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We love to blog, but as time passes, maintaining a blog gets very time consuming.

Today’s Lesson

When you first heard of a blog, you found how to get one for free, or signed up with WordPress and got a web host. You read/watched WP blogging tutorials and soon realized how much you enjoyed writing, setting aside one hour a day/week to verbalize your thoughts. A blog is such a great outlet.

In your free time you start doing more research. You decide to add an RSS feed reader, contact page, and with the addition of some SEO, you notice not only an increase in you traffic, but in the time you are spending on your blog. You’re now up to 2 hours a day.

You then read how commenting on other blogs can generate additional traffic, so you engage in that practice. Others begin to visit your blog to share their thoughts. You answer their comments, and spending three hours daily on your blog, becomes normal.

Next, you join StumbleUpon and/or Digg. These social networks can get you more traffic and increase your community of cyberspace friends. Soon, you’re spending 4 hours on your blog,…. but it’s growing.

A light bulb moment hits. “Hey, I should monetize my blog.” You sign up for AdSense, LinkShare.com, Commission Junction and/or other affiliate programs. Signing up is easy enough, but you find micromanaging the advertising streams, is taking more of your time. The five hours a day, spent on your blog, begins to cramp your style, and interferes with your home/work/social life.

You realize you are becoming addicted to blogging. You learn to prioritize and multi task, so you can dedicate more time to your blog. TV dinners and convenience foods replace the nutritious meals you once cooked. Laundry stacks up, grass doesn’t get mowed, weeds take over your once beautiful flower bed, and dust bunnies invade your home. Friends and family begin to resent your new hobby, as it now consumes your every waking moment. As they tire of competing with a computer screen, and hearing about your blogging dollars and new cyberspace friends, they begin to distance themselves from you.

“They don’t understand”, you say to yourself, and internally defend your actions by quietly muttering, “I don’t need them!”.

It has happened.

What once began as a hobby, is now the only love in your life.

Today’s Assignment

How much time do you spend on your blog(s)?

Has the time increased over time?

How do you find a balance?

Does blogging affect your relationships?

Do you care?

If you’re looking for technical information, this is not the blog for you. I am a novice in blogosphere, who is doing my own spin on how I am learning how to blog—and continue to learn. If you want to hear it in my own words, then read on.

Domain name. This is like picking out a baby’s name. If you’re serious about blogging, you’re going to be using your domain name all of the time. Every time you register for anything, or communicate with others, this is the name you use, so you better like it.

The first problem you may run into, is that the name you pick, isn’t available. I had that problem with my other blog www.observationmountain.com. I ended up brainstorming for some time before I came up with a domain name I liked, was available, and described my blog. The domain name for this blog just happened. I had been keeping a pretty extensive journal of my progress of setting up my first blog, and ended up realizing and then writing. “I am blogging without a blog.” I liked the way it sounded, and it described what my this blog is about, so I went with it.

When picking out your domain name, get creative. I don’t think it matters if your name is a little longer. If people like your blog and want to keep up on your new posts (what you write), they will bookmark it (add it to their favorites).

Once you have chosen your domain name, then you get to register it. To me, that’s like getting a birth certificate for your blog. It makes your blog official. That’s pretty exciting to see it on your computer screen. It’s even more exciting when you do a search online and find your site.

You also have to have a “webhost” for your blog. This is a company that provides “server” space for your blog. There are many webhosts out there. The two listed above are ones I checked into. I ended up registering my domain name with Yahoo, and then went with BlueHost for my “webhost”, and it wasn’t until I signed onto BlueHost that I realized they provided one free domain name. What was I thinking? But, I liked the fact I could host up to six domain names with them. ( I already had two)

When I started, I know I did things a little backwards (dah!) as I am such a novice to blogging, but after a lot of trial and error, I am starting to figure things out. I won’t go into how I had to go back to Yahoo and “point the servers to my BlueHost account”. That had me confused for awhile, but tenacity paid off.

Like my Mother used to say, “Sometimes you have to go to the school of hard knocks”. Isn’t that the truth?

So, if you have read this post this far, you now know, I am not a computer guru. But, I’m having fun blogging and sharing what I learned and the mistakes I made. Maybe it’ll save you a headache or two. And if all fails, go shopping.

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