Monday, November 19, 2007

Information for Maximizing your Blog...

What to get the person who has everything....

Did I ever share these funny pictures with you? Truthfully, I can't even remember where I got them now. I may have been looking up "art cars" on google.


My kind friend Michele Hyra gave me the present of taking a blogging class with her at Discover U in Seattle. I wasn't really sure what we would learn in a blogging class - code? How to be interesting? Top Ten Widgets? Well it turned out to be a fantastic class. It was given by Tom Masters who, in addition to teaching the class and giving us an 80 page handout, also provided a copy of his extremely informative and helpful book, Blogging Quick & Easy, A Planned Approach to Blogging Success. We learned super informative stuff about building readership, measuring your traffic, and earning money with your blog. Another thing I learned about in the class is a cool tool that keeps track of all the blogs you visit. It can look a lot like your Outlook Express mailbox - a list on the left of the different blogs and on the right a view of the item you have highlighted. It updates everytime one of your blog friends post - instant updating! You may have already known about this, but it was news to me! I like the idea of all my bloggers in one place. I started a Google Reader account. I'm not sure it's my favorite yet. While it shows everyones blog, it doesn't show the skin, or formatting, of the blog. So you would see this blog in black and white, except for the pictures. One of the reasons I like blog strolling is because I like seeing how everyone's blogs look! So I may search out another reader service, although I may be asking too much of them...
A few of the interesting articles on Tom's website:




Happy Monday everyone!

2 comments:

Cathy ~ Tadpoles and Teacups said...

Wow--that car looks like a dress I used to have. Crazy fun!

Best wishes~
Cathy

P.S. Love your life's philosophy!!

Denise Moore said...

Laurie, I appreciate your info about the class you took for improving your blog. I would like to take a class like that. I feel like mine isn't a good reflection of what I want it to be and I am not sure how to further customize it. About google reader, if you click onto the title of the blog entry in reader it takes you right to the blog. I usually don't stay on the reader site, too boring.
I like sparkly stuff!