Thursday, July 31, 2008

On The Subject Of Books


Books are the quietest and most constant of friends;
they are the most accessible and wisest of counsellors,
and the most patient of teachers.
-Charles W. Eliot-

There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.
- Charles Dickens -

"I find television very educational. Every time someone turns it on, I go in the other room and read a book."
- Groucho Marx-

"The library is the temple of learning,
and learning has liberated more people than
all the wars in history.
-Carl Thomas Rowan-

Maria




Clip Art

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

A Few Wise Words On Opportunity

Do not wait to strike till the iron is hot:
but make it hot by striking.
-William B. Sprague-

Fortune favors the brave.
-Publius Terence-

brought to you by Maria

You Can Make Money Doing Something You Love: Blogging

Dear friends of A Little Joy For Today,

In every bloggers life comes a special day - the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else''s blog chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader - you. Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best friend about your new blog but that''s about as far you went when it comes to finding readers.


Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers. These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.


It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called "traction", which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.


Top 10 Tips


10. Write at least five major "pillar" articles. A pillar article is a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good "how-to" lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn’t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.


9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.


You don''t have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.


8. Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need a easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that''s the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you’ve done a good job!).


7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people’s blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.


Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.


6. Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger''s article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry - it''s sort of like your blog telling someone else’s blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.


This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important - it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will likely come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.


5. Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.


4. Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival often enjoy a spike in new readers.


To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at blogcarnival.com.


3. Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it''s so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it''s worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps!


2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com. This is another tip that doesn’t bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it''s worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have - your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.


How you benefit is through what is called your "Resource Box". You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.


1. Write more pillar articles. Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I’ve listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won’t stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers.


I hope you enjoyed my list of traffic tips. Everything listed above are techniques I’ve put into place myself for my blogs and have worked for me, however it''s certainly not a comprehensive list. There are many more things you can do. Finding readers is all about testing to see what works best for you and your audience and I have no doubt if you put your mind to it you will find a balance that works for you.


This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.


To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link:

www.BlogMastermind.com

Marie

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Put A Little Joy In Your Little Girl's Life

What little girl would not like this adorable little playhouse?

So much attention has been put into detail, it's almost like a grown up home.

Marie

Saturday, July 26, 2008

A Tape Well Worth Listening To

Believe it or not, it was recorded in the 50's.

Enjoy!

Marie

Friday, July 25, 2008

Now It's Time To Buy GM Products

General Motors has just announced that they will extend a discount to non-employees in order to boost their sales.A Great Incentive for people who were pondering if they should buy now or wait later.

The American economy sure could use a boost.

Marie

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Absolutely brilliant

Friday, July 18, 2008

A Fantastic Happy News For A Toddler And His Family

Thanks to today's medical science, news couldn't be better for
Little Carter and his family.

Carter got himself a new ear and will be getting another one very soon.

This qualifies for my HAPPY NEWS section.

Marie

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

We Need More Happy News

Happy News

Just googled the expression "Happy News"
and found 50,200,000 links for that search.

Then I googled "Bad News" and found 70,800,000 for bad news
for that expression.

So, if my calculations are right we have a deficit of
good news of 20,600,000.

That's MILLIONS and MILLIONS of good news that we must
create to cover this deficit and make the world a happier place.

So, I am asking you, my readers ,to tell me about your good news and
spread joy all over the planet.

Let's share them with the world!
Let's make the world a happier place.

Marie


Monday, July 14, 2008

How Do You Determine Success?

Success in life is determined by your ability to go from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm.
~ Winston Churchill~

Sunday, July 13, 2008

A No Brainer For My Son

Are you able to delay gratification in order to get big rewards down the road? A No Brainer For My Son

I asked that question to my son and after looking at the math, it was a no brainer.
Like he said "I lived pretty well before the Iphone, I don't see why I should commit myself to pay an enormous amount of money over 3 years for the newest gadget. I much
rather invest that money instead and REALLY enjoy myself down the road."

And, one doesn't have to wait 45 years to get the rewards.
Any good saving plan right now will get you a pretty decent living in a few decades.

What are your thoughts on this topic?



Marie

A Handy Dandy Little Calculator

This morning I was playing with this neat little compound interest calculator.

It's sure is fun to see what would happen with your money over the years if you invested it wisely instead of buying the latest gadgets that come on the market every time you turn around.
Calculator

Marie

Think You Have A Problem With Procrastination?

I thought I was "the great procrastinator" but I guess I've been eclipsed by this guy.

Any one of my readers having this procrastination problem?

Marie

Gotta Get My Stuff Done

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Cute Sign Spotted On The Web

Keep Your Eyes On Your Kids

Saturday, July 05, 2008

A Very Wise Thought From Buddha

Buddha once said" More than those who hate you,
more than all your enemies, an undisciplined mind does greater harm."

Marie