Tag Archives: baby boomer blogging

So You Want to Do Niche Blogging?

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Many of you already know about niche blogging. It is when you decide ahead of time what you are going to blog about. Except with niche blogging it is very focused on one topic. For example, if you are going to blog about blogging that is a broad  niche. But if you narrow it to  blogging for money then you are blogging about that niche.

I teach folks in my blogging class to take a good amount of time deciding on the area they are going to blog about.  It is much like setting a goal. You try to be as specific as possible and refer to it often to see if you are on target.

This morning I read an article about niche marketing that had a very interesting perspective. These marketing gurus felt that you should go broad then narrow when deciding on a niche. For example, if you are thinking about blogging on gardening then you would search on the word gardening with different variations. They could include “rose gardening” “winter gardening” etc.

The key point the article made was to look at the word “gardening” and start with that then go deeper. My summary “go wide then deep and decide.”

I strongly suggest using the free Google keyword tool.  When you want to do more extensive searches you can pay for a tool. But right now just go to Google and in the search box key in the words “Google keyword tool”.

The other thing it shows are the keywords “tags” you can use when you produce a blog post.If you are on a WordPress platform, there is a section on the dashboard that always allows you to key in tags. That is the same thing as keywords. The more relevant they are  to your post the better.

The cool thing about us baby boomers is that we have a broad area of interests based on our broad area of expertise and experience. That can make for some great blogging. What do you think?

If you want me to do a tutorial on using the free keyword tool with some pictures let me know.

Baby Boomer Blogging-Were You Born a Blogger Pt.2

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This entry is part [part not set] of 2 in the series baby boomer blogging

One of the real reasons I started this series was to capture other stories from baby boomer bloggers. But now I am really thinking about those things that motivated me to blog.

  • I wanted to become a professional blogger.
  • I wanted to earn passive income from blogging and other internet strategies.
  • I wanted to be able to add to my pension.
  • I wanted to be able to help others in need via blogging.
  • I wanted to be around more and not on the road speaking away from my mom since I am the only child and I am her” assisted living.”
  • I wanted to help my husband sell his artwork online

I STILL WANT THO KEEP THESE DREAMS SO I HAVE MADE THEM GOALS

Ray and I decided to take an eight week webinar training in the evenings. These were great date nights. We would eat dinner then sit at the dinner table around the lap top or downstairs around the desk top with speakers turned high as we listened to Jeannette Cates talk about starting a business online.

Now we were already primed by other internet gurus we like and admire. But this series by Cates promised to help us set up our own website! I admit I thought it was going to be a static site and I would learn more about Dreamweaver. But before we knew it we had jumped into deep water and was swimming with WordPress.org. Oh my, that was the program that looked so hard on the VTC training that I decided it was far easier to stick with Blogger.

But it was too late. We were assigned to create this WordPress.org site and host it. We did it. We are glad we did.

Later as, as time went on, we went deeper with WordPress.org with the guidence of my friend Cathy Perkins, the infamous WordPress Wizard.

Ray and I were not born bloggers. But as baby boomers we were determined to learn. We now have many blogs and still learning.

What about you? What is your blogging story? Please, Please share. You can post as a comment or just email the story to me using rhspeak(at)aol.com

If we get enough stories we will publish them in an ebook to share with others

Baby Boomer Blogging-Were You Born a Blogger?

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This entry is part [part not set] of 2 in the series baby boomer blogging

If you are a baby boomer blogger reading this answer just one question. Were you born a blogger? I was not born a blogger. Sure if my mom had me tested back in the early fifties they may have detected a “blog” gene. But genetic research as not, to my knowledge, been able to find that DNA relationship. Yet, many of us are baby boomers and we blog? Why? How did it start?

Ok, here is my story. Once upon a time I had someone create a website for me. Why? Because as a speaker I went to enough workshops that said, “Create a website and put the url on your business card. Include articles, products and the kinds of topics you deal with and audiences you address. Oh, and don’t forget to put a current picture up and not one showing you 20 years ago.

Well, I did that, not once but twice. Both were wonderful sites done in Dreamweaver. That is one of the finest website development packages around but the learning curve is steep. So although I knew how to change pages, create pages there was so much more to learn. I could not fix my files and much more. I became increasingly frustrated.

Remember, I am a speaker, stand up, talk, engage, get creative tell jokes but not do blogging. That sounded lonely, tedious and too hard!

Then one day I attended an NSA, (National Speakers Asssociation) conference and was introduced to this thing called blogging. I purchased the CD and listened to it over and over again in my car.Although, I did not use the same blogging platform as the speaker, I decided to create my blog using Blogger.

How did I learn Blogger?
I took an online tutorial course with VTC. I would look at the video, stop and do they said, then start the vidoe again and continue. I had a blog up and running in no time! I still had my static site but I had a blog up on presentation skills. I taught my husband and he put one up on art. What was also cool was this same  video site had a lot of free  videos you could learn from before you started paying. They also had loads of videos we could not find in the stores. Video tutorials on just about anything so we signed up for a year so we could also dip our toes in stuff like Photoshop, etc.

I started looking at the tutorials on WordPress.But at that time the installing was oh so complex. I was not ready to deal with creating databases and other stuff you had to do if you did not have a host that made it simple.

Are you ready to share your story yet?

Next, How we traveled to WordPress.org during hot date nights.

10 Top Reasons to Blog on the 4th of July

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I was always amazed at how much mail I get on the holidays from internet marketers. But it always seemed strange because most people should be busy entertaining, hanging out or watching a marathon on TV.

Then it hit me. Hey, how would I know about the online activity during a holiday unless I was online? That’s right I am one of those folks blogging and doing other stuff online, when I can, during the holidays.

So, although, I am supposed to be working on an  upcoming presentation for next week, I thought I would share this post I was writing in my mind while running my errands today.

10 Top Reasons to Blog on the 4th of July

1.  Everyone online does not celebrate the holiday so you can focus on your oversea readers

2. You just never liked hot dogs ,hamburgers and ribs. Plus everyone is not into vegi, vegan and tofu so you might as well stay home.

3. If you are blogging and remember an issue you wanted to ask your host about you can get almost instant access to 24 hour support because everyone else is busy having fun.

4. If you are have your laptop at the barbercue you can impress your friends and family

5. You can blog about holiday sales and specials.

6. You don’t have a life.

7. You might get more comments from other bloggers online who don’t have a life

8. If you blog for your job you will look like a go getter if folks see you posted on a holiday.

9. It is a good time to volunteer to be a guest blogger for someone who needs a break to get a life.

10. If you blog then Tweet someone may bring you a dinner or invite you over to their celebration.

Are You Blogging Your Hobby?

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As I traveled from my moms after a day of work, hospital visit to a friend who had open heart surgery, several drug stores, and a modified zumba class because of my sore arm, I began to wonder what I would blog about tonight.

While I was at the drug store ,looking for an item for my mom, and while I was at the gift store at the hospital I talked to two different folks about coins.  I realized that I had not given any time for many days to the pile of coins waiting for me to investigate from my pocket change.

That’s when I decided to chat for a few minutes about hobby blogging.

For the first time in my baby boomer life I have a hobby. I don’t recall ever having a hobby unless you call talking with strangers in the elevator or diners about their passion a hobby. I don’t consider my blogging, speaking or hanging out at the senior center my mom lives  in a hobby.

http://www.babyboomerpocketchange.com

But last year I started reading and exploring coin collecting. While my husband decided to explore the guitar. And guess what we both decide to create blogs about out new found passions.

Why?

  • It helps us to remember where we store our new found information , videos and audios
  • It reinforces our learning.
  • It is very niched which is great for ads
  • Helps us to keep on top of the hobby
  • A great way to meet other people in the hobby
  • We can submit to Blog directories like blog catalog and join groups with folks of same interest.
  • I can post pictures of coins give a history then bring that picture with a link to the site on Ebay or other sites If I am selling that coin.
  • Plus more

Hubby’s hobby blog is Midlife Guitar and mine is Baby Boomer Pocket Change.

What’s yours?

Social Bookmarking For Baby Boomers-Digging Deeper into Digg Pt. 5

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This entry is part [part not set] of 10 in the series Baby Boomers and Social Bookmarking Can You Digg it?

I shared two applications in Part 4 that will help you get really deep into Digg. But oh, boomer me I made two drastic mistakes. The first mistake is that I repeated misspellings of the word social bookmarking I keep saying socia bookmarketing. So if you see some of the misspellings in older posts please forgive me.

The second mistake is assuming everyone knew how to sign into Digg before sharing the applications that pump it up. So I am including a video that just covers the basics. Now, what I really like about Digg is the ability to submit an article, image and video link directly to Digg for others to Digg. Now, you can get some great traffic. But just like blogging and everything else, please Digg other stuff and not just your stuff. A better example is Twitter. If you just tweet and never retweet that just isn’t good boomer community sharing.

Well, take a few minutes and look at this video. My goal is for all of us to do more Digging of our own stuff for increased traffic and each other’s stuff. What do you think?

7 Things to do Before You MOVE Your Website to Your New Blog Home-Part 7

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Are you ready to move your to your new blog home? Did you read the other 6 posts prior to this? Has any of it made sense? If yes you are ready for the last few things I am going to share in this series.

PACK YOUR BOXES AND CLEAN UP WHERE YOU ARE LEAVING

Two years ago we moved my mom from her home of 57 years to a senior apartment complex. It took a lot of vacation days and solid planning to do this task. Because I am not the most savvy packer I hired two people to work with me. We packed and labeled the boxes.

We also cleaned the apartment completely and was ready for the moving. This is silmilar to what you  need to do BEFORE you move your static site to your new blog home. You need to pack your files,label them correctly and clean up any left over hosting fees etc.

Now, if you DO NOT KNOW how to back up your files GET HELP! Hopefully you have your files in a folder on your hard drive which should be a MIRROR  of what is on your host server. If you have labeled your files right it is going to be a lot easier to bring them to your new blog home.

For example, I had all my images , articles, and products, etc in separate folders inside a folder called rosiehorner.com on my hard drive. But I had someone help me insure that all the files matched what was on my server. We made not one, but two cd disks of the files. It is from these disks that I am systematically bringing files over to my new blog home.

Am I ready for prime time? Not quite. But because I have old traffic from articles I have written, clients visiting etc there is still a lot of traffic going to my site. Yet, I have not promoted it yet. So, I guess you know what my next series will be don’t you?

Stuff to do before your site is ready f or Prime Time!

I really hope this series was helpful for you. If you need some basic help with file management and other tips useful for your static website or blogs in an easy to understand formati. A friend and coach is doing a FREE WEBINAR on Tuesday, June 15, 2010. Tell her I sent you . I have taken some of her classes and it was just the right thing for this baby boomer!

7 Things to do Before You MOVE Your Website to Your New Blog Home-Part 6

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This entry is part [part not set] of 6 in the series 7 Things to do Before You Move to Blog Home
  • By now you have create a floor layout of your blog with the FREE BLOG Planning Form.
  • You choose a host, ( I hope it was Bluehost)
  • have painted the walls by choosing a theme,
  • you hung up a sign letting folks know that an exciting thing is going to happen in this new home.
  • You also called the Security Company and installed an alarm. The alarm for our WordPress.org Blog is Askismet
  • And you called the phone company-Feedburner.

Now it is time to call the Cable Companies

For me the cable companies I am referring to are AWSTATS and Google Analytics. I call them the cable company because they SHOW YOU you know when, from where, how and how long folks are staying on your blog. I am not going into a discussion about the differences between the stats with AWSTATS vs Google Analytics. It is deep and different. I would suggest putting the phrase, What is the difference between AWSTATS and Google Analytics directly into Googles search.

But I will tell you quickly that AWSTATS are part of most hosting packages along with Webelizer. The latter is great for charts. But I prefer AWSTATS. Whereas, Google Analytics is part of the Google World. You can download a plugin to place it on your site or do it manually. They have excellent tutorials.

But bottom line is set your domain name to start getting this information before you bring your furniture into the house. Now, it is true that the host where your static website lived will keep generating stats for you. But when you disconnect from that host you don’t want to miss a beat. Remember the day you left so you can check the stats f rom that point.

Depending on how fast your moving company bring in your boxes and your family and friends arrange all your stuff your stats might be down for a short period of time.

For those of you are will be using Bluehost they have a video tutorial on their site telling you how to set up AWSTATS or Webelizer with your domain.

I am sure many of the other  hosts also have some kind of instruction. Was this clearer than mud?

What Do You Think The Last Step IN This Series Will Be?