A blogger’s cardinal sin

April 16, 2009 at 7:46 pm · Filed under A blogger's cardinal sin and tagged: coaching, Journalism, Yaro Starak

Okay, I hold my hands up. I’ve committed a blogger’s cardinal sin. Started this blog and then didn’t  post anything on it for about two months. We know that most blogs die out within the first month so that’s really unforgivable, isn’t it? I’m supposed to be setting an example here…

I’ve got some good excuses though. And from now on I’ll be back at least once a week, promise. Whilst I’ve been away I’ve created and maintained several other blogs since January. So here’s a quick run down of what I’ve been doing.

Questioners Garden Time(a Blogger blog) is still going and I’ve been posting there about once or twice a week.

On February 13th. I created another Blogger blog for Rod Cox: www.rodcoxandgaza.blogspot.com

He’s a businessman from Chester and co-owner of Alexander’s Jazz Club. He’s become somewhat of a local celebrity due to his brave efforts to bring food and medicines to the people of Gaza. He was on the convoy which  left Britain for Gaza in February. He had no experience with blogging to start off with, so I ended up coaching him, long distance and often tweaking the blog too over distance – as he’s been really busy. And he has done really well.

 His blog is quite raw and tells an emotional story about life there. I know that no journalists are currently allowed in to Gaza, so this was my act of solidarity, if you like.

 Coaching Rod has been a learning curve for me too, as it’s a news blog about  a non-profit making venture and somewhat different from the other blogs I’ve been involved with. It’s been a bit of a roller coaster, in more ways than one as you’ll see if you get the chance to look at the blog. Some more about the process in the print feature I’m writing…will keep you posted.

What else? Oh yes, I’ve made the transition to Word Press proper and have revamped my personal web-site using a Word Press blog. I’ve also managed to direct my Word Press blog to my old domain name so that anyone visiting my old domain name will be taken to the new Word Press blog site (that was a bit scary I can tell you, as I didn’t want to lose the stuff on my old site!). I’ve got unanswered questions about how that is going to affect the traffic flow, but my service providers assure me it won’t. We’ll see.

So if you visit the URL: www.franceslaing.co.uk you’ll see a photograph of me, and some more information about my person (on the About Me page) as well as some of my features and columns archived there. I’m undecided as to whether to make the central page a static page or a blog, so I’ll think on this one. So there we are: A suite of blogs…linked together.

I’ve been working hard on my Helium articles too (but you can find out about that if you visit my site) – it’s slightly off topic for a ‘How to profit from your blog’ blog, if you know what I mean.

Finally, (and last but not least) I enrolled on two online professional blogger training courses. The first is a video training course by Yaro Starak and the other one is the 31 days to a better blog challenge by Australian blogger Darren Rowse. (Author and Creator of the Pro Blogger) site.

I knew quite a bit more than some of the other students already but I’ve fallen down a bit on the homework side. We’re already on Day 11 of Darren’s challenge and I haven’t done it! Still Yaro says that I can keep the videos and go through them at a later date. The ones I have looked at seem really useful, most of them relate to Word Press blogs so that’s one reason why I need to keep this blog up!

Hey, so if you stay with me on here over the next few weeks and months, as you can see, I’ve lots to share, and there’s lots to look forward to! I’m aiming to post once a week at least. Maybe more, as there’s so much going on on this front. Until next time then.

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