A Blogging Goddess Award

I present this award to the Blogging Goddess behind the blog http://bargains4wahms.com

With a hurricane heading for her home she took the time to try and help me save my blog form a disaster. While she was not able to fix it, she spent a lot of time working on it and helping me work through some panic attacks over it. 

You can get an idea of where her heart is by following one of the links at the top of her blog dedicated to sharing with her readers assistance programs that might help those in need from house cleaning for caner patience to explaining public benefits for the disabled. 

Bargains4wahms is packed full of information from couponing 101 (I need to read more!) to the current best buys. I am really inspired by all her hard work and dedication to her blog. 

She currently has over 13,000 facebook fans and you could be the next one! http://www.facebook.com/Bargains4Wahms and over 4,000 followers on twitter. https://twitter.com/bargains4wahms

She has a big blog with a big heart. She didn't have to take all that time to try and help a smaller blog like my own and she asked for nothing in return. I am very lucky to know her and be blogging next to her! 

Back Up Your Blog - Not Kidding

  If your like me, you might have started out on Blogger and hosted with them too. In blogger there is an option under settings that says backup. It saves a file to your computer. I thought that meant my blog was on my computer. Oh how wrong I was. Let me start at the beginning!

   I was welcomed into a blogging program to work with a company. They give me a coupon code to order from them to review them on my blog and I put their blog button that they provide the HTML for on my blog.

   About Noon today I do this. Suddenly my beautiful blog is a mess. The side bar is at the bottom and no links work. So I take the button off. Only damage done and I can't get my blog to function, and I can't fix it. Nothing is working. For hours nothing is working. I get help from a few other bloggers and they can't figure it out either. What I thought was a back up was not and it did nothing to fix the issue.

 Now if I hosted with a hosting company and not blogger then could turn my blog back to how it was before noon, before I messed it up. As I am blogger hosted however, there is virtually not customer service. What can one expect from a free service thought right? I guess I expected more.

  My blog designer gets back to me and then she starts working on it. She fixes many of the things I and others played with trying to fix it in the first place but is stuck like us on the links and side bar. I think she got the links to work before she had to get to bed tonight. I would imagine her head is hurting too. LOL She is very relaxed and understanding about this. I promised to pay her for the fix.

   I have blogging partners now insisting though that I move to wordpress with a host and I can't blame them. With a blog that has near 800 posts and is bringing in money, I can't afford for it to be down and those I partner with need to be able to depend on me. I am behind on reviews and I have a paid sponsor post that needs to go up as well. Not to mention all the paid sponsor posts that are already on my blog that I am responsible for keeping up and active on it! I love all those I work with and I want to make them happy.

   I wish I would have switched to wordpress at the start of the year. Everyone said I should and I didn't see the point. I promise I understand now. So if your a little blogger like me trying to make it in a big blogging world, my opinion is to get on wordpress with a host. Yes, this little blog will be moving over there at some point as well! First thing first, get my first blog moved and safe and working, and looking good.

  I am not sure if I will ever be a blogging goddess or if I will ever be aspiring to be one. One thing is certain I am learning a lot and I will not give up as this is something I love!

Free Canvas

CLICK HERE FOR YOUR FREE CANVAS!

I love deals like this, they are great for getting gifts for the holidays. The grand parents love photos of the little ones of photos of them with the kids doing fun things. What is better than free? I like that with a canvas you don't need a frame! That saves on money for such a gift too. 

With these deal you can get the free 8 x 10 or put $40 towards a larger canvas, the larger the better too. I love large photos over mantels or sofas or beds. 

And to think, there is a lesson to be learned here as well! 

More on this later! 

Alexa Matters To Bloggers

The Global Leader in Analytics

Alexa is the leading provider of free, global web metrics. 

   When seeking blogging jobs it is a common question to find; what is your Alexa score? Unlike other kinds of scoring though the lower number in this case, the better. Alexa ranks you among your pears online and your country along with many other possible things like key words. The big thing with them though is your first number, ranking your site over on the web. 

 Many companies want to work with blogs below 500,000 and many want to work with ones below 200,000! I have noticed many blogs are well over the 1,000,000 mark range though and once my main blog was as well. 

  How did I get the number to go down? 

 First, as always, post post post! posting more often brings traffic to your site and traffic helps drive your Alexa score in the right direction. 

 Second, get the Alexa tool bar, it helps track what sites you are on and gives those sites credit, including your own! 

 Third, get your site certified! Register your account on Alexa as you as the owner.

 A certified site has an Alexa script installed that allows Alexa to directly measure traffic metrics on the site.

 Forth, join an Alexa hop! Find a group on facebook or a blogging forum and join in a Alexa hop. In short a group of bloggers agree to hop around to each others blogs and read a bit., This also can help your Alexa score a lot. Try to do this weekly! 

 Fifth, be sure to have other pages link to yours. A good way to do this is with guest posts. Write articles for others about topics you know about and ask other bloggers if they would be willing to put your writing on their page. Often they will, sometimes they trade guest blogging spots. In your post be sure to include a link back to your own blog with a proper key word anchor text. 

   

   I hope you find this helpful and please feel free to share what you have learned here with others. 

Bloggers have to stick together! So far my main little blog has reached an Alexa of 235,000 but went back up to 249,000. This blog on the other hand...  13,681,778 and clearly needs some attention. Someday it will get it! For now though it is just a journal of how my other blog goes and hopefully it is a path other bloggers could someday fallow to become a blogging goddess!