Repeat after me, “I’m a winner and gosh darn it people like me.”  See, don’t you feel better now?  If not, enter some blog contests.  A couple wins and you’ll be smiling from ear to ear.  I entered The Prize Blogs, 6 days of Prizes and won the day 6 prize.  And my prize, a full blog review from Bloggeries.  I’ll be looking forward to that review and give you an update when it is posted.

Step 1 when creating a new website is generate some content.

Step 2 would have to be to advertise your site to generate interest and traffic.

Step 3 then is to analyze where your traffic is coming from and determine your best marketing campaign.

I don’t know about you, but my pockets are pretty shallow. My thrifty (read cheap ass) mind still hasn’t grasped the concept of “you have to spend money to make money”. That’s why the SiteMeter + Microsoft AdCenter Re-Launch Promo Special seems like quite the deal. I’ll warn you, I’m not getting anything for this promotion, but thought you may be interested. This promo gives you 1 year of SiteMeter Premium and $50 of Microsoft AdCenter free clicks all for the startup price of $5.

What is SiteMeter?

Who could say it better than SiteMeter themselves:

Site Meter’s comprehensive real time website tracking and counter tools give you instant access to vital information and data about your sites audience. With our detailed reporting you’ll have a clear picture of who is visiting your site, how they found you, where they came from, what interests them and much more.

The Premium version cost usually starts at $59 per year and gets you an invisible counter, records for last 4,000 visitors, advanced ranking reports not to mention all this free of any ads. Think of sitemeter as the option to analyze your ad campaigns for Microsoft AdCenter just like Google Analytics does for Google AdWords.

What is Microsoft AdCenter?

Think, Google AdWords with the Microsoft logo. Why should you use Microsoft AdCenter? Again, they say it best:

• Search advertising with adCenter is an effective low-cost way to reach out to millions of potential customers.
• It only requires $5 to open an account** and begin targeting search engine users who are looking for sites like yours.
• The wise search marketer uses more than one search engine in his or her marketing tool bag.

There are other places to get this deal from Microsoft, but this is the one that seems to get the biggest bang for the buck. Utilizing SiteMeter, your Microsoft AdCenter campaign can garner you tons of extra traffic. Do you have step 1 done? If so, take care of steps 2 and 3 by saving some money with the SiteMeter + Microsoft AdCenter Re-Launch Promo Special.

Is it just me, or have you noticed a LARGE influx in blogger contests lately?  I get the premise, run a contest, give away a cool prize, get lots of new traffic.  It seems every site is doing them now.  I like John Chow’s mentality on this in that he only gives away what was given to him.  (I would have linked to his specific page where he discusses this, but JOHN CHOW’s BLOG IS DOWN)  He has been able to run all these contests without purchasing any of the prizes.  So far, I have received a couple freebies via my blogs, but I haven’t been able to turn around and re-gift them.  And since when did re-gifting become acceptable?  Isn’t that what you do when it’s a crap gift?

What have I received in the form of freebies and why didn’t I re-gift them to run a contest?  I did a review of MeAndMyDrum (see my review here) and won a $25 AdWords coupon. I thought about re-gifting the coupon to generate more traffic, but then thought that this was the perfect opportunity to practice, free of charge, with AdWords; and I still generate some traffic. :twisted:  So, no re-gifting on that one.  I also received a package from PayPerPost after blogging about the (then) upcoming new Police CD release.  That package contained the new Police Cd (which my wife confiscated), a big green foam finger (which my kids confiscated), some mints (which my wife told me I needed to use  :lol: ), a t-shirt (which. . . . I’m not sure what happened to the t-shirt, I know it had the PayPerPost logo on it and “I used to be a stripper” across the front), and some green play-dough type substance, which I’m not entirely sure what it is supposed to be used for (which is just sitting in a drawer in the house).  So you see, all the freebies that I’ve received are all accounted for and spoken for.  I do plan on running a contest as soon as I get a prize that would make it worth your while.  Anybody want a red and green sweater with an embroidered deer that I got for x-mas 3 years ago?  Didn’t think so.

Back in early March, I got a free copy of Microsoft Office 2007, and made a post on how you can blog from MS Word. Well, that was the one and only blog post I made with Word 2007. I really liked the functionality of Word 2007, but it was inconvenient because I installed that software on the family PC, which I don’t use. I know, I know, not too smart on my part. Well, you wouldn’t install it on your employers PC would you? Didn’t think so.

There are plenty of blog editors out there and a handful of them are free. They’re not all equal tho. I’m planning on giving a handful of these options a run-through to see which one(s) strike my fancy. I’m submitting this post with ScribeFire, which seems to be very decent option. If you don’t know, ScribeFire is a firefox plugin that allows you to type your post and publish it to any of your blogs or save the post as a note to publish later. The only functionality that I can think of that may come in handy would be the ability to publish/push a post out to multiple blogs with a single click. Not sure why I want this as I don’t normally duplicate my content across multiple blogs, but ya never know. Do you use an editor other than the default WordPress (or any other software set) for your blogs? If so, which one do you use and why? I’m curious as to what functionality you find the most useful.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Are you interested in jumping on the blogging bandwagon? All the cool kids are doing it. Follow these 50 steps and you too can make your very own blog become successful.

1. Forget about getting a free blog from somewhere like blogger or wordpress.com. You want a successful blog and it is much easier to do that with your own domain name. Get your Quick Blog from GoDaddy.com (aff)
2. Corresponding to number 1, make sure you pick a domain name that is either a) generic enough to cover any niche, or b) focused enough to fully explain your blogs niche.
3. Arrange for your site to be hosted.
   CLICK HERE TO SIGNUP FOR HostMonster.COM NOW. (aff)
4. Pick your blogging software and install it. I have chosen WordPress, but feel free to pick the best option for you.
5. Pick a template from the vast supply of blog templates available.
6. Forget about using a standard template that has been used by countless other bloggers and have a custom site created just for you.
7. Delete the first default post provided by WordPress.
8. Make the realization that you are far from being ready to make your first blog post yourself.
9. Modify your permalink structure to anything other than the default or numeric structure. I use the “date and name based” format, but if I had to do it all over again, I would simply use the “name”.
10. Download, install, and configure the Google sitemap generator plugin for your WordPress Blog.
11. Submit your site to the Google Webmaster Tools.
12. Start stressing out about your first post and how you’re going to promote your new site.
13. Realize that you’ve already begun promoting it by generating the sitemap and submitting it to the Webmaster Tools.
14. Brainstorm on exactly what this blog will be about (stress out about it since you should have done this already).
15. Write an “About” page that describes who you are and what this blog is all about.
16. Configure some sort of site counter because you are about to become addicted to your traffic. Here’s a short list of possible options: Sitemeter, WordPress.com Stats, Google Analytics, FireStats.
17. Browse to your site to test it in IE and Firefox.
18. Check your stats page to see the 2 visits from yourself and get a slight rush. I’ve warned you, you WILL get addicted to these stats.
19. Change the signature on all your email sites to include a link to your blog.
20. Click on your “Write Post” link to begin writing your first post.
21. Re-read your post to make sure it is just right.
22. Begin wondering where this blog will take you over the next months and years.
23. Publish that first post.
24. Consider adding some advertising like Google AdSense to your new site.
25. Stop considering the addition of ads to your site, it’s only 10 minutes old.
26. Mark on your calendar to ad some ads to your site exactly 6 months from todays date.
27. Tell all your friends and family about your new blog.
28. Threaten them with whatever dirt you have on them to visit your site regularly.
29. Reload your site to check for your first comment.
30. Get depressed when there is none.
31. Go to FeedBurner to burn your feed using their system. (easier feed stat tracking)
32. Download the FeedSmith plugin to redirect all feeds to FeedBurner.
33. Create post number 2
34. Check your stats to see how many site visits you have.
35. Get depressed when there are only 3 and they are all you.
36. Start a list of topics you want to write about in the future.
37. Visit blogs with the same topic as yours and comment on their site.
38. Decide that’s enough for today and go to bed.
39. Wake up in the morning and check those stats before you even go to the bathroom.
40. Refresh your page to look for any comments.
41. Get excited when you have 3 comments.
42. Get depressed when all 3 comments are spam for either viagra, cialis, or valium.
43. Write your next post.
44. Wonder what you can do to make your site successful.
45. Realize that you are doing it. Your excited about it, your passionate about your blog topic, your writing content, and your promoting it by visiting (and contributing to) other blogs.
46. Keep all this up for 6 months.
47. Ad those ads to your site to start generating an income from your popular blog.
48. Find other avenues of blog monetization such as PayPerPost, ReviewMe, AuctionAds, Text Link Ads.
49. Write post number 400.
50. Welcome to the realm of a successful blogger!

Make sure to format each post in such a way to keep me reading. I recommend breaking those long posts into smaller focused sections. I’ve done this with a few posts and found it prompts more comments.  I give each section a title by bolding the first line.

What do I mean?

Well, you’re reading it now. Small, focused sections give the readers a quick way to get your point and move on to your next tidbit of information. These sections can be as small as 1 sentence or as long as a couple paragraphs. Just be sure to get your point across to your readers.

Why should I break up my post into focused sections?

We live in a society where sound clips are used to convey many important issues. We base our opinions of our leaders (President, Prime Minister, etc) on small short clips that were chosen for you. Over the last 20 years, the length of those sound clips have decreased from 30 seconds to 5. With this shorter attention span, your posts need to accommodate.

Will this get me more readers?

Possibly not, but it gives your post a better possibility that it gets fully read by your visitors. If you want your readers to read every word on your post, either break it up in small focused sections or use 50 words or less in your post. Longer posts, with long paragraphs, have a good chance of just getting skimmed. Be honest, you know you skim posts. I do.

Summary

These sectionalized posts should always conclude with a small summary section.  Use this section to sumarize you main points.  It is possible that if your readers see this section, they may only read it (we’re all in a hurry  :smile: ), so make it informative.  Remember to break up your long posts into smaller focused sections to keep your readers attention and to get them to read the entire post.

I just realized that my last post was post number 100.  It’s amazing how time flies.  Does that mean that my next milestone will be 1000?  Probably not.  I’ll try to still get excited when I reach 200 posts.  This blog started 2/22/2007, which means it took me only 4 months to get to 100 (that’s a pretty decent rate).  How long did it take you to get to 100 posts?

This is for all you part-time bloggers. Or for you full time bloggers that have a “real” 9 to 5 job too.

When do you do your best blogging? Some people are early risers and can get on the computer as soon as they roll out of bed and get their blogging done before anyone else even thinks about waking up. Others wait till O dark thirty and blog through the night. Then there are those few rebels out there that do their blogging while at their “real” job. Which group do you find yourself?

Me? I do a majority of my blogging late in the evenings after the rest of my family has gone to bed. This is in stark contrast to my sleep paterns of just 2 years ago when I couldn’t stay up past 9:30pm and would wake up by 5am every morning. These days, I’m just getting started at 9:30, which is what time it is now (I’ll schedule this post to get published at 1am though).

Is there an advantage to blogging later in the day? If all us bloggers lived in the U.S. then it might make a difference, but since we’re scattered all over the world, there is no best time.  There is, however, a best time to post.  That time is right before a majority of your traffic hits your site.  Word to the wise. . . know your traffic.  Traffic to BlissLogs is fairly constant all day long, but usually starts around 1:30am CDT.  Knowing this, I like to publish my post right before this time to give all visitors something to read for the day.

So what I’d like to know is when you blog and why.  You go.

Yesterday, I posted about how to submit your own sites to Stumble. I didn’t think about it then, but it later dawned on me some of you may not know what StumbleUpon is. StumbleUpon is many things: First, it is a great way to generate some traffic for your site. Second, it is one of the best sources to find new and interesting web sites.

As far as generating traffic to your site, this is also broken down to multiple methods.

The direct method is to get your post Stumbled. This happens when you are another reader gives it the thumbs up. The next step is easy, wait for others to Stumble across your site. Depending on whatever the StumbleUpon algorithm is and your sites relevence in said algorithm, you can receive anywhere between 2 visitors to hundreds.

The next way to generate traffic is to use Stumble to accumulate friends. You can view my StumbleUpon profile and add me as a friend. You add me by clicking on the “Add as Friend” button at the top of the page. By becoming friends of other users and by gaining friends yourself you can gather more traffic.

Lost in all this is the fact that StumbleUpon gives you the opportunity to find new, interesting, funny, informative sites to read. This in itself makes it worth creating a StumbleUpon account. And once you create that account, edit your preferences to dictate your likes and dislikes. Now when you click on the Stumble button on your toolbar, you will be directed to sites that meet your likes. If you like the site, give it some Stumble love with a thumbs up.