WinnipegFreePress.com

The website is nowhere near the design that I wanted to showcase here. However, their printed Front Page of the newspaper is the design I like. They have taken the bulk of the stories away from the front page and in its place replace it with graphic pictures and headlines. Here is a picture of two separate days, Saturday and Sunday. You can see how they kind of look similar, but in a way they are quite different with the blocks of text or formatting of the stuff on the page. It’s not a great picture, and it’s too large for me to scan it. This picture does NOT do justice either, because except for the top large box .. it’s always different to fit the text and stories!

I imagined what I would want out of something like this, if I were to scribble something on a napkin … and maybe add a sidebar or something .. and – well, I don’t like this but it was my first draft .. I need to give it more thought though, maybe next week!

* One of the sites mentioned in my October 27, 2006 – 2 post .. is up now.

HART-Network.com
HART-Empire Network II

* I’m using the sidebar widget plugin!

I’ve never used the widget because it affects the way I’ve been manually updating all of my sidebars. However, I finally figured it out .. if you add more TEXT boxes .. you can just insert all of that crap in there! Where the syndication RSS button and feedburner count is – that’s in a TEXT box – completely modified within WordPress Theme Presentation Editor. I must say – what you can do to the header colors – was new to me. I don’t use the default templates – ever – well, until now. I think I will leave the default on this blog.

* I’m using the feed wordpress plugin to aggregate all the feeds from every blog in this network!

I’ve been looking for something like this for a long time. There have been many attempts and variations, with the final Network Feed page being my last result. Well, now – although I have to manually update the feeds on a daily or periodic basis .. I’ve set it up to grab 100% of the feeds and keep the permalink as the link in the title. There is an option to NOT do that, and I don’t think it’s right to do it. Most of my feeds that I signed up are from Feedburner, which is summarized anyway … I am also using the Evermore plugin to shorten the posts and keep them short. It’s not the point to have readers read this site – it’s to go to the individual member sites’ blogs.

* October 2006 Month-End is quite busy for me .. I am excited to see two of my newest blogs in creation almost ready – but the truth of the matter is I have to walk away until the end of next week as I get some stuff off of my plate. I will introduce the two new blogs in due time. One will be interesting (I hope *knock on wood*) .. the other will not be interesting and in fact more of an experiment with plugins and theme designs.

* RUTH is in the process of moving, and (as I’m aware) will not be around much blogging until mid-November 2006

* EGADS .. I’ve been listening to Coldplay all day and now I’m singing “The Scientist” to my Papillon dogs Maxxie and Sophie. I need help.

It’s discouraging at times ..

* PetLvr.com – [The Blog] reached another milestone on Tuesday … it’s 2,000th post!

I started that blog on May 31, 2005 and on January 26, 2006 we hit our 1,000th post. So, on average it’s taking me about 8 months or so to post about 1000 entries or approximately 4 posts per day since inception.

When I look at my Feedburner count graphic in the sidebar, at this very moment on October 27, 2006 at approximately 2:00am .. it is showing 38 subscribers .. THIRTY-EIGHT SUBSCRIBERS! Of course, I never really concern myself with the accuracy of this feedcount number – because it varies every day by at least +10 to -10 from the actual.

The actual count of my subscribers, according to Feedburner .. shows 52 yesterday – and the “Live Feedcount” at the exact same moment is showing:

11 – Bloglines
5 – My Yahoo
4 – Firefox Live Bookmarks
3 – Feedburner Email Subscribers
3 – Google Desktop
3 – not identified
2 – Other Readers
====
49 total Feedburner count
====

I feel that after 2000 posts, the site should be doing better in all aspects – traffic, subscriptions, SEO, etc etc … What can I do to improve things? It’s tiresome. I got KILLED last february 2006 (search Technorati in here) .. and I’m really bushwacked around the 20th of each month and the last week of each month for my “DayJob” business ..

I’ve tried to cut back on the BREED information category and shell out to individual sites .. DogLvr.com CatLvr.com FishLvr.com HorseLvr.com BirdLvr.com … I’m wondering if I should shell out many more categories (health, training, memorial, sitting and other working job categories, etc) .. or would that be a waste of time? There are too many keywords to worry about at PetLvr – so I don’t worry about it. I’m SEO-Challenged because I’m lousy at it. I don’t know what to do. Or, what I’m doing is wrong.

I do get a lot of search engine traffic though – more than my statistics show – because 80% of the searches link to pictures included in the site and the 20% of searches that get through (in my opinion) is probably 80% of my total traffic in here. Now, where have you seen that “Rule” before?

The footer of PetLvr blog shows 56, 879 SPAM comments stopped .. although my next available comment is #42048 .. don’t understand that except there was a backtrack number when I upgraded to wordpress version 2+. Regardless – my comments on all these 2000 posts can probably be added up around the 100-200 range.

Oh Well! Don’t Mind Me!

Ya .. I know I’m just rambling … I’m just wondering whether I should go to sleep or have some of HART’s Famous Chili and start my day early and work through the night! That 38 number just got me thinking – that’s all.

Memo: This is what I saw tonight (screenshot)

Memo: This is what it is at this moment in time (live)

My Page Rank Sucks

* I finally had the guts to look at my page rank scores – from the last time I looked (or rather the first time that I recorded it in a text file on my desktop) – May 20, 2006 – to last night – October 23, 2006. I created a little Excel spreadsheet and put some rankings side-by-side …

* Overall – my sites reduced by MINUS 4 –> and that includes two huge changes – from a PR=4 to PR=0 and from a PR=6 to a PR=2 …

* Yesterday I could have said that I honestly don’t give a shit and I’m quite aware of my deficiencies – but how can I not be concerned as I see these figures side by side? I can’t. I’m a little concerned about the PR=6 drop (http://the-singers.com/) as it uh .. never mind.

>> I have to work on this matter before the next google dance .. well, at least look at this a little more – (Q) Am I really that bad? I know I was higher back in January 2006 over May 2006 on the sites that I had – before the ‘technorati incident’ in my archives .. but I thought since July I was on track.

Hmmm .. It Can’t Be My Page Rank – I Guess I Really Do Suck

Page-Flip.com

This is just a demo flash site but .. what’s the saying ….

Jeez Looweeeeze .. How can I get this Page Navigation into a blog format?

It was our 1-Year Anniversary This Week

* Here’s our post from October 16, 2005 starting this network .. in my attempt to pool resources and cross link posts and blogs and hopefully get some more traffic.
* Besides just promoting new sites in the network (which has been far and few in between) .. I have started to post period stuff like these “Quickies” posts and my new “Designs That I Like” .. and will keep trying to think of something to keep this site going 🙂

We’re Not The Only Network of Blogs Having Anniversaries

* Oct 21, 2006 – Syntagma Media
* Oct 6, 2006 – InstaBlogs
* Sept 15, 2006 – Blue Fish Network

And Guess Who Else Is Having Their 1-Year Anniversary?

* Successful-Blog And There’s A Contest Too:
Writing Project: The Successful-Blog 25-Word Birthday Challenge

Liz “ME” Strauss writes …

25 Words — It’s Harder than It Looks

Tuesday, October 24th is one-year since I wrote Who’s ME Strauss and What’s She Doing Here? That was my very first post at Successful-Blog. This post is somewhere over number 1000. A lot has happened between then and now.

Now it’s your turn. I’m having a contest — a challenge really — to see what happens when folks, great writer/bloggers like you, try to describe Successful-Blog in a few words. Here it is.

The Successful-Blog 25-Word Birthday Challenge: Define Successful Blog in 25 words max. That’s 24 PLUS One — in keeping with the plus one tradition that’s been part of this blog for so long.

…All entries will be posted on Monday, October 23rd. The winners will be announced Tuesday Night, October 24th, at Open Comments Night. Next week the theme will be: We’re Having a Blow-Out Birthday Party!

You can see the Rules and Regulations by clicking on the above link .. in case you wanted to check it out and make an entry.

Liz described her blog 1-year ago in 33 words …

Successful Blog is the place where all kinds of bloggers meet to share their successes and swap strategies. The content is organized, thorough, and relevant. The conversation is fun, fast, and sometimes irreverent.

In attempting to try to describe Successful Blog in 25 words or less .. I came up with two quick poems .. one is 12 words, and the other is 31 words. I’m not making an official entry into the contest, but I thought it would be fun to just post them here anyway.

HART’s Hypothetical Entry #1 – HAIKU FORMAT

The Successful-Blog
Your Host Is Always Friendly
Come! Join The Party

HART’s Hypothetical Entry #2 – LIMERICK FORMAT

Bloglines has all of my feeds
I use it to track all my needs
But If you’ve got a business
You too can witness
Why Liz is on my Daily Reads!

futureme.org

You’ve probably seen this site .. it’s almost like a service – write yourself a letter and in ten years this site will email you .. but he’s turned it into a website.

You can probably tell that I like randomness … I have random Lotto 6/49 in my footers and random surfing the HART way of my categories .. well, if you look at the public entries on this site – there is a “NEXT” “RANDOM” and “LAST” link. Sometimes, I will just go to this site and hit random and read people’s silly letters they are sending to themselves in ten years.

And – this site has gotten a book deal out of this too! Good for them. Readers make content, and you get a book deal! OF course, it’s always about the “idea” …

I like adding the randomness of the next/last link to the scrolling – whether its for comments or for the posts at the top or bottom of the page.

blog.wfmu.org/freeeform/

This site is just an honorable mention that was in my bookmarks … It just goes to show that despite having a black background, if the colors aren’t too annoying .. and the content worth reading .. it really doesn’t have to have a white background with black text

I wasn’t going to post this, however I saw several instances out there on the internet about this issue .. so I have decided to do post it anyway..

I received an email today .. from Jordan Keezell of the Blog To Profit site..

Hi,

I found your blog, and am interested in sponsoring some posts on your blog on behalf of our advertisers. I read the post about “Designs out there that I like” and enjoyed your writing. We have 5 different sponsors that are interested in sponsoring posts on your blog. BlogtoProfit is a company that connects blogs with advertisers who are interested in blog advertising.

We would like to sponsor 5 posts on your blog. Upon completion, we would like to continue to sponsor your blog!
1) Please notify me which of the categories below are agreeable to you.
• Plastic surgery
• Restaurants
• Gyms
• Tattoos
• Auctions
• Real estate
• Web
• Fashion
• Cars
• Dogs

2) Sign-up at www.blogtoprofit.com

3) Provide your paypal so we may send you payments

Here’s a great example of a blog post with a sponsor link included:
suejeff-writeon.blogspot.com/2006/09/sleighbells-ring-are-you-listening.html

To receive an informative process and guideline document simply click this link. www.blogtoprofit.com/files/BlogtoProfit-Process-&-Guidelines.pdf

To get started making money immediately, please reply to this email. Also, please let me know if you have any further questions. We look forward to sponsoring your blog!

Website: www.blogtoprofit.com

My response was simple … because I have seen this type of email before and just didn’t want to get involved and be polite.

Hi.

Thank-you for your interest in sponsoring some posts on our blog. You may sponsor our blog through Text-Link-Ads at the following URL.

www.text-link-ads.com/packageDetail.php?packageID=41038

Take care
HART-EMPIRE NETWORK
HART-Empire.com

I received a speedy reply back him …

Hi,

We are a separate program then Text-Link-Ads. We pay you on a per post basis. We are independent of Text-Link-Ads and have no relation what-so-ever! I think you guys are great candidates for our program and please email me back so we can this further. When you ready to start making $5-$10 per post, just sign up at BlogtoProfit.com and we’ll get you going on the trial period! Talk to you soon.

Media Buyer
Jordan Keezell
www.blogtoprofit.com/

The reason I am posting this is for two reasons:

1) The initial incoming email was NOT unique. I have seen posts around in my bloglines about this, and in fact, many others are receiving the EXACT SAME email from this person … like HERE .. they are also going around signing guestbook entries and comments like HERE and HERE …

2) My second reason I posted this, is because although I am not really against it …I’m just not interested. There is a lot of discussion in recent days on this topic .. and in fact, just the other day I have posted my comments and thoughts on this matter over at Problogger ..

I do not want to be one of those hypocrits out there to suggest at all that this is a bad concept or evil – because it’s not. Bloggers want to earn money to help defray costs and earn a passive income, and even some hope to make it into a full-time job occupation. All my own blogs are monetized, and I’m selling real estate in the form of advertising space. I hope that together, as a group, I will be earning enough passive income to support a nice vacation once a year – in addition to my hosting and domain registration fees .. and have fun while I’m doing that!

Enough said.