What is it that makes someone think they can visit a blog, leave a stupid, sarcastic comment, leave no website url, and think that’s gonna ride. It won’t ride here.

I’ve never made a comment policy, or even felt the need to. But lately, I’ve been getting comments from trolls, and that’s why comments automatically go into moderation for someone who’s never commented here before.

Here are a few points that outline what I think is and is not acceptable.

• First of all, I do like to get comments on the blog. I think they add life to a blog, and contribute new ideas and knowledge to the given subject.
• I retain the right to edit or delete any comment.
• Spam will be removed. Hopefully, the tools I have in place will continue to catch the far majority of automated spam, however if any slips through, it will be removed immediately.
• Rude comments, profanity, and comments that are unrelated to the post will be deleted.
• I will edit out links in comments that are unrelated to the post. Links pointing to related content are OK.
• Comments that disagree with something I say, but are written in a respectful and helpful manner are welcome. I’m always open to you teaching me something I don’t know……just don’t be a jerk about it.

That’s it, I doubt this will change anything though, because I’m sure trolls don’t read my posts anyway. They just like to stir up trouble and leave their links.

I’ve learned from a few people, the difference between social media traffic versus search engine traffic. Which is better and why? What’s more lucrative between tons of RSS subscribers versus tons of Google traffic? I’m very proud to have all of you who are subscribed to my feed, so don’t get the wrong idea. The point I’m making is, that if you’re reading this post through your feed reader, the chances of you coming here and clicking an affiliate link or an ad are somewhere between slim and none, right? I have been fortunate enough to make an affiliate sale here and there, but not enough to pay my mortgage or anything!

Now I’ve come to realize in all of this, that this site is something that I really enjoy, and I want it to be a valuable resource for those interested in the topics I discuss. However, I also realize that this site is not where I will generate money, unless I continue doing custom blog themes and blog customization….something I’m slowly backing away from.

So I will continue to keep this blog updated with similar content to what has been here in the past. I already have multiple other websites that I’m using for money making purposes. The only thing I plan to change here, is I’m going to be much more selective on the affiliate programs that will be displayed here. I don’t see anything wrong with making a referral commission if one of you decide to sign up with 1and1 Hosting or BANS….as I use them both. My plan is to cut down all ads into two categories.

1. Affiliate ads about products that I personally use and recommend
2. and Direct Ads.

I don’t have anything set up yet for the direct ads, but I will offer that to anyone who’s interested.

I would like to get much active in posting, where you have some idea when I might post. Here are the problems. I’m spending my time trying to get my niche sites up and going, and I don’t want a posting schedule…..then the blog turns into a job that I’ll feel pressured to do. Who wants that? Not me.

Here right away, I’ll have something up about the direct advertising. I have no idea if this will interest anyone. If not, that’s OK. At least I’ll know.

Moving Away from Free Themes

Honestly, I don’t want to come across the wrong way when I say this, but providing support has worn me down. I get emails everyday for theme support, and I try my best to anwer them all and provide good support. But this has taken my focus off of things that I want to do, and it’s kept me from updating this blog as much as I would like. Let me point out that I really don’t mind answering questions about the themes, and providing fixes if something is working right, but those are only a small percentage of the support questions I get. The far majority are one of the following…

• Something isn’t working, and it’s usually the result of an ad, javascript, plugin, or some other changes that have been made in attempt to modify the design. It just surprises me that folks expect me to fix something that was working before they started making changes.
• I read your tutorial on…..and it doesn’t work for me. This is usually because the instructions were not followed closely.
• How do I……..? No, I don’t want you to do it, just tell me what to do, and I’ll do the work. ~ Honestly, it takes me much longer to explain how to do something, as opposed to doing it myself. So why would I do that, when you could pay me a few bucks to take care of it for you?

Aside from the inbox overload, I’ve had a lot of fun building themes. The various reasons I’ve done so include:

1. To feel like I was giving something back to the WordPress community(afterall, WP is free and awesome).
2. I wanted to learn an enjoyable skill I could use to make money at some point.
3. And originally, I wanted to get links back to this website as quickly as I could.

I would say I’ve accomplished each of those objectives. I think now is the time to tweak my goals and look at other things I’d like to do online. Whatever direction I go, I will still provide support for my themes. As for building free themes, I may provide one occasionally, but not very often. There are plenty of designers who put out free themes and there are thousands of themes available.

Personal blog?

So the next thing on my mind is this: Should I make Antbag.com a personal blog, as it was originally intended to be? You know, one of those blogs where I write about my weekend, home-ownership, car trouble, grilled steaks, guitar playing, and whatever else happens to be going on in my life at the moment? I would enjoy this kind of blog, because it would be all about me And you know people like to talk about themselves. The only problem is, everybody else would get bored quick, because I’m pretty plain and un-exciting. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with personal blogs, I’m just not sure that would be right for Antbag.com. I don’t want to completely change everything I’ve tried to do, and run off the couple of hundred subscribers that I have. As a result of the links pointing back to this site I’ve gotten from the themes, my Technorati rank looks strong, and the front page of this site is now appearing to be a PR6. These things lead me to believe that I should use this platform to try and provide something that would be valuable to someone.

Marketing

One thing I’ve not been very good at is marketing. I think I have a somewhat decent understanding of how to market a website online, it’s just something I’ve never been motivated to do in terms of adwords, learning SEO, social media, etc. One idea I”m considering at this point, is trying to make this website profitable. The changes would probably include advertising, as well as articles related to affiliate marketing, online business ventures, etc.

In the past, I’ve been hesitant about advertising here. From the designer part of my mind, ads just ruin a good design(not that my design is that great, haha), and it’s much harder to get a website to validate when you have ads. I’ve also never thought I had enough traffic to justify advertising. But my interest in building an online stream of income is becoming more prevalent. Not so much from being a web designer or freelancer, but more in building websites, and hopefully profitable ones. More on that later.

Conclusion

So, that’s what’s going on here. If I do decide to include advertising, that will give me a good excuse reason to build a new design for the site. I always enjoy that. Thanks for being a reader of Antbag.com.

As my current blog approaches it’s first birthday on February 1st, I’ve started looking at different ways to make it better, and to push it to a higher level in terms of usefulness and readership. One of the key components of this strategy is using social media in an effective way. This post will cover a few basics, so if you’re an old pro when it comes to mingling on the social web, feel free to add your knowledge to the mix.

For me, the term social media conjures up images of blinking neon MySpace profiles, but fortunately, there’s more to social networking on the web than what MySpace has to offer. In my opinion, MySpace is the trailer-trash of social media…maybe that’s a little harsh. I think it can be used in a positive way, but it seems to be more about keeping in touch with friends, connecting with musicians, and it’s a haven for very sleazy spam….and I truly hate spam, sleazy or not. On the other hand, there are a number of social media websites that offer a more concentrated purpose, and focus on content rather than your profile. Among the best I know of are Del.icio.us and StumbleUpon.

Mmmm, Del.icio.us

Del.icio.us is a web bookmarking site where you can bookmark websites and articles on your own profile. You can also see a list of the most popular bookmarks at any given moment, which is an excellent resource for finding great content.

Stumble Upon Useful Content

My favorite at the moment is StumbleUpon. With StumbleUpon, you give articles and websites you like the “thumbs up”, and you can write short reviews as to why you like them. As you build a circle of friends, you are sharing with each other the great content that you find. The more people who give an article or site the “thumbs up” or write a review, the more popular that article becomes, resulting in a LOT of traffic being sent to that website. There’s huge potential here, as SU currently has over 4 million users. At the same time, browsing through recent entries by SU friends helps me find awesome content that is related to what I’m interested in. It’s win-win.

How to Get Started with StumbleUpon

Here are the basics: To get the most out of StumbleUpon, you download the SU toolbar which has several built in key components such as the ability to give a website the “thumbs up” without pulling up the StumbleUpon website. Another feature, is a “Stumble” button which, when clicked, takes you to targeted websites based on your interests. The toolbar is not required to use StumbleUpon, however it makes the site easier to use.

To get started on the SU website, you simply sign up for an account and fill in your profile details. Then search for friends who are perhaps bloggers, or SU can search your email contacts to help you find people you know on StumbleUpon. Whether you immediately find people you know, you can still use the site. If you find a website or blog post that you find incredibly helpful or well-written, you can submit it to StumbleUpon. SU will have the entry listed in you’re profile as the one who submitted the article.

Before I started using StumbleUpon, I noticed that I started getting a fair amount of traffic from them. I soon figured out that a fellow blogger friend had submitted a couple of my posts. The traffic surprised me.

Use StumbleUpon to Build a Campaign

Another interesting feature of StumbleUpon, is the ability to create a campaign. A campaign is basically where you pay SU to send traffic your way. $50 will buy you 1000 visits with there “Stumble” feature. Personally, I haven’t tried this feature out for myself as of yet, but several other bloggers I’m familiar with have done so with great results. So, as I get more familiar with the site, I may try this soon.

Other Good Social Media Sites

If you aren’t familiar with social media, here are a few more great social media sites that revolve around content.

• Digg
• Reddit
• Design Float (Another favorite as it’s targeted toward Web Design/Programming related content)

What Am I Missing?

I know there are some other social networks such as Facebook, MyBlogLog, Blog Catalog, etc, which I have a profile on. But in this post, I wanted to point more toward content-centered sites. What other content rich social media sites have you found to be a great resource for both finding content and marketing your own?

It’s strange, I’ve posted here on Antbag.com a lot less over the past two months or so as I’ve picked up more work, but my blog seems to be picking up a little steam. My subscriber count is higher than it’s ever been, my daily unique visitor count is up. I’ve had some much larger days than I’m having right now(days I’ve launched a new WP Theme, with it’s subsequent announcement on Weblog Tools Collection), but not on a consistent basis.

Another neat thing, due to backlinks from my WP Themes, is that I’ve been listed this week in Technoratti’s Top 100 popular blogs at #99. I seriously would have expected this to bring in a rush of traffic, but truth is, it hasn’t. According to my stats, I’ve not had even one referrel this week from Technoratti….strange.

As for being in the Top 100, I know there are quite a few designers out there who have WAY more back-links than me, but are not listed in the Top 100 popular blogs. My assumption is that once they figure out the reason I have all those back-links(WordPress Themes), I’ll be off the list. Anyway, kinda nice to see my blog listed.

Every so often, I seem to lose all motivation to write new posts on my blog. Sometimes it’s because I’ve gotten so busy, I don’t feel I have the time or energy to put into making a post that may actually be useful to someone. However, I have to remind myself every so often that it’s just a blog. If you take it too seriously, that takes all the fun out of it. So what are some resources for when you’re fresh out of ideas? Read along as I lay out a few suggestions.

Look at Photos

Probably one of my favorite things to do when looking for design ideas is to navigate through iStockPhoto or Flickr, and get great ideas for color schemes, etc. The same holds true for posting ideas. The normal way of thinking, is that an illustration photo should be chosen to go along with the subject of your post. But sometimes the opposite holds true. Maybe the way a photo strikes you can give you new ideas for things to write about. Yes, it’s happened to me.

Be a Reader

Exactly. Read just to read, and not just blogs. Read books, magazines, and websites/blogs. All of these things open the mind to new ideas and possibilities. Not only will it give you writing ideas, but you may actually learn something. While growing up, I hated reading. It wasn’t the actual act of reading that was so bad, but I’ve established two primary reasons for this. 1)I thought I already knew everything I needed to know(how dumb, huh?) and 2)I would rather be outside doing something rather than reading about doing something. As I’ve grown a little older, I’ve come to love to read. Somewhere along the way, I realized that I wasn’t so smart after-all and I like to learn. Reading can also improve your writing skills when it comes to how you phrase things, so there are multiple benefits. Ok, enough about reading, hehe.

Stop Multi-tasking

Remember me saying how busy I’ve been? Well, truth is, most of the time we get a lot more done when we can actually focus on what we’re doing. In my mind, multi-tasking is the opposite of that. Multi-tasking is like juggling……you don’t have time to think about anything else. I think we can be both more productive and focused if we work by a task list instead. I probably do my best thinking while doing yard work(mowing, raking, etc.). There’s not much multi-tasking you can do while you’re pushing a lawn-mower! Anyway, the more focused you can be on the tasks that you do each day, the more your mind will produce good ideas.

Visit an Online Forum

I think we’ve all probably read information on forums. Heck, we’re probably all members of a couple of them. There’s alway good discussion happening on forums, and that’s a good place to get posting ideas quick. I believe I could easily do nothing but tutorials by reading WordPress and Web Design forums. There are always people having problems. If you know the solution, write a tutorial. I did this when I started this blog. Most of the tutorials I could find about installing WordPress didn’t mention a couple of things that were different with the host that I have. While reading the WordPress forum, I noticed that there were a lot of people who had asked the same questions. Once I found the solution, I wrote a tutorial on my blog, and it has remained one of my most popular posts.

What About You?

I would be interested in learning some of your ideas. We all have dry spells from time to time when it comes to ideas. What are some of the ways you overcome your zombie state and wake your brain?

The apparent reason the Page Rank of so many sites took a turn for the worse, is based on the sites having paid links. Not sure how this will affect services like Text Link Ads, but I’m sure it’s not good news for them.

I’ve never had paid links here before, mainly because I didn’t qualify back when I applied for TLA. At the time, my blog had a Page Rank of 3, and I think a PR4 was required before your site was considered established enough to be profitable. With this update, seems I’m a PR5 now. Although I’ve placed ads on this site from time to time, I’ve never really set out to directly monetize it. What money I have made from it has been in more of an indirect way(WP design/customization), not through ads.

Why does it matter?

So the golden question is, how important is the Page Rank of your site? Maki, from popular money-making blog, Dosh Dosh, says it doesn’t matter. He makes the point that that what Google does is completely out of anyones control, and bloggers/siteowners don’t need systems that use Page Rank as a metric for measuring comparative value.

If your ad revenue is affected just because PageRank changes, then you’re not doing something right. Not exploring the right monetization options. Not having a long term business plan. Not making full use of the traffic you have. Not getting the right advertisers who know the value of your site.

While I agree with him, I must admit that I get a big chunk of the traffic on this site through Google. Ad revenue aside, if Page Rank determines how high on the list your site is, then you can’t deny it’s somewhat important. Especially when you consider that Google is seemingly taking over the world…

While checking out an incoming link the other day, it turned out to be from a friend of mine with a Tumblr tumblelog. So I decided to sign up, and check it out.

Of course, the first thing I did to mine, before even thinking about posting, was to start manipulating the template. I ended up making it look like a mini version of this site…..which only took about 20 minutes. Tumblr is like a super mini version of WordPress, without so many options. You have no sidebar. Basically, you have four six ways that you can post:

1. text
2. video
3. quote
4. link
5. chat
6. photo

It’s that simple. It’s actually fun.

So, what’s it actually good for?

For me, the value is creating a cool place to bookmark places on the web I run across, and to post things I want to remember. Does anyone actually read these things? I really don’t know. Whether they read mine or not, it doesn’t really matter to me. I like it because it’s extremely easy to use, and it’s easy to change the design however you want. If you want to see what I find interesting, you can check mine out at antbag.tumblr.com.

This would be a great opportunity for someone trying to get into full-time blogging. You could start from scratch like most, or you could step right into a ready-made profitable web business. The blog already has 2k subscribers at only one post per week. If a talented writer bought the blog and wrote 3-5 times or more per week, I’m betting the subscriber-ship would definitely grow. (Unfortunately, I’m not a very talented writer, myself. ) You not only get an established blog and domain name, but also the excellent design. Collis’ websites sport some of the best looking blog designs on the web IMHO.

So, have any of you ever considered buying a website? What elements would help you determine what the site is worth? If you’re interested in NorthxEast, you can hop on over to Sitepoint and place a bid.

Three primary reasons for my lack of posting.

1. Although I’m spending less time online, I have become busy doing some design work.
2. I have several business ideas, that I’ve been spending some time laying the foundations for.
3. I’ve been spending more time with my son – away from home. If we’re at home all day, I’m probably spending too much time on the computer, while he’s not getting the attention he deserves.

What About You?

I realize that the term “blogoholic” is no new term, and so, I’m breaking no new ground here. However, I thought it would be fun to put together this list of traits that may indicate you need to step away, and take a little time off from your blog. It’s easy to get so caught up in the web, that you forget you actually have a life to live.

1. You fall asleep at night thinking about your next post.
2. You wake up in the morning thinking about your next post.
3. You check your web statistics more than three times a day.
4. You would rather blog than eat or sleep.
5. You feel like the world will end when your internet connection goes down.
6. You see a possible blog post in everything you see and do.
7. You have Google Reader set as your homepage.
8. Your level of self-esteem is tied to the number of blog comments you receive.
9. Your level of self-esteem is tied to the number of RSS Subscribers you have.
10. You consider the the WordPress Codex as pleasure reading.

If this sounds like you, maybe you should back off a bit……..