Mind the Beginner

Time flies when you’re having fun. It seems only yesterday I was writing the last weekly update. Well, here are the numbers again. I’ve heard from various sources that they appreciate these updates and are looking forqard to them every week. The end date of the challenge is slowly coming closer though and the person who has my domain still hasn’t shown any signs of life.

Average number of pageviews over this week: 141, a steady increase as every week. What more to say, I’m happy.

Number of subscribers to my RSS feed: 51, awesome! For the first time since this blogs conception has the number of subscribers gotten out the the forties and into the fifties. A huge morale boost I can tell you. And I was already happy.

Where the traffic is coming from: The only single source that I can identify is stumble. Through using the shortened url’s generated by su.pr my blog gets stumbled more. And because of this I would like to ask you a favor:

Dear readers,

If you visit this blog through twitter (As in, you use the short url’s I supply there to see the latest blogpost) you will not only see my blog but a stumble toolbar at the same time. Please, please hit the “thumbs up” or “I like this” button on the bar, it’s in the top left corner. If you’re the first to do so you’ll have to write a short review. Doing so will help get more and more traffic this way. so more people can enjoy this blog and join the community.
I’d really appreciate it you guys (and girls), please help this blog grow.

Thanks!

What I have done this week to get my blog bigger and what I learned: The biggest change this week is actually a present I got. A new header for my blog showed up in my mailbox and is now proudly being used. Thanks again! Finally my niche is easily recognizable on the front page. I’m a total noob when it comes to photoshop so I couldn’t have made one myself. (Both my desktop and laptop can’t even run PS, they’re both old.)

Something else I’ve done to improve my writing is get a model M keyboard. This blogpost actually is the first one I’ve written on this keyboard and I must say, it’s a deafening joy to type on this plastic monolith. To bad I can’t plug it into my laptop.

Well, that was the update again this week. I hope you’re all enjoying this blog and the updates as much as I am. Thanks for visiting and do come back every few days or so to read the latest blogposts. Have a nice weekend everyone. I can already tell you what the next blogpost will be, it might not be for everyone but I’ve had the request to describe what “Lifestyle design” is. So on Monday I’ll going to give a few definitions I use a lot here and explain them. After all, you have the power to influence what I write about. Thanks for the question and keep them coming.

It’s almost every day that you notice how unhelpful people can be. Everyone is minding his or her own business and not caring about what others do or what they can do for the other. Self first is the way to go it seems.

But doing things alone has two major disadvantages:

• You’re restricted to only the knowledge you have yourself and your perspective on things
• Your social network stays small

Working together might not be for you but through the internet there are certain things you can work on together without ever having to see eye to eye. In this perspective online life doesn’t mirror real life. Online we seem to want to help others with just about anything we can. Social networking is a force to be reckoned with online. Take the problogger challenge I took part in for instance.

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Soon after starting with that challenge the realization came to mind that doing it (building a blog) all alone won’t be easy. You need “blogging buddies” who can help you when you’re stuck and who can help you promote your blog. This of course, works both ways. You might even get guestposts both ways. One of the powerful tools to reach a bigger crowd.

The need we have to work together and to tell others about our discoveries lies at the basis of forums. There are thousands (millions?) of forums on the internet in every single niche you can imagine. There are people there who are interested in the same things as you. This is especially useful when you’re in a very small niche as finding people in real life with the same interests might be very had indeed. The problogger forum that accompanied the 31DBBB helped me reach a bigger crowd. Everyone there is a blogger so specific questions still got answers.

There was another possibility however that got set up. A blogger’s collaboration. For beginning bloggers it’s hard to get noticed and to build traffic. There is only so much you can do by yourself. You can tweet all day long about your blog but you’ll only reach your followers (a few hundred?) and if you get lucky you get a retweet and you instantly reach more people. Other channels might be digg, stumbleupon, del.ici.us. They all depend on luck however.

Influencing luck

Can we help luck to be in a our favor? Sure we can: Find other bloggers who are willing to help a bit. It’s quite simple, digg their blogposts, stumble them, tweet about them, help them with questposts on your blog. Scratch their backs an they scratch yours. And if you have blogs-specific questions you have a group of bloggers you can ask to help. There’s bound to be someone in the collaboration who is good with webdesign. Another might be a wizz with twitter and everything he retweets can count on loads of traffic.

The results:

• Reaching more people
• A fresh perspective
• A bigger social network
• New friends
• A helping hand is never far away

Get out there, set up accounts at twitter, digg, stumbeupon, facebook, del.ici.us, technorati and any other place you can think of. Ask your readers if there are people there who want to work together for the mutual interest of building a better blog. Help yourself by helping others. Blogging is only one of many ventures that can benefit from working together. At the very least you get a fresh perspective on your preconceptions. At best you might end up with a friend for life.

In the near future I’ll be guestposting on other blogs and others will be guestposting here. It’s all part of the collaboration I’m taking part in that resulted from the problogger forum. There are fourteen bloggers in this collaboration and I must say, there are some real gems in there.