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If you’re a new blogger, you may start researching blogging, and think to yourself,

“I don’t stand a chance”.

“There are so many great blogs out there.”

“Others write better than I do.”

“No one is visiting my blog”

“There is so much to learn about blogging, I’ll never totally understand it all.”

“Then, I just read on Techonorati :

The World Live Web is incredibly active, and according to Technorati data, there are over 175,000 new blogs (that’s just blogs) every day. Bloggers update their blogs regularly to the tune of over 1.6 million posts per day, or over 18 updates a second.

“It’s just too overwhelming”

” I will never find my place in the world of blogging”

Today’s Lesson

This scenario reminds me of an abandoned dog, that showed up on our job site.

We would show up for work, and she would be laying under our large excavator. With matted fur, and signs of malnutrition, she was starving, not only for food, but for affection. The crew would share their lunches with her, and at days end, she was no where to be seen. We assumed she went “home”.

But as the days passed, she began staying on the job site…never leaving. Signs of an infection in her mouth, alarmed us.

Without a collar, she had no name. The humane society and local newspaper confirmed, no one was looking for her. She was homeless.

Undoubtedly, she was in pain. We took her to our family vet. It was confirmed that not only did she have a bad infection, she had cataracts in both eyes, her hearing was minimal, she would need hundreds of dollars of dental work done, plus, it was obvious to the vet, she had been terribly abused by a previous owner. We also assume she was disciplined with a shock collar, as she did not bark.

Fast forward…

We adopted her. Soon she was on the mend, gaining weight, and becoming playful.

We named her “Lucky” – a name suitable, for two reasons. 1) We felt lucky that we were able to save her, and 2) She was lucky to have made it so far in life, based on her circumstances and perseverance (the vet guesses she is about 12 years old).

She has not only become a part of our family, but she also found a place in our hearts

When we start blogging, we may feel like Lucky might have.

We go visit other blogs, and hang out.

We have a (domain) name, but no one knows it.

Our eyes are blind to the chances that await us

Our ears are open, but the silence is deafening.

We hope someone will show us some attention, and come and visit our blog.

We dine on a scrap of one or two of comments, hoping there’s more where that came from.

We sniff out a master (mentor), who will hopefully help us avoid being sucked into a void of no traffic.

And then we find hope.

Hope in the form of fellow bloggers.

Bloggers who will stroke the fur of our egos, and fill the dishes of our comment section.

And then we’re happy.

We came home.

Home to blogosphere.

Today’s Assignment

To all bloggers. Let’s give the new bloggers a chance.

Join me on a mission.

Let’s all visit one new blog each week, and leave a comment.

Search the comment sections of your favorite blogs, or go online, and find a new blog you can identify with. I’m going to attempt to find ones that are less than 2 months old.

It may take a few tries.

Let’s not abandon the new bloggers.

Remember, you were once a new blogger too.

I will be posting a link to the new blogger I find, in a post, each week.

And….to the brand new bloggers, I have an assignment for you, too.

Your lesson will be posted tomorrow. :)

Are you a new blogger, or as some of you call yourselves, “newbie blogger”, “nube”, “novice blogger”, “infant blogger, etc? Are you disheartened by the low visitor counts your blog is experiencing? Are you looking for help?

When you hit the “publish” button, do you wonder if your post actually went into cyberspace or blogosphere?

You may have searched for your posts online, but can’t find them.

You may feel that, even though you are publishing posts on a regular basis, no one is reading them.

You check your visitor statistics, and begin to believe, you and your best friend, are the only ones visiting your blog.

You may begin to wonder, if blogging is all it’s cracked up to be.

Blogging, or having a blog, for some, will end up being another, “been there, done that”, kind of experience.

For others, it will be a life changing event.

Today’s Lesson

If you are feel you are a new die hard blogger, I’m here to give you some encouragement.

Most important, you must realize, getting your blog found, takes time.

In cyberspace, which is filled with millions of blogs, each blog is like a tadpole in the ocean.

Now, I know that doesn’t sound very encouraging, but the world is also filled with hundreds of millions of people, who are doing searches, on their computers.

According to Search Engine Watch.com, in September of 2007, there were 9.4 billion searches performed.

When I checked Technorati’s website, they are tracking 112.8 million blogs.

So…if there were 9.4 billion searches, and 112.8 million blogs, there’s hope for every blog to be found.

Technorati also reported, that 175,000 new blogs go online daily. Amazing.

I have yet to read a report of how many blogs are discontinued or are sitting dormant, but I would imagine, that number is also high.

Before I started blogging, I didn’t search for these numbers.

Call me naive, or call me stupid. I just knew, I wanted a blog, and wanted to “share”.

I didn’t give much thought to how, or if, my blog would be found. I just assumed, in time, it would be discovered.

I didn’t understand SEO (search engine optimization), social bookmarking sites, blog carnivals, or what ‘free articles” were.

In fact, there was a lot I didn’t, and still don’t, understand. I continue to learn something new everyday, as blogging is constantly changing.

For those of us who blog, because we love to share, blogging is not difficult.

Blogging almost becomes an obsession. It’s that part of your day, you look forward to.

If you don’t publish a post, or visit other blogs, your may feel your day isn’t complete.

Blogging is also a great outlet. It could be compared to therapy. We are “talking” to our imaginary audience.

In the process of blogging our thoughts, we may also hope that others are learning from our experiences (good or bad). Because we care, we don’t want others to repeat the same mistakes we made.

We hope that maybe we will change, even one person’s life.

Can you put a price on that?

Today’s Assignment

Probably more important than having your blog found, is to ask yourself: “Why am I blogging?”

Did you read that you can make tons of money?

Or are you filled with knowledge, you want to share with the world? For free?

If you have found that blogging is a passion for you, don’t get disheartened.

Just keep posting. Keep sharing your knowledge. Keep going.

Remember…., even the most successful blogs, began with one visitor.

Visitors will find your blog, too. It just takes time.

In the meantime, make time to learn about SEO, keywords and keywords density, and other traffic building techniques such as submitting your posts to social bookmarking sites, blog carnivals, free online article sites, directories, etc.

It’s also important to visit other blogs. Leave a comment. Get your name out there.

Are you a new blogger? Leave me a comment. I will be more than happy to visit your site.

If you have been blogging for awhile now, feel free to share what you have learned, with the new bloggers who are reading this post.

Happy Blogging! :)

In my previous post, I wrote about adding internal links in your posts, to deter having your content plagiarized.

Today’s Lesson

How would you know if your content is being plagiarized, and if so, what will you do?

Shortly after I started blogging, I wanted to see how many of my articles were indexed, so I did a search for my site. I was indexed about 40 times. That confused me, as I had not written 40 posts.

Well, some of my posts were referenced by Digg, Technorati and Sphere. But than I found an odd entry. When I clicked on it, I saw my entire page, including all graphics, but at the very top, was a full banner of Google AdSense ads, all in a foreign language.

I wasn’t sure what to do, so I researched the URL, and found the IP address for the site. I then went to my webhosting account, and used the “IP Deny Manager” to block the IP address from having access to my site.

Todays Assignment

Go To Copyscape.com, a free service for checking your site for plagiarized content.

On Copyscape, you can check your site, read additional pages for suggestions of how to handle plagiarism, plus download a banner for your site.

Do a search for your site.

Are any of your posts are being plagiarized? If you find an instance of plagiarism, what action will you take?

BTW: I checked my sites with Copyscape. I found a new instance of plagiarism of my other blog. A site extracted a sentence from a product review I had done.

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