What are you passionate about? Is it politics, religion, children, a cause? The list goes on and it is sometimes therapeutic to write about it. In addition, sometimes your passion can influence someone else, hopefully positively, after they read your posts.
Please take some time to list your passions. Key the topic areas into google and put the word “blogs” after it to see what others are writing about related to the same passions.
Also, please be sure to post your comments and links to your blogs if you already have one.
A good way to get your blog out there in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Space is to use blog directories. Blog directories are websites which will categorize your blogs under many different categories. Usually the best blog directories are human edited, meaning that each submitted blog is reviewed by a person , not a robot, who will decide whether our blog belongs in their directory or not.
Now not only will blog directories help get your blog to people who are interested in the topic you write about but they will also provide strong back links and can help your posts get ranked in search engines. Also, note that many people search blog directories to research blogs that are similar to their blogs.
Did I hear someone ask “Whats a backlink?
A backlink is a link that one blog site gets from another blog site or static website. Backlinks can make a big impact on a website’s ranking in search engine results. This is why they are considered so important for improving a blogs SEO ranking. Search engines will use their own methods to calculate rankings using multiple factors to display search results.
One of the many methods that can help your rankings is to submit your blog and article directories. I am only going to focus on three directories I have recently submitted this blog to. In another post I will talk about article directories and perhaps other blog directories..
I am only listing those sites that I recently submitted to in June of this year and have a easy user-friendly portal. So, check them out for yourself. As I continue with my research I may post about others later after I submit my sites.
The site is easy to navigate. It does not make you feel like it is a “spammy site”I was quite surprised that the site I listed was indexed so quickly. So I am encouraged to submit more sites.
Blogflux lets you know on the first page that they currently feature 157,056 blogs. So you get excited about adding your blogs to the number. They stress the type of blogs they WILL NOT accept. It is an easy submission process.
Is also stupidly easy to navigate. It has been around for a long time so their is a high level of reliability. Their blog directory tab when clicked does not allow you the opportunity to search the categories. But I they make it easy to contact them. So I will let them know that this boomer is concerned. I am sure it will be corrected.
I used one of my handy forms from the Blog Management System to record the name of the directory, user name and password plus the specific blog I submitted.
If you have other favorite blog directories please share.
Let’s face it Baby Boomers Have a LOT to say and share. I invite you to take part in being a guest blogger on this site. I am looking for content on the things you are passionate about. (No porn and other things that might offend others will not post)
Do you have hobbies, expertise, experience, reflections, business ideas, plus?
If yes, please contact me in the comments and let’s make this happen.Be sure to leave a link to one of your sites in the comment.
You may already be tweeting but how about tweeting your blog posts? Well before you can tweet your blog posts you have to know how to blog. Are you ready to learn how to blog?
If you know someone or if you want to start a blog learn from a master.
Problogger, Darren Rowse has an awesome course on starting a blog. Another reason to review this class is if you have not been blogging in a while. What a great way to get a refresher because some things may have changed and this can get your current.
So, happy blogging and once you get started you can be a guest blogger right here.
Also, do the work you must do in preparation but do not let perfectionism get in the way of getting your blog started. Click this link to get more information on how to start a blog in 2019
I want to share some insights from a fellow baby boomer who, hopefully, will soon be blogging. She is one of the co-directors of the Echoes Grief Center in Orange, NJ. She also runs a writing group there to help others deal better with their grief. I predict a lot of bloggers will evolve from this group.
Please feel free to share your insights and links to any articles or blog posts you have written. As baby boomers we have experienced so much death, sadness and
Let Someone Know You are Praying for them
SADNESS AND WINTER HOLIDAYS by Charlene Mason-Reese MSW, LCSW
Gaiety, joy, good wishes appear
to dominate the weeks from Thanksgiving until New Year. People want to be
happy, families want Thanksgiving meal to be full of good memories, because
family members have not seen each other in sometime. Their mouths are already
tasting the comforting foods they know will be served; stuffing themselves,
telling stories of remember when…..
The watching of the Thanksgiving
Macy Day Parade, marking the end of fall and seeing Santa bring in the winter
season, along with the holiday cheer. In the United States, Santa brings in
remembrances of many holidays, even for those that don’t celebrate Christmas.
To name a few Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Felice Navidad, and there are others that
author does not wish to discount, but these days bring feelings of joy and
grief. For some because the realization of their loss that may occurred
yesterday or ten years ago. It brings the challenge of what does one do with
those feelings? “I cried it out, right?” There are no more tears to cry. No one
wants to hear about my sadness, they are talking about what bargains they are
going to pick up Black Friday.
The stress of Black Friday, a
holiday all its own and the special meaning it is given, because each night the
newscasters tell us how many shopping days there are until Christmas, now that
tightens the noose, because that is a reminder of all that has not been done.
This does not take the people into the season over the edge, because the joy
that is anticipated of watching the children open the hard fought for gifts,
the long lines stood on. The looking and waiting for parking spaces, on to have
someone else pull in it-remember it is time for good will to all men
There are segments of the
population that all of this happiness, the season especially !….makes their
world seem even dimmer – that is the people who GRIEVE for what they have lost.
The loss may have been recent or
may be one that other people feel they should have gotten a handle on, the
death occurred so long ago. It is difficult to be in around people who are
openly expressing their happiness and then there is the person who feels as
though their heart has broken and the pieces are free floating. As the person
who is experiencing these feelings, you also have feelings of guilt. You don’t
want to take away the joy others are feeling, but you really can’t understand
how the world is continuing as normal, while your universe has shattered. Who
can you go to, people may be tired of hearing about your loss, but don’t they know,
don’t they see that earth has stopped, it is no longer revolving around the
sun.
Family, friends are you aware of
the grieving person amongst you? Are you aware that they are sitting at the
table – you see them, but they see an empty seat where the deceased used to be,
even if it is occupied? Yes, others at the table may also feel the absence of
the departed, but grief is unique to each person, it depends on many things.
For one, it depends on the relationship of who died: spouse mother, father, child,
aunt, uncle, grandparent, or someone who was a confidant.
The person at the table who is
suffering the acute grief has burden of not showing the feeling, but putting on
a mask and responding, “I’m okay, everything is fine”.
How do all of you get through this
“happy season”?
One important way is to remember
the person, where appropriate. Talk about the deceased, they are a part of the
“remember when stories”. It is important not to act like they never existed or
it is a “no no” to bring the name of the individual up in conversation.
Think of the good times, how the individual enriched the lives of those around them, how having him or her in your world for whatever amount of time they were in your life outweighs the sadness that is legitimately felt at this time. The loss and sadness may be so overwhelming right now, but it can get better. If we permit it the deep painful sadness will become more of a shadow, a fog. The memory of the love one keeps the best part of them alive. As long as they are remembered there is a terminal death, because they will always be with us, we will feel the love.
Blog posts really speak volumes when they have a picture. Now this picture is of a baby boomer taking a picture with her Ipad of a bottle of perfume she is about to list online. This picture could be edited on photo software like Photoshop or some free platforms like Irfanview to take away some of the writing on the shirt and unpainted steps.
Or you could find a way to make this picture work with your blog post idea in it’s raw form. So let’s explore a couple of possibilities.
If I wanted to post about online eCommerce and baby boomer hustles I could show write a post on “How to Use Outside Natural Light to Take Pictures of Your Product.”
If I wanted to post about how to motivate yourself to paint your front steps I could use this picture. Or, I could focus on the back of the shirt to write a post about marketing with tee shirts.
The point is to step out of the box and use the photos you already have to attach to your blog posts. There are no firm rules here. You can either make the picture relate to the post you have already written or create a post to a picture you like.
But whatever you do DO NOT USE A PICTURE FROM GOOGLE IMAGES unless it says you can. It is the quickest way to get your blogs shut down by your host. I know because it happened to me one day. I used an image that was copyright protected and ALL my blogs were shut down.
So, get that phone, ipad, and camera ready and start taking pictures that you can use for that next blog post. Or search your picture warehouse for great shots that will inspire you to write.
What are your thoughts? Please no comments about the grey hair. LOL
ALL my sites were shut down because a few of them were hacked. So not only did it mean cleaning up the sites but I also moved all my sites to a different host with a different philosophy and support level.. Now this demanded that either I start devoting more time to my neglected sites or rethink this blogging thing. So as I take this journey of rediscovery and focus I thought I would go back to some basics to reinforce them not only for myself but perhaps others who, like most of us baby boomers visit the dramas of LIFE on a daily basis.and must make priorities..
What is the Plan or Purpose of your Blog?
As I visit each blog to determine if it stays or goes away to blog heaven I am revisiting why I started the blog. I am also rethinking who my audience is, how often I will post and why I am devoting time to post to the site. It must have a purpose.
I challenge you to use this chart as a guide to help you answer some of these questions for each and every one of your blogs. Let me know how you are doing..
Consider re-evaluating your blogs by answering these questions.
How many times have you created a blog post but realized that you needed a picture? Or, you have a great picture and had to create a blog post just so you could show it off?
I strong believe that whether you locate the picture first and create a blog post around it or create the blog post and hunt for a picture that it does not matter. Both are challenging and the result is the same.
For this short post I created the post for it then looked for the picture. I did not have a picture of a chicken and egg together. Nor did I have a live chicken I could do a quick photo shoot. So I decided to share a picture of a chess board. To me blogging is much like playing chess. It needs a strategy and the one with the best strategy wins the game!
