Tag Archive for 'site'
Ok, I used to get so sick of these when I was on LiveJournal.. BUT, I was tagged by Frank C over at OpTempo, so I feel it’s only fair for me to participate, since he’s helped me out so much…
(1) How Long Have You Been Blogging?
EricSocia.net is a little over a month old. I’ve had other “blogs” before then, but nothing serious at all. Mostly LiveJournal entries specifically geared towards real-life friends. This is my first “real/serious” blog.
(2) What Inspired You To Start A Blog and Who Are Your Mentors?
I first wanted to start a “real” blog because I, for some reason, felt the need to have myself heard on the internet. I’d gotten so much from the ‘net that I felt I really needed to give something back.
As for mentors; At the moment, I have to say: Ruchir, Frank C, and Courtney Tuttle.
(3) Are You Trying To Make Money Online Or Just Doing It For Fun?
I started as doing it just to have some fun, have a place to vent, and have a way to get my voice heard in the online community. But since I realized that it was even possible to make money doing this, I decided to at least try a little bit for some money here and there. AdSense is the only advertising I use right now, and probably will be for a long time to come. If nobody clicks the links, fine. If they do, great. I put them up there so there’s at least the possibility of making just a little bit of money from this.
(4) Tell Me Three Things You LOVE About Being Online
1. Learning new things, 2. Teaching other people things they didn’t know about beforehand, and 3. As I said, the possibilty of making a little bit of extra money. 
(5) Tell Me Three Things You Struggle With In The Online World
1. Trying to make money (I’ve stopped trying so hard), 2. Getting people to come back and read more of my articles, 3. Trying to keep a regular schedule to update my blog.
Now I’d like to tag; Ruchir, Court (even though he’s been tagged already), Becky, and Costa.
Technorati Tags: Internet, Links, NaBloPoMo, Site, Thoughts
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Well, I’ve officially fallen off the NaBloPoMo wagon, seeing as how I wasn’t able to update at all yesterday.. (and yet, I was able to change my theme and other settings. curious. =P)
OK, ok. So i slacked off. It happens.
In any case, I’m not too upset about it, because I feel like I’m doing pretty well other than that. And besides, I am much happier with the time i spent working on the layout and making slight adjustments here and there. I certainly feel much more comfortable with this theme. What do you think?
Also; I am now the proud owner of a BOX! Jump on over to 1000boxs.com and check it out! Mine’s the one on the third row down from the top, the pink/mauve/ish box on the left, right next to the box owned by Becky over at PreBlogging.com!! The site creator is offering the first 100 boxs for free on a first come, first serve basis, and it looks like there are still plenty left! So hurry on over and contact him with the information you want in the box and he’ll get it set up for ya. 
Before i end this post, I just wanted to give some very real thanks to the people that have been actively commenting here, or giving me advice, or stumbling my posts, or even just telling me to keep going. You’ve all been awesome, and I hope to indeed keep going and continue to get better at everything as I go. I’m still sort of struggling with content, and I’m still not completely 100% certain where my focus for this blog will end up (although i have a pretty good idea) but it’s been much easier to get this far with your support. So, thanks to you all.
Technorati Tags: NaBloPoMo, Site, Thoughts, Updates
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Thanks to BloggingZoom, i’ve been getting a relatively good and somewhat steady flow of traffic coming to me over the past few days. That all started with my first submission, Don’t Quit Your Day Job, or: What to Do When Your Girlfriend Thinks Your Blog is a Waste of Time, which spiked my traffic from next-to-nothing, up to about 74 hits, in the span of less than an hour, which i thought was absolutely incredible. Apparently, i hadn’t seen nothin’ yet.
StumbleUpon is a wonderfully fun service that is great for killing time online when you can’t think of anything specific you want to look up. I had never even considered its potential for bloggers until a couple days ago, after reading a few posts about other bloggers using it to drive traffic to their sites. It was then that i realized what an awesome and powerful tool it could be. So i clicked the thumb’s-up sign while viewing my post (Don’t Quit Your Day Job, mentioned above) to submit the url to StumbleUpon, and i didn’t get the normal “discovery” pop-up dialog. The thumb’s-up icon simply turned green, meaning that somebody had already stumbled that page!! Incredible! I immediately signed on and sent the user (who happened to be Frank from OpTempo.com) a message thanking him for doing so.
Next, i went into my WP-Live and watched as the hits kept on coming! I ended up getting around 170 hits, yesterday alone! As for today…
I know this is miniscule compared to other blogs, but to me, this is a breakthrough. I’m now feeling much more confident about what i’m doing here, and that’s keeping me motivated to try even harder.
Out of curiosity, i’d like to hear when it was that you realized that you had the potential to stick around and actually make it in the blogging world. What were the contributing factors? Did you get a boost in traffic like i did and realize that you had a shot? Or was it something else completely? Leave a comment and let me know.
Technorati Tags: BloggingZoom, Internet, NaBloPoMo, Site, StumbleUpon
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well, i’ve jumped on the bandwagon and joined the countless numbers of bloggers using Google’s AdSense for including ads in their blogs. here’s a rundown on how the process of signing-up and setting-up went for me:
1. Initial Sign-Up Attempt:
this was absolutely ridiculous (my own fault). i signed up using Google Account A and waited for the verification email. got it. clicked the confirmation link and was told to wait until they had reviewed my application. so i waited. for a loooooong time. and i never heard anything back from them, after waiting approximately two weeks. so…
2. Second Sign-Up Attempt:
i tried again. i signed up using Google Account B and went through the verification process once more. this time i resolved to wait longer, no matter how long. so i waited. and i waited. and i waited some more..
after about three weeks, i finally received the email telling me i had been accepted into the service, and i could go ahead and finish the sign-up process. unfortunately for me, i had made a small mistake in the interim that hindered me from completing this step for about an hour…
3. Sign-Up Finalization:
while waiting for them to review my application and send me a confirmation email, i had decided to forward all incoming mail from Google Account A to Google Account B, because i almost never check Google Account B… so, silly me, when i finally got the review confirmation today, i got it at Google Account A, and therefore assumed the email was for that account. so. i spent close to 45 minutes trying to login to my brand new approved adsense account with the wrong account information. it didn’t even occur to me that this was the case, because i had completely forgotten that i’d forwarded my email from Account B to Account A.
4. Account Set-Up (finally):
this was a breeze. agree to terms and service, fill in tax information, set-up payment option (which i have yet to do), set up first ad, and voila! (i also installed a WP plugin called Adsense Manager, which i highly recommend)
so, all in all, the process was absolutely frustrating, but that was simply due to my own forgetfulness. =P other than that, everything was smooth sailing. a very simple way to get advertisements placed on one’s blog and start generating some revenue.
now, i can finally start putting all of my time and effort into producing the kind of (hopefully) quality content that will keep people coming back. that is, after all, the whole point..
i’d also be interested to hear how this whole process went for other people. have any of you had any trouble whatsoever in signing up and/or setting up your AdSense accounts? leave a comment and tell us about it
Technorati Tags: Internet, NaBloPoMo, Site, Updates, WordPress
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i’ve made a few small changes to my blog today, as you most likely can tell.
first off, i changed the theme. while i certainly liked the look of the previous one, “bluememories,” i didn’t think it looked professional enough to match what i’m aiming for. the current one, called SpotLight 1.3 created by Stephen Reinhardt and modified by Sadish Bala, seems to be more along the lines of what i’ve been looking for.
next, i finally got the permalinks working. i tried messing around with them when i started this blog, but i couldn’t get them to work. not even the ‘almost pretty’ permalinks. but, since i upgraded to WordPress 2.3.1, everything seems to have come together for me.
also, as i just mentioned, i have upgraded my WordPress installation to 2.3.1. this is a security/but-fix release, which seems to have completely destroyed all of the little annoying errors i’ve been getting recently. so things are definately looking up!
and finally, as stated in my previous post, BloggingZoom: Get Zoomed And See The Difference!, i signed up for BloggingZoom (which i highly recommend to everybody who wants more traffic directed to their blog). the results were immediate! after making my very first submission, i got a huge spike in page requests, and even received my second comment ever! amazing! i can’t stress enough how wonderful this service is. if you haven’t heard of it yet, and haven’t read my quick-n-dirty review, click the above link and read about it, then go check it out as soon as you’re done. i can practically guarantee that it will work for you just as well as it has for me, if not better!
all in all, it’s been a good week for me in terms of my blog…
i started in on NaBloPoMo, and have already posted more than once each day, which is HUGE for me..
upgrading WordPress went on without a hitch..
installed a much smoother / more professional-looking theme..
and, again, thanks to BloggingZoom, i’m finally starting to get at least somewhat decent traffic headed my way.
now all that’s left is to get the readers to stick around, and maybe even come back for more!
Technorati Tags: NaBloPoMo, Site, Updates
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