Time for An End of Year Review

Photo by Irina Patrascu

Firstly, I would like to wish all my readers a very Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year, as this is likely to be my last post for the year.  As the last few days of 2008 slowly take a bow and leave, the new days of 2009 are eager to join into our experience of life.  The time at the end of the year is indeed a good time to take stock and review what we have achieved.

Always be good to yourself, there’s enough people out there to knock us down in one way or another, so look at your achievements, accentuate the positive.  I am really proud of this website, it started of as an experiment for me, to just create some sort of a web presence and learn the ropes.  However, its come to mean a lot more to me now.  It has has become an avenue for my thoughts, a vehicle to share my experiences with others.  Life is a journey, and I do intend to see this journey through to the end, not give up and let things go.  So join me as we take a look back, and then look forward to what I want to share next with you, my readers.

In the Beginning

I started with a blank piece of paper, like most people I expect.  I had read two books, one about Google SEO, the other about blogging, Darren Rowse’s Problogger book with Chris Garrett.  I scribbled out all my ideas, and I stuck with the idea of creating a site for writing technical articles on networks, stuff I knew about.  So far I’ve only posted one article on that subject, but will surely return to it in due course.  I had to settle for the ‘.co.uk’ domain, which was fine, it only cost around £6 for 2 years.  My webhosting cost £20.  Not too much of an outlay, the rest was just time.

The look and feel for the site took me some while until I was happy with it.  I’m pleased with the end result.  I had a recent review somewhere, and the person commented on the photos not having any relevance to what the text was about.  That is true!!!  How can you get any interesting photos on Making Money Online, or Blogging.  No, you don’t want to see too many pictures of Darren Rowse or Schoemaker, one is enough.  But there are some brilliant photographers, and what I do here on this website is to showcase their work, they deserve all the credit for the fantastic pictures that we can enjoy whilst reading these posts.

I also struggled for a long time with the name of my site, Technical Articles, until someone on a bulletin board said it was a really good name.  It’s one of those titles you can use to write about anything, as long as it’s technical.  I learnt as I went along, which was n’t hard as I’ve always had a bit of a programming background, even though it’s not necessary, I think it just made things easier for me.  I also realised as time went on, that this site would only be a voice for my thoughts and ideas, it was unlikely to earn me much money, though I’d love to be proved wrong!!!

Guy Kawasaki - The Importance of Meaning

I chanced upon Guy Kawasaki’s video which helped me realise, that more important than quantity, was the quality of what you write.  You can fill pages and pages of content on a website, which say nothing.  It’s when you add a bit of your Self, that inner You, that you start to give meaning to what you’re writing.  So, I don’t post as regularly or frequently as I did, the pressure to do so was just too much.  Now, I write because I want to write, and share something with my readers.  In one of my recent posts, I gave an example of the DOSHDOSH.com website, where the author, Maki, has actually created meaning.  He writes stuff you want to read and that should be our aim, to write for a higher purpose.

When you realise you know how things work, but what you’re doing is n’t going to work, you have to change your approach.  That’s why in my last article, I explained how I launched my new site, Videodippers to try a different formulae.  I am really pleased with the results for Videodippers in the recent few weeks, and I hope it will become my own personal engine for traffic generation.

Friendships Made Along the Way

If there was one person I would like to mention, its my good friend diTesco from Iblogzone.  He has been consistent in his friendship from the first day we met on Blogcatalog, and has been supportive of all my efforts on this website.  He also writes with meaning, and a clarity which I admire very much.  He is mentioned on my Recommended Links under ‘Make Money Online‘ and you can learn much from his site.  I know he will do well, it’s only a matter of time and I hope one day, when time permits, we’ll be able to do a joint project together.

More recently, I came across the writings of Ryhen from Virtual Synapses and again he has that flair, or that personal element in his posts which appealed to me, and I like to think of him as one of my new friends.  You may remember his post on the Count of Monte Cristo, the story and his post were worth reading. There are a lot of other people on Blogcatalog, who I’ve added as friends and some have even added me out of the blue.  But my focus has changed, I’m no longer looking to actively promote this website, if it happens fine, if it does n’t that’s ok too.

A lot of people won’t share what they’ve learnt or know, guarding it with secrecy.  That’s not my game, I want to share my journey of trying to make money online through my own efforts and try and keep to the truth so that some of the misconceptions are removed.  That’s my way of giving meaning to this writing.  Well, that’s the plan for the time being anyway.

Conclusions

I never expected that watching Guy Kawasaki’s video would impact on what I was doing with this site.  Anyway a few weeks ago, I wrote to him and guess what, he replied back to my email the same day.  We’ve exchanged quite a few emails, and in my next article I will tell you about something that’s come about through that contact which has given my two websites a higher profile on the internet.

I’ve learnt a lot from the Videodippers site.  I checked yesterday, and I had about 80 odd visitors from Google searches alone, that’s not friends from Blogcatalog, just people searching on Google and they found my site and clicked on it.  I don’t think I’ve had that many visitors from Google to this Technical Articles site in all the time it’s been running.  So I know, something I’m doing is right.  I want to write a series of articles on this, how to find out what your competition is doing, how to use SEO tools to help you get the search engine results, how to collect and analyse stats for your site.  I will share the data from my Videodippers site to show you how you can check these things out for yourself.   That’s my present focus, and of course the earnings, I will share how this is faring too.

That’s it.  I hope you’ve liked reading what I write about and thank you for your support.  All that remains for me to say is, have a very peaceful and Happy Christmas and my very best wishes to you all for the New Year.

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technicalarticles.co.uk features regular articles on my blogging journey of creating a unique web presence and sharing with my readers ideas and tips for helping them do the same. Keep up to date with the latest posts from Daniel Hunt - Join the Community by Subscribing.