Browsing tag: blogging

As a writer, I’ve always stood by the tenet that content is king. Yes, promotion is important – if no one knows what you’re creating, they’re not going to see it. But marketing is just the doorway. You’ve got to have something worth directing people to.

IMO, the SEO vs content is moot. It’s not even 50/50. It’s more like 30/70, weighted toward content.

Without good content, you have nothing to point people to.
Without good content, they have no reason to keep coming back.

As Google algorithms grow increasingly sophisticated, cheap white hat tricks are dying. SEO and readability are becoming more synonymous and they aren’t mutually exclusive anymore. Hopefully we’ll see fewer of those dreadful SEO writer gigs for cents around and instead see investment into real writing and quality content. Maybe.

Blast from the past…

One year ago I shared some tech tools I swear by, traditional things I don’t care about, discussed suburb snobbery and what I liked about my then-neighbourhood, plus how driving style reflects your personality.

Two years ago I published one of my most popular posts ever – my opinion on dream jobs/passion jobs, wondered what true employment independence means, tried to express what it’s like to have writing in your blood, the benefits of driving an old car, and tracked how I spent all my time over the course of a week (it’d look different now – I no longer own a guitar and spend more hours working…)

Three years ago I wrote about doing our bit in a fucked up world, whether mystery shopping was worth the time (I tallied up my earnings for the year) and shared some foodie confessions.

And, for a laugh, four years ago I was contemplating facing life after graduation. It turned out okay, 2009 me!

And now, some links I liked this week:

LIFE

Here are some ways to simplify your internet habits from Zen Habits

Yes and Yes on all the ways she’ll know she’s made it . Just another milestone, and another … I can so relate

An amazing story on Grow about becoming homeless and surviving by hustling

MONEY

Thanks to Frugal Portland for including my post on the extra expenses that come with summer in this week’s carnival of personal finance 🙂

Small Steps for Big Change now knows first hand the dangers of cosigning a loan

My Broken Coin lists 10 things you’ll gain if you stop being cheap

Mochi and Macarons suggests budgeting yearly for freelancers with variable income

Some tips on creating a realistic travel budget, via She Wears A Red Sox Cap

Wealth Informatics walks us step by step through how to negotiate lower cellphone bills

WORK/CAREER

Been screwed over by your boss? Untemplater considers the best way to handle the situation

From Make a Living Writing, why you need to build your social media audience now

Do you have a job, or a j-o-b? This Redhead Writing post is by far the best thing I came across in the past week.

“For seventeen years, I had a j-o-b. Lots of them, in fact. They each offered me health insurance, 401ks, stock options, paid time off, sick days, and a rock-solid paycheck every two weeks. I went to work, I did my work, and I went home. Oftentimes, the w-o-r-k from the j-o-b followed me home.

“But there was an achy space — I guess to be honest, there were achy spaces. The spaces in between every task. Between my front door and the car door. Between my car and the front door of the office. Between every task throughout the day, that bit of bliss before I had to pick up and do something else for someone else. The spaces between paychecks grew more and more achy.”

Now that is the kind of writing that gives me the shivers.

In case you missed it, this week I guest posted at Making Sense of Cents (on weird and random ways I’ve made extra money) and Budget and the Beach (the pros and cons of working in the creative industries). You should totally head over to both and read them!

What else? Other things of note: I’ve finished up work for the year, and am looking forward to focusing on some blog admin, wedding/honeymoon admin, and plenty of R&R. T got his second tattoo (a steal at $550 thanks to a guy he knows, or something along those lines – a massive family crest on his arm. Luckily, he’s a big dude, so it works). We celebrated our seventh anniversary with a nice dinner out, in which I ate rabbit for the first time. Oh, and we went to a media screening of the Hobbit, and I’m firmly in the fan camp.

This’ll probably be my last link love for the year, so I wanted to send a little love to my top referrers for the year. Thanks Daisy / Jessie / Saving4Later / Chronicles of Debt / Sense to Dollars / Fabulously Broke.

2012’s best of

And my greatest hits this year were…

Personal finance topics I’m so over

So you want to be a writer…

On authenticity in blogging

Can’t live with ’em, can’t live without ’em

 Motivation: Saving vs paying down debt

Things I’ve learned from travelling alone

What to do if you’ve been burgled

If staying childless is selfish, so is procreating

Entitlement – is it really just a Gen Y thing?

This week’s links

Endlessly amusing: Forbes on how to fake being a good worker. I too strategically make use of the ‘Sent from my iPhone’ line.

Some Ramit-flavoured job hunting advice over at Get Rich Slowly, along with email scripts for reaching out to people for informational coffees (“pick your brain” is the golden phrase, apparently)

Three common interview questions and how to answer them, at I Want Her Job

Cents of a Country Girl voices her biggest financial fears

Funny About Money talks managing irregular paycheques

If you had the choice, would you take a guaranteed but restricted income for the rest of your life? Punch Debt in the Face poses an intriguing question

Money After Graduation explains how her Christmas wish list has evolved over the years (along similar lines to mine, actually)

Hannah Katy is quitting Christmas in typical eloquent fashion

It’s been a pretty depressing week, all current affairs considered, so you might like the Yes and Yes take on staying optimistic in a troubled world

Anyone can stop dreaming and start doing, says American Debt Project

Traveling 9 to 5 rounds up 12 stunning beaches they visited this year. Slightly jealous

Finally, a wee shout-out to Weddilicious, a swish new tool for engaged couples to make their own wedding websites (finding one to make mine was a bit of a headache, so I wish I’d found this a few months ago!). I’m helping them out a little on the writing side, and am super glad they found me and reached out to me.

Wishing you well for the holidays (we showed it to those Mayans, eh?) – may full bellies and warm fuzzies be yours.

A little bit of looking on the bright side this week:

• I’m grateful that I decided to go with a reasonably hefty fringe at my last haircut, because my face is looking pretty gruesome as my sunburn from last weekend peels off (I know, I know. Slap on the wrist). I tan, then peel, resulting in patches of dirty looking brown skin all over my face. NOT attractive. The hair hides a lot of it, though.

• I’m grateful my readership hasn’t slumped since going self-hosted, but I am hugely annoyed that WordPress doesn’t seem to be honouring my scheduled post dates. I line up posts well in advance and this month I’ve been moving a few of them around for various reasons, but it seems the RSS and Twitter links haven’t been getting the memo for the new publish times. A massive SORRY to everyone who’s clicked through to a non-existent post. I grovel, I apologise, and promise that it won’t happen after next week (I have a feeling I may have meddled with one or two of next week’s posts, unfortunately).

• I’m grateful T’s debilitating eye condition has been diagnosed. Yeah, it’s just been all fun and games on the health front there the past few months. He got sent home twice because his eyes were so effed up he physically couldn’t carry on – red, swollen, itchy, weeping and all around disgusting. I actually couldn’t bring myself to look closely at him. It was nasty. Anyway, apparently he has wicked hayfever, which I think is absolutely hilarious – him, the superman, who always mocks me and my chronic woes. He’s reasonably accommodating when I’m dripping snot or struggling to breathe for long periods, but until you actually experience the misery for yourself, you can never really understand IMO. On the downside, though, work is definitely wearing him down both physically and mentally – not because it’s more taxing than when he worked in trades, but because it’s quite literally sucking the life out of him. He knows I’m completely supportive of him finding something else; the question is what, exactly, that might be.

Just a handful of links for your reading pleasure:

Here are a bunch of things you should probably do more of, courtesy of Amanda Lee

And from Kara, a list of things she is not

Literary outreach at Tumblr would be a pretty sweet job, don’tcha think?

Ms Career Girl shares eight things she loves about not being self-employed anymore

In the market for a financial advisor? Sam has some questions you should ask first

Up at Urban Muse are 12 Days of Freelancing, a list of handy posts for perusal if you’re a freelance writer

Was it just last week I shared a recipe for ice cream cake? Well, here’s another, from one of my favourite food blogs ever

Happy weekends!

So much for summer. While T and I were knocked out by some nasty flu virus this week, a tornado saw fit to visit and cause a couple of deaths far too close to home. We thought last year’s tornado over on the North Shore was a one-off (that killed one person) but right now we just need one more to make it a pattern. Or is the rule of threes just for serial killers?

And so much for my braggarty post on how insulated we are from natural disasters, despite being a city of dormant volcanoes. Though as I also pointed out last month, the weather in Auckland is unspeakably awful, and so changeable that really, there was no headsup that a tornado might be coming to town.

On a brighter note… driving dogs!

This week’s links (short and sweet):

In typical Yes and Yes style, a very simple two-step plan for getting what you want

Amazing photos of Galapagos birdlife, over at Traveling 9 to 5

Marian is moving back to the US (sadface) for an awesome new job. I’ll be seeing you next year!

After a year of freelancing, Andrea is making some resolutions about doing business from hereonin

Enjoyed this reader post at Get Rich Slowly about learning to break the boom-and-bust cycle of poverty

Here’s Kommein on being social online without being annoying

Finally, I am not sure I actually know what ice cream cake is supposed to be like, but this recipe from Hungry and Frozen makes me want to try making it myself.

Happy weekends!

Phew! I made it. (Subscribe here, if you haven’t already!) Email subscribers should be moved over and getting posts in their inbox as usual – or if not, they will be transferred soon.

For those who were following me via WordPress, there’s a new ‘follow’ button toward the bottom right of the page (alternatively, according to a support forum, you should still be able to follow my new self-hosted blog through WordPress Reader by clicking Edit List next to Blogs I Follow). Otherwise, RSS is your best bet – I’m also on Bloglovin and Paperblog.

Before I get into all the reasons why I decided to go self-hosted, I’m going to share an insight into the process…

I awoke bright and early on Saturday morning, all ready to tackle the job. Before hitting the one-click install button on Dreamhost, I looked through the WordPress.org guides. Holy. Shit. There was talk of FTP, servers, and a bunch of other terms that I don’t quite understand. Still, I figured I should follow the instructions. I downloaded WordPress, tried to open the configuration file, and couldn’t. I then downloaded Filezilla, spent ages trying to get that to connect, and nearly broke down in tears after countless failures. Eventually, I decided just to press go on the Dreamhost install and see what happened.

Whaddya know. It worked. Note to others: do not worry about all the WordPress documentation; it’s effectively negged by the one-click install, which bypasses all that for you.

But in trying to set up my new account, I got a ‘page not found’ error, which I figured was because nzmuse.com already points to my WordPress.com blog. After racking my brain a little, I tried reconfiguring my settings and pointing my nameservers (I *think* I’m using all the right terms here, but I may well not be – this is from best recall) within WordPress.com to my Dreamhost settings. And when Pear tweeted me about my blog being down hours later, I knew they’d finally switched over. Hallelujah!

I then set up my user account and set about importing my old blog. Ruh roh. Next hurdle: the XML file containing everything about my blog was too large. Even my text-heavy writing with few photos added up to more than 16MB over four years. File splitters that others on the internet reported using were Windows-only and the one Mac one I found didn’t work. So I resorted to downloading my content in pieces, a year’s worth at a time, and then importing each file individually.

The final hurdle: rebuilding my menus and sidebar widgets. Those, unfortunately, didn’t translate over, even with the same theme.

Overall, it wasn’t TOO painful. Nervewracking for a noob, yes. One more note for future Dreamhosters: you want the Custom install but NOT the Deluxe option. Yes, you get Jetpack, but also a dozen other crappy themes you’ll end up deleting. Just install the Jetpack plugin separately once you’ve imported your WP.com blog.

Reasons self-hosting rocks

A better commenting system

I’m not kidding when I say the number one reason I wanted to self-host was to ditch the annoying new-ish WP.com commenting system that wants you to use your Facebook/Twitter etc credentials. If your email has ever been associated with a WP.com account, it will want you to log in. Basically, it was proving a huge pain in the ass for other bloggers.

Customising themes and look

I want to make a few tweaks to my theme (and it’ll be a good way to practise CSS. Christ, it’s been months since I last logged into Codeyear). Sure, you can buy an upgrade to edit your code in WP.com, but for the price you may as well go self-hosted and enjoy all the freedom that comes with it.

Plugins galore!

From IntenseDebate to related post plugins, there’s a whole world of fun out there. I’m trying not to go overboard. How many is too many?

Monetising

WP.com places some ads on your free blog that you have no control over. This way, you have a shot at making some cash for yourself, be it through Adsense, private ads, sponsored posts or other ad networks. (I’m trying out a plugin that automates all ad management, from selling to setting up ad zones – it even enables bookings from this page.)

No restrictions

There are some kinds of code WP.com won’t support, like Rafflecopter widgets, as I learned last week. That said, you do lose that connection to the WP.com community – there are users who surf WP.com tags and find posts that way – but I don’t think that’s ever been a huge traffic driver for me. We’ll see.

Overall, it was a step I’ve been wanting to take for awhile, as regulars know. Plus, extending my technical skills by any measure can only be a good thing, and I finally decided now was the time. It was a convergence of things.

• I got my stats back after changing to my own domain when Pagerank, moz and others recently updated

• I got my first unsolicited ad enquiry in months (though it went nowhere – boo)

• I won a copy of Rockstar Blogging by Shannyn (I love her style, and in this e-book she provides handy advice on building an attractive blog – yes, you should really think about your design and layout – with email templates on how to approach sponsors. If you’re hoping to work with brands to get freebies, giveaways or review product, it might be worth your while, and this link is worth a read too)

• Crystal offered her e-book, How I Make Money Blogging, to her e-newsletter subscribers for just $10 on Black Friday, and I decided to buy it. It’s a great place to start for beginning bloggers; if you’re more advanced, it’s still a good resource that offers you guidelines as to how much to charge for advertising. If you’re interested, I have an affiliate link to the book over in my right sidebar, or click here

• Dreamhost, one of the WordPress recommended hosts, which offers a one-click install was offering a killer Black Friday deal for $5 a month. So far I’ve had nothing but good experiences – no issues or downtime so far – and Dreamhost even automatically upgraded me to the latest version of WordPress when it came out (I’d been putting off doing the install until the weekend). Dreamhost has a killer money back guarantee (free first month, then the refund period of three months, basically). Right now, the current offer is for a tiny $3.95 a month; click here to  get more info and/or sign up

I’m big on seeing ‘signs’ and following them, and it was obvious – all the signals were shouting that it was meant to be.

If you’re self-hosted, how did you find the transition? If you’re not, any questions about the experience?

What’s going on in my life:

• I’ve switched over to self-hosting (subscribe here, if you haven’t already! Current subscribers shouldn’t see any changes or need to do anything) and the world did not implode. Still ahead: tweaking my CSS, downloading all the plugins I have my eye on, etc. I’ve asked for my email subscribers to be moved over so that you continue to get posts in your inbox. For those who were following me via WordPress, there’s a new ‘follow’ button toward the bottom right on this page.

• We’re looking at a trip to the US in 2013 and trying to figure out if it’s feasible to fit in a jaunt to Canada. I’d quite like to visit Vancouver (but it’s so far up the coast from California, even though I would like to see Seattle and maybe Portland!) and possibly Toronto over on the other side. Would be it a shame not to? Leave it for another trip, another year?

• I finally visited the famous Jervois Steak House for the first time. The Caprese salad wasn’t bad, the eye fillet was pretty good although the baked potatoes were lacking, and the baked Alaska was worth the long wait (no photos; I was seated next to a CEO and didn’t feel comfortable being that person having my phone out snapping every dish). That said, it is pricey and I’d rather patronise the Angus Steak House (the Great Western in New Lynn has gone down the tubes). Aucklanders, where do you go for a good steak?

• We’re meeting with a potential wedding celebrant next week. Eek.

• I can’t believe it’s officially summer. WOOT! And being a new month, that means it’s time for a …

Blast from the past

Four years ago (blimey) I enjoyed an epic NYE dinner at Satya

Three years ago I goggled at my flatmate’s relationship antics

Two years ago I pondered money lessons learned from my friends and balancing hoarding tendencies with minimalistic desires

One year ago I saw Tenacious D and the Foo Fighters live (and am seeing the Chilis – albeit sans Frusciante – next month, pretty much making my concert-going life complete)

Carnivalistic fun

The latest Carnival of Personal Finance is up at Narrow Bridge Finance, including my post on dealing with  a month of reduced income.

I’m also in the Byteful Travel carnival with my account of heli-snowshoeing in Queenstown earlier this year.

And now, to the links!

Seven ways to make money through your smartphone, via Dumb Little Man

Nicole and Maggie with some advice on the proper etiquette when dealing with professors. (You can probably apply this in many contexts. Folks who contact editors, get to the point fast, and a little humility goes a long way. Just a hint)

Leslie Beslie pens an ode to her student loans

Neurotic Workaholic, on the other hand, is wary of  student loans and wondering when they’re worth it

How should we define success? Via Funny About Money

Handy. Ashley walks us through the process of creating your own ebook

Geek in Heels catches herself coddling the baby of the family

Life, Etc has designed some nifty meal planners you can download

One military wife offers some insights into what it’s like surviving a deployment, over at Yes and Yes

+1 to Stacking Pennies’ latest: Feminist still willing to move for her husband’s career

Finally, I’ve wondered more than once how I would deal if (on the very slight chance) my family found itself in the media because of some personal tragedy. Steve Buttry (also a journalist) recently went through this, and offers some advice.