Green Flamingobecause I said so

Well, here I am again, trying to make a comeback? Not exactly, but I still want to keep a few people updated. I took a break, over the entire month of May you could say, but it feels almost longer, like all spring I have not written. I needed a break too, it was just too stressful to try to keep working, but when I would read my emails coming in from blogging resources I did not even have time to pay attention to some of those, so I pretty much dropped out of blogging.

I am like an ex-spy or agent, who must get back into the business, but so many new things have happened, new technology, new resources, new people, everything would be unfamiliar, and the only thing still good are the skills, hopefully not outdated. So by no means am I going to try to make this blog up and running again, but I am still going to try to carry out plans with green flamingo designs. I will try to keep everyone posted, and see what I can do about this blog, but I think I have run out of content for the blogging tips niche, because I have not beeen around to find new tips, so I cannot possibly pass them on to others.

I will still keep myself updated on new blogging tools, so I can use in other niches I pursue, and hopefully they will come in handy.

For now I’m back, but maybe not forever.

In the blogosphere, when everyone starts to blog and new people create websites everyday,  when you get busier and your blog becomes less important on your list, blogging becomes much more difficult. Quality posts are harder to write, and you have less time to comment on other blogs and maintain your site.

There is more to it than explained above. Sometimes it is the little things that count, and the little things that you don’t have time for. When on a tight schedule, you will not have time to update your twitter, guide along your technorati, digg other blog posts, tweak your rss feed, add new gadgets to your site, explore new blogs, comment on old blogs, optimize your SEO, optimize your pagerank, etc. These little standards bring together some of the things that promote your blog, and some ways that people view the status of your blog. Though all these are really little, too be successful in many eyes of all kinds, some of the tidbits are important over a range so large.

And even when one needs most of those things to feel completely in control, posting regularly and commenting seems most important. Even so, you have to watch how you go about that. I have seen on some sites lately that they have slacked a little, the grammar may not be kept up, or an ordinarily well built post will simply have the outlines to it. I have been no exception, I could draw my posts out into something very well received. It just gets harder and harder to keep up the best work.

How To Make Things Easier

To make things easier for yourself and your blog you need a plan, a schedule, and you need to compact. You also need to take the same principles of ecology: reduce, reuse, recycle. You can reduce the fluff in your posts, and the time you spend dawdling off on unhelpful sites. You can reuse your knowledge, and space, even some content. You can recycle your old content too by making into something new, recycle other blog’s posts and resources that you find.

Incorporation is a big part of the process as well, which follows along timing and schedule. If you incorporate most of what you need to do in short, well put together pieces you can get a great amount done in optimal time. If you quickly make sure your site is all working before you post, then write and publish a quality blog post, that will be a start. Then you can twitter about that blog post, and start commenting on other blogs, which hopefully have comment luv and will track back to your most recent post. You can also submit your site to directories, and social bookmarking sites at this time. All that should fill your blogging time for a day, and can be completed within 1-2 hours, depending on how much time you spend with certain activities.

Besides the normal routine, you can create a waterfall of visitors with a new idea, program contest etc, that is new and that will promote extra traffic to your blog. These types of things really seem to help people have a burst in profit.

The bottom line is, with blogging times getting harder, and time for blogging decreasing, then you need to know how to create the best plan for your blog with whatever is available to you.

Beta Advertising Update: Because of a feedburner delay, the raffled advertiser has still yet to be drawn, so you can still enter. There are also two more spots up for grabs, just comment on the beta post and let me know.

Getting Back To Blogging

I know that many bloggers have to postpone blogging career, but then often they wish to come back. This could turn out to be a little hard if they are not up to date or  do not seem cut out for more blogging. I know there are a fair amount that have this desire, and I hope I can help.

Section 1: pre-launch                                                                                                                      1.  1. One of the first things you want to do is to figure out why you couldn’t blog before, and fix that  problem. It could be because of time, content, stress, or any other reason that would prevent you from being able to blog on a normal schedule.

If it is due to a time problem, you might want to free time or “shape” the time that you have to make room for blogging. Because if you don’t have time, then there is really no way you can get all the necessary pieces to keep the blog running.                                                                              Regardless of the reason, you still need a solution. For some of you, this might be the hard part, but there is always a time to take the jump and go.

2. The next thing you need to do is optimize your theme and clarify the stature of your blog. The first part of this of course, is to find a theme that is up to date, and a style that is up to date. You can quickly check on other sites similar to yours as samples if you need some.                                          If you continue with your previous theme, and think it is up to date and modern, there is not much to be done. When finding a new theme, then you should make sure the title is yours and the RSS section directs readers to your feed. Other optimizations such as added promotions, gadgets, colors, site statistics, etc. can be added to your theme as well.

Once that is complete then you should clarify your previous content, organize posts, categories and tags, edit pages, so that your blog is current and ready for the public.

3. The third thing you should do is to write new content, as far as posts and pages. You do not need to wait a week before your new launch, but you should have one or two posts that are current for your readers to browse as they visit. The posts should be modern ideas and helpful information, probably not a “sorry I left but I’m back” 100 word post that you scrambled up in 10 minutes, but more like a half hour long, well written, well composed post that is thorough and new, showing readers that you care, and making then want to come back. It could also be thoughtful, and display some sort of message, if informative is not your type.

Section 2

4. Now it is time to relaunch your reborn blog! If you do not have a huge launch plan set up, then there are simpler ways to get your site back on the market. The way I like best if to visit other’s blogs and leave lots of comments. First of all, by reading your colleagues post’s, then you learn what is going on, more news, and if you have previously established a name for yourself the chances of recognition will be higher. You can travel to old sites, new sites, different sites and blue sites. All kinds of places you can promote the relaunch of your blog by just leaving a peace of your mind.                                                                                      If you feel like going all out, then you can throw in advertising, forum activity, and other ways of promoting your site, but really you only need to comment and your blog will start to grow back.

5. Now that you have gotten traffic back to your site, my last piece of advice is to keep up the blog, which like the first step, in solely your effort. You can make it grow bigger and bigger, and if you make money with it then you can hook up your programs and make money again once your site gets popular. So if you are able to post consistently, and visit others sites consistently, as well as leaving time for new things, then I think your blogging career will be very well back on track.

I have some sad truth for you all, and it is that you will never find the perfect wordpress theme. There are many reasons to this, hopefully I will be able to make my point and explain why it’s true. Also, I would like to acknowledge Chelle for indirectly giving me this idea.

There are so many out there!

One, on actually finding the perfect wordpress theme, there are so many available that it is difficult to sift through what you have. I am not sure of the number that have been made, but I know it is higher than you can search through in 2 days, 2 weeks, 2 months, or maybe even 2 years.

Problems Arise

I have seen thumbnails of what I think will be a great theme, and when I take a closer look it turns out to be pretty crappy. Sometimes you have your hopes up high from a demo, thinking that it may look great on your site. That is only 1 of 3 problems that can arise. The second problem is that when you upload and use the theme, you are tired of it and don’t like the look. This has happened to me many times, and I mostly download them because they look interesting and not always because I think they are perfect for my site. The third problem that might strike is that of having technical difficulties, saying something doesn’t display right, things aren’t aligned as they were in the demo, words overlap, things like that. I hate these things that happen, and wish I could get rid of them with a click of a button. So, unless you are a professional theme designer or it is your theme then trash that theme, it has no use to you if it’s “broken.”

Interests Change

Because your interests in theme can change, and will change, then you may have the perfect theme but it will never be perfect forever. Even if you have a high-quality custom job done you will not always love the theme the same way, though you may keep it for months, years, however long. I am just saying that your theme interests will change just as your love interests do.

Those are my reasons, I could add a few more, but they are the most obvious and the ones that standout the most. I have a few small updates for you, and a little notice, so don’t hop off to another water pool yet.

Updates

I think I am going to re-brand this blog, though I will continue to dish out blogging tips. Mostly I would like to add a little niche, and there is no word for it really, because it is a new niche. Since it is new, I might be able to dominate it easily, who knows. It is just “about blogging,” just little things that happen, tendencies, news, and just a general about blogging blog. This is not considered a category in most options, so I will continue to officially brand this as blogging tips or young entrepreneur. If I have to, I might say it is MMO, but I have learned to stay away from that path.

I may be changing the theme soon, I am on the lookout, and Rajaie is coming out with one that I might be able to use. I advised him in the making, and added some things that I like, and I am going to be happy to promote it and use it.

I have started to think or branding “flamingo” a bit more, and trying to go with a green flamingo feel. This is why I mentioned the water pool, and in contest I might play on words with “flamingo” and “flaming.” If you have any ideas as to how to make this have a more “Green Flamingo” feel, they will be highly appreciated.

Note

Tomorrow I assume I will be heading off to an amusement park, and I will most likely  staying the night in the region. I may not be back for a day or two, so just look out for me, I won’t be gone long.

Over the weekend, I may go on another trip to Dallas Forth Worth, flight training does allow you I think to bring family along, so I might tag along there a few days. If there are any bloggers I know in Dallas, I would love to meet, though I am not sure it is possible. I will open this option in a few years, as I get older it will seem more professional. Going to Dallas I hope to bring my computer with me, maybe write an article on the flight and publish it at the hotel. I will have Internet access, so I will probably be blogging.

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Blogging Idol has begun! I did not join myself, I think I should talk about it.  I have a few things to say, and a list of a few people I want you to help.

Blogging Idol is a contest set up by Daniel from Daily Blog Tips. The contest officially began yesterday, and it is to see who can gain the most RSS subscribers within one month. It is not one of those contests where you “do a blog post” or subscrie to join and such. It is a contest of ultimate competition, and I was actually thinking about doing something similar to this only I had no good prizes to give. A contest will arrive at Green Flamingo soon, I can assure you of that. I do regret not joining now, for it would be fun to participate in this and even have a chance at the prize. In a way I am competing, though I will not recieve a prize if I win.

Since I have no fear of other people getting more RSS subscribers in July than me, I have thought of a few people it may be valuable to subscribe to and if you can I would like you to subscribe to them, to promote them. These are the people I actually know who are in the contest.

• Stand Out Blogger
• The University Kid
• Rajaie Talks
• Melvin Blog
• Tech Treak
• Monkey Blogger
• Wp Theme Designer

That is all I think, and I think it would be nice if you visited them and maybe subscribed.

As I said, I am trying to gain subsribers too, and I would appreciate if you subscribed to Green Flamingo. If you are currently subscribed, I would give you a mention, but there is something I need from you too. I need you to unsubsribe, and then resubscribe, for I changed the feed address. Thanks!
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Thank you so much for all your support, and I hope to give all my readers a nice treat soon!

Maybe the title should be “successful blogging is not easy,” but we do need to cut down on words in a title.

As most of you know, blogging is not that easy to maintain. There  is so much to do in so little time and people can become overwhelmed with it. If maintaining a blog seems to stressful to you, I advise you don’t keep a blog.

First of all, you have to have the motivation to start a blog. You all should start a blog by the way, and if you are all newbies, I will write a small guide like everybody else does to get you started. Now mind you, this is the niche “blogging tips” which deals with tips for blogging, not starting a blog . Some people start off thinking it will be hard to maintain a blog, which can be right, but also blogging continuously could be easy for them, and they miss out on their chance.

Once you have a domain, hosting, theme, and every other little piece to get that website off the ground, then you have to deal with content and promotion.

Content – content can be very hard to think of at times. The content you find and choose and write will develop your niche, or you will specifically have a niche in mind while starting the blog. Content can be the biggest trouble of some bloggers, especially if in a niche with not much to talk about.

Promotion – it doesn’t matter if “content is king” but the bottom line is you have to promote. There are many ways to promote your blog, such as blog commenting, guest posting, forum posting, advertising, contest sponsoring,  and social sites. Any of these work, and there are many more beyond. Some people get tired of promoting, but they have to keep going, just like they have to keep the content flowing.

The hardest part of it all, balancing time.

Balancing offline – Besides just balancing the time you have on the net, then you have to balance that in with other things you do in your day. If you have a day job offline, then you have to be at that and only have so much time to be working n your blog. If you are lugged around by your family all day, the same thing applies.

Balancing online – you also have to manage your time online, which can be just as difficult as offline. You do have to create a balance between writing and promoting, and we will count blog reading as promoting because essentially it is. You also have other things to do I’m assuming, and those of course take time. If you spend a lot of time on social networks you might have to give those up if you want to blog.

In the next few articles, I will talk about how you can manage and balance time, so stay tuned!

Here I am, pretty much returning to the blogosphere. I am listening to The Octopus’s Garden, resting peacefully, thinking about being how I’d like to be, under the sea, in an Octopus’s garden, in the shade. For a few days I have pretty much been out of the blogosphere, not writing, not reading, and not helping my blog or other website I am starting in anyway. Well, maybe a little. But I will not get into why, for in the book that I have been reading, No One Cares What You Had For Lunch, says even not to make all the reasons so…you get the idea. I mean, take Putting Blogs First, for example, a great site, by I kidblogger as I am, but has been talking about for most of the first page it is talking about how he is sooooo sooorrryyy because he cannot blog because of exams, which I can totally relate to understand, but you don’t need a whole page. I do get a little over excited when I don’t blog for a while, saying I’m terribly sorry, and I post more than once about it sometimes because I am afraid my readers don’t understand and so on. But do we really need to talk and talk about how they were on the plane, and it was delayed, so they had to wait on the tarmac of Dallas Fort worth for 3 hours, and I was gonna blog, but when I finally got to the hotel at 2:00 in the morning, where I was supposed to arrive at about 10, I was soooooo tired I couldn’t blog that night, I’ll make up for it by doing this this this, PLEASE come back! People aren’t as drastic as that, but I hope you get the point. And speaking of points, a few points to me for having a really long sentence of tradegy mand plea there! So, I don’t think you should worry about not blogging as much, but just think of it as a short break, and if questions are asked, answer them.

Ok .So here I’ve been. Trying to get on the train to the “higher class” blogging world. I mean, why can’t I get lots of views. For a few days, it has been hardly any. At least it’s something though. In December, towards the end, I was having them start to get up there, I thought. Then in the beginning of January, when I didn’t have much time to blog, the traffic I had dropped down considerably. On Google too, where I used to be #1 in the search results for “green-flamingo” I now don’t know where I am.