Blogging From Scratch

I was in the process of writing an article about the featured post plugin that I developed when I realized that there was so much I wanted to cover but I just don’t have the time to focus and write the quality article that I wanted to write. The plugin itself is nothing spectacular and I want to develop it further in the future but the goal was to let my readers dive into the process of creating a WordPress plugin to improve their blogs. I know that most of my readers aren’t PHP savvy but I still think readers can benefit from knowing what’s possible plus PHP isn’t that hard to learn.

Anyway, what I realized was that I needed to have more time to create these articles and work on the site. With Christmas coming around the corner and a major life event happening the next day it seems like I may not find the time before the new year, however, I’m totally committed to this blog so I just might squeeze some time in.

In the meantime I have a lot of small little things that I need to do to put the finishing touches on the new theme so keep a lookout for those.

I have created a new category called “Site Updates” in this category there will be posts titled with the date, like this one. These posts will act as sort of a news category where I update you on what’s going on with Blogging From Scratch. I feel that separating this type of content from informative posts will help me with the site organization, you will also see the benefits when the new design comes along.

First off, I am truly motivated by this blog’s readers. You have been supportive and are very active readers which helps me as a blogger be motivated to maintain this blog to the best of my abilities.

Because of this great motivation I have decided that next week I will be putting together a series that will walk through the re-designing of the blog. This series will basically chronicle the process as well as point out some helpful tips from what I come across. I feel that re-designing this blog is one of the biggest steps to take right now. It will allow me to expand this site to where I envision it.

The last thing I wanted to do was ask you for your suggestions. I already have a lot planned to help build this blog but my ultimate goal is to help you and your blog to become better. I have my experiences and I do a lot of research but that can only go so far. What I’d like to know is what is it that you want to know? What kind of content do you want? This will help me to dig through my piles of knowledge and write the things that you want to read about.

Until next time, have a great time blogging.

Why make goals?

Without a purpose or direction it is hard to move forward. Let’s say you decided to take a hike. You usually decide to follow a trail. Whether the trail loops or if the trail comes to and end and you have to make your way back, you know where you are going, there is a start point and an end point. If you decide to wander off the trail there is a good chance that you’ll get lost.

How does any of that have to do with anything? Well let’s apply it. Without goals your blog is wandering in this wilderness called the internet. It doesn’t know what it’s looking for or where to go to get it. Once you set goals you’re setting up trailmarkers for your blog. You’re giving your blog a path a trail to follow. Without it your blog will just be wandering in circles not knowing what to do with itself.

What type of goals should I make?

Well, that depends. To start, ask yourself a few questions.

• What is the purpose of my blog?
• Do I want to monetize my blog?
• Do I want to increase traffic to my blog?

Once you figure out what exactly you want to do with your blog, you can start making goals to achieve that vision. One thing to note is that this trail usually doesn’t end. It keeps going because you keep seeing that your blog can become better and better. It’s like an addiction, once you find success you want more of it. If you need to get addicted to anything, success is a great thing to get addicted to.

Blogging From Scratch goals.

For this blog I will be setting a few goals for the month of December. My main vision is to increase traffic and interest in this blog. I don’t just want visitors, I want quality visitors that truly are interested in the content of this blog.

• 500 RSS subscribers (at the time of this post we sit at 399)
• 350 unique visitors per day average (at the time of this post we’re at about 278, which is a fake number due to the amount of traffic from the site being on sale)

Now you must be wondering why I didn’t set any monetary goals. There are a few reasons. First most of this month’s ad space has been sold already by Riyanne. Secondly, I feel that I want to focus on having a good audience before pursuing revenue. This is just a personal preference. I like to give advertisers what they pay for, this allows me to establish a long relationship with my advertisers.

Another thing you won’t find in my goals are things such as how many posts I want to post or anything to do with the development of my blog. My reason is, for me, those belong on my tasklist. The difference between a goal and a task is that a goal is something you WANT to achieve, while tasks are something you NEED to do. As a blogger I am expeceted to write high quality posts and maintain the blog. I will go over tasks in a future post.

Goals, a life truth.

There is no set way of making goals. The main point of this post is to help you realize that you need to have a path to follow. Anyone can relate to this because this is a life truth rather than just a blogging tip. Although your path might change along the way it’s a lot more pleasant to stay on a paven path rather than wandering treacherous terrain.

Hello!

Just wanted to let you know that I will be taking over for Riyanne. It’s unfortunate because it has been built so well that who knows where Riyanne could have taken it. The good news is I can see what a great blog this is and have dedicated myself to making it even better.

Many times when a website changes owners things just go downhill. With a blog it’s even more hard because the visitor ends up connecting to the blogger. I know I will lose some readers just because of this fact but I am confident that I’ll be able to provide some great posts on the blogging and online money-making.

As with all my new acquisitions I make a list of things I would like to do right off the bat. Here is my to-do list for Blogging From Scratch.

• New theme, although I usually take the time to design a unique theme I will just be installing a different theme as to represent the new phase of this blog. You will find out why I am not designing a unique theme a little down the road.
• A new post series! Riyanne did an excellent job of posting great information. In fact I will publish one of her unpublished posts in just a few days. I will also be publishing a new series titled “Blogging From Scratch”, sounds familiar..this series will document the development of a new blog that I am launching. It will take you from the initial idea all the way to monetizing.
• Tutorials! Although bloggers mainly focus on content, knowing a few tricks can always enhance your blog.

Now you have a little bit of insight on my plans for the future of this blog..just a little.

Every post should have a little meat to it. Let me give you the reasoning behind the purchase of this blog from my perspective. Over the past 6 or so years that I’ve been in the web development world I have gone through many websites, worked with many clients, and made A LOT of money. Currently, I work from my home, I have flexible hours and pull in a nice paycheck. As I think back to why I am decently successful today, it’s because I had great tutorials and great inspiration when I was starting, and still to this day. Now, I focus on developing websites that help to teach others to do what I do and inspiring them.

Blogging is a thing that anyone can do. Everyone and their pets have a blog now, whether it be a myspace or a facebook or a professionally developed WordPress blog. This is why I had chosen to use blogging to be the subject of my new project. I had all intents and purposes to create a brand new site but as I was browsing SitePoint I saw this site for sale. I had already spent my budget for this month so I was a bit hesitant at first. I put in a few bids and finally gave Riyanne an offer. First, I have to admit I spend money like there’s no tomorrow, that might be the reason why I always find myself short on cash for some reason, but there’s also more factors that went into my decision to make the purchase.

We all know that starting a new site is hard. It takes time to develop and then you have to market the site to get an audience. By purchasing an already established blog I had already jump started the project that I was planning to start. The drawback of course is the initial investment of the purchase. In this case the purchase price wasn’t too much of an investment and I could see the benefits. For all of you who are curious, the purchase price was mid-high $xxx, a bit more than the $550 that was last bid on the SitePoint auction page. I won’t give you the exact price right now, although in a future post I may.

When I purchase a site I take into account many things but here is what really sold me on this site. First, there is a good established visitor base, a few hundred unique visitors per day. Taking the traffic stats further I also saw that the page views were much higher than visitors. This is important because you can start to see that visitors actually browse the website rather than taking a quick glance and then leaving. I also took into account that there was a good RSS subscriber base. This helps to show that the site has a good following. Even better there are a good number of comments on the posts. Like in a older post Riyanne explains how important the concept of getting comments is. For me the main reason I like to receive comments are that I know that people are reading what I have to say and I am able to connect with the visitor. This helps me to produce the blog posts that the visitor wants to read. And of course the revenue, although in this case it wasn’t as big a factor as it would be in most cases. If a site has proven earnings then you can usually calculate how big of an investment is worth the website. In this case revenue isn’t too high at $129/month. I am more than confident that this number will multiply very quickly (I will of course share my methods with you as time goes along).

Well, I hope you enjoyed my maiden post and I hope that you come back for more!