Archive for October, 2008

How to Create a Blog - Part 7

October 25th, 2008 • stephenlawes • 0 comments • Related • Filed Under

I recently added a new tool on My Newbie Blog to help answer the question of how to create a blog.   I have added the Skype call me button.  I have been using Skype on my blog consulting site for sometime and realized that it might be a good fit for this site as well.  I can remember in the beginning of this site that there were a lot of times when I would get so frustrated because I couldn’t figure something out and didn’t know who to ask.  While I appreciate all the forums that are available, and that the people on them are usually very helpful. you are just never sure if you are going to get an answer.  So you wait and get more frustrated.

There were times when I would have paid almost anything for some helpful advice.  When you get to that spot, you can Skype me.  I charge what I think is a reasonable fee of $50.  For that fee, I will give you 30 minutes of my time.  Before I take any money I will determine if I can fix the problem.  If I can’t fix, then I won’t charge you.  How does that work?  You Skype me (which is free if you have Skype) and tell me your problem.  If I think I can help you I will tell you and we can settle up with Paypal.  If I don’t think I can help you, I will toss you a couple of free ideas and that will be that.

Skype is a free program that you can download at skype.com.  I like it.   It allows me to have video conversations with people all over the world for free.  It also opens up a lot fo new opportunities for blog consulting and other services that are better in a virtual face to face environment.  If you haven’t already, you should check it out!

How to Create a Blog - Part 6

October 15th, 2008 • stephenlawes • 0 comments • Related • Filed Under

There are a lot of ways to get your blog started and running.  There is no one answer on how to create a blog.  Recently we started a site called Hurricane Tracking Sites.  We did this because we live in an area where there is a great potential for hurricanes.  In fact, as we were tracking a hurricane we decided it would be convenient to have all the tracking sites on one convenient site.  The best solution we could think of was a blog.  We searched on GoodNewsDomains for a suitable domain name and we found www.hurricanetrackingsites.com.  This was a good find because our actual keyword search for tracking sites had been “hurricane tracking sites”.

We got an economy hosting plan and put some articles on the site and added some links to other tracking sites.  This site had an immediate rise to page 1 of Google.  It was actually in position 5 for almost 2 months.  Then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone from the search engine.  What happened?  Sandbox.  Not surprised.  The site really went to page one fast, literally within 3 hours of when we first put the site up, it turned up on page 1.  The sandbox will keep this new site from mixing with the older sites for a while.

hurricanetrackingsites.JPG

The good news is that hurricane season is almost over for the year. Hopefully, before the next hurricane season the site will come out of the sandbox.  In it’s first three days the site got over 400 hits.  It was amazing.  Sometimes the best iddeas for sites come out of a real life situation.  You should always think about what you search for on the Internet and see if it has potential as a blog.  It will be interesting to see what happens to the Hurricane Tracking Site in the future.  The site will eventually be featured on Blogs For Sale.