Update Your Wordpress

I've been a little slow recently and have only got around to updating my Wordpress Blog to version 2.whatever, must say I am really impressed with the little changes they have made to it.

Unlike Blogger, Wordpress are making things even easier for webmaters to control and edit there sites.

Well done Wordpress. My desire to move iSmooch over is increasing more and more.

In other news, I realised yesterday why I havent been getting any traffic for a while. Its becasuse I deleted my sitemeter tracker, so infact I may well have been getting traffic but it never registered... what a N00B!!

Furthermore, my Google Adsense earning shot through the roof yesterday... I made $2.67. One of my best days yet.

Along with that, I also received a request to place a banner on one my other sites for a annual Fee. RESULT!! Its not much, but every penny helps.

New Name Contest!!

Three posts in one day... wow!!

Right, I am seriously gonna change my Blog completly because im fed up with using Blogspot.

Im gonna lift it and move it to Wordpress with my other Blogs, but since iSmooch.com is taken I need to come up with a new URL name, so if anyone who is reading this (if there is anyone) has any suggestions and the URL is available I will choose it and use it!

If I can generate enought traffic in the next week or so and get people to come up with some new names, I will take it one step further and allow my readers to choose the new design.

Get Thinking!!

DAM IT!!

Ever since I have set up this blog I always thought it would be super cool if I could get ismooch.com, Cos it sounds so much awesomer (that's a word... right?).

But every time I looked at buying it, some guy in the states owned it, but never had a site up and running with it. Now if you type in ismooch.com, your REDIRECTED to a dating site called iMooch. What a god dam waste of a great URL.

Rant over

Number one in Google

As you may have noticed, I haven't really written match on this site for some time. Just kinda lost interest / run out of things to say.

Well, here I am, and maybe this post will be the first of many more to come.

I have slightly changed the layout of the page, but i still think it looks really crap. Blogger don't really provide many options on the template front, which is why I now recommend Wordpress for setting up a blog. Its so much cleaner and more options to tweek your site. Check out this as an example: I Like To Rant

I've taken away alot of crappy adds and affiliate marketing stuff. I didn't earn any money with it so decided to boot it. I still think there is alot of money to be earned from affiliate marketing online, but it looks like a tricky thing to get in to, and at the mo i really don't have the motivation to do it.

Along with my new layout I also have a new position in Google. After being at war with 3 hot girls for a couple of months, I can now, proudly say, that I have whipped there Arse's and sit at number one on Google for the term "ismooch". Which I doubt will do anything in terms of traffic, but its a personal achievement that I am pleased with :)

Not to sure how long I will stay there though, as it appears that since I amended my layout slightly, my search engine traffic has become non existent. I'm thinking that it may take Google some time to find me again, so in the meantime, I'm just writing to my self.

Published!!

Yep, that's right. I have just seen an article that I wrote get published on Ezine Articles.

Ezine articles is a pretty cool website, where you can find articles about anything and everything. Articles are submitted by common folk and if good enough, will get approved and published online.

You can see my article here it is a copy of one of my previous posts - this one

Whats the point in submitting an article if its on my blog? Well it should help bring in more traffic to my website. My article will appear on Ezine's high traffic homepage, RSS feed and Email alerts.

So if you have a blog or a website you wish to promote, using Ezlines is a great way. If you submit an article then ensure that you put a link to your website at the bottom. This will also give you a free link to your page, which will come in handy with SEO.

As an "Expert Author" I can now have one of these labels on my website:

It feels like I'm in some kind of exclusive club, but I'm sure they agree to hundreds of articles... but still. This is my moment of glory!!

Top Blogging Tips

After having my Blog for 3 whole weeks now, here are a few top blogging tips to anyone wishing to start up their own Blog:

• Use Wordpress.

Although Blogger is probably easier to use, Wordpress is where its at. The designs look better and Wordpress allows you more freedom. At some point in the future I will be changing to Wordpress, but at the moment im happy with what Blogger provides.

• Install Sitemeter to track your visitors.

Other people tend to recommend Statcounter but I find that its easier to read all the information that Sitemeter provides. I currently have both installed on this site but Sitemeter is my preferred tool.

• Try picking a particular thing to Blog about.

When I started this Blog I didn't have a clue what it was going to be about. And to be honest, I still don't know. After tracking my visitors with Sitemeter it appears that this isn't a good thing to do. It doesn't appear that many people read all my posts once they are on my site.

I have two particular entries that rank high on Google Search for particular Key Words (which is great). But once my visitors read these posts they don't tend to stick around or come back. This is probably due to the mixture of content I have on this site.

However if someone stumbled across a Blog about making money and that's the subject they are interested in, then they will continue to read that Blog.

So... any idea's what I should start Blogging about? ...is anyone actually reading this?

• Be patient if you don't build up a big fan base straight away.

These things take time! How long? I don't know... longer than 3 weeks by the looks of it.

Just Keep on Blogging!!

• Write interesting articles, not sh*t like this.

My write ups on Sopcast and Tversity seem to attract loads of traffic to my site. Its just a shame I don't have anything else interesting to share.

• Write some comments on fellow Bloggers Blogs.

It's a great way to get your name around the Blogging community. Read this articles to see what im talking about - Caroline Middlebrook - also, while your there check out her free eBook as it will help if you plan to create a Wordpress site/Blog.

• If you are going to use Blogger/Blogspot to set up a Blog, then check out this website for some awesome ways to add stuff and change things.

• Most important of all, make sure you start using Firefox if your not already. Download it here for free now!!

Errr... I think that's all I have for now. If I have anymore helpful hints to Blogging I will let you know.

3 Weeks and 1 Day Later

Its now been over 3 weeks since starting this Blog of mine and personally, I think it looks ok.

Considering this is my first ever attempt at anything Webby and I had no experience with HTML im pretty pleased with how it looks.

Obviously Blogger make it very easy to create a Blog and all you have to do is choose which theme and what colours you want and hey presto you have your own Blog. Very simple.

However I have applied some personal touches to this site that weren't as easy (but was still pretty easy). I have added a Favicon to my site (the little icon next to the URL in your Browser - seems to only appear with Firefox and not when I use crappy Internet Explorer - Therefore if you use IE download Firefox now). A good reason to have a Favicon is to make your site stand out more and make it easy to identify. So if you add this site to your FAVourites the "i" ICON will appear and it will make it easier for people to find my site in there Favourites list.

I have also incorporated Google Adsense into my site, which is pretty simple with Blogger as they provide a simple Adsense Widget you can add to your sidebar. Google will scan your site and advertise appreciate content. If you are looking at making some extra cash from your website or Blog there are plenty of Ad companies to choose from, but Google allow you to customise your adds and blend them into your site more easily.

The theme I originally chose only had 2 columns - a side bar on the left and the main body. As you can see I have added a third column on the right. Allowing me to add more Widgets that are easier to see.

One of the most difficult and annoying things I added was the "Continue Reading…" link which appears on the front page. I only wanted for some of my posts to show on the front page and for users to click "Continue Reading..." if they wanted to read the rest of the entry. This was pretty simple to add but started to get really annoying when I tried to change the size and colour of the link. It can also become pretty fiddly each time I write a post as I need to set where I want the break of point to be. However I am now getting the hang of this.

So does anyone actually read what I write? Well after 22 days I have had 400 visits to my Blog. Not bad really. However, there are some Blogs out there that get 40,000 hits a day. Maybe one day I will have that many… then again… maybe not!

So if anyone does read this, thanks very much. I appreciate it.

Better Than your Boyfriend...

...is a great Blog that I have been reading for over a year now and I highly recommend popping over to give a few of the posts a read.

The Blog is written by the self proclaimed; most interesting person in the world, Tynan.

Better Than Your Boyfriend started out as a personal Blog to keep track of his polyphasic sleep schedule. People started to read his sleep deprived ramblings, and the site eventually gained popularity when it was featured on Digg a few times.

Since then the Blog has turned into a catalogue of great adventures that Tynan has had through out his very interesting life, these include, living in the Project Hollywood house with the worlds top pick up artists to his carer as a professional Gambler. Other great stories include his pimping out of School bus and creating a giant swing on the his balcony so he could swing off the edge - no joke.

The best story I have probably ever read is about the time he erected a full size outdoor Swimming Pool in his living room with the dream of housing a pet Penguin (the pictures are defiantly worth a look).

He doesn't update this Blog as much as he used to as he is travelling the world with his mate Todd. His adventures of this trip are written about in his other Blog, Life Nomadic.

I really do recommend paying this site a visit and have a read of some of his stories as they are very entertaining and a great read.

Blog help

As already stated im pretty new to this blogging thing and what not. So i've been trying to read up on it.

So here is a list of sites that i have found pretty useful while trying to do my blog up:

• Tips for new bloggers
• Blogging Basics 101
• Seth's Blog

I'm sure there are load more helpful sights out there, but these are the sights I have been using for helpful tips as im going along.

I've also used sitemeter to help me keep track of how many visits i get to my blog. This is a useful tool and allows you to customize it in different ways. i.e. stop the counter counting you as a visiter.

Obviously im still learning and will probably come across plenty more helpful sites and will post them on here.