Postcards from the Funny Farm

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My friend Ginger M at Growing Happiness asked me in response to a post I wrote on backlink tactics basically “How do you find time to post 2-3 posts a day?” Well, I responded but I thought I’d write a longer response as a post since the way I schedule my life to include blogging has been a process and sort of an art form in itself if I really think about it (in the same way say juggling is an art form lol). Here’s the gist of it:

First, let me tell you about my off-line life so you get an idea of what I juggle to make money on this blog. I’m a dad of 3 and married to a wonderful lady. I teach 4th grade 185 days a year and my hours vary. Usually I get home around 5 but sometimes later and occasionally earlier. I start my day about 7:50 but don’t have kids until 8:50. When I get my prep stuff done there is usually time to read email and sometimes post something (incidentally I am doing that now).

That’s me in a nutshell. Since I started blogging in December of 2006 under the “Riley Central” banner I have been reinventing my brand and my focus over and over again … just ask people like Jessica the Rock Chick, some blog friends have seen a lot of changes and growth in me and in my blog in a couple years. So, you ask the question: How do I blog so regularly? There’s a couple of strategies … or “habits of blogging” I have developed and gotten into the groove with, the first one is: 1) Think about blog ideas all the time and have a way to write them down. This also applies to pictures. I have a carrying case with my digital camera on my hip all the time. Whew! That combined with the bald head must make me look pretty darned nerdy … oh well. One of my new kids told me I look exactly like David Cross yesterday and when I looked him up … I sadly had to agree (no offense David but you bic, I buzz). Anyway, get as many ideas written down as you can throughout the day and when you finally get 30 minutes to an hour to sit at a comp, you don’t have to wonder about a topic. This is probably my single-most lucrative trade secret. It’s like that old joke: “Q: What’s the fastest animal in the world? A: The Ethiopian chicken.” I’ve learned to do these fast.

2) Tend to the real life concerns as much as possible. I am trying more and more to make time for dates with my wife and time on the couch with her watching shows and snuggling. Also, playing on the floor with my kids and reading with them (they are 10, 3, and 11 months). I need to jump in and do the dishes, fold the laundry on the futon … you get the idea insert your stuff HERE. I do spend too much time on my comp BUT it is not nearly as much as it seems. I also make use of the future post feature of Wordpress.

So there you have it. Two ways I have learned, but am daily working to make solid habits, to post 1-3 posts a day (my personal goal is to always do at least 1). I hope more people visit because that means more clicks on my advertisers and more money to take my family to Hawaii and Ireland one day (a dream my wife and I have). Hey … Seth Godin is balder than me … it could happen ;)

Thanks to all who visit and read here. I hope my stuff inspires you to make your own money and make your life great.

Attention, Important Announcement 5/5/08: This site’s web address, or url, has been changed. Though the old links still work, they won’t change in the search engines unless they show up out there. If you can, please adjust your blogrolls, bookmarks and other backlinks here to: postcardsfromthefunnyfarm.com/ Thank you for your time.

Traffic
2517 / 3750 (67.12%)

In the words of T.S. Eliot, “April is the cruelest month.” I didn’t meet my traffic goals, not by a longshot. Still, I have to be thankful for every hit I got since my blog underwent so many changes. I see these changes as seed-corn for a much larger field in the future. For example, I changed my domain name from the boring and un-brandable: “postcardsfromthefunnyfarm.com/wordpress” to the memorable postcardsfromthefunnyfarm.com

Furthermore, I decided to pull way back from Entrecard. The reason for this is that I was getting a lot of hits from them, over 60% of all! These hits produced some new contacts and readers, but mostly the bounce rate of my visitors went to 100%. I want the hits to reflect real readers as much as possible. I talked about this in a post in more detail last month here.

Publishing
4 / 10 (40.00%)

I slacked off a bit here. Maybe my goals are too high? This is the primary reason I blog so I will be really paying more attention to this in May.

Money
121 / 100 (121.00%)

I met my goal amount for income in April. My sources were: 1) PayPerPost 2) PayU2Blog and 3) Private advertising.

Now for my May 2008 goals:

Traffic: 2650 total unique visits for the month and 100/day avg.

Publishing: 5 total publishings may include guest blog posts.

Money: 300 dollars through these sources - 1) PayPerPost 2) PayU2Blog and 3) Private advertising.

Thanks for reading Postcards from the Funny Farm. Watch to see how I do in May.