Google+, I’m Starting to Get It
Image by Aray Chen via Flickr
I’m starting to realize what Google+ is good for and it’s a great social tool once you realize it. The number one thing I’ve realized is that it’s not a competitor with Facebook. I was trying to look at it that way and this view will ruin your experience with Google+. Facebook is for checking to see what you’re friends are up to, Google+ is for your interests and passions your following.
Google+ is better because it’s searchable. Facebook’s search is lacking. The only thing Facebook’s search was good for was typing in a name and finding who you were looking for. It would just act weird for anything else. With Google+, you actually find posts and profiles that relate to your search! Using this, you find other users with the same interests that you have.
With Facebook, you get the sense that you should know the people in your friends list. Everything posted goes out to everyone on the list. Sure, there are privacy concerns, but what if it’s not about privacy? For example, I like motorcycles and photography, but there are many on my Facebook list that could care less about it. If I’m posting about these interests all of the time, they’re going to see it in their feed. If they see them to much, they’ll just ignore or delete me because I’m jamming their feed with things they don’t care about. Google+ solved this problem with Circles.
Circles allow me to organize post coming in and going out. Let’s say someone likes spouting off drama and posting photos of cats. I like the person, but I could care less about their marriage problems or their cats most of the time. However, just in case I really need to see one of these posts, I can place them in a rarely checked drama circle and a cat photo circle. Also, this person can create a drama and cat circle if they want and post these only to the friends they know will appreciate drama and cats.
With circles, you can limit the amount of personal interaction. With Facebook, there is a feeling that someone is actually a friend, with Google+, adding them to a Circle is just showing that you have some of the same interests.
To get the most out of Google+, search your interests, circle many people that have that interest, then your incoming feeds will start to turn into a worthwhile look. There really isn’t that much of a learning curve and if you do it wrong, circles are easy to correct. Some areas of interest are taking off much faster than others with photography being an example of an interest with a huge amount of followers.
Related articles
- Find Out Who Removed You on Google Plus Circles (madrasgeek.com)
- Why Google+ is Not the Facebook Killer it Wanted to Be (geeknewscentral.com)
- How To Use Google+ (readwriteweb.com)
The Fall Has Arrived in Ohio
Fall In Ohio Image via Wikipedia
Today, I had a great motorcycle ride out on rural country roads. I felt the first chills of Fall and seen the leaves starting to change. It was a hot, humid summer. When it wasn’t hot and humid, there was a looming storm. These first fall days are a sad ones for a motorcyclist in Ohio. You know that you’ll get in a few more rides, but for the most part, their over.
The good part about Ohio is that the Fall colors and the rural areas are some of the best motorcycle riding one could experience. As far as I’m concerned, it’s right up there with riding down The Pacific Coast Highway. It’s just a matter of what a rider’s personal tastes are. Everything in Ohio is just a little more subtle than stunning vistas of the ocean. I quiet river with few people around can be just as enjoyable. A stop in any Ohio small town can be just as interesting as any California big city if you spend some time exploring it.
I didn’t take any photos of the ride, but I did get some photos of the Centerburg, Ohio farm festival that I’ll put up later. It was fun to see the farmers enjoying their hard-earned time off after the harvest season. Tons of motorcycles were there too. I’ll have to remember to put it on the calendar as an event to spend some time at next year.
Every time a season changes, I look back a little at the previous season. Not a bad summer. A few motorcycle rides, a few to many posts about the government, and I few posts from the things I’ve seen while working. I can do better though. One of the cool things about having a blog is that it’s easy to look back at what you found worthy of a post at any given point in time. Sometimes I wonder, “What was I thinking?”, when I look back at a post and that’s food for thought for the future.
So after looking back, I realize that posting about political things is no longer a good idea. They are headed down their path and I’m pretty sure there’s no turning back at this point. All that we can do is hope for the best on the other side of the mess that’s been created. My opinion along with the millions of others is irrelevant. I’d like to think that a vote is all that I have, but even that’s questionable. I’m going to concentrate on some posts that mean a little more in the long run.
I’ve quit watching the news and have limited the news I read on the Internet. I’m finding personal blogs to be so much more interesting. When I see a news story, I start looking for a local regular person’s perspective in Google’s Blog search. I’m also finding that going at least 5 pages deep on a Google search for anything is bring interesting perspectives. Digging a little deeper on anything has benefits.
This blog has been nothing more than a file cabinet of things I find interesting with a few photos and stories mixed in. I’m going to change that as there are better ways to do that now. We’ll see how it goes. As the season’s change, sometimes projects should as well.
50 Free Writing Tips
Here’s a link to 50 Writing tips – it’s free.
How to Blog Day 31. Make a Plan for Next Month.
- Image via CrunchBase
31 Days To Build A Better Blog
Day 31 of 31 Days To Build A Better Blog is about making a plan for next month.
The last day of the book tells us to make a plan for next month. It gives an example of a Google Calendar and some reference to their website where more discussion takes place about what to do daily. DO NOT follow the calendar that they give. If you do, you’re going to end up with a blog that is just like every other blog on the Internet.
Consider the things that should be done daily and consider maintenance tasks that should be done weekly and monthly. I have been learning from experience that promotion should be daily for any blog. Don’t be embarrassed about getting noticed, that’s what you started a blog for. It’s not a private matter.
I am going to work on my plan and refine my review of the book. If you’ve followed along, I hope you’ve enjoyed the journey. If Blogging is something you’re interested in, buy 31 Days To Build A Better Blog and try a month of following along.
How to Blog Day 30. Monitor Your Stats
- Image via Wikipedia
31 Days To Build A Better Blog
Day 30 of 31 Days To Build A Better Blog tells Bloggers to monitor our stats. For this you need Google Analytics. There are other packages and there are a few statistics that Google Analytics will not cover. The book covers some of these as well.
Be warned that it can be depressing in the early days of the blog. You do a bunch of work doing what you think will be interesting, and the blog barely gets a visitor. You rarely get a comment. Now that I’ve read this book, I know why. You have to ask or tell your readers to comment! Low stats are no reason to quit. I’ve written some posts which received a huge amount of traffic and I’ve even spun off other blogs once I’ve realized that there is an interest in the subject. You have to be patient and you must promote to get traffic.
Another aspect of low stats in the beginning is that sometimes the numbers climb exponentially over time. Your quality posts will start to be passed around and the “she told two friends and then she told two friends” effect starts to take place.
The book will take you through the 17 stats and shine some light on what they mean. The book is a little light on the subject. If you’ve never dealt with stats before it will be helpful. I find the stats to be very interesting. You will be surprised at where your visitors come from and how they ended up on your page.
One of the most important stats are the keywords that were entered to find your website. You can use these keywords that may have been misses to tailor your blog to create content that suits what people are looking for.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=f23649c1-2c5a-4c26-a2ca-69051adbb7e8)
How to Write a Blog Day 29. Make a Plan to Boost Readership.
31 Days To Build A Better Blog
Day 29 of 31 Days To Build A Better Blog tells the aspiring Blogger to make a plan to boost readership. Sounds important so far!
- Image by Getty Images via @daylife
The book’s instructions are basically to get involved with other websites and social media to build a presence. Long detailed posts with numerous references to other websites are supposed to tell us how to accomplish your presence. After that, the author tells us to limit this time. Don’t spend to much time and don’t let yourself “drift” into other things on other websites.
Drift is a big problem for me. I end up following other websites for way to long and my own websites suffer. I spend way to much time giving free content to news websites. News websites matter less and less everyday and opinions on them matter even less than the news. It’s a place to vent and venting doesn’t earn a dime. I’ll take note of this “drift” warning, the rest of the ideas are going to take a little longer to digest. I am reading the first edition. The second edition that I’m going to purchase soon is supposed to take a different take on this.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=f1e9b123-5b84-4d9a-aa75-d7fe5c43d09e)
How to Blog Day 28. Write a Review Post.
31 Days To Build A Better Blog
Write a Review. Image by LucasTheExperience via Flickr
Day 28 of 31 Days To Build A Better Blog instructs the blogger to write a review post. Common sense for most niches, but not all.
The book suggests reviewing anything related to your niche. If you’re doing a parenting blog, do a toy for example. The book gives many different ways that you can give opinions and reviews of different things. Most important, this is where you can make your money.
A good review is an excellent way to drop an affiliate product. Keep in mind, you have to earn it. You have to show your knowledge and expertise for many reviews to mean anything to a reader. You can get more bang for your review by comparing different products.
There is an idea that if your an affiliate, you’re not legitimate. Other sources are FAR more biased as they have to work hard to get advertisers. That doesn’t seem to matter. Many readers feel that you bloggers just don’t have that industry expertise no matter what. You can squash that by presenting all of the competition’s products too!
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=44584c9b-0099-4dc0-81cf-dda40d800931)
How to Blog Day 27. Hunt for Dead Links
Broken links suck. Image by yewenyi via Flickr
Day 27 of 31 Days To Build A Better Blog tells us to simply remove dead links.
There is a plug-in for WordPress called Broken Link Checker that helps you find them. It’s a simple process.
Google and other search engines demote you a little for leaving bad links in your blog. It’s also annoying for the reader. It shows that you have not been to the post in a while yourself. Take some time and clean up your blog.
I usually take this opportunity to glance over the article while I am there too. I’ve even deleted a post! If it’s so old that the the related links have gone bad, check to see if there’s been any traffic for it. If you don’t think that the post has retained quality, remove it altogether. No sense having posts that you yourself have lost interest in.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=72872095-fa6f-47f0-b587-045d13640f14)
How to Blog Day 26. Improve Another Blog.
Day 26 of 31 Days To Build A Better Blog suggests improving another blog. No, we’re not heading of into some weird “Law Of Attraction” stuff. We’re simply helping someone else and that will in turn help our own blog out.
Image via Wikipedia Lend a helping hand to another blogger
The book suggests -
- Making mention of a favored reader’s blog on another forum.
- Share an affiliate program or method that has helped you.
- Give some suggestions for them to write about.
- Place some useful content on their blog.
- and more…
You see, many of these things help both you and the other blogger. It creates a sense of community and helps out. You’re not on your own blogging and if you are, you’re in big trouble. If you have chosen a niche carefully, there will not be to many true competitors. For example, if you’re doing a blob about motorcycle clothes, there are thousands of motorcycle related blogs that you can work with that are not going to be a direct competitor for that niche.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=c37ef381-5029-4dde-a965-256309bf1645)
How to Blog Day 25. Ask Your Readers Questions
Day 25 of 31 Days To Build A Better Blog suggests that we ask blog readers questions. It promotes a community and interactive feel and they are very easy posts to write.
Ask readers questions to increase discussion. purpleslog via Flickr
The book gives examples of how to pose your questions to the audience. The most useful suggestion I found was to use a poll to give them a way to answer a question. You can take a popular post and ask addtional questions regarding that post. As long as a question is answerable and relevant, it’s a good question to use.
I haven’t tried this much. My mindset is that people come looking for information and not discussion. That’s not making use of interactivity and the user doesn’t feel vested in the blog at all. It’s a good suggestion.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=4d168c3c-5f7c-4ef0-89a1-a72fe9dccf87)
