Puteri’s Musings 2

Being away from home for an extended period and staying at a place with such a lousy internet connection is not fun at all!   :sad:   Look at the date of the previous post! 

The dial-up internet connection at my parents’ place is so slow that I have given up on it.  Not only did I tie up the phone line, I also wasted so much time waiting for pages to load.  I managed to find a weak wi-fi signal which seemed to appear in spurts and I have been relying on that signal for the last several days.

Today I had to borrow my oldest brother’s laptop  because it seems to receive the wi-fi signal a lot better than my lap top.  But still the connection is not that great from my old room in my parents’ house.  A weak signal is better than nothing, right?  Especially if it doesn’t tie up the phone line?

A reader, who is also back in Malaysia on vacation, describes not having a decent internet connection as having a “crippled life” :lol:   That is quite an apt description!

One of the things I have been doing more of lately on my blogs is to add images like screen shots, illustrations, and real photos to my posts. I don’t know if you have noticed the difference in my blogs, but I have always liked to see images in posts on blogs that I visit regularly. Some bloggers are very creative and have found all kinds of pictures or cartoons to emphasize the point they’d written.

I mean, I don’t particularly care about posts that are solely dependent on pictures, unless they are photo blogs of course, where the content is light and there’s nothing else to interest you.

Darren Rowse of ProBlogger.net always has some interesting posts on how to develop your blog. One of his posts is called Using Images to Take Your Posts to a New Level. I like Darren’s style. He just doesn’t write about using images in his blog, he does a video clip to talk about it! Now that’s different! Maybe every now and then in addition to writing about something, I could also do a video to accompany it?

Err, maybe not, because I don’t particularly like the way I look on video! Heheh. Ok, I’ll just stick to adding images to my blog.

Angie, of The Daily Matters tagged me. This is by far the most meaningful tag that I have done. I’d like to tag Nightwing, Patricia, Asiana Pat, and Cat.

**Start Copy Here**

We have a voice;
We must be heard;
Therefore we blog;
Now spread the word!

This meme is based on a recent post that was conducted asking the question “Why do you Blog?” and the rewrite “Why do you Blog? – Reworked.” The purpose of this meme is to tell our tales by spreading the reasons that we blog to as many sites as possible. We get to explain ourselves, direct traffic to our site and highlight our most important, most representative or most relevant post in an SEO favorable format. This will be a positive experience for everyone who wants to get involved. This will enable you to create a short advertisement for your site that will be spread across the blogesphere; a growing directory of blogs.

This is an open meme. You do not have to be tagged to join in. All you have to do is follow the rules.

Please let me know when you have added your site by leaving a comment on “Complete List” with a link to your post. This will insure an up-to-date list, giving you even greater distribution. You then have the option of copying the growing list back to your site.

Rules:

1. Create an inventive post title.
2. Write a brief introduction to the meme.
3. Copy from “**Start Copy Here**” through “**End Copy Here**” .

4. Paste into your post.
5. At the end of the “*list*”, before “**End copy here**”, please add your name, site name (with link), a very brief description (2-3 sentences) of why you blog, and your most important, most representative, or most relevant post (with link.)
6. Tag at least 5 others to participate.
7. Leave a comment and a link to your post on “Complete List”

*List*

My name is Mel and I am the Author of Attitude, the Ultimate Power, aka Monday Morning Power. I blog because I am passionate about happiness and living in the moment. I want to spread the concept that we are in control of our own lives and can choose how we act and react. My site is focused on the Pursuit, Capture, Care and Feeding of a Positive Mental Attitude. One of my most representative posts is “Happiness Vs. Human Nature.”

I am Max and I offer weekly articles on MAX. Why do I blog? I do it because I want to share my thoughts with you guys. I present a new and interesting way of transmitting philosophical thoughts: funny, engaging and intriguing! My funniest, yet intriguing, post is “Don’t you just love People?“

I am the Great and Powerful Baba Doodlius. My 100% factual blog The Thoughts and Sayings Of Baba Doodlius is intended to educate all of you curious readers about the Truth behind the Great Secrets of the Universe. I have the Truth! Can you handle the Truth? For a sample of my powers of enlightenment, read my Revelation of the terrible secret of Bigfoot, aka Don’t get stepped on.

Hi, I’m Puteri. I’m a stay-at-home mom to two pre-schoolers, and run a long arm machine quilting business from home. I blog because it is a form of documenting my life. I have never really kept a diary and blogging is as good as keeping a diary. I have six blogs – Puteri’s Musings, Puteri’s Musings 2, Puteri’s Musings 3, and Health and Beauty Notes, are four of them. My favorite post is D-I-V-O-R-C-E, because that was my second post when I first started blogging and one of the main reasons for me to start blogging. I needed to put into words the way I felt when my dear friends went through a divorce.

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This is the first tag that I have received for this particular blog. If you get tagged this is what you have to do. Write a short, concise tip on what you think bloggers need to do to attract readers and add your blog at the bottom of this list (copy paste the list). Put a star on the blogs/tips that you like that is already on this list.

1.Look, read, and learn. http://www.neonscent.com/****
2. Be, EXCELLENT to each other. http://www.bushmackel.com/****
3. Don’t let money change ya! http://www.therandomforest.info/******
4. Always reply to your comments. http://chattiekat.com/*****
5. Blog about what you know & love. http://sugar-queens-dream.blogspot.com/******
6. Don’t use filthy language-buy a dictionary. http://shinade.blogspot.com/*****
7. Blog about something educational http://climateofourfuture.org/***
8. Be yourself; others will follow http://sfgirl-thealiennextdoor.blogspot.com/ ***
9. Don’t have too many blogs that will become a chore to maintain http://cubicledenizen.blogspot.com/***
10. Keep it simple, user-friendly, interesting and organised! http://erishaling.blogspot.com/ ***
11. Keep the blog simple and sweet!! http://www.leslieho.com/ ****
12. Share with others your thoughts and don’t be shy! http://groovy-olives.com/blog****
13. Never ask for link exchange. Blog hop to increase traffic. http://www.jessieling.com/***
14. Don’t clutter your blog with ads all over the place. IT’S IRRITATING. http://oliviasy.blogspot.com/
15. Don’t comment for the sake of commenting. Some looked too fake and its a big turn off! http://sashablablabla.blogspot.com**
16. Share something interesting and you will gain more readers.http://judychow.blogspot.com*
17. Show that we care to all bloggers, treat each other as friends. http://mummyinvain.com*
18. Pictures say a million words. Keep them coming! http://familyfriendsnfood.blogspot.com/**
19. Blogging should be fun or you’ll get tired of it pretty soon. http://justmyrambling.com/ *
20. Don’t think people will come to your blog if you’re not willing to pay a visit to them. http://joshualai.blogspot.com/
21. Everyone loves read short posting and best, illustrated with a picture http://www.demoments.net/blog/ *
22. Keep those food pictures coming! http://puterismusings.com/weblog

I now tag:

Cat Cat
Asiana Pat
Cokelatrawkz

In my various readings about tips on how to improve blog traffic and advertising, one of them is to have a blog using your own domain.

I think there are many more pros than cons for this argument. However, I have come across several blogs that have a wide readership hosted on Blogspot. The one that I am most impressed with is called Post Secret. It has no advertising, no leave comment, nothing. But it made the 25 Most Popular Blogs for June at number 23, a step below one of my favorite news blogs, Little Green Footballs.

Anyway back to the real reason for this entry. I came across this article called 10 Powerful Tips on How to Improve Your Blog Traffic and Advertising Earnings. It’s not like this fella’s ideas are new but still bloggers need to be reminded on these things and to act on some of these tips.  One tip I will most definitely implement is Number 5, which is Submit to Social Bookmarkings.  I’ve never bothered to Digg or del.icio.us nor Reddit anything I’ve read before.  But I guess if enough people bookmarks any of your entries, it can bring attention to your blog.

I also like Number 10.  Don’t give up. I manage a few blogs and I have not given up on any of them.  This month marks two years since I stepped into the blogosphere with my own blog.  As long as I still have things to write about, my blogging journey will go on.

I haven’t really paid much attention to ways I can increase traffic to my blog. I have only recently tried to read up on what people are saying about ways to increase traffic because of the ads that I have started placing on my blog.

Ken, at Jamy’s Ask Ken Corner, emphasised, among other things, the quality of the content of your blog. I won’t dispute that point. The blogs that I read regularly are mostly news blogs and news bloggers are pundits by nature, and that is the main attraction for me.

I came across this guy’s site, My TechLife, today and his article was in response to a competition raised by another blogger called Blog Project. I like My TechLife’s 3 tips on how to increase traffic because they are do-able, and I have reproduced it here.

Habit No 1 : Link to big blogs and receive quick traffic through Pings

Big blogs like Google official blog, Google Adsense Blog and other technical blogs like John Chow have Ping Notification facility. This enables them to show external links for a particular Post. Whenever you try to crack the stories and link to relevant topics of these kinds of blogs, they will receive a ping back saying that you have linked to them. And automated system will include your post in their external links section. Whenever you link to their latest articles, it will appear at links section resulting into huge numbers of people following your link.

Idea is very simple. Just consider the small tips while trying to get listed in external link section.

• Get to the Point quickly. Don’t tell your story in the post. Consider it as special post, and treat it like that.
• Use appealing post titles. Note that it’s most important part of your post when it comes to attract readers.
• Link to your old but relevant archive posts. It will help you to increase your page views.
• Ask feed subscription at the end of the post.

If you have better tips while using this trick then feel free to tell us.

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I have been to Pay Per Post at least three times today and there wasn’t any opportunity that I qualified for. What a bummer. I see many topics that I can write about, but because the advertisers require that the blogger owns a domain, that completely disqualifies me. For now at least.

Now that Puteri’s Musings has its own domain, I will still have to wait three months before I can submit this blog for consideration by Per Pay Post. Besides the three month waiting period, the blog must have at least twenty posts in that three months. There shouldn’t be any problem with that part of the requirement.

What to do? I just have to be patient and look for the opportunities that I qualify for. I have so far taken three posts with PPP, and have not heard whether the posts have been accepted or rejected. I don’t know how quickly they let you know, but I hope the silence means I will get paid for the posts I have written!

I’d hate it if the advertisers rejected my posts after I’d given them all that free advertising!