Back From #wcdfw09

I Made the drive back from Dallas last night and managed to make it in one piece. Overall, WordCamp Dallas/Fort Worth (#wcdfw09) turned out to be an awesome event where I learned some awesome things about WordPress.

I met some awesome people (including @sivori, @claygriffiths, @grantgriffiths and @plagiarismtoday) and learned about the future of WordPress from @photomatt.

If anything, it gave me a big boost in motivation to keep on going and try as hard as I can at blogging. Plus I managed to hand out a huge stack of Zoopmedia business cards which is always a good thing.

The only downside to the whole trip was me not winning the MacBook Pro they gave away. I did get an iPhone case…

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An Experiment In Blog Post Frequency

One of the most common questions I receive from fellow bloggers is “how many times should I post on my blog?” I usually respond with a simple and honest answer…I don’t know.

I have been blogging on and off for over 5 years now and still have no idea what the best blog post frequency is. Here on this blog, I typically try to post Monday through Friday. I’m usually too busy on the weekends to post and I expect my readers are as well. However, I do miss some days when I am either stuck on what to write or have other things that need to take priority.

Since this is question I often wonder myself, I decided it’s…

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5 Ways To Beat Writer’s Block

It’s Monday already? Whoa! That means it’s time for another episode of Digital Nomad Radio. This week’s episode is all about beating writer’s block. A fellow blogger sent me an email asking how I managed to come up with new ideas to write about everyday and I thought I would answer her questions and share them with everyone.

Teaser:

Here’s a sneak peek of the 5 tips to beat writer’s block:

• Write Down Your Post Ideas – It’s simple. Right down your post ideas!
• Use Other Blogs As Inspiration – Check out other blogs for some good ideas and topics to cover in your own posts.
• Read Websites Like Yahoo, CNN, Etc. – Use websites like Yahoo as a place to find articles. Then spin them in your own words and add to them.
• Look Back At Your Old Posts For Ideas – You have an archives page right? When’s the last time you took a look at it for some blog post ideas?
• When You’re In A Writing Mood…Keep Going! – So you’re in the zone and writing like a mad man. Don’t stop after one post!

Click the read more button below or the post title above to listen to the episode.

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Time To Announce My New Blog

Well everyone, it feels like just the other day I was writing a post about my new photoblog. Today, I would like to share another blog I have been working on.

Introducing BlogHelp.org

My new new blog is going to be a place to find blog tips and tutorials. I have spent a large amount of time on blogging and have jotted down notes along the way of things I have used to make this blog better. I will cover everything from the basics of blogging to the more advanced things like tinkering with Wordpress. My goal is to share it all with everyone.

The Newsletter

The BlogHelp newsletter is going to feature blog tips, advice, and secrets. I will send out a new edition as often as I can and it will try to include the best blog tips I can find. The best part of all, is the free book that I am giving away for signing up. It’s a book about how to get more traffic from leaving blog comments. It’s over 20 pages long and has already helped a few bloggers.

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The Power Of Guest Posting

One technique to gain more visibility for your blog is guest posting. By placing a post on someone else’s blog, you are putting yourself in front a whole new audience. This past weekend, I was lucky enough to get a guest post on Problogger. I wanted to share my guest posting experience and the results I got from it.

A Slight Traffic Boost

As soon as my guest post went up on Saturday, I started to notice a spike in traffic. I managed to get over 300 referrals from Problogger over the last two days. I also saw more traffic coming from other sources such as Twitter.

It’s true that this amount of traffic is kind of small compared to other sources such as StumbleUpon. However, I think this traffic is much more targeted and much more likely to become a daily reader instead of simply moving on to the next blog.

An Increase In Twitter Followers

One of the things I was not expecting was a rush of new Twitter followers. Over the last two days, I have gained more than 50 followers. My only guess as to how it happened is that people came here from Problogger and clicked the “follow me on Twitter” button on the right sidebar.

I am not sure if the followers will stick with me or not, but I have no reason to believe they won’t. So I just want to say Hey! to all my new followers.

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Guest Post On Problogger

Hey everyone, hope your having a great weekend. I rarely post on weekends but I just wanted to share my guest post over at Problogger. The post, 5 Valuable Lessons You Can Learn From Blogging has received some awesome feedback so far. I am really excited about it.

Also, if your visiting from Problogger, you might want to check out my interview I did awhile back with Darren Rowse. If has some good information in it about becoming a successful blogger.

Have a great weekend and tune in on Monday for some new pictures, I just upgraded to a Nikon D80.

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Launching My New Blog Today

Today brings some great news. I have decided to share my new blog with everyone. I’ve been working on it for awhile now but haven’t spread the word about it yet. Although it’s not completely done, it’s usable and already filled with a few weeks of content.

So…What Is It About?

As everyone knows, I love photography. Therefore, I decided to start a daily photoblog. I think it will be a great way for me to share my photos with even more people. The other reason I started it is because I have accumulated a ton of photos since I have been traveling a lot more. It’s hard to squeeze them all into blog posts here on this blog.

As far as the domain name goes, I chose to go with my name because I wanted to make it a portfolio. Instead of spending time making an actual portfolio, I figured it would be much more beneficial to just go with a blog.

I haven’t decided yet if I am going to include any written posts on the blog. My guess is probably not…

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Blog Directory Has Been Added

Hey everyone, I just wanted to make a quick post today to announce that I have added a new Blog Directory to Life of Justin. I got sick of having a million bookmarks to various blogs, so instead I decided to add a directory that is organized by categories.

I think it will be a great addition to the site and will help everyone get a little more traffic. Plus it offers my readers some cool blogs they can go check out (not that you should leave mine, lol).

Where Is It?

I currently have a link in my footer to the directory. Once I fill the directory up with more blogs, I will find a place to put a larger link so it can be found easier. I just figured I would wait awhile until more blogs get listed.

Can I Add My Site?

Well of course. To add a blog, simply go to the Add URL page and fill in your information. The links are free, but I encourage a link back to my site if possible. I currently have it set to require a reciprocal link for blogs under a Pagerank 0.

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Lucia’s Linky Love Has Been Installed

As many of you know, I wrote a post awhile back entitled This Blog Is Now DoFollow. In this post, I talked about how I decided to make all of my comment links DoFollow to give back to my readers. I’d like to share my experience along with the changes I have decided to make. First up, the bad things:

Bad Thing #1: Large Increase In Comment Spam

Believe it or not, my comment spam has grown to the point of being a hassle. I have to moderate all of my posts before I can approve them. Even Akismet does not pick these up and there is a reason why. The reason?

The comments are made by real people, not bots. I have tried implementing the simple math plugin along with a simple captcha but neither of these worked because every comment passed.

Here are a few of the comments I am talking about:

• “Great Blog”
• “Useful content indeed, will be back”
• “Great posts I like it”
• “Love it”

The main reason I can tell these are spam is because the people didn’t even bother to read my post. Some of the comments I deleted were totally irrelevant to the post itself. I even had one person paste the same comment on three different posts!

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How To Double Your Traffic

In Half The Time

In a post last week, a reader asked if I would do a post comparing my traffic stats to a few months ago and talk about what I have done. So I thought I would take a look back and compare my blog a few months ago to the current one and share some insight on how to increase traffic free.

The easiest way for me to do this, is to pick a date a few months back and talk about before and after. So lets start with the before stats.

The Beginning Through July 11th, 2008

As of July 11th, 2008 my blog had been up for almost 6 months. This domain was purchased in February and went live in the beginning of the month. As far as stats go, here is the results my first 5 (and a half) months of consistent blogging:

• 51,361 Visits
• 19,235 Unique Visitors
• 64,649 Pageviews
• Alexa Rank: 200,000 – 300,000

If you visited my site on July 11th, this is what you would have seen:

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