Postcards from the Funny Farm

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So much can be said about the way our minds scientifically bend around electronic mail. Email is impersonal. It is interpreted largely by the receiver and is not determined by the intent of the writer. I know this from personal experience on both ends. I have written emails that people reacted defensively to and I have read emails that made me virtually paranoid! Most of this negative stuff is unnecessary and not intended, that’s why I try to email as little as possible. I prefer to call someone or visit them if I have something important to say. Words on the screen can be taken wrong … it happens every day. If you think people will “get” your email 100%, you are misled. You are better off talking about serious things in person. When you do email though, I recommend making it complimentary and terse. Even if you think you have the perfect novel to email someone, remember you are going to wait in limbo until you hear back … and that is often a lot longer than what is comfortable.

With no inflection of voice or hand gestures, emails fall short of face to face communication. If you have something to share with someone, bear in mind your point might be better made in a medium other than email. It has its place in human affairs but I think our world is only just beginning to understand it. Last, remember that a kind word whether through voice or email can be like a plasma stand giving life energy to another person.

I’ve written about how online dating worked for my wife and I on here before. Today I want to expand on that and recommend an excellent resource for choosing an online dating service. That resource is a website called: PrimeDatingSites.com. It is not a dating service, but rather a collective of reviews on the top dating services out there. You can weigh the pros and cons of each and pick the one that works best for you in your search. Dating websites have become the latest fad these days and as a result, you can get ripped off quite easily if you’re not careful. This website does the awesome job of researching these top sites for you and letting you in on the “behind the scenes” knowledge that it might take the average dater months to figure out, not to mention, having to pay the fees only to find out it wasn’t a good “match” for you. Listen to what they say about their vision on the about page:

Our inspiration in creating this site was based on the adage, “life is what you make it.” This is not just a phrase in passing; it came from the recognition that all of life’s opportunities are out there waiting to be seized.

All the reviews are great and informative. Two that particularly stood out to me while reading were the reviews of Yahoo Personals (where Sarah and I met), and Matchmaker.com, due to it’s local nature. Like any service, you can pick the one that’s right for you.

As some of you know, I’ve begun writing sponsored posts in the past year. They are excellent for making a small bit of cash for writing a post. Ideally, every blog post could make one money but most people like to intersperse them and keep most their blogging unsponsored. If you decided to seek payment for your blogging, it is important to know good sources to get these money-making opportunities and I want to tell you about one today.

Mommy bloggers out there who may read my blog, this post is tailored to you! (but anyone who can write to a topic should try it) SocialSpark is the latest wing of IZEA (parent company to PayPerPost) and this new site can really help you earn some cash while blogging. I’m a schoolteacher and when I am at work I don’t always have the chance to sit down and write 50-300 words, which is the average required by most opps. Nonetheless, I try to schedule my home time with my kids, wife, etc. so I can put in at least an opp a day. In doing so, I am able to supplement my monthly online income of about $300. Now for rich folks, that may not sound like much but to people in my income bracket (60-100K) that is a healthy chunk of change that I can use to take my kids out for ice cream, buy toys, or take the wife on a date! Mommy bloggers, could you use 50-300 bucks a month? Some people out there in the “sphere” report making much more than that, but that is my figure: combined with some other sources I mention on my blog, that is a very realistic quote you could be making.

I went through all that to say that: I do not believe mommy bloggers have a lot of time on their hands BUT they do have access to a computer enough to blog. Hey … moms out there, seriously … could you blog a sponsored post a month? a week? a day? I think you could and SocialSpark wants you to know they are right around the corner.

My friends in this community sometimes ask me if I know any good ways of getting traffic. I try to do creative stuff, but sometimes the traditional things work best. Using forums to build traffic is one of those traditional ways. Of course there are several in my community that are doing just fine. Perhaps those readers could give us some further tips on this discussion.

I’ve read on several “big time” sites that forums are an excellent way to attract more readers to your blog or website. Up until recently, I had never put this one to the test. This is partly due to the fact that I haven’t had the time to experiment with it. I plan to do some “foruming” this evening so I wanted to let you know the results once I am finished. As I head out to try my hand at this endeavor I am thinking these guidelines might be helpful to someone out there who wants to try it:

1. When you choose a forum, choose the topics that follow your passions. ie; mental health, literature, psychology, self-improvement and blogging are a few interests of mine that I belong to forums on.
2. Put your url in your profile and signature or every forum you post at. This is obviously to your blog’s advantage. Theoretically, the ones who like what you have to say will click on your profile or signature and find your wonderfully suited blog. Ok, so I’m being a bit sarcastic. Nonetheless, it’s one way to get your url out there and it may even garner you some Google Juice.
3. Answer many threads before you leave. Some threads are closely monitored and some are not. Doing more will increase your chances of starting up a conversation or even friendship with people on the forum.
4. Subscribe to the threads you comment in. Like most blogs, forums have an option many times to subscribe by email or rss to the threads.
5. Do not get offended and do not say offensive things. This is self-explanatory to many, but to me it is a lesson I have had to learn the hard way many many times (mostly before I ever started blogging). Stay cool and let your words be the same when foruming.
6. Bookmark the front page of each forum and put them in a folder on your toolbar (Firefox) so they don’t become obtrustive. Since the folder causes them to cascade straight down, you can have more than you’ll ever need on your bookmarked toolbar (for help on how to do this, read this).
7. Flattery will get you EVERYWHERE. That may be an old fashioned notion, but go with it and see if it’s still true.
8. Keep your comments short but thoughtful. Don’t waste your great ideas and prose on a forum, use the ideas you get while there to write on your forum and link to the post! (Don’t do this too much or you may be considered a spammer and kicked out)
9. Once you are in, many forums allow you to post a link on your profile page or in the sisgnature, or both.  An example of these types of links can be found here (scroll down to my signature at the Jeep page.  The anchor texts inspiration and psychology are linked back to my blog).  This will help your backlink authority.
10. Once you create the link on your profile page, figure out what the permalink to your profile page is and socially bookmark it to as many as possible.  This will also help your backlink authority. Example of same Jeep profile page on Stumbleupon.

I hope these tips help. If you are new to forums and would like some help getting your feet wet, drop me a line and I’ll see if I can help. On the other hand, does anyone out there have any forums they enjoy and would recommend to this community? Enjoy foruming to build traffic.

You may have noticed in your visits here the quite attractive 125×125 button AD that reads “Make Money - Build Wealth: Get My Wealth Now.” Kimberly Clay is the gifted entrepreneur who owns and authors that site. It is full of daily tips and examples on how to create wealth. I highly recommend you visit her blog.

When she asked me to write a guest blog, I knew right away what my topic would be. As my seasoned readers know I have stepped this blog up in the past year little by little to be monetized. Sarah and I were talking yesterday about how cool it would be if we could pay our student loans through Postcards from the Funny Farm. I’m about half way there and it is exciting. But once that goal is achieved, I plan to follow Kimberly’s strategies to make my online wealth go even further.

Inch by inch, life’s a cinch.

Kimberly Clay is a generous sponsor of this site so I am energetic to guest blog for her, send traffic her way, and do whatever I can to show off her excellent blog/money/inspiration resource. I’ve learned several indispensable things after subscribing to her RSS.

If you are interested in reading my guest blog article on her site, the url below. Leave her some comment love over there her, I think you will find it a very down-to-earth and practical. fun blog:

url: blog.getmywealthnow.com/2008/03/master-one-thing.h...

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If you are interested in having me guestblog for your blog for free, read the page explaining the process and contact me. Thanks! I hope to hear from you. Guest blogging is a fun and great way to assist bloggers in practicing writing, networking, and affiliate marketing. To advertise on my blog, read this 411 page

This article is Part I of my series “Finest Hour of Social Networks” where I examine social networks and their effectiveness in raising real traffic (low bounce rate/readers who stay more than the duration of two ckicks!) This goal is important for monetization and for building a following to your blog. If these ideas are something you’re interested in, this series will help you achieve those goals.

It’s time for another series because I have a lot to say and I don’t want to burn out trying to say it all in one article. I hope you get something out of it. As always, your discussion is invaluable to the series’ evolution throughout. I really appreciate your comments. Ok, well here goes: One common thread that seems to run through every site I run across these days is the topic of building blog traffic. “How can I do it!” Whether you are growing your internet business or just trying to get more readers for your online publishing, it is the burning question in everyone’s mind. There are many ways published out there that you can take and use and make your own. Most of these ways really do work. Depending on how much a blogger puts into it, (including sometimes unholy amounts of time at the comp away from your family) they can work astoundingly well. At the same time, I myself have tried others of them only to come up exhausted and without a shard of new traffic. In the year and a half that I have been blogging, I’ve tried almost everything. I have tricks up my sleeve that I could share until the cows come home. I don’t get to them that often these days because there is other content I need to get to, content about psychology and inspiration and education. The stuff I am passionate about is my favorite stuff to share on here. At the same time, my primary audience here (as measured by visits and referrals) has always been innovative bloggers and noobs. Social networking can literally explode the traffic of my friends ad cohorts out there. It behooves me to share what I know about blogging. With content on this site it is a lot like my family and my work, I try to find a happy balance.
Because I have so much to share about social networking and traffic for bloggers, I am penning this series which will ultimately consist of IV parts as outlined below:

Series: Finest Hour of Social Networks
Part I
BlogCatalog
Entrecard

Part II
Facebook
Fuel My Blog

Part III
Twitter
Social Spark and other monetized social networks.

Part IV
Final Thoughts

Taking these on in ABC order, today’s part focuses on two powerful social networks: Blog Catalog and Entrecard. Join me as I analyze how these 2 services can increase your blog’s traffic no matter whether you are a noob or someone who’d been doing it so long you are starting to burn out … or maybe you are somewhere in the middle. I believe these services can revolutionize the traffic of your blog.

Blog Catalog has been around at least as long as 2005 when I first started checking them out. They have been through normal gradual changes for a company run by young guys and they have emerged in 2008 to be a daunting force for the Technoratis and MyBlogLogs of the world. Blog Catalog has stayed solid at listening to the customers and at innovating the marketplace as best they can. They have come up with some really fun widgets that I use along with so really helpful services in their site for bloggers. The end result is a giant set of tools to increase your blog’s traffic. Here is how I use Blog Catalog to reach out and increase my blog’s traffic:

1. Friend’s list - This is such a great feature. When someone decides they like my blog they add me as a friend on BlogCatalog. I get an email alter and I check their blog out. If I like their blog I can add them if not, they remain my one-way friend anyway. This is a great way to access networks of bloggers with your like-minded favorites etc.

2. Discussions - I hang around BC Discussions daily. It is an excellent way to promote your blog and get help or givehelp with blog issues. more important than anything, it’s a way to sample people and their blogs so you can develop relationships that last. I have commented on blogs through this service years ago and to this day they are still visiting my blog and I theirs.

3. Widgets - BC offers incredibly designed blog widgets. You have to try them all to see which work for you. For me, I like the discussion widget because it shows where I have been talking out in the sphere for those would be interested. I suppose it’s a status message kind of like Twitter or Facebook that way. The difference is that there is no limitation of characters and the thread can interact indefinitely (as many do!)

Through using these three facets of Blog Catalog I have met hundreds of people but just between 15-20 people who remain friends and/or fans of mine and who frequent my site. I get backlinks (this refers to when another site links to you) that bring in traffic perpetually and that increase your ranks with the search engines. I highly recommend you join Blog Catalog, pimp out your profile there and then take part in the three amazing service I listed above. You will see an increase in your traffic.

Now for the second and newer of the two in our discussion today: The sophisticated looking Entrecard.

Entrecard works like this: You create a 125×125 “Entrepeneur Card” or Entrecard for your site. Then you upload it to your profile and pimp out the other parts of the profile. At that point you need to do two things for the service to get you traffic: 1) You need to “drop” your Entrecard on other blogs, and

2) You need to advertise on other blogs. These two actions are theoretically harmonious because every time you visit another Entrecard site and drop your card on it, you get 1 “ec” point. The site you dropped on also gets 1 ec in the process. It is good etiquette to return the drop, but not everyone does it. In your profile, there is a section called “Drop Inbox.” This shows the last 80 or so drops on your site. Many people use that page as the way to “drop back.” The idea of dropping back on everyone is really a foolish idea. It can take hours sometimes to go through them all. I have developed a way to drop every day that takes me less than half-an-hour and I drop over 80 a day. If you are interested in hearing how, just look at the button below my Entrecard that contains the words about “Above the Fold.” It’s something I am trying to promote and hope it catches on.

You get ads on other sites by paying for them in “ec’s” In other words, the more dropping you do and selling of your own space, the more ec’s you have to buy ads.

My traffic has grown nearly 50% through Entrecard which has felt really good. On the other had, the bounce rate for those hits is remarkably low so. People click through like wildfire just to get ec’s. I must admit however that I have received some ad business through Entrecard and many comments by new readers. So I can’t say it’s just empty traffic. I guess the higher the numbers, the better the chance you have of gaining new fans. In the same way, how can anyone know if they like you if they never see you? Entrecard can be a little complicated and clicking through all those sites can be cumbersome. It works for me to raise traffic and to get my 125×125 “Messy Marvin” PostCards avatar out there. I’m not sure if one day’s link actually registers with the search engines, but that isn’t really why I do it.

Social networks like these are exploding traffic for many people I know. If you want more people coming to your site, to read the words you write or buy the things you sell, I doubly encourage you to start with these two. Get registered and begin to explore what works for you. If you have questions, contact me or leave a comment. I firmly believe these two social networks can and will revolutionize your traffic records. Let us know how it goes. I’ll leave you with this: We spend a lot of hours on the computer with internet businesses our and blogs: why not try and make each one our finest!

Next time in my series: Finest Hour of Social Networks

Part II
Facebook
Do people actually use this blue book? If so why? Can it help my traffic?

Fuel My Blog
Somethings Cooking! Will it help my traffic?
And much more to say on these two services I have used for some time now.

What do you think using Blog Catalog and Entrecard to build traffic?

This article attempts to relate how cool the new browser on the block is: Flock. Anyone who blogs should use all the major browsers. This helps you stay abreast of what your code looks like across the board. I have Firefox, IE, and now Flock all installed on my computer and while I use them all to some extent, the new “Social Web Browser” called Flock is my favorite. This is by no means a tutorial, I have much to learn about its many hidden features. Instead, it’s simply a review and a recommendation to you. I say everyone should go check this amazing browser out.

This feature is the reason I left Firefox. You can subscribe to feeds within Flock and the interface for doing so is so much simpler than anything I have used from Bloglines to Google Reader. You can auto subscribe with a click or just select the XML source and add it to your feed favorites.

It’s nice when you can have features in the browser rather than all over the places with shortcuts in your toolbar. Mine fills up fast! That’s why I like Flock. It has most the major social networks embedded as features and the ones that aren’t, you can access in Flock through the add-on “Shareaholic.”

All Firefox addons are compatible with Flock and it has features that Firefox does not yet have. I will always be a fan of Firefox but I think the current Flock is better.

This cut of the buttons and toolbar shows some of the groovy features of Flock. Don’t you want to see what each button does? Flock is so cool. How often in our blogging day to we come across truly new surfing and networking tools? Flock has a lot of them.

Flock can be downloaded here. What do you think of it?

While I already have most this info posted on my teaching blog, I know I have different readers here that can offer valuable input about their work email so here goes:

Did you know people at your work might be offended at you due to email? They may think you didn’t reply because you don’t care or imagine you are mad etc. They also might be angry at you because they never got your reply (which you sent!)

I have had some of these issues lately and below is my article about using “read receipt request” in an attempt to prevent them:

The other day a fiasco almost happened because someone didn’t get my email at work. I don’t recommend this is regular personal emails because it’s cumbersome, but from now on I will be sending out a “request read” receipt on all my work emails. If people don’t mark it as read, then I will assume they didn’t get it. If they do mark it read, then I can rest easy. You might want to try this and see how you like it.

Update: After trying this today with several contacts I did learn some practical knowledge. It is probably bad etiquette to request a read receipt on every email you send. Having the record in your sent box is enough sometimes to give me peace of mind. I think it’s best to have a signature ready that reads something like:

To be sure my message was received I have requested a “read receipt” on this message. If you do not receive a notification to check, I request that you reply with a minimum of the word “received” . Thank you. -Mr. Riley

That way if you are sending an email that needs verification that the receiver read it, you can just add the “signature” footer to the message. If your email client allows it, you can also select “read receipt request.” What I learned today was that this is not necessary for every email you send, unless you don’t mind appearing overly careful. Another problem with it is that you will have an inbox full of emails that read “received” all day long.
What do you think about using “request read receipts” at work?

I’ve written a few tips about self-diagnosis through online sou.... It can save you all kinds of time and hassle when you use the many resources out there. Well, now I’m writing about a website one step beyond: one that gives you “ask a physician” access, some really helpful health articles and sells low priced name brand prescriptions.

If you’re like me you find yourself wondering whenever you watch tv commercials what drugs like “Cialis” and others are. By that I mean, you see the high production commercials and you hear all the taglines but you never really get what ailment they are for. You might see a lady running slow motion on the beach and hear all the disclaimers like:

Side effects include … (insert a myriad of things here). Talk to your doctor if you have these symptoms.

It is really confusing. It is awesome now that I have discovered this resource to bookmark and use on my computer when research new drugs I hear about that I don’t know what they do.

Edrugstore.md has a section that will describe each new drug you hear about. Beyond that, they have been around for 8 years selling customers non-generic drugs for competitive prices. If you take long-term medication, such as I do for my high blood pressure for example, you should explore the use of this online pharmacy. You won’t have to stand in line at your local drugstore and hear that awful musac they always play. What’s more, you’ll get your medication delivered right to your door just like a normal everyday package delivery. Check out Edrugstore.md and see if you like the site as much as I do.

Have you ever used an online pharmacy?

The expression: “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water” seems especially appropriate for Google here at the beginning of 2008. I am no seo or blogging mmol genius but I do know a few things about logic and ethics and setting PayPerPost writers’ pagerank to zero is a choice lacking in both.

Under the guise of weeding out vacuous content from searches, they claim all blogs that have PayPerPost articles on them are less helpful than those who don’t and thus set their PageRank to zero. This is an example of a company thinking they will reinvent natural law to suit them because they can, not because they should. It’s going to bite them, the internet did not evolve to this point to be defined by one company.

I recall when I first got into using Google, it seemed like such a cool enterprise. The page was white with no ads and it had applications that were all utility, no fluff (ie; analytics, gmail …). Now, they have decided they know based on one criteria if a blog is helpful to the internet, this is ignorance at its height and I hope Google stops this practice. My how Google’s “feel” has changed for me.

As for me? I will continue to be a postie because it’s something I am good at and it’s something I profit from. That’s why Walt Disney, Rod Serling, Ray Kroc, Richard Carlso... did what they did. Last week I lost my PageRank of 4/10 when it was set to zero. I had a feeling this might happen when I read the news about what Google was doing to posties. But has my readership changed? It has gone up. Has my content changed? It has gotten better. The way I see it is this: Google figured the blogosphere would appreciate it if they targeted posties, and for the most part, they are probably right (check out Duncan Riley’s tone on Tech Crunch). But that doesn’t mean that weeding out all blogs with PayPerPosts on them will increase the value of a search. In fact, in many cases, it will keep good information out of a search. Is the only information we want on the internet that which is written without compensation? You might as well stop watching TV as far back as I Love Lucy.

To quote Michael Stipe: “It’s the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.” Emphasize: I feel fine.

I predict Izea (PayPerPost’s rebranding) and SocialSpark will revolutionize rankings in 3-6 months. You can come and tell me I was wrong if they don’t, but as for now I am making sure I focus 100% on my idea of what a good ranking is:

1. Monthly Traffic Goals
2. Inbound links
3. Comment counts, and
4. Quality content (paid or unpaid)

If I can succeed in these areas (which I can and do already) then I’ll take my PR0 with pride and look to other ranking systems like Izea’s RealRank to determine how I’m doing. To my fans/readers: fear not, I am neither down nor out. I will get better through moving away from Google’s PageRank system, not worse. Whether you like PayPerPost or not, I hope you see how throwing every blog out that uses it is harmful to the blogosphere.

Now, to close, I have a question and I promise not to pigeonhole you or throw YOU out if I don’t like your answer:

What do you think about Google setting blogs to zero for participating in PayPerPost?