I spent the best part of today working on ideas and tweaking this blog - including an hour and a half on trying to install Threaded Comments, but I think I screwed up a lil and had to give up. If you’ve got a few minutes to spare and can help me install the plugin so that it’s functional, let me know and I’ll hook you up with a 125 x 125 for a month and a text link in the sidebar for your help. Only trustworthy and experienced people, please! :)

I put out a post asking for advice yesterday - some of the ideas on there were pretty decent and I’ll be looking at implementing them on here. Some of the things I learned was that the theme was fine, as with the content; although things like categories etc were felt to be needed by some of you.

If you have more ideas, feel free to mention them in a reply to this or the original post. Just so you guys know what’s happening, here’s a break down of changes I’ll be making over the next few days / weeks.

- Install Threaded Comments. The sooner, the better. :)

- Fix up the categories. At the moment, I don’t really do anything with regards to categories - everything goes into a category called Daily Rambling mainly because I forget while writing posts. With over 300 posts on this blog, that will take some time - however, when it is done I’ll put a widget in the sidebar with links to the categories.

- Weekly guest posts. Without visitors, this blog would not exist, as I’d have shut it down a long, long time ago - anyways, what I’m going to do is allow one guest post a week, for people to show you guys what they’re capable of. If it’s good, people will visit your blog (remember that each post is sent out to more than 900 people); if it’s bad, well… it won’t get published. Top notch stuff only, guys :)

- Fix Advertise page. The last time the Advertise page was updated was around February. Of course, metrics have changed since then, both positive and negative, so I’ll be rewriting the Advertise page. Will be dropping a few prices, and raising a few others, as well as putting up a post on here - if you’re interested in advertising, let me know via email and we’ll work something out.

- Upgrade Wordpress. No urgency on this one, considering I’m happy with 2.5.1 - but I probably should get around to this. Maybe when the next update comes out.

- Increase Marketing. At the moment, the marketing I do on this blog is entirely passive… that is, I put out posts and people link to or promote those posts because of their content (be it a contest, task post or just normal decent one). Might start looking at doing the whole guest posting thin again - on blogs with 1,000+ subscribers, as well as other types of more… creative marketing.

- Reward Top Commentator. Starting this month, top commentator by the end of the month gets a month long ad slot in the sidebar.

Stuff I’m considering…

Blogger Pitch - basically, the idea is that people send me private emails pimping their blogs… and I choose one blogger every month on here to get a free plug and explain why you guys should visit it. I try to produce good content, but would really love if there were many, many sources on the Internet that people could go to learn things… this could help people promote themselves as well as strive to better their blogs so they could get featured.

Link love - I did this in the past, but in all honesty the reason I stopped was because I couldn’t find 10~ top quality posts that I’d send you guys towards. Most blogs are rehashed rubbish, nothing else - although some are better at it than others, should you really waste your time reading basic content? Maybe have links sent in by readers suggesting what’s good and what’s not.

Blogs I read and blogs I find - I’m constantly on the look for new blogs, but have been busy the last few months so stopped reading many. With me using outsourcing more and more these days, I’ve started to get time again. The blogs I currently seriously read, and would recommend are few and far between - although I do glance at loads of other blogs daily just to see what’s up - mainly because they’re run by friends or active commenters on here.

Bi-Weekly Q&A Sessions - I promised I wouldn’t do another one for a year, but that’s mainly because it took so long (5,000+ words!). What I’m thinking is cut it down, say ten questions maximum and do it more often.

Contest. Had a few problems with contests recently, with sponsors vanishing. Might look at holding a contest, but one similar to the last one - a decently valued tangible item for a month long easy to enter contest. Hmm.

Goals

Hit 1,500 subscribers

Increase traffic to around 15,000 monthly consistently (last month was 16,000 uniques but helped by social spikes)

Release a product for the blog. Probably about website flipping, as for how expensive and in what format…. that will be decided by you guys in a future post. I toyed with a forum, but am also considering an eBook or an autoresponder series.

As always, feel free to share your thoughts. ;)

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