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.

As you might notice this blogpage is still very much under construction. I’ve been blogging for 6 months on a wordpress.com blog and after reaching the 100 subscribers mark thought it time to get my own domain.

That’s where you are are right now. But I don’t have everything under complete control yet. This is my first time on my own domain, hardinstalling wordpress.org (no one-click install on my hoast) and debugging a lot.

Bear with me and in time this blog will get up to steam…

It’s taken a while but finally here’s the first major goal in my blogging experience:

I broke the 100 this weekend and again today. I’ve been blogging since March 13th 2009. That’s 219 days to get to this level. Now it’s on to the next challenges. The first challenge being: getting this blog over to its own domain. After that I’m going to persue a few more challenges:

• Reworking the categories on this blog, they’re to vague to work with properly
• Adding some plug-ins like a search box and more things that’s aren’t offered by a wordpress.com blog
• Going for 500 subscribers (and 1000 after that)
• Getting serious about guestposting on other blogs and finding others to guestpost here
• Setting up one or two affiliate links to products I really like (after all, this blog will have to pay for itself)
• Looking into the challenge of writing an eBook

and in the challenges not directly related to this blog I’m setting up a to do list for 2010. That one will be posted by December 31st and will hold some very tough challenges.

In short: blog++

Introduction period at University is over, I start next Monday. As announced in a previous post I wouldn’t do a weekly update last weekend. Well, things got a bit worse, I did only one blogpost this entire week! I could apologize, but I thought better of it and wrote a blogpost on the power of silence. Nice way of solving the issue don’t you think?

The month is almost at an end and just a few minutes ago I reached a new all time record. I was planning to have more pageviews this month than last week and I just passed that number with one whole pageview! So again, another month of continues growth on my blog.

Let’s have a look at that first number first. I’ve got some bad news that I’m keeping for the end of the blogpost.

Average numbers of pageviews a day this month so far:176 (period 8-1 till 8-28) A number that’s significantly lower than my last update but at the same time is a bit higher than last month’s average. With only 49 hours to go until the end of the month (according to my pc) I’ve managed to reach the goal I set myself. The goal of having more pageviews than last month. Although not a huge increase it’s growth and so I’m content.

Number of subscribers to my RSS feed: 85, Not my all time record (that was 87 on August 19th) But the 100 subscribers will be here by the end of September and you know what that means :)

Where the traffic is coming from: I’m feeling more and more that this part of the update is useless. There hardly ever are any huge sources of traffic, most come through google and others through blogs all over the place who refer to me. Everyone please do spread the link, it’s the single most effective way to help other bloggers out there.

What I have done this week to get my blog bigger and what I learned: Another useless item on the weekly update as I’m not actively doing anything at the moment, I’m just writing what’s on my mind and comment on other blogs from time to time. I also keep using twitter although I’m rarely really there. I usually autopost on twitter. Seems unfair somehow, I really should become more active again. But that’s going to claim resources.

Which brings me to my bad news: I quit Project Mojave. For one simple reason, I currently don’t have the resources to participate and with a new semester starting in two days I doubt I could invest as much time as I wanted/needed to. I will be back there when the time is right, but for now I just don’t have enough resources to spare. Time to cut my losses so to speak.

Well, that’s the weekly update again. Next month will bring me my long awaited goal of 100 subscribers. I’ll transfer the blog to it’s own domain then and I’ll need to find a new goal, how does 500 views a day sound?

WOOSH, there we are again. It’s going so fast I actually typing this on Sunday. Better get crackin’ right away:

Average numbers of pageviews a day this month so far: 187 (period 8-1 till 14-8) Every so slightly lower than last week but still on track.

Number of subscribers to my RSS feed: 82

Where the traffic is coming from:The usual suspects, although you might think it’s getting old it certainly is not. A special mention goes out to Frugal Bachelor who put me up in his “good blogs I read” resulting in a small trickle of traffic. Although it might seem small he managed to get my attention and so I’m returning the favor.

What I have done this week to get my blog bigger and what I learned: Nothing, absolutely nothing. No lessons, nothing done to get the blog bigger. One lesson outside of blogging: paying attention to someone and really listening and caring for that person makes a whole lot of difference. Something we all know right? Something we don’t all practice though.

There is a huge gap between what we know/say we do and what we actually do. More on that later this week.

It’s Saturday again, tempus fugit… Just think with me a bit here, this is my 15th weekly update and I didn’t even post an update every weekend. I’ve been blogging since March 13th, it sure feels like yesterday and I stil very much feel like a total noob/beginner/greenhorn or whatever other names you have for someone starting out. These weekly updates are the only form of “proof” I have that I’m not a total novice anymore. Although this blog is small, it’s not tiny anymore. I was looking at the pageviews today and realized that I didn’t do anything to promote my blog today and still I got over 200 views today. I must confess I’ve been busy this week and so the number of posts was low again. However, in my last blogchallenge I mentioned a new source of inspiration. In the end, two of you found the right answer and so get to tell me a subject I’m to blog about. The contest was for the first three, so if you have a subject you want me to blog about and get a linkback and eternal fame and glory to your blog, check out last weeks update and answer the question.

It’s on to the numbers now

Average number of pageviews over this week: 168, slightly lower than last week’s number, I blame the lack of posts this week.

Number of subscribers to my RSS feed: 73, brilliant!

Where the traffic is coming from: Seeing as I haven’t promoted my blogposts through su.pr or other channels traffic is very diverse. Most of the traffic somehow seems to go directly to my blog nowadays and the biggest help is a Google. Nice SEO traffic so it seems.

What I have done this week to get my blog bigger and what I learned: Just as last week I’ve hardly invested any time in promoting my blog but the visitor numbers are still the same. If I spend some more time promoting I’m sure things will go up again.

I’ve learned that some of you really do care how things are going here and participate almost daily. I’m getting more and more mails, requests, tweets and comments (okay, maybe not this week) than ever before. It’s so much fun I can hardly believe I did this. I’m just writing what I think and you’re reading it, en mass. Sorry If I seem a bit monotonous in this but every week is a new surprise for me and every week again I sit here typing with a huge smile on my face because of all this blog.

Remember the numbers on the monthly visits? I’ll give them once more, now with July added. I’m shocked….

1. March: 145
2. April: 1637
3. May: 2904
4. June: 3598
5. July: 5053

That’s 163 views a day, every single day and a huge jump at the same time.

Okay, it’s not the 500 I was planning for by far, yet. But we’ll get there in due time.

I’ve been thinking about productivity lately and how I’m slowly getting swamped with everything I have planned, promised and things I just have or want to do. The simplest solutions are often best and I’ll be shopping for an elegant whiteboard large enough to keep track of all the important things, a giant to do list as it were and a place to store quick notes. *flash insight* I have a big mirror in my room, I don’t need a whiteboard, a whiteboard marker will do just fine. The simpler solution is better indeed. Combined with a proper calender (Google) I think I’ll get back on top of it all in no time. Thank you for your patience.

Okay, so here it is again back by demand. I skipped number 13 and now it’s on to number 14. With further distractions here are the numbers:

Average number of pageviews over this week: 171 without going “viral” this week. So they’re real numbers. Last time I had 230, but that was with a huge spike in there. They didn’t stick, obviously.

Number of subscribers to my RSS feed: 68, yesterday it was at 69. That’s 10 more than the last upate. If this trend continues I should reach the 100 in a month. (And transfer my blog to it’s own domain as I told you in my previous post.)

Where the traffic is coming from: No surprises here as well, the usual suspects are getting me traffic. Stumble, Google, Twitter, other blogs. They’re all pitching in to make nice numbers.

What I have done this week to get my blog bigger and what I learned: Well, the biggest lesson is trying to stay focused is hard. I haven’t done much with Project Mojave for weeks now and I haven’t been online much. I could say “I’m going to do it this week” but those are just words on a screen. No, it’s action hat’s required and so action it will be.

I actually havn’t done anything actively to get this blog bigger. It’s slowly growing by itself. I think I’ll have another look at all the info I got through the 31DBBB challenge from problogger and see if there are little gems in there I can utilize to make the blog grow just a bit faster and get more sticky traffic.

I’ve also learned something valuable concerning good vs bad I’ll b sharing in a blogpost next week, so stay tuned.

Well, there you have it, the weekly update is back on Saturday. The new goal is 100 subscribers and after that I’ll hunt for those 500 pageviews a day. This topic isn’t exactly about zen, or lifestyle design or personal development for that matter. That’s why I write it on Saturday, a slow day on blogs in general (and Sunday is my day offline). This ongoing topic is to show you the process behind this blog, and to give you a more personal look at me, the grandma guy behind the screens as far as you don’t get it through my blogposts.

I’ve found an interesting new source of insiration by the way. I’ve quoted from it once via twitter so far in the last days. Here’s a challenge for you: Find that tweet and either send it back to my by direct message or (if I’m not following you yet) send me an @ tweet telling me I should follow you because you have the answer. The first three people to get it right get to tell me a subject they want me to write about and I will do so, along with a linkback to their blog (always nice to boost your technorati rank)  and everlasting glory.

Good luck, and spread the word about my blog. As a last note, is it wrong for me to shamelessly ask you to linkback to my blog if you have a blog yourself?

[update]

Alan Perlman found it, two more to go…

Ralph Carlson found it, who will be number three?

[/update]

As you might have noticed, I didn’t do an update last weekend and wasn’t planning to do one this week because they were there for a reason and that reason is no longer applicable. So far nobody protested but I wonder if there are people out there who really liked them and want me to continue them for the time being.

Although I no longer have a true goal seeing as the end date for the challenge has passed there is always something to learn, something to strive for and at the moment it’s a self-imposed goal of 100 RSS subscribers. As soon as I reach this number I’ll transfer my blog to it’s own domain and put the feedburner counter back on the site.

If you’re wondering where that number is right now, last time I looked it was 69. Only 31 more to go before I transfer.

Well, that’s it for the challenge. Now onto a different subject. The comments I’ve been getting here really are amazing me. To be honest I never thought it would even get this far and still more and more people are flocking to this blog. I’m at a total loss for words with all this… it’s awesome. I can clearly recall the day I was jumping with joy over 50 pageviews to my entire blog in a single day. Nowadays I get that number on a single post. Don’t compliment me about it or anything or things will start to go to my head.

Here’ what will be happening the next few weeks:

If there is a demand for it I’ll keep doing the weekly updates on Saturday for the time being.

As soon as the number of subscribers reach 100 I’ll make short work of transferring this blog to it’s own domain and of course will let you all know so you won’t miss a post. I’ll be choosing a slightly different layout. I’m currently using a two column press row theme, I’ll change to a three column version of this theme so I have a bit more room. Yes I’ll be using that room to promote some things, a domain of your own isn’t free after all and I’d like to break even. Forgive me for this high-treason but it’s the only way I can manage. I will be selective however and promote only stuff I feel good about. (Think certain eBooks and affiliates) The last problem I’m struggling with is a discontent with the current categories on my blog. They’re to fuzzy around the edges, and need some sorting. If you have a good idea about what the categories should be please do let me know.

Last but not least I’ve had a few mails requesting certain topics. Your mails have been read an the topics will be handled soon. Keep those mails coming! I love reader input.

Some time ago I started a blogchallenge. My challenge was to grow my blog by 1600% in three months, which ment the following

• OR I have more than 500 pageviews a day for 7 consecutive days.
• OR I have more than 300 subscribers to my RSS feed

This challenge is the reason why I’ve been writing those weekly updates you’ve come to expect every saturday. The deadline for the challenge was last monday and as expected, just extrapolate the numbers in the weekly updates and it was very clear. I didn’t reach either number. Things went slow and even backwards a times. Maybe I hexed myself by choosing the snail theme for all the updates. (You did notice didn’t you?).

Subscriber number is hovering around 60 and pageviewnumbers are a roller coaster between 100 and 450 a day (rough estimates)

So, am I now a failure? I’ll leave that to you to decide. I’ve learned so much these months and have been reaching more people every week. A few have been around since I started and have been commenting on a regular basis either through twitter or on this blog.

The challenge is over, although I still want to reach those goals. I was planning on transferring this blog to it’s own domain but someone bought it, this was what actually started the challenge, he would give it to me for free is I made it. There is one huge problem however, the guy who bought it seems to have dropped off the face of the planet so I can’t get the domain I wanted. Although this does suck a bit it’s not the end of the world. I will reach those numbers, and beyond.

I’m currently on vacation but when I get back home next week I’ll start working on several things:

1. Getting this blog on it’s own domain
2. Writing more posts (of course)
3. Project Mojave, I’ve been slacking A LOT
4. The blog side-project with CN & LP
5. Buying a new computer (A desktop windows system)
6. Picking up the guitar
7. Something I haven’t done in 10 years: go fishing
8. Prepare for university
9. Writing guestposts for several blogs and hopefully receiving some as well (hint!)
10. Finishing that “bucket list” I talked about a while back

I’ve got a lot to do and as always so little time to do it in, good thing I have a “black belt” in productivity and am a master of the upside down swan. So if I seem busy I’m actually not, or am I truly busy and not to be disturbed…

I would like to thank everyone who has helped me to get this far. Thanks for all the diggs, retweets, linkbacks, comments, stumbles and what not. This blog wouldn’t be the same without you!

Although I’m officially on vacation and so working a little less on my blog things still keep getting better and better. I even found the time to write this weekly update again. If you’re wondering where I’m at right now. I’m not going to disclose my exact position but I reached: “51.39943, 4.21195” within twelve minutes of leaving the front door to go running. Take the numbers and paste them in Google Earth. If I had a rod with me that spot would make for some great fishing. I’m still on the fence about buying a rod.

Now you have the numbers for my aproximate position let’s have a look at the other numbers:

Average number of pageviews over this week: 230, An insane jump from last weeks 142. I hit a new record yesterday with 465 pageviews. The rest of the week was hovering around 120-160.

Number of subscribers to my RSS feed: 59, I still need to be pinched. Before you know it I’ll go over 100 if we keep going at this pace and as I’ve said before, when I reach those numbers the feedburner counter is going back on my front page.

Where the traffic is coming from: There is still that single blogpost that keeps generating traffic through Google. For a few days it was even on the first page of Google results, right up there with blogsposts on blogs like zenhabits. To bad it dropped back though, can’t find it anymore within the first ten pages. But what a rush that was, seeing your blog up there. Now to analyze what I did to get there and replicate that strategy.

The big spike yesterday was again caused by su.pr. As soon as someone writes a review for stumble numbers shoot up. Add a few retweets and another spike is created. So please, write a review on the normal blogposts (not the weekend reviews..) and help create those spikes.

What I have done this week to get my blog bigger and what I learned: The only “lesson” this week was “What a rush to get to the front page.” Now let’s do that again.
I have another set of numbers I’d like to give you, these represent the real growth of my blog.

The number of pageviews a month:

March: 145 (I started this blog half way trough March)
April: 1637
May: 2904
June: 3598
July: 1787 so far

Although I don’t believe I will reach my goal of 500 pageviews a month before the 16th of July I’m very happy with all the progress that has been made and all the awesome people I’ve come in to contact with. You know who you are. As I won’t be reaching those numbers any time soon I think it’s time for me to just transfer the blog to it’s own domain somewhere in the near future (this month) and build from there.

A last note: I’ve started another blogging project together with LP and CN. It’s really in it’s infancy at the moment (Only two blogposts, both by LP) so I won’t disclose exactly where it is but it’s going to be great! All three of us are aspiring online entrepreneurs and we’ll be sharing our experience so far. Did I mention all three of us are taking part in Project Mojave?