Resolution Acronym for 2008 :: COG

January 3, 2009 – 8:22 pm

Damien on a billboardThanks to Amber Naslund’s link to Chris Brogan in my feed reader tonight, I “originated” a brand new idea to try for this New Year’s Day: a resolution acronym. Chris gives three words and explains their relevance to his resolutions. Since I am really into using acronyms, I’m adding that element. Acronyms have served me well this year. I have surpassed my blog goals by focusing on the acronym CAN: circulation, analytics, and net. I have helped make my teaching team among the highest ranking in my school district through MAP: monitor, analyze, prepare. I get help in writing these acronyms through a 3 letter word site. You might try an acronym for your own goals. Now, in the spirit of resolutions, my resolution acronym for 2009 is:

COG - collect, originate, guide

collect - This has to do with being paid for what I do. Many times I give away services both at work and on the web for free and I always enjoy doing it. Unfortunately, there is only so much time in a day and I have learned that I need to expect compensation more than I have in the past. I am coming up empty when I should be profiting. This may sound like a self-absorbed resolution but it is something I have found necessary to a balanced life. I am choosing to “collect” more in 2009 for the hours I put in. If there is no compensation then that time should be mine, not someone else’s.

originate - Walt Disney was a true innovator. He thought of ideas no one had ever dreamed before him. I want to “originate” ideas like Walt Disney in the micrcosm of my life. I want my mind to stay open. When others say things are impossible, I want the solutions to originate with me. My handle at Twitter is cre8nnov8 (create and innovate) and that is what this resolution is all about.

guide - Maybe to balance “collect” out, I have a resolution to guide my children and my students and my friends. I want to point the way like a lighthouse toward dreams and visions. In order to be an effective guide I need to be healthy. That is the most important thing. After that, I need to recereate and keep my mind open. I want to guide people when the opportunity arises and be ready. I will remember the word guide when I see someone who can do something more efficiently. A big part of this also is being the best dad I can possibly be. Spending at least an hour with my kids every night is part of what “guide” means. Guides give and they point the way.

To summarize: The word COG is my New Year’s resolution. I want to be part of humankind like a cog: collecting, originating, and guiding. Happy New Year everybody.

By Damien Riley | Posted in Online Diary | 145 views | Tagged , | Comments (1)

Between Funds? Try a No Faxing Payday Loan

January 3, 2009 – 8:19 pm

What do you think about these economic times we are in?  As I listen to stories of my family and friends I get more and more sure that we are headed into a recession.  I’ve been very fortunate up to now in the job I have.  It’s a government job in a way in that I don’t produce profits.  I teach 4th grade public school and therefore I am that part of society toward the center that probably won’t get tinkered with.

Most other jobs are different in my circle.  My dad and brother are in real estate and they are out busting their humps to make it through these trying financial times.  Even though I am doing okay now, even when times were extra prosperous in college I was a really poor manager of my finances.  I’d always buy the $4 peanut butter instead of the $1 (that figures in inflation folks.  I know peanut butter isn’t $1 anymore).  Anyway, I give you that disclaimer because as I recommend short term loans for people such as Pay Day Loans I want you to know I am not a financial genius or savior. I am however, a smart person who has used these in the past with excellent results.

Short term loans in this economy can feed the family while you figure something out.  In the past when I got them it was just to buy good oeanut butter but there are any number of reasons they might make sense.  The late fees on everything these days are just insane as well.  A short term loan carries a fee but it might save you hundreds if you used one to pay your bills on time.

It isn’t the perfect situation but I sure won’t judge you for doing it.  I think short term loans can be very responsible.  Though they indeed have a cost, you have to count the cost of not getting one sometimes.  That may be far greater. If it makes sense, I recommend a No Faxing Payday Loan.

By Damien Riley | Posted in Consumerism, Online Diary | 57 views | Tagged , | Comments (0)

This Week’s Podcast :: Video for New Bloggers

January 3, 2009 – 12:43 am

I chose a beginner blog topic this week after all the reviews I did last week.  What to avoid.  (Don’t laugh at the junkyard above my fridge). I made a video this week.

By Damien Riley | Posted in Online Diary | 49 views | Comments (0)

Blog Stats 12-31-08 :: Last Update of 2008

December 31, 2008 – 11:28 pm

Table of contents for CAN Blog Self-Rating 2008

  1. Blog Stats July 2008
  2. Blog Stats August 2008
  3. Blog Stats September 2008
  4. Blog Stats October 2008
  5. Blog Stats November 2008
  6. Blog Stats 12-31-08 :: Last Update of 2008

CAN Logo

This is a monthly feature here where I measure my 3 blogs’ progress. My goal with this series is to provide 100% transparency. You can browse current and past entries in the CAN… category.  First I list the CAN data for each blog.  Then I reflect with a few notes.

Legend:
C = Circulation, or backlinks
A = Analytics, or number of visitors and feed subscribers
N = Net, or the amount of money earned by the blog

1. Postcards from the Funny Farm, a psychology and inspiration blog

Screenshot of Analytics

Circulation
Google Backlinks: 224
Yahoo! Backlinks: 6,884

Analytics
from 12-01-08 to 12-31-08
Visitors: 11,531
Page Views: 15,536
Feed Subscribers:  110

Net
$68.50

2. Damien at the Speed of Life, my online diary

Screenshot of Analytics
Circulation
Google Backlinks: 36
Yahoo! Backlinks: 272

Analytics
from 12-01-08 to 12-31-08
Visitors: 603
Page Views: 1,520
Feed Subscribers: 17

Net
$30

3. Dynamite Lesson Plan, a teaching blogScreenshot of Analytics
Circulation
Google Backlinks: 224
Yahoo! Backlinks: 6,884

Analytics
from 12-01-08 to 12-31-08
Visitors: 217
Page Views: 503
Feed Subscribers:  14

Net
$25.01

NOTES: December was a great month for traffic.  I had close to 12,000 visitors which is a record by about 5,000 visitors.  So what happened?  Well, my static “Crazy Quotes” page has gained the 5th place on a Google search of those 2 terms.  I have been getting 300-500 hits on that page a day!  This has really helped the normal traffic and boosted the totals immensely.  A special post or page can carry your blog without a need for traffic driving methods.

You may recall last month I decided I was done with empty clicker traffic such as Entrecard.  It hurt me at first but very soon my other methods far surpassed Entrecard.  I just feel that the quality of blogs there is not high and most people who came to my sites just clicked for their points and took off like a bat out of hell.  I chose to work with Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks a little more.  You will see attractive buttons in all three sidevars linking to my profiles on the social networks I am working with.  Please add me to your lists!

My net suffered this month because I didn’t bother much with it.  I decided to put my mental health above straining over sponsored posts.  I did make a nice chunk of change without trying hard at all.

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t note my recent Google PageRank increase on all three blogs.  They used to be 1, 0, 0 and last night after the roll through, they became 2, 2, 2. This will enable me to get more paying posts and potentially more advertisers.  I am a very happy camper as you all know I have been working very hard to bring my PageRank values up.  Still though, I believe the future is going to be based on 100% pure transparency of stats and not on any dictator of value like PageRank.  That’s the reason I will continue to post CAN stats on all my blogs through 2009.

As always, I want to be open to your questions and comments through this series.  The comment box is waiting for you.  You’ve seen my results read my notes, what do you have to say? Is there something I missed you’d like to discuss?  How were your CAN results last month?

Previous in series
By Damien Riley | Posted in Blog Stats, Consumerism, Online Diary | 85 views | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (3)

Blog Tips I Picked Up Doing Blog Reviews

December 28, 2008 – 9:51 pm

BC Reviews

The reviewer learns from the reviewee

Reviewing peer blogs can be an excellent way to see bogging from “outside the box.”

I’ve been reviewing blogs let me tell ya!

I started a thread over at Blog Catalog offering anyone a blog review as long as it came to me prior to January 9th, 2009. I have a little time off work and I thought it would be fun to meet some new bloggers and maybe help some people out if possible. The response so far has been positive.

Ever bite off more than you can chew?

Just kidding.  Kinda.  I’ve managed to do 12 reviews in 3 hours and my neck hurts LOL. I’ve tried to be positive and comment on the PROS more than the cons. Some people have asked me to really criticize though so in some cases that is what I’ve done. Even though I am behind, I am committed to reviewing everyone who asks prior to the 9th. It is a blast and I am learning while I review.  I thought I would summarize a few things here on my personal blog that seemed common issues to me anyway:

Here’s the common roadblocks I see …

  • Too many ads on new blogs is annoying - My advice? Wait until your traffic warrants payment. Generally 15,000 visitors or more per month.
  • Intentional Branding is crucial - The name is the thing. Really think before you put up a name or a tagline. It is your currency and it is all you ever have in blogging. Many seem haphazard.
  • Many blogs have way too broad of a scope - How many malls does a town need? Be a STORE not a mall. I am reading so many blogs that have taglines like “a little of this a little of that and everything else.” It is YOUR job to tell us who you are and why YOU are worth reading.

I hope my words are helpful and not pissing people off over there. I aim to do right by my contribution to people’s art. If you’d like a review of your blog, I still have plenty of spare time before the 9th. Go ahead and submit it over at Blog Catalog and I’ll do my worst for ya!

Thanks to the Blog Catalog folks I’ve reviewed for giving me the privilege of reviewing your work.  If the 9th has passed and you’d like a review, ask me.  If I have the time I’d be happy to.

By Damien Riley | Posted in Blogging | 124 views | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (4)

Final Blog Stats for 2008 (a preview)

December 26, 2008 – 8:25 pm

CAN Logo

This is a monthly feature here at my personal blog where I measure my blogs’ progress toward goals. You can browse current and past entries in the CAN… category. CAN stands for:

Circulation: Incoming links.
Analytics: # of visitors (Measured in the graph above)
Net: Money made and key takeaways. (Because money isn’t everything.)

I often use shorthand in referring to my blogs:
Psych Blog: Postcards from the Funny Farm
Personal Blog: Damien at the Speed of Life
Teaching Blog: Dynamite Lesson Plan
Podcast: Damien Riley’s Podcast

Below are my CAN results for the time span of 11-26-08 to 11-27-08:
___

Psych Blog:

C - 18

A - 10,099

N - $68.50

Personal Blog:

C - 22

A - 564

N - $30

Teaching Blog:

C - 7

A - 251

N - $25.01
—

Notes: December marked the time I broke the 10,000 monthly visitors mark with my psych blog.  This extremely exciting for me since I have been working on traffic for that blog for 2 years.  I noticed a chunk of that traffic comes from my Crazy Quotes static page.   This teaches me that a dedicated page with search friendly tags and description can lift a blog’s analytics considerably.  For this reason I will continue to put quotes about being crazy and other psychology stuff on that page.  An interesting question is this: “Is there a better way to monetize just that page?”  If any mmol seo types out there have a suggestion I’d appreciate it.  My blog domain has a Google PageRank of 1/10 and yet that quotes page has a 2!  Go figure.  I am quite hopeful in the next PR rollout my blog will increase notably.  I have set most paid links to nofollow when it is ok with the paying advertiser.  That affected a lot of links so we’ll see how much if at all my PR improves.

Another thing I learned in December is that Google weighs inbound links against the number of outgoing links.  If you have a lot of inbound links on a regular basis, that helps your rank.  If you have a lot of outgoing links however that negates the effect of your inbound links.  You can check your inbound links at any time on Google by entering site:(your url) and doing a search.  I don’t know a way to check ones outgoing links but I’d like to find out.  You will find I am linking out less and less and using nofollow on all links unless I want to give a special site link juice.

I have really been slacking in my guest blogging.  I want to do more of that this year.  The best ones for me are the “regular gigs.”  I have two of those and then several open invitations if I get an idea.  The first one is: It Might be Love which is owned by Chelle.  She has become a great friend in this blogging business and I really appreciate her blog concept.  The other is the FuelmyBlog blog.  I am fortunate enough to manage their monthly and sometimes biweekly blog carnival.  Kevin and Sylvie are a couple of really gracious people.  Apart from those two, I want to make myself available to bloggers out there.  If you ask me to guest blog, you will get a great post of 300 words or more with pictures and a solid inbound link from my blog.  Let me know if you are interested.

Now, the last thing: “Analytics.”  How I achieved that 10,099 number is the mystery of the universe.  I’d like to think it was due to my amazing writing.  I think we all know that isn’t the reason.  Traffic is the result of strategic activity.  I have been working really hard this month to test and set in place a traffic generating plan for 2009 and I think I have actually done it!  Here is a bullet list of the items I will use to drive traffic in 2009 (not in any order):

  • Stumbleupon networking (by far the best)
  • Other social media
  • Specific Social Networking: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Wordpress.com, Blogger, Technorati, FriendFeed, Ping.fm, Last.fm, flickr, LinkedIn, and YouTube
  • Blog Directories: MyBlogLog and Blog Catalog
  • BlogCarnival.com
  • Maintain organic Google Reader Feed Subscriptions and commenting often
  • Keep to a weekly posting schedule as a minimum for posting to all three blogs
  • Continuing to experiment with my Podcast.

I will publish the official numbers in 6 days when December is officially over but I hope you enjoyed these results.  You might say, the future’s so bright, I gotta wear bamboo shades. If you’d like to follow my journey in 2009, I encourage you to subscribe via FEED or EMAIL.

By Damien Riley | Posted in Blog Stats | 141 views | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

The Christmas Ham [Home Video]

December 25, 2008 – 10:36 pm

Sarah made a spiral ham this year and I was ecstatic. In this short video I discuss the ham and invite you into my kitchen for less than 2 minutes :)

By Damien Riley | Posted in Online Diary | 156 views | Tagged , | Comments (1)

Blog Safari 12-25-08

December 25, 2008 – 12:21 pm

Social media reveals great blogs out there in the wilderness. These are the best I ran across last week, the week before Christmas 2008. Each entry below will receive a much deserved Stumble from me.  Enjoy them and tune in next week for another safari.

By Damien Riley | Posted in Blogging, Cyberculture, Pop Culture | 219 views | Tagged , , | Comments (2)

A New and Glorious Morn - Blog Stats for 2008

December 24, 2008 – 10:32 pm

The title is a line from “O Holy Night,” my favorite Christmas song. I thought it a fitting way to start looking at my yearly blog stats which I am so very thankful for this Christmas.  Merry Christmas if you are one of the first readers!

I’ve learned more each day as this past year has whizzed by. I’ve learned how to be better dad, to meet my goals more efficiently at work, and last but not least: I’ve learned key strategies to be a better blogger. As I sat down to outline this post as I always do, I realized I could never fit all I’ve learned about blogging in one post. Better yet, I decided to craft it into a series of post. If you tune in each day until New Years Day 2009 (or when I run out of ideas) you will get all my blog tips, free of charge. If you are tuning in after the series is finished, I hope you find the set to be helpful to you in creating, maintaining, and enjoying a valuable blog.

Looking Back

Last year, I embarked upon a blog journey of the acronym C.A.N. The letters stood for the three goals I measured each month:

Circulation (inbound links)
Analytics (visitors)
Net (Income)

I made goals each month and reported them to you. You can find the last several months C.A.N. results here. This was a very efficient way to measure my own progress. Here is a chart showing how my three blogs Fared in traffic the past 4 months:

CAN chart

I think the smartest thing I have done this past year is to monitor progress toward goals through my monthly CAN post on my personal blog. My hope is that my lower two blogs will rise in their analytics and come close to my psych blog.

Moving Forward

Since this date last year and now, 12-24-08, I’ve earned a total of: $2,137 blogging. If you are interested how I made that chunk of change, here are the sources, in order of highest earnings:

Pay Per Post
PayU2Blog
Social Spark
Review Me
Buy Blog Reviews
Private Ads (Random people who’ve asked to advertise on my blog)
Text Link Ads

I made the majority of this past year’s income when my highest PR was a 4/10. A few months ago, Google reduced me to a 1/10 and much of my opportunities to make money disappeared. This is the irony of Google’s PageRank system: They penalize you for posting sponsored posts and yet the ones who sponsor you pull away when Google penalizes you. There is a solution but it is quite cumbersome: add the tag rel=”nofollow” to any paid link. I’ve been diligent at doing this, not only with paid links but also with links that are irrelvant. I have heard this can affect PageRank as well.

What’s an honest blogger to do?

The secret then, to what I hope is my future success is to always be relevant when linking (ie; no blogrolls, random “link love” posts), always write valuable posts with excellent content (paid or not), rel=”nofollow” ads and sponsored posts when the buyer allows it (note: SocialSpark does all nofollow), and measure my progress toward goals on my personal blog. Finally, as I said earlier, I hope to bring the analytics of my teaching blog and this blog, my personal blog, up to the region on the chart where the psych blog is. If I pull that off in 2009, I will feel I’ve truly accomplished something.

I have many other strategies I am playing with to hopefully put a plasma big screen on the tv stand. In future posts in this series I will discuss social media and networking along with personal habits like scheduling times to post and future time stamping posts. I’ll also be taking YOUR QUESTIONS.  I hope you’ll “tune in.”

By Damien Riley | Posted in Blog Consumerism | 70 views | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments (0)

You Can’t Shop for Unique Ideas

December 23, 2008 – 4:44 pm

Sitting down with the forced intent to make something “new” is creative suicide. Bringing inspiration from somewhere or sometime else in your life is the key to sitting down and writing. Throughout the day, be imagining solutions. In your car, when that traffic threatens to give you a coronary, breathe. Use visualization to see solutions. The world needs and is drawn to creative thinkers. Be one. Getting a creative thought is not like going to Lowe’s and browsing bathroom faucets for your remodeled bathroom. Instead, you are creating a whole new faucet no one has ever seen before.

When a problem comes up in life at work or home, don’t curse it. Instead, think about a creative way to solve it. Writing is not the only thing that will benefit from doing this. Every aspect of your life will improve as you lean into creative solutions. As creativity flows through you, make sure you have lots of ways to record the ideas you get. Handheld recorders are great. So is a simple pocket pad you can carry around with you. To complete the idea of the title: “You can’t shop for unique ideas, they just come to you.”

By Damien Riley | Posted in Blog Consumerism | 114 views | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)