuff both inside and outside of the information technology field.

Hosted by Blogspot.com (Blogger), WordPress.com and Others

This is an option that a lot of people choose for blog hosting when they the first start blogging because everything except personal choices are handled by the hosting service. There's no need to know anything about the backend or how it all works. This is also the perfect choice if your goal is nothing more than to be socially popular or even just to use it as an online diary.

There are few monetization options, but the options do exist and if you know how to do it, you can still make a lot of money while using one of these services. Grizzly at How to Make Money Online for Beginners is the "go to" guy if you're looking to monetize a Blogger blog.

Self-Hosted (Using your own domain name with a hosting service)

While both blogspot.com and wordpress.com allow you to point your own domain name at blogs you've set up on their services, you're still limited by their backend in the things you're allowed to do. This is not the definition of self-hosted. Self-hosted means you control the whole ball of wax. You're the person that keeps the software up-to-date, changes and edits themes, adds code blocks, etc. It can be a daunting task for a beginner.

Being self-hosted gives you the greatest flexibility in monetization options. You're not restricted by any hosting service and you're limited only by your own imagination and the options available.

Domains, Subdomains and Add-On Domains

Knowing the difference between domains, subdomains and add-on domains is an important facet that many people overlook. It's actually quite simple when you understand how it works.

You start with a top-level domain (TLD) like ".com" and then anything to the left of it (other than a period) is considered the domain name, like "untwistedvortex.com". Add another section in front (separated by a period) and you have a subdomain, like "www.untwistedvortex.com". Go even further with it and you have a sub-subdomain (for lack of a better term). It always irks me when someone uses "www.something.blogspot.com" instead of "something.blogspot.com" because the "www" part is a sub-subdomain and if anything starts acting funky in the DNS, the sub-subdomains are the first to quit working. Since it merely points to the subdomain without the "www", I don't think it's a good idea to use it and I won't use it when linking to someone.

Some hosting services, like HostNine, allow you to add additional domains to your hosting plan, hence the term "add-on domain". What it really is, is a subdomain that has a domain name, as well as the subdomain name, pointing to it. If you do something like this, it's a good idea to use a redirect to make sure it's only accessed with the domain name. That's a topic in itself, so I won't go into it right now.

Top Level Domains

It's arguable that the ".com" TLD is the one to go after. It is, however, becoming increasingly difficult to get a good domain name established due to the proliferation of domain names over time. I believe you can do just as well with most TLDs that have 3 letters or more. There was a time when, if you just entered the domain name into a browser address bar without the TLD, that it would automatically start looking for ".com" as the first choice. I think that's no longer true. At least, I can't make it work that way with Internet Explorer or Firefox anymore.

Many familiar websites use TLDs other than ".com". Examples: php.net, last.fm, del.icio.us

What Do I Recommend?

Ah, that's the clincher. I can't recommend anything over anything else, because I'm no expert on the subject. I've used all of them at one time or another. Since "www.untwistedvortex.com" is a subdomain that points to the domain of "untwistedvortex.com", it's obvious that using a subdomain won't hurt your blog in anyway. In this case, it was a matter of preference. There's nothing to stop me from creating a "sillyname.untwistedvortex.com" or something and have it completely separate, or even pointing to the same domain. The choices are not limited in any way.

The question boils down to the image you want to present and how professional you want or need to be. It's quite obvious that strict domain names appear to be more professional. Speaking of domain names, check out the Godaddy Promo Code list for 2009.

Your Thoughts?

I'm interested in hearing your thoughts on this subject. Since I'm no expert, I could be completely wrong about everything and I love a good argument. Please, give it your best shot.

Yes, I truly believe that the road to success is paved with stones of failure. There are a very few people in this world who are successful in any endeavor on the first try. The remaining 99.9% of us have to keep trying and trying to reach that success.

A Bit of History

When I first started this blog, I started it as a mere journal. It wasn't until several months later that I realized what kind of potential a blogging platform had to offer. Still, I was naive.

About a year ago, I posted my first milestone. I thought 10,000 unique visitors in 7 months was a lot. I set a soft goal of 100,000 unique visitors by the one-year mark. I went way over that goal because of the things I started doing to attract visitors. In a sense, I would call that a success, albeit an easy goal to achieve. Since then, I've stopped paying attention to that figure. I now get well over 5,000 unique visitors per month and well over 10,000 page views per month.

A year ago, I was getting 20 to 40 unique visitors per day. That number, as of a few days ago, was 200 to 400. Using the techniques I recently learned from 3 prominent bloggers, I plan to increase that to a number of at least 2,000 to 4,000 (and hopefully more than that) by this time next year. Will I be successful? I don't know, but I do know that the road to success is paved with stones of failure.

Over the course of the last year, I published posts under my bragging rights category. I was showing how well I was doing with my Alexa and Technorati rankings. Those rankings started bothering me when they stagnated and then started getting worse. My unpublished goals were incredible failures. Of course, I later learned that neither ranking is important and are only indicators of failure or success. I stopped bragging.

My wife is almost a computer illiterate. She has learned during our physical separation how much money can be saved by using an instant messenger with voice. She has been gradually learning other facets of computer operation. I can no longer connect to the PC she's using with a VNC client and she can't figure out why (and neither can the owner). I don't have the patience to try and walk her through all the possible causes, especially since I can't see what she sees.

New Goals

I and my wife have had some recent, long discussions via instant messenger. Starting in April (a good guess), and armed with resources and knowledge obtained from "How to Make Money Online for Beginners", "Court's Internet Marketing School", and "Blogger Unleashed", we plan to launch a series of niche blogs for the sole purpose of making money from search engine visitors. We want to create new blogs at a rate of at least one per month, giving each ample time to grow and ourselves ample time to make adjustments.

Recent events and a financial hardship mitigated, possibly eliminated, by the overwhelming support of our fellow bloggers has made it our desire to be able to do the exact same thing for others that find themselves in tight predicaments. We want to be able to funnel online income to the people who need it more than we do. Will we be successful? Again, I don't know.

I will be teaching my wife everything I can possibly teach her about computers in general, blogging, advertising, and anything else she needs to know in order to assist me in doing what we plan to do. I realize that I may not have any hair left after we're done, but that's a risk I have to take.

An Unreachable Goal?

While this isn't a niche blog, I believe I have the motivation and the talent to put it up there in the same league as the ProBlogger, where a few short paragraphs can make a resounding impact on the lives of others. I realize it's going to take a lot of work, a lot of rewriting (for SEO and SERPS), and a lot of determination to make it happen. I also realize that there isn't a timetable that I can follow to get there.

This is a lofty goal, which means I'll be in it for the long haul. It could be another year or another 10 years, or even longer. I expect to fail many times before I reach the success that I'm trying to achieve. The road to success is paved with stones of failure and it's going to be an extremely bumpy ride.

I've been purposely off the net for a few days. Well, not completely on purpose. My lousy DSL connection, Christmas-related activities, and the need for sleep had a lot to do with it. Yes, I'm behind on a few things that I normally do and things that I intend to do.

All of this "off the net" time has given me plenty of opportunities to put the year in perspective. I've examined my blogging situation, my goals, what has happened this year, and what I intend to happen next year.

Most of my regular readers already know what I'm about to write:

I never intended to make money with this blog. It started as a journal and it changed to something else near the beginning of this year. I started experimenting with making money online for one purpose — so I'd know what the heck I was talking about. I didn't need the money then and I still don't, regardless of what I may have written in some previous posts.

I've learned something from the experience. I've learned that using my blog to make money turns writing into a chore instead of something I enjoy. I can still make money as long as I remember that it's secondary and not the primary reason for my blog's existence. It's the only way I can enjoy writing and getting away with writing nonsense from time to time.