Blogging with Ads and a Blog Store

Image via Wikipedia

From Denny: Whew! I've been blogging for nine months now (on the oldest blog The Social Poets where I started all this craziness) and am just getting into learning about ads. There are so many options and it takes a while to absorb it all. Mostly, I've waited to develop my content on each blog and then see what people find interesting.

You can develop your own aStore with Amazon Associates though it sure takes some time to develop the look you want to best complement your blog in color and design. Of course, I just wear it out trying different combinations so it takes me longer. :) I finally got around to developing this blog's own store.

Amazon is a trusted company for both the customer and the blogger. I prefer an ad company with a good reputation since it's my reputation on the line as well.

Anyway, there are ads for MP3 Music, Free Music, Sale Books, Video, Cell phones, and the The Social Poets Store as choices. Take a look and browse through it all for ideas. If you are like me you just enjoy window shopping! :)

What's fun about some of these ads is they add visual interest to what could be a static blog so I thought I'd try it out and see what appeals to everyone. At least they are tasteful unlike what some companies offer. The ads are placed at the top, sprinkled in the sidebar and above and below the posts area.

Oh, yes, for new bloggers, you definitely want to get Google ads. Why? Forget about making money from them as it's a joke unless you get a million hits. The only sites and blogs that get hits like that are porno and I'm not interested in writing garbage. You only make $1 for every 1,000 hits so it could take you a year or more to make $100.

When you go to join up with Google just make sure you have at least 60 to 90 posts of content. They might turn you down for less. What they are looking for is enough content to analyze to know what ads to place with you. If you post daily it won't take long to develop a theme or trend that Google will find attractive. Once you have been at blogging for a good six months and are not overwhelmed, upgrade for free to Google Analytics. Analytics goes deeper into analyzing how you are doing and what posts are the most popular. They let you know if your traffic is from search engines or direct because people already know about you.

The real reason you want Google ads is because they keep track of your numbers for you to let you know if folks are actually reading your blog. That was the real reason I activated Google ads. I wanted to see if anyone was interested in what I was offering since I was a newbie to blogging. Previously, I always kept private journals and then finally decided to go public. It was a pleasant surprise to learn the level of interest out there in web land! :) Thanks for your support, everyone!

Just Installed New Commenting Software

Purple Snail Image by zaQography - Quite Busy via Flickr

From Denny: Thought I'd give it a whirl and try this new commenting software by JS-Kit offered by Lijit search. I've seen other commenting software and I just don't get a warm and fuzzy feeling toward 4 point type. Most people can't read that small a font - and those that can simply don't want to!

For my fellow bloggers out there this version is FREE - my favorite price! :) It does filter for spam and hateful comments the majority of the world finds offensive. Available is an online editor, the ability to add an emoticon and YouTube videos! Quite the upgrade from what Blogger offers...

What I've been looking for is a faster way for people to see their comments and even react in real time with each other as well as me. Hopefully, this will do the trick. Anything is faster than what Blogger offers (see purple snail image) and I just can't see waiting 2 or 3 days to go back and see if my comment went through. You lose the momentum of the conversation in my book.

What I found compelling and downright amusing was they offer the ability for a commentor to leave up to 3,000 words - just like a post! For those of us that get a bit tired of the 140 characters abbreviations from Twitter all day long this might be an intriguing alternative from time to time!

So, let me know what you think! Also, I installed their software for a poll - if you have some ideas for polls you can leave a comment easily now. Let me know what's on your smart minds!

Video: All the Truth About Chocolate and Antioxidants

From Denny: When The Social Poets became too much of the Wild Wild West I started dividing my interests into many blogs so people wouldn't feel quite so dizzy when they landed here. As my first blog, this has always been a "Musings" kind of blog but was also developing a lot of competing themes, so I began a pack of other blogs to handle the information overload for readers. The scope is narrowed on the other blogs, themed, for easier reading - and so you have the comfort of knowing what to expect when you visit.

When people are stressed we do like to develop healthy routines - like reading favorite sites and blogs - as a distraction to help mediate our mood from work or whatever. To give you an idea of my food blogs this is a video I'm running over at my two food blogs, Romancing The Chocolate and Comfort Food From Louisiana - even over at my health blog The Healing Waters.

This is a great little video chock full of useful information about how the decisions you make to get the most out of that chocolate benefit factor. She gives you percentages of chocolate to sugar for best antioxidant value and tells you how much (really how little) of a percentage of your favorite candy bar has of real chocolate. Also, beware of how chocolate is processed because you can completely lose your antioxidant value!

Thank you for your support!

"Home is where the heart is" montage by alicepopkorn @ flickr - this is such a cool photo and she is one of my fav photographers, such an imagination - as if she is creating her photos in concert with my writing simultaneously, that soul collective thing going on. Her new photos suddenly appear right when I need them, cool, huh?! The God within us is always in tune with itself and all we have to do is hitch a ride! :)

From Denny: Just wanted to take the time to thank everyone for subscribing to the feed on this blog and all the others - and following on Blogger and other sites. You are much appreciated!

Blogging is so much more fun when you have company and such good company you all are, thanks! Thank you for your support and hope you are enjoying your time here learning right along with me as I find amazing things for all these blogs!

New Additions to Photo Blog Roll!

From Denny: "Can I tell ya?" Spent hours and hours this past weekend pouring over some awesome photo blogs, amateur and professional alike, sifting through them to place the BEST on my blog roll for you! There are about 70 choices now - around there, I lost count... :)

If you enjoy looking at photos and want to see what is going on in the photo blogosphere then this is a good place to start. My blog roll list is located at my photo blog, Visual Insights.

Talk about a wonderful way to while away a few hours with beautiful and thought-provoking photos! Take a look and enjoy! Go here.

New Blog Look!

From Denny: Have spent the day fine-tuning the new blog template. It's just so much fun (not!) when you have to go back to the original sites and generate and install a new code for one thing: the original no longer fits in the new column, too large or too small, the Amazon store and the visitor counter and more. Simple to do but time-consuming. Hopefully, I've gotten all the details. My eyeballs look like a Halloween scary mask, all blood shot! :) (Hmmm... is this where I'm supposed to whine and whine some more...?)

Why did I decide to change the look? She must be crazy, you tell yourself silently in your own head. (You are right, BTW.) Actually, Himalman of Himalman's Weblog suggested I change my template. He even provided the link to a great template site.

After a couple of hours (remember there are 12 blogs now) of pouring over pages of great interesting templates for the Blogger platform, I downloaded a bunch of them, all excited to get started. One by one, none of them were accepted to upload to Blogger, even though all were compatible with my browser. Great... now what? Well, after studying the best for so long by then I realized I could do something close to the preferred templates - and set about redesigning the blogs by using Blogger's established templates.

Hope you enjoy the new look and find the navigation much easier! Thanks for visiting! And me? I'll be the guy at the drug store buying eye drops so I won't scare the neighborhood children...

Top 100 Blogs List

Photo by foxtongue @ flickr

From Denny: You know how it is as a blogger, post and ping, ping manually because Blogger doesn't allow embedding the automatic to all the web bots. So, of course, I'm over at the very popular and doing well Swedish site, Twingly, to ping them and re-visited this page of top 100 blogs. Thought you might enjoy taking a look too! Just click on the title link to take you to the page. Nope! I'm not listed there ... yet! ;)

New Link Added to Interesting Mountain Climbing Blog

From Denny: Since I have a number of readers from Poland I thought you might enjoy checking out this guy's site. He is a friendly, smart guy who writes well in English so anyone can enjoy his unusual blog. He teaches beginner mountain climbing.

What I like about his blog is that from a spiritual or writing perspective it really is a metaphor for life as he teaches how to overcome obstacles that seem immovable! An enjoyable read worth the time to visit again and again. To visit his blog, Himalman's Weblog, go here.

Added him to the The Social Poets Fav Bloggers blog roll list so you have a permanent link to find him. He is also linked on The Social Poets Fav Links under the Travel section.

New Links Added to The Social Poets Fav Links Page

Image by coincoyote via Flickr

From Denny: To The Social Poets Fav Links blog I hit a gold mine recently! Have added another 19 sites as well as adding 2 more original poem links. Newly created a section of links for all the Libations Friday! posts, complete with descriptions. I'm really starting to get the hang of this blogging organization! :) (Well, eventually...)

First Blogger Award: Most Wonderful FAVORITE! Award

From Denny: Whew! This post took a couple of hours to pull together and a few days to think about which other writers to award. Apologies for getting out today's post so late...

This past week a wonderful guy by the name of Mystic Dave passed on a fellow blogger award to this blog and seven others. Thanks, Dave, as this is my very first blogger award! Coming from a fellow blogger makes it all that more dear to the heart, and, therefore, appreciated.

This award is so much fun that I found it a cool idea to pass it forward to others too. Sunflower Ranch awarded it to Mystic Dave who passed it on to me.

I've included the addresses as well as the links in case the links break over time when this post goes into the archives. You might want to do the same when you give out your awards. When you decide to give this award please include the following text as well.

“These are the rules in accepting this award:

Deliver this award to eight bloggers who then must choose and deliver the award to eight more and include the following text into the award.

"These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers."

From Denny: Here are my first group of seven favorite blogs and sites you will enjoy. Originally, I had eight bloggers listed here but one declined the award. Beats me as to why - guess they don't want to turn around and recognize and help promote other writers.

Since I don't have time for "professional jealousy or pettiness" I went ahead and removed that blogger as per their request. They were also removed from my favorite blogger links and favorite links pages. (Duh!) I am disappointed that someone would choose to be so small about promoting others but time to move forward to other people who will step up and engage, do something positive for others and grow their own mindset through a charitable attitude. I have another group I’m putting together to award as well.

Below these awarded writers are Mystic Dave’s and Sunflower Ranch’s award choices. After all, it’s good to promote others yet one more time! :)

Nina P’s Thoughts and Musings - Awesome personal poetry and other lovely thoughts. http://ninapthoughts.blogspot.com/

Quantum Learning - Ian Peatey from the UK, lives in Poland and Romania, blog dedicated to teaching nonviolence as a lifestyle. http://www.quantumlearning.pl/

Women As Mentors - “By women for women, share the knowledge of women who wish they had known then what they know now, support for trauma survivors.” http://www.womenasmentors.com/

Gluten Free Girl - How to create more energy and happiness through diet and make it taste good! Compelling personal story. http://glutenfreegirl.blogspot.com

Poetic Expression - Great resources and personal poetry, comprehensive site for many goodies. http://www.poeticexpression.net/

Crowned with Laurels - Lorenzo is a master of focusing upon the smallest detail to trigger a divine moment, all through his favorite medium: poetry. http://crownedwithlaurels.blogspot.com

The Crusty Curmudgeon – Christoph Reilly is one funny sarcastic guy commenting on today’s pop culture. http://thecrustycurmudgeon.wordpress.com

Congratulations to all the newly awarded blogs and sites above!
Keep up the great work, everybody!



Mystic Dave’s eight award choices:

1. The Social Poets – http://thesocialpoets.blogspot.com

2. Deep Thoughts - http://mojoey.blogspot.com/

3. Fear and Loathing: The Gonzo Papers - http://kilroythegonzopapers.blogspot.com/

4. Chris Stonecipher and Friends - http://christonecipher-friends.blogspot.com/

5. A Slice Of Life - http://a-mus-ing.blogspot.com/

6. My Magick Basket - http://mymagickbasket.blogspot.com/

7. Izzy's Gumbo of Poems - http://izzysgumbo.blogspot.com/

8. Untold Dreams - http://suryakana.blogspot.com/



Sunflower Ranch’s seventeen award choices:

“They deserve your attention and a closer look. I hope you'll find them as interesting and intriguing as I do. These bloggers reflect all sorts of view points and interests. I love to read all of them! I've enjoyed their creativity and talent -- every opinion and comment is delivered with passionate sincerity. The writing is outstanding! That's what draws me to them. I hope you will enjoy them, too! You're invited and encouraged to follow all the blogs linked in this post. You can't go wrong!

In no particular order, but all equally deserving of further attention, I proudly pass this award on to the following bloggers:”

1. 52 Books in 52 Weeks http://read52booksin52weeks.blogspot.com/

2. Izzy's Gumbo of Poems http://izzysgumbo.blogspot.com/

3. Double P in the Place to Be http://doublepintheplacetobe.blogspot.com/

4. The Orientalist Gallery http://theorientalistgallery.blogspot.com/

5. Raising Eden http://raisingeden.blogspot.com/

6. Before I am Famous http://beforeiamfamous.com/

7. Joy Magnetism http://www.joymagnetism.com/

8. ...This Time Tomorrow... http://www.woodstocklily.com/

9. Superganny's Musings http://supergrannysmusings.blogspot.com/

10. Grouchow's Weblog http://grouchow.wordpress.com/

11. Hey, I'm Trying to Write Here http://noveliststhoughts.blogspot.com/

12. The Holdfast Seeker http://holdfastseeker.blogspot.com/

13. Mystical Poetry, Prose, and Political Viewpoints (Mystic Dave) http://www.mysticalpoetryandpolitics.com/
14. Fleapirate's Plunder http://fleapiratesplunder.blogspot.com/

15. Patty Dooley Independent Shaklee Distributor http://pattyindependentshakleedistributor.blogspot.com/

16. Off The Record with Debbie & Tony http://www.delovesto.com/

17. A Well Timed Rant http://welltimedrant.blogspot.com/

From Denny: Feel free to pass this award on to someone you think is deserving, enjoy, and keep the circle of life going! Take some time and recognize fellow writers!

New Link Pages: List for Fav Bloggers and Fav Links!

Links Image by cobalt123 via Flickr

From Denny: Hi, everyone! Been busy on the blog's housekeeping and you all know how much I don't like (OK, despise) housework...

The Social Poets has become a bit of the Wild Wild West. Read that as too much overwhelming info on one page. Too much on one page has really slowed down the final load time of this blog too. Surely you find it as annoying as I do! So, something had to be done and two more blog pages were born:

The Social Poets Fav Bloggers

The Social Poets Fav Links

OK, so I'm one of those people who enjoys a clean house, everything in its place, neat and orderly - I just don't like the effort it takes to do it! (Hmmm... TMI...)

Seriously though, if you are a blogger or are thinking about starting a blog, maybe try out the same idea for your convenience. For both content and link worthiness it's a great idea to have links to other blogs and sites. I just choose to do so by fitting it into my niche because I'm a total information junkie. Sigh... TMI yet again... :)

Actually, I've been wanting to expand on finding additional blogs to fit my categories and have been limited - until now. I really see the potential for how I could create additional interesting pages/related blogs!

Currently, on The Social Poets Fav Bloggers there are blogs on general musings, poetry blogs, writing blogs, political and social issues, creativity blogs, and more will be added. If you have some interesting blogs or sites you have run across (or your own) you think warrant as an addition, feel free to drop me an email with the link and I'll be glad to consider it! (Always looking for new talent as life is a team effort.)

On the links list page, The Social Poets Fav Links, there are links to my original poems (parked in various places so required a link page area), links to my friends who write poetry (let me know if you want to add your poetry page, be glad to do so to help promote fellow poets), writing sites (let me know your contribution to helping others develop their writing skills and be glad to include your site), poetry sites, music and more.

For your convenience the new links are located right before the day's post. The link pages also have a link to navigate you back to the home page of The Social Poets blog too.

Blogging is a lot of fun! Always learning how to solve "all the problems of the world." Now if world politics and world peace were just this easy...

4 Science Articles You Might Enjoy

From Denny: Since I have too many interests I've parked them on other blogs in addition to this one. Apparently, most people start a blog, lose interest, abandon the first one to start another blog. Not me. I just keep expanding to ADD more blogs! (totally crazy, I suppose - but hey! I'm happy...)

Anyway, articles about how the brain works, astronomy, psychology, some math and physics on basic levels is what I park over at the blog The Soul Calendar. It keeps climbing in the traffic rankings quite nicely and I happily write about whatever catches my interest for the week! Life is good!

I'm still poking around the web for children's resources for parents and science projects readers might find interesting. If you know of any sites or projects, speak up and shoot me an email at warriorspearl@gmail.com, much appreciated!

Here are a few posts you might find an interesting read:

Is My Brain Making Me Buy Things I Don't Need?

Double Amputees Shed Light on Brain's Flexibility

Robolegs Help People Walk

Hurricane-Killing, Space-Based Power Plants

NASA Photo by Image Editor @ flickr

Passed 100th post milestone!

From Denny: Well, I hear we blogger types are supposed to jump up and brag about reaching the 100th post milestone. ;) You can tell I'm really "great" about some anniversaries as I've already passed that milestone with now 189 posts. Oh, well, so much for showing off!

Follow Fellow Bloggers!

Image via Wikipedia

Most of the folks who follow this blog (THANK YOU!) and all my other blogs subscribe to feeds from feedburner, MyBlogLog and several other sources, even email. Not too many have ever used Blogger's Follower function. Maybe it's perceived as Old School?

A couple of weeks ago I dumped as many gadgets as I could from these blogs in order to speed up the page loadings. So, added back in is the area where if you are a fellow blogger on Blogspot you can follow this blog too.

(In proper circus barker loud voice) Step right up, folks! Join up on a rising popular blog! OK, now, no pushing and shoving to the head of the line like this is a 95% off sale...! :)

Seriously, thanks everyone for supporting all my blogs. It's been a blast to start them a few months ago just out of curiosity to see what would happen. Besides the fact I have learned a lot, and still learning, it's been fun to watch the blogs' traffic rankings go from the cellar skyrocketing upward toward the heavens! Every day lately every blog has grown by 100,000 or more in global traffic ranking according to the Alexa software. Pretty cool!

I have no idea where all of us are going but one thing is for sure - we will all enjoy the rocket ride! Thanks for becoming part of my growing community. You are well loved.

Just scroll on down toward the bottom of this page near the visitors count and you will find the Blogger followers area. Thanks for joining! I'm currently carrying over 5,000 feeds (mostly in Bloglines) so let me know and I'll be glad to join yours too!

Libations Friday! Poem: Keeping the Peace

Now on to the Friday poem. True to my partial Spanish heritage - OK, diluted by a few generations of American mutt - still burns the passionate flame of spirit.

It’s interesting the path a person takes to the making of a write, in this case a poem. Early this morning I went over to my StumbleUpon blog page to see what my friends have been putting up on the site. BTW, I’m known as warriorkitty. If you are over there, and would enjoy becoming a friend, be glad to include you! Shoot me a message that you came over from this blog. Just click on the warriorkitty link above.

The StumbleUpon site often gives me inspiration for a blog post and today I got lucky. A friend, rodie151, had put up a post from the Quantum Learning blog about finding balance in your life. Rodie does a lot of pages on self-improvement and finds the most intriguing places to visit.

Well, spiritual things are right up my alley, so, I took a look. Wonderful piece of personal illumination from which others can benefit! You can find “Balancing on the Top of the World” post on The Healing Waters blog. Just right click and pull it up in a new window for easier navigation, go here.

Of course, during the day I was thinking about his post and my thoughts went to the subject of Peace and the many stages mankind has endeavored over the centuries to achieve Peace. Those two people helped birth a new poem this afternoon, thanks, guys! Life really is a team effort!

***

Keeping the Peace


As I wander this world
Peering into intimate spaces,
Meeting new faces,
I wonder.

As I wander this world
Witnessing war-strewn nations,
Saddened faces,
I wonder.

As I wander this world
Shocked by copious injustices,
Exhausted faces,
I wonder.

As I watch this world of
Warring nations,
Outraged leaders,
Complaining religions,
Squabbling families,
Fuming individuals,
Is it any wonder?

Where is Peace?

Harmony:
Living
Breathing
Here, now, in this world.

Tranquility:
Available any time,
Day or night,
Here, now, in this world.

Welcoming
Serenity, I am.
Alive, present
Here, now, in this world.

Freedom from strife,
Here, now in this world.
Look within for
Keeping the Peace.


By Denny Lyon
Copyright 2 April 2009
All Rights Reserved

Photo of two peace doves by left-hand @ flickr

For a related article by Denny Lyon: Great Peace Quotes with Great Photos, go here.

More April Fools Day Funnies

For more April Fools Day hoaxes from the math and science geek crowd, hike yourself on over to one of my other blogs: The Soul Calendar - go here.

On that blog I place a lot of articles about the mind, how the brain works, some astronomy (killer eclipse photos) and anything else mildly geeky I enjoy when I read magazines like Discover. Enjoy!

Photo by Tambako the Jaguar @ flickr.

Feedburner Glitch

Now I know why my feed counts have been going up and down wildly. Turns out Feedburner keeps deactivating them: on all 7 blogs! So, apologies, if you have found this maddening; join the club. Guess it's taking Google and Feedburner longer to merge and work out the gremlins than they are telling the public, oh, well... Meanwhile, rest assured I will be now manually monitoring these feeds twice a day to keep them activiated. Thank you for your patience everyone!

Don't you just love this photo of an ass? Such a good fit when things go wrong because that's how you feel and look to others! Might as well have some fun with screw-ups, right! ;)

Thanks go to the folks over at flickr who place their photos in the Creative Commons area for online writers and bloggers like me, much appreciated! They can be so funny.


Photo by gidibao @ flickr

Tips for Saving on Groceries and Food Leftovers Ideas

Photo by muha... @ flickr in the Maldives islands



Tips for Saving on Groceries and Food Leftovers Ideas - Now here's a fabulous beach for day dreaming and writing to your heart's content. Everyone living in a winter climate right about now would love to catch the first plane to this paradise!

Second choice? Well, in a downturn economy we might as well learn how to make the most with what we do have. There is a great video in this article of a woman from Washington state who saves 80% of her food budget.

She has a plan and tells all. She is a savvy shopper and without much effort you can be too. Certainly takes the stress out of life when you can easily cut your expenses.

Give a try and then journal or write a poem about your experience! Life is full of experiences and new awarenesses to write! We all know that food and writing go hand in hand.