Mind the Beginner

Looking back

On March 13th 2009 I made my very first blogpost ever, starting the blog on a wordpress hosted domain. Right off the bat I can tell you that that was a mistake. I should have started on my own domain from the beginning. My old domain is still getting more traffic every day than where you are now. Over the year this blog has had several small and big changes made to it. Ranging from new layouts, inserting images and discovering some useful HTML features all the way up to getting a clearer focus on what this blog is about.

I started out blogging about “A little blog on beginning, it sounds so simple but it’s quite complex.” this changed to ” lifestyle design and personal development with a Zen twist” and now I finally got down to what really gets me going: “Thoughts from a Zen mind in a Western World”. My view on just about anything and everything in my daily life. At times confronting and perhaps even a bit extreme, but always honest.

All I knew was that I wanted to learn how to write and connect with people around the world. I was looking for affirmation that there were more like-minded people out there. Also, I wanted to learn more about the dynamics of online marketing and social media. To do that you need some sort of platform to promote obviously. So it became twofold: connecting with minds and learning how to market.

Right now

Looking around at other bloggers who started out at just about the same time as I did (Corbett Barr and Carl R. Nelson to name two) you might be tempted to say that this blog is a very slow grower and I must be doing something wrong with the marketing. That could well be the case, I like to think the main reason is that these two put so many hours in their blogmarketing that they deserve it. There is no secret way of doing this, it comes down to putting in the hours. (That, and I haven’t done any guestposts)

Looking around you might also conclude that I’m doing rather well. For the first time in the history of this blog the feedburner counter jumped the 200 mark. It took me 8 months to reach 100, and 4 months to go up to 20o. May I conclude that I will be at 300 subscribers in another 2 months? (and 400 one month later). That would bring me well over 1000 subscribers in the next year. 300 Subscribers is one of my goals for this year as you might recall and it looks very much within reach.

Another awesome thing happened to me this year of blogging. For the very first time in my personal history I actually earned money through without selling a physical object. Although I’m no where near my goal of the $500 a month goal I set seeing money being transferred into your paypal account from a sale is empowering, no matter the amount! It gives a sense of accomplishment. And thinking about one of my initial intentions to start blogging, I’ve marketed my blog effectively enough to earn a few dollars. The theory that you can earn money through blogging is now a fact to me. I can now honestly say I know.

Personal things

Learning how to write has had a significant impact on how I think and express my thoughts. Developing the skill to put to words what you are thinking is very powerful and if this was the only thing that blogging would have brought me I would be a very happy man. But of course there is more to blogging than just that. It also thought me how to stand up for what I think a bit more. I’m still trying to keep friends with everybody at times but there are moments when you can quite simply agree with me or be wrong!

I am a blogger and I am in it for the long haul. Personal experience and thought will never dry up and as long as that is there you’ll be reading about it here. Blogging taught me how to express myself, how to market a website and how to use social media to that end. Through blogging I’m very happy to have made friends all over the world, loyal readers and honest critics. Thank you!

Looking forward

We made it this far. So what’s next? Life and business are nowhere without a direction, a goal, a set of values. You can always come here and read about the world through my eyes, I will keep doing the best I can to offer you high-value content and meaningful blogposts to think about. Ruthless honesty and simplicity are my main values here and that is what you will get. My ultimate goal is to have this blog grow to well over 1000 subscribers, for however long that takes. Once there, nothing will actually change except the number of readers you can connect with to discuss my thoughts.

Are there other plans as well? Of course! I’m thinking about a few things: guestposting, a second blog, an eBook, learning CSS and HTML, more serious marketing to get my name out there as a blogger, the blogger on the subject of Zen thinking and the effects it has on life in terms of personal development, lifestyle design, minimalism, productivity and simplicity. You get the idea don’t you?

This first year was awesome! Thank you for your continued support. Hang on to your seat, it’s going to be a wild ride from here.

A small request

As a closing thought on this blogpost I’m going to ask you for your help. If you think this blog has added value to your life in any way, please spread the word. Backlink on your blog, tweet  and urge others to subscribe to my RSS feed.Thanks again, I would be nowhere without you.

I’ve been blogging for almost a year now and last week I tweeted a question, asking how people got their blog to grow. You can read stories all over the net of people having a hugely successful blog within a year. I’m defining success as a lot of comments on each blogpost and hundreds/thousands of subscribers. Although this blog isn’t exactly what you call unsuccessful, things could be so much better. And that’s where I really could use your help.

Guest posting and engaging with other bloggers is key. That and being useful to your readers  -  Corbett Barr

The quote here is what I got back on my question via twitter. Guest posting and engaging with other bloggers isn’t to hard. My plans for that are simple: Guestposting on any blog that will have me. Small blogs and big blogs, none will be left  out as long as they fit in the same niche. To get in touch with more readers I’m going to dive deep into the blogosphere and comment on at least three blogs every single day. Of course those comments need to add value, a simple “First! hahaha”  or “What a great post, please visit my blog” won’t cut it. The most effective is looking for new blogs out there you didn’t comment on before, it’s getting your name out there. Frequently posting meaningful comments on the same blog will get you noticed by the writer and readers and so that’s also a good idea to get out there.

What is usefulness?

Usefulness is useless if nobody knows that you’re there

But I’m left with a single problem: I have no idea if my blogposts are useful to you. Am I writing things that matter and help? Or is it all a load of **** that nobody really finds interesting to read and/or is just dime a dozen content? How would you describe usefulness when it comes to blog content.

A long while back I laid out the plan on growing my blog  A blogpost filled with 16 building blocks to a succesful blog was what resulted. Back then the goal was 500 pageviews a day or 300 subscribers. I haven’t reached either – yet-, but the blog is still growing slowly every month and it’s only a matter of time until those goals are reached. There is no doubt in my mind about that. If there is one thing that I’ve learned from the successful bloggers out there is that things very rarely happen overnight. You’ll have to really commit and it can take years to build a really useful blog which is successful. Being useful by writing good content, answering questions and providing help is one side of the coin, it’s useless if you don’t reach anybody with it so you’ll have to market your blog as well. Usefulness is useless if nobody knows that you’re there.

I’d like to ask you two questions:

1. Is this blog useful to you?
2. What would make this blog more useful to you?

Blogging is very different from writing a book, you can actively engage with others and address issues that come up. It’s a great way of communicating and I want to make your experience on this blog better. Help me help you and we’ll both profit from it.

Thanks for the support my friend, I hope to hear from you

If you’re not interested in effective writing or have mastered the skill of writing skip this blogpost. If you’re like me and always on the lookout for tips to make things more effective, this one if for you!

Block quotes are one of the three attention-grabbers when scanning an article to see if it’s worth reading. Read the blogpost to discover the other two.

Yesterday I dug up and old syllabus from my previous education as therapist. It was about effective writing and there were some nice pointers in there I really want to share with you. Over the years there have been a lot of blogposts and entire blogs on writing effectively. But as of yet there is one rule in my syllabus that I haven’t found out there yet. It might be, it might not be, at least now it’s here on this blog.

The rule of seven:

• No more than 7 sentences to a paragraph
• No more than 7 paragraphs to a chapter
• No more than 7 chapters to a text

With a margin of 2 on all these.

The word count

Simple isn’t it? But there is more of course. The maximum length of a sentence that  people can comprehend is related to education. It’s bit harsh but people who didn’t finish high school can’t handle sentences the way academics can. If you want to write a text that’s readable for everyone sentences should be no longer than 10 words. High School drop-outs can take 14 words and 24 words is a suitable length for academics. It’s not set in stone but it’s a good guideline to keep in mind when writing. Who is your audience? It’s quite easy to overestimate your readers.

Combining these two rules we get between 1250 and 7290 words to a text for everybody, and 3000 to 17496 words for academics. Somewhere in the order of 7000 words seems the ideal length for the typical eBook and 980 for a blogpost. All these are rough estimates of course but using these you can expect that an eBook over 17500 words long will surely be a bit on the long side.

Improving readability can be done by including underlines, bold, and italics but especially underlines are not a particular good idea in blogposts. After all, links in blogposts are almost always underlined and you could send the wrong signal. A text full of underlined words at first glance would seem like a text full of links. It could get even worse if you underline a word and make it blue as well. Now surely your first impression is that it’s a link. Did you try and click it?

Subheadings

are another way of grabbing attention and dividing a text to improve readability. It draws the attention and effective subheadings will almost lure the reader deeper into the text. The title of the article is the first thing people see and so that too should grab attention while covering the essence of the article. Not to long and definitely to the point, it should leave the reader with the feeling of “I need to read this”. These aren’t all the tools you have to write effectively. Blogreaders are a special breed of readers, they want the information in quick, scannable bits and are always in a hurry. As a blogger you can help your readers with that and provide highly scannable content.

One of the easiest things to scan is the:

• The list
• it’s short
• easy to scan
• and provides structure
• see what I mean?

Chances are you already scanned the list before actually reading the blogpost. Together with the subheadings these are two of the three most scannable features in any blogpost. The last one you’ve probably already scanned as well before deciding to read this post. It’s the block quote at the beginning of this blogpost. These three text-based eye catchers are what grabs you at a first glance. (Four if we count the title of the blogpost.) That leaves us with one non-text eye catcher that is absolutely crucial. A picture is worth a thousand words and doesn’t increase the word count! A bad picture or no picture at all will seem dull and uninspiring. The right picture makes or breaks a blogpost.

The closing line to a blogpost is where you make your statement. Use all the tools you have, make your blogpost scannable, make a clear statement, and don’t forget to write both a good opening and closing  line, they really matters.

A few hours ago an e-mail entered my inbox. Sent by Problogger, a blogger you might now as Darren Rowse, one of the biggest bloggers out there and one of the happy few who makes a six figure income by blogging.

A long time ago when I started this blog Darren was offering a cycle of the 31 Days to Building a Better Clog challenge. I eagerly jumped on the project and the following 31 days was total pandemonium. Thousands of bloggers took part in the challenge to make their blog a better blog in just 31 days. Every day a new assignment would come online and we’d all implement what Darren was suggesting and follow things up with discussing about the assignments on the forum. THousands of bloggers doing so at the same time, hundreds of bloggers looking at each others blogs.

In 31 days my blog got a really good start in it’s digital life and the lessons learned are still being applied to this day. Now you must be wondering, what does that mail have to do with things and why am I trying to sell you something?

The truth is, yes this is an attempt to sell and the link I’m offering here is an affiliate link. << Click

Now I might have already lost you right there, I sure hope not because I have a very good reason to do this. By following the link you will be taken to the product page, but what it doesn’t tell you as far as I can tell is the temporary (7 days) bonuses that are on offer.

• A report by the name of 9 Things to Do to Get Your Blog On Track for the New Year – it is a 9 day extension of the 31 Day workbook and contains 9 extra tasks, particularly designed for the new year. This means you have 40 days of exercises to get you going.

• A 55 minute podcast with Leo Babauta from ZenHabits.net – this podcast is rich with tips on how Leo has launched his blogs and leveraged them to sell successful e-books and a best selling book.

• A 45 minute podcast interview with Neil Patel from Quicksprout.com – another practical podcast with Neil on how to drive traffic to blogs as well as tips on personal branding, SEO and more.

Now If you are still with me after all that you might be wondering why I’m doing this, why am I lowering myself to this shameless promotion. It’s a simple truth: blogging is an enrichment of your life, at the very least you become skilled in putting your thoughts to words and sharing your thoughts with others. By themselves writing skills are already very useful. Interaction is very likely to follow and you’ll get in touch with people who share your way of thinking or are really interested in what you have to say.

The main item itself is a workbook filled with tasks to get your blog up to speed. If you’re a first time blogger or thinking about writing a blog but don’t know where to begin this is just about the best resource around. You can work through the workbook in your own time and have it all in a nice bundle.

To sum things up: No, this blog is not permanently lowering the standards. I just feel that if you plan on blogging, have a beginning blog or have a writers urge then this really is a good place to start.I really do endorse this product, the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog is the single most significant thing that helped me start this blog and give it the flying start.

A lot of blogs I follow seem to be doing an end-of-the-year review. I myself have been thinking about this a while now and see no reason not to do one. When this year started I didn’t own a blog, I wasn’t active on social media and had never earned a single dollar through online sales (not counting ebay, but that’s not business).

Three small things but I started in all three and combined they made a huge difference. It began with reading the four hour workweek. As I have the habit of writing down the date on which I bought a book inside it’s cover I an tell you that I bought it on October 28th 2008. I read it the following days and reread sections over the following months. The first thoughts about lifestyle design were born and I started reading blogs. A few months later I decided to start blogging over at mindthebeginner.wordpress.com (March 13th 2008). You might recall the adres, it’s where I build this blog to it’s first 100 subscribers. I was doubtful about starting a blog for a long time, thinking I had nothing to write that people would actually want to read. I was wrong and Taking part in probloggers 31 days to building a better blog challenge helped me get into the ways of blogging.

Blogging is not the only thing I started as said, I also got into Project Mojave thanks to my friend Carl. Although I didn’t stay there it did open my eyes to the possibilities of inernet and that things really aren’t that hard if only you believe in yourself and your own capabilities. With so many people online there are bound to be people who want hear what you have to say.

Right now I’m still not completely happy with my blog though. The look isn’t to good and reader interaction isn’t what I’d like it to be. So there we have a goal for the next year. But there are many more goals for the new year. 2010 Will be a themed year for me: freedom. Freedom in many ways, and of course something this vague needs measurable goals so let me give you an outline of what I’m going to do this year:

The Goals

Most significant of all I’m setting the goal of a monthly income of at least $500 a month through online ventures to be reached by the end of 2010. Combined with this the total spendings for 2010 will not be more than the total income. I could try and do that on a monthly basis but I pay my tuition in one go and that will most certainly be more than my monthly income. Freedom of finance.

My second area of goal setting is this blog. I want to reach the 300 subscribers mark by the end of the year and give you at least 100 blogposts over the next year, spread evenly. (So no overload of blogposts in December just to reach this goal.). Also I want to redo the layout and provide you with a better blogreading experience. I might just start using “headway” but I’m still on the fence about that one. A blog to write about freedom, minimalism and zen-inspired life.

In the computer area I have three goals. First off, touch-typing in qwerty. I type a lot of course. Not only in blogging but I’m almost always behind my computer and touch-typing will improve my speed greatly. My education is training me among other things to be a programmer and it’s silly to have to keep watching the keys and be slow just because I use six fingers and cant’ find the [, \ , ; and ] without looking. Secondly I’m going to set up my desktop to be a Linux-only computer. Not because I’m anti-windows (actually I think Win 7 is very good) but because I want to challenge myself and I can see only advantages of knowing how to work with more than one OS. Lastly I want a laptop, so I can properly blog and work/study wherever I am. Something highly portable but capable, like a thinkpad T500. Of course this will run on Linux. The sidenote here is that I’m not going to pay for this laptop with anything else but the income I plan to make through online ventures. Freedom to work/study/play where I want.

In the category of brain-development and useless skills I have another nice set of goals. I want to be able to solve a Rubik’s cube in 60 seconds or less. (Of which I will be posting a video on this blog as soon as I reach that goal.) I know it’s completely useless but It’s something I’ve wanted to be able to do for a long time now and it keeps bugging me.
I want to be able to juggle three balls, yes it’s completely useless, or so you might think. But its a great way of training the brain and developing hand-eye coordination. Together with the cube it’s something from my childhood I never learned and watched others do. Who said every goal needs to be useful.
Speedreading, you’ve probably heard of it, is something I’ve also wanted to be able to do. Although I can reach roughly 600 wpm (words per minute) right now I want to raise this to over 1000 wpm both in Dutch and English. Thicker books will not hold me captive for countless hours anymore. Information is freedom and more information is more freedom.

The minimalism goals are next. A long long time ago I blogged about the 100 items challenge and I must confess that I’m still not there. Why would I want to do this? I want less clutter, more space and a serene living space. I will have to get rid of dozens of books, and all those things that represent cash value but are a total pain to get sold for a descent price. It’s to cluttered right now and have more things ties you down and limits freedom.

Last but certainly not least we have body and mind developments. Five points here, but three are things I’m already doing and need to keep up. (Okay, it’s more of a want but feels like a need)
I want to keep meditating daily for 20 minutes using the methods of zazen. Combined with this it’s always a good idea to take up physical activities so I’m going to run, continuously for an hour somewhere between two and three times a week. I’ve been running for a while now but it’s hardly consistent. The last physical thing I want to keep doing is continue training t’ai chi. Following a weekly class every Thursday evening and I will stay at that for as long as I can, which is probably until I finish university.
As mentioned there are five points, so two are new ones. The first is a huge things if you know anything about personal development and productivity. And of course…. it’s something I’m not doing right now so here it is: I want to become an early riser. Getting up at 6.30 Monday through Friday consistently. Seeing as I live about 15 minutes by bike from Uni and we never start before 8.45 am that leaves me with enough time to write blogposts and perhaps even go for morning runs and/or meditate in the morning as well. We’ll have to see how that goes.
The last goal on this extensive list is something I’m absolutely not sure about if I will be able to do but I want to take up Aikido. Again this is a weekly course but the timing is horrid. Mid-day somewhere and that might interfere with my roster. I just hope it’s possible.

There you have it, my 2010 shortlist:

“Freedom”

• Financial

*Monthly “internet income” of $500
*Live below means

• Blogging

*300 subscribers to this blog
*100+ blogposts in 2010
*New layout

• Computer-related

*Touch typing in qwerty
*Having Linux as only OS
*A laptop (Payed for with internet income)

• Brain development

*Solve Rubik’s cube in 60 seconds or less (and post a video of it here)
*Juggling with three balls
*Speedreading 1000 words a minute in Dutch and English

• Minimalistic living

*Complete the 100 items challenge

• Body development

*Continue meditating daily for 20 minutes (zazen)
*Continue training in T’ai Chi
*Run more consistently (2-3 times a week, one hour at a time)
*Become an early riser (6.30 am Mon – Fri)
*Take up Aikido if possible

An almost insane list to complete and I forgot one essential thing: Do all this AND get proper grades! In the new layout this list will get it’s own dedicated page so you can keep track of the developments. I’ll also be making a so called bucket list (Things to do before you kick the ..) and that too will get it’s own dedicated page. I’m sure this list will develop a bit over the year, but nothing will come off, if anything, things will be added.

With that being said all that is left is to say Thank You! for making 2009 an awesome year where I learned loads of things and finally found my path in life. I couldn’t have done it without you. Enjoy these last days and I hope to see you in 2010

Greets,

Christiaan

If you’re a bit like me you’ve probably been told you’re crazy on a lot of occasions. Sometimes it’s a bit more subtle and you’re “just” called unrealistic or a dreamer but it can even go as far as being called totally insane. From time to time you come across others who have the same thing.

The Internet is one such place, a place where you can be yourself without getting into trouble for being crazy. You might be called eccentric but most likely you’ll be a unique voice and if you start blogging you’ll be sure to gather a lot of subscribers. The benefit is Internet instantly becomes clear: there are more people like you out there. If only one in a thousand people think like you do chances are you will hardly ever meet one in real life yet set up a blog on the subject and in no time you’ve got yourself a little tribe.

The truth is out there

But is craziness really crazy? Or is it just the opinion of the way a minority thinks. It’s out of sync with the norm and so it’s somehow wrong. The truth is not always the opinion of the majority after all.

The minorities however are on the rise. Talking with fellow students or colleagues probably will get a few raised eyebrows on the subjects of personal development and lifestyle design. The four hour workweek gets some laughs and looks of disbelief, the whole idea of passive income streams is all but ignored. Ignore the crazy folk.

Talking online and blogging however you can’t deny that these topics are definitely getting more and more attention. It might just get mainstream soon and in doing so it’s going to get harder and harder to be heard. Because that’s one of the benefits of being crazy. On the one hand you don’t get listened to because you’re crazy, on the other hand you do find yourself part of a tribe that does listen. Once that tribe gets to big it’s going to be a tough job staying one of it’s leaders.

Little league

A simple example: I blog about personal development, lifestyle design, minimalism and zen. ….ever heard of Zen Habits? Illuminated Mind? and of course the blog of Tim Ferris. A small time blogger like myself couldn’t possibly compete with these huge guns in the niche. Maybe if I started a few years ago I’d be one of them but as things are we’re down here. Proof that these ideas aren’t that strange after all although when looking at real life experiences only you wouldn’t know you were sane.

The Internet offers us so much. In real life our ideas might be called crazy, we’re the only ones we know who have them. While on-line there are so many people talking about the subject that we have a tough time making ourselves heard through all the twitter and chatter.

What can we do about that one? Either way it’s hard being heard. But what if you implement the lessons from real life into blogging? Write about something that seems totally crazy on-line. After all, it’s just another environment you’re in and in that perspective no different than your real life chats with people.

• Being crazy makes you stand out;
• standing out gets you noticed;
• getting noticed gets you heard (eventually);
• getting heard lets you share your ideas.

You meet all kinds of cool people who share your ideas or at least have an interest in what you’re writing. The world is big enough to build your own group around just about any subject. If you thought of it it’s certain others think the same. Blogging is the game of finding those people.

Call me crazy, but that’s how I see the on-line world. Millions of people, and we’re all crazy in one way or the other. Don’t be ashamed, it’s the place to be to find like-minded people. Speak up about your thoughts and you will be heard. Be yourself, be crazy and enjoy talking to the other crazies.

The weekly update is here again and by just looking at the numbers it hasen’t been a great week:

Average number of pageviews over this week: 70

Number of subscribers to my RSS feed: 21 (very nice!)

Where the traffic is coming from: Again it’s mostly from problogger but twitter is pitching is as are the blogcomments I’ve posted elsewhere. I think it’s getting a bit more stable now. The initial hype is over and now I have to work even harder than before, jut to keep it up.

What I’ve done this week to get my blog bigger and what I learned: I have added a lot of people on twitter in the hopes if getting to know more of my readers. A lot is defined by going from 158 following to over 400 and doubling my followerd to over 250. As I said last week I havn’t jumped on every blogpost at probloger anymroe and I don’t think it has caused my to much traffic I musts say. Most traffic is comming from the forum, not the blog comments. I’m also working on a collaboration of bloggers and it’s growing, we have about 10 members at the moment and it’s still growing. Somewhere this week I’ll be posting my plan in how I would like this collaboration to function. So stay tuned and hang on to your hats. This is going to be a wild ride.

Another post comming this week will be ” What’s in my bag” . I’ve always loved these things and I just have to do one of these. (I’m a regular at the EDC forums after all) Besides, I saw one the other day at The simple dollar and wrote in the comment that I would be doing one too. I have to keep that promise. 

Have a nice weekend everyone.

This blog has been running now for about six weeks and it’s time for me to tell you why I chose to blog, what I want from it and what’s in it for you. It’s a bit of a lengthy post, but I want to let you know who I am and what I’m aiming for.

About me

The “about” page on this blog does tell you some things about me but to keep it easy to read I haven’t told you everything there is to know.  It states that I’m an exercise therapist. (A bachelor’s in Health) What it doesn’t tell you is that I am now 26. If everything went according to plan I should have had that degree at 22. Four years that don’t really make my resume shine. 

So what happened? It took me a long while to decide what I wanted to do after highschool. I dabbled in chemistry and physiotherapy but neither of these quite did it for me. To make matters worse when I was about half way through my bachelor’s the realization came that this wasn’t for me as well. After investing 2 years already I thought I might as well get it finished otherwise I would have spent all that time (and money) without having anything to show for it. Little did I know that there were a few huge walls ahead that would slow me down even more. Walls in the area of social interaction and empathy. 

I’m not the most social guy around, it’s what you get when you grow up in a family like mine. I don’t want to blame it all on them, it’s just that to me it was normal not to interact with people so much and try to sympathize. A gap in my skills that became apparent when I started working with patients. Part of the problem was that I was constantly drifting off with my thoughts. How to manage that? That’s where my zen training started. The rest as they say, is history. It changed the way I thought and allowed me to develop empathy (finally). I got through the last part of my training with flying colors. 

Seeing as exercise therapy wasn’t my calling I started to look round for other things to do with my life. I’ve always been “good with computers”, I enjoy working with them so much that I wanted to pursue a career in the IT sector. Many people have written about being good at something doesn’t mean you should make your job of it and kill all the pleasure you have with it but I feel that for me it would be the best choice. 

I’ve decided to get a masters in information science. The link between the programmer and the consumer. You can see it as the architect, whereas the programmer is the contractor and the consumer is the client. A mix of computer technology and people, just my niche. 

Why I started this blog

Although zen is the main reason for me to get through university it’s not the only thing that made my life easier.Over the years I’ve picked up all sorts of skills, habits, lifehacks and whatnot that got me where I am today. 

When my teachers told me I had a writing style that was very accessible and a pleasure to read they advised me to do something with it. Although they have only read my assignments in Dutch I’m sufficiently bilingual to try and write in English. Although my grammar isn’t perfect at best I do my best to put my thoughts to words. This blog is constantly helping me with developing my language and writing skills.This blog is my channel to develop myself and to tell you what I have learned and how I did it. 

I have started to think more about what I want to do with my life and I can tell you it’s not a full-time job and retire when I’m 65. I want to see the world and have a degree of freedom. To pursue this further I will be using this blog to generate a side income if I can. Although I won’t do this shamelessly with all sorts of advertising. You deserve better than that. No ad sense…Personal development, development of my writing skills, geting to know people and a very modest side income are what’s in it for me. 

What’s in it for you

I believe that I’ve acquired certain skills in my life that can help others with developing their goals. I want to help you with reaching your goals in life, with the use of elements of zen and (un)common sense. I want to get you to feel excited about what you do and thoroughly enjoy your life, even if what you want to do is nonconformist. 

I want to get to know you so I will be interacting with you and try and find out what I can help you with.

What will happen on this blog

This blog will continue to get at least five posts a week. Currently I post every single day, I don’t know if that will stay possible when I go back to university but that’s not until September 2009. For the time being I will keep posting daily. (update 2009-05-14: I’ve reduced the number of postings a week to somewhere around 4. This because my posts were lacking in quality and I was making that up with quantity. In favor of quality I will no longer churn out posts just to say something but will blog only when I truely feel I have something to say.) 

Posts will become better as I develop my writing skills.

Aside from the blogposts I will start writing a few longer essays that will become available as eBooks. 

This blog will slowly grow over time and I aim to reach over 1000 readers a day in the course of a year.

Within a few months this blog will move to a different domain: www.mindthebeginner.com. Once there I will tinker a bit with the layout but the feeling will stay the same.

I hope this post gives you a better understanding of what mindthebeginner is. If you like what I’ve written so far and want to keep up to date on all my posts please subscribe to my RSS feed. If you ever have any questions, suggestions or just want to talk feel free to mail me. 

As some of my readers already know I’m working on a challenge to get my blog to grow big enough so that I can reclaim my domain. Big enough is defined here as >500 pageviews a day for seven consecutive days or >300 subscribers to my RSS feed. There already have been several occasions where readers have asked me how things were going. So I’ve decided to give an update every weekend on how things are going. I’ll split those up into four items:

• Average number of pageviews over this week (Monday-Friday)
• Number of subscribers to my RSS feed
• Where the traffic is coming from
• What I’ve done this week to get my blog bigger and what I learned

The observant reader will also know that not only has my domain been bought and I’ll get it for free if I manage to succeed, but another benefactor has stepped in who offered me free web hosting for a year.

Average number of viewers: 117
Number of subscribers to my RSS feed: 8
Where is the traffic coming from:

Mostly it’s getting here through the problogger.com forum (31DBBB)at the moment, a few more get here through my twitter and a few find their way through comments I’ve left on other blogs. The remainder get here through all sorts of little things I’ve done such as putting up a link to my blog in the signatures I have on all the forums I visit.

What I’ve done this week to get my blog bigger and what I learned:

I’ve become quite active on the 31DBBB forum and that alone has doubled my pageviews. I’ve also managed to be (one of) the first to comment on the new 31DBBB blogpost as it hit the net and as the assignment got announced on the forum. These both have resulted in a lot of traffic coming this way but it’s not the kind of attention you want to be getting in the long run. So as of next week I will no longer react to the assignments within minutes but will wait until after 7 pm to act upon them. That’s a good three to four hours after problogger posts the new assignment for the day. It’s not always good to be first. 

On the problogger forum I’ve set up a topic searching for other bloggers so we can help each other through Digg, StumbleUpon, Del.isi.us. and other means of promotion. As I’m writing this I’ve only gotten two other bloggers to join me but I hope more will follow. Perhaps I’ve turned the 31DBBB forum visitors against me already by being to omnipresent. 

I’ve received several mails of people who did a quick review of my site. Stating what they were missing and how things felt to them. The biggest issue is that the niche of my blog isn’t clear right off the bat although the minimalistic style and the “relaxing” green header combined with the title of my blog gives a vague idea as to what it’s all about. So far people are positive about its as a whole. I’ll tweak the layout when I get Wordpress.org. I like this layout a lot but there are minor things I’d like to change. I’d like a three column layout for instance and a subheading to go with the title of my blog.

I’ve seriously edited my “about” page after getting numerous comments (I asked for a review on the 31DBBB forum,worked like a charm) that my picture was portraying me as very inaccessible. People thought I was a speaker of sorts. Truth be told I was a picture taking during my final presentation in order to graduate as B. Health. I’m not a regular suit wearer though. So the picture got swapped for something friendlier. 

The text on the about page also got an overhaul, I hope it’s now much clearer on what this blog is all about as well as who I am as a person and blogger.

At the end of this article I now realize that getting more than 500 views on both Saturday and Sunday will be the toughest of all. As it stands I’ll only keep everyone informed on the average views Monday – Friday just to keep the excitement.

…Day in day out he stared at the statistics of his little blog, he had a dream, get his blog big enough to claim his place among the great blogs out there. Perhaps even cast a shadow over them and become the best of his niche. One day he would get there, he was convinced. They would see, just wait…

For many of us this is a dream we have about blogging. Making it big time and have a blog that will one day get into the illusive technorati top-50 blog list. Considering how many blogs there are out there this is not as easy as it sounds when we first have this dream. As soon as we start to work on realizing this dream we see just how hard it will be to get there. Struggling to get the first viewers, struggling to get people to subscribe to our RSS feed, struggling to get noticed.

A few weeks ago problogger started his 31 days to building a better blog program. The goals would be to make your blog better. With over 9000 participants he recognized a need and who better to lead all these bloggers to a better blog than the writer of the best read blog on the subject. I am one of the 9000 taking part in the program and I have another challenge. Get this blog bigger, and do it in the fast lane.

To get there we need a solid plan, stepping stones to get noticed. How to get more traffic, write quality (and quantity without loosing quality), how to get comments and get people to subscribe to your RSS feed. All these are questions we want answers to don’t we? Well, I can answer al the questions but I’ve asked myself how I would do it and the following points make up my plan:

•  Take part in the 31 days to building a better blog program and follow every piece of advice that is offered. Although this advice is temporary, it’s a great help. If I’m correct the entire 31DBBB will be offered on problogger’s site by the beginning of May.
• Use twitter to get the word out there on your blog and on new posts. Don’t overdo it though as this will become less effective over time because you saturated the market.
• Comment on other blogs in your niche, add value to their posts, be a help and do make sure you give a linkback using the “your website” box. Be honest in your comments, it’s not just about marketing your own blog on other blogs, it’s adding value.
• Participate in the comments on your own blog, let your readers know you appreciate their input and use the feedback you get. Making this obvious will make that reader appreciate you more and tell others about it.
• Set up an RSS feed. I use feedburner for this. This is very important as we all know.
• Write consistently, in the first weeks of your blog, it’s about a steady stream of posts. New readers will want to see that you regularly post on your blog. Only your trusted followers will forgive you if you don’t post for a week. Try one post a day, ever day. Try and use the right time to get your posts out. From other bloggers I’ve been told that the best time is around 1pm GMT. The US will be waking up and read your post during breakfast or in the early hours of work before really starting work. The UK will come back from lunch and take a quick peek. Australia will be done working and see your post in the evening.
• Work on the visuals. New readers will judge the looks of your site in about 0.2 seconds. If it doesn’t look right you’ve lost a reader. (Yes you had a pageview, but those don’t count, you want readers, not viewers.) Make sure your blog visually supports what you are writing. Add pictures to your posts that support the post. As a last note, most people like a light background.
• Make sure people know what your blog is about within a few seconds of looking at your front page. Some people will head off to the “about” page but if your front page isn’t clear you’ve already lost readers. Get a good one-liner up there that captures viewers.
• Don’t write outside of your niche to much. Your blog should express in it’s looks and in it’s writing what it’s about. If your writing is all over the place you won’t build a good base.
• Use all possible channels to get the word out on your blog: Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Technorati, Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Blogcarnival, Forums you visit, even if they are not in your blog’s niche (make sure you have a link to your blog in your signature), I’ve probably forgotten a few, please let me know in the comments
• In all these channels, use the same name and avatar. You and your blog are a brand.
• Don’t be afraid to ask other bloggers to help you. Think guestpostings and linkbacks. Do offer something in return though! You could also reverse this and do other bloggers favours, you always get something back.
• Analyze your favorite blogs, what makes them tick for you? Why do you like to read them. Try to incorporate that into your blog. 
• Read anything “on blogging” you can get your hands on. 
• Get out there, leave your PC at times and interact with people and public places. This will teach you what is going on, what colors are used and how things are marketed. Marketing is something for professionals and their efforts are all around us. Watch and learn. Take notes, grab a cup of coffee and think about how you can apply what you’ve seen to your blog.
• Last of all: Write quality, nothing is more important than this.

Over the next months there will inevitably be more and more ideas to implement in the grand plan but this is how that plan stands so far. It’s not all implemented yet, so don’t be surprised if something changes on this blog. If there is anything you missed in this post that is part of your plan to build a better blog please do tell me about it in the comments. You will not only help me but also all the other readers that come here after you. Thanks everyone for all the ideas you’ve already supplied me with, I’m looking forward to hearing more. 

If you liked this post, please subscribe to my RSS feed and tell others about it. Thank you