Hello, friends.  I hope 2012 is treating you well and that you’ve been able to stick with whatever resolutions you’ve made so far.  As you can imagine, I’m doing a great job sticking to mine!

I was recently approached by a bloggy friend, Hannah Tyler of Insomniac Mom (well worth a visit, I assure you!), about how to take her blog to the next level.  I was flattered and pleased; I never considered myself an expert on this, but since it seems to just keep getting better over here, I guess I can share what I know.  As I wrote yesterday, I highly recommend you advertising here at Rub Some Dirt On It, but besides that, there are several ways that I’ve been able to increase my readership and take this blog from a digital baby book of my kids’ lives to an outlet for me to celebrate my journey as a mother and photographer.  I made this decision almost exactly a year ago, but it took some preparation to get RSDOI’s game face on.  Things to consider:

Boundaries:

Do you have any?  Are you prepared to share it all, regardless of how it may make people in your life feel?  Is your family on board with this new transition or would they prefer to be kept out of it?  Are you going to use real names and places, or aliases?  My original blog was like a treasure map for kidnappers to come and snag my beautiful children:  here are our full names, the town where we live, and the places we hang out on a regular basis.  Please come by and introduce yourself while you are secretly plotting your kidnapping.  Not something everyone has to worry about, but definitely something to consider.  If you are taking your blog public and promoting the hell out of it, your personal information will be everywhere.  Are you prepared for that?

Okay, now that you’ve committed to sharing all your deep, dark secrets and innermost thoughts, you may begin your wild ride to bloggy fame.  The number one way to do that is through being as completely honest as possible, so that people feel like they can connect with you and that you can understand where they’re coming from.  My posts with the most feedback are the ones when I say things like, I can’t do it all and I feel like a terrible wife/friend/mother/blogger because those are the ones when people respond and say, You’re not alone!  Thank you for saying that because I thought I was the only one!  And once you realize all that, then the rest will come naturally.  Exhaustingly, but naturally.

So without further ado, here are some ways to rock 2012 in all your bloggy glory:

1.  You have to try to post as often as possible (as close to every day as you can).  People must come and stay for as long as possible, not arrive and see you haven’t written anything new and then bounce.  Having people come and leave immediately isn’t great for your stats.  Also, if they come often and you don’t have new material, they may not come back.  So post at least 5x per week but try to do daily (which sucks because sometimes, there’s just not much to say!) but that way people will be more likely to bookmark you or follow you in some way to be sure they don’t miss out on the next brilliant thing you may share!

2.  You have to make connections and not assume that other people are going to come find you.  The best way to do that is to blog hop.  If you go to my links and hops tab  you’ll find a zillion places that I link up on a regular basis.  Once I started really hopping I made a spreadsheet of where I try to go every day.  You have to put yourself out there and link link link link.  Then you have to comment like crazy.  Don’t just link and run.   The thing about blogs is that even though you may never meet these people, in a few weeks you can feel like best friends.  Comment on other’s people’s links, follow who you like, then try to get back there a few times, comment, and establish a relationship.  Also, if people comment on your blog, you should go back to their site and comment back.  This becomes exhausting when your blog is bigger, but it’s a great way to start relationships.  You’ll see that on a lot of “bigger” blogs, they’ll have a “blog roll” or “blogs I love” or “links” etc. so you can just start going to those, finding the ones that have link parties or blog hops, and start joining!  I have one on Thursdays about what makes you happy; just start linking up there, commenting on those around you, and hopefully establish some new friendships!

3.  Join blogging communities.  My favorites are I Blog For Me (formerly For the Love of Blogs) and BlogHer, but there is many others like Bloggy Moms and Mom Bloggers Club.  You have to do a lot of work posting there as well as your own sites, but it’s worth it.  I would post, cut and paste it on those sites or join up to their hops.  I have been featured on a few of them as well, and that was such a confidence booster.  It makes you feel a little less like a teeny tiny tadpole in a humongous sea of bloggers.  Recognition is food for the bloggy soul, so put yourself out there to be recognized!

4.  Guest post.  Anywhere you see someone ask, take them up on it.  I have done two guest posts at A Taste of T (also fabulous and I highly recommend it!), and she had way more followers than me.  She put my button up on her sidebar and people were paying her quite a bit to do so!  I felt like I was being asked to sit at the cool table at lunch!  Guest posting is like taking out free ad space; there is absolutely nothing to lose and so much to gain!

5.  Social Media.  Need I say more?  I read somewhere that the first few years of blogging feel like “post, tweet, repeat,” and that really is a true statement.  You can’t assume people are going to remember to come to your blog every day, so remind them!  Google+, Facebook fan pages, Twitter, and Networked blogs are all a great avenue to share your updated information, not to mention all the other social media I haven’t had time to investigate (yet).  My husband and I both syndicate my blog posts on our personal Facebook walls as well as my Facebook fan page, so people get a heck of a lot of reminders from me (if they haven’t hidden me yet!).

6.  Like I said above, you can also advertise/sponsor another blog, like mine.  You pay someone a small fee, and they put your button in their sidebar, post/tweet/facebook about you, and encourage people to head over to your site.  Some people charge as much as $20/month or more.  I charge $7.  Something to consider if you want to get exposure to a lot of people quickly.  Something doubly worth considering if you have an etsy shop and want to drive people that way.

That’s all I can think of right now, but I’m sure there are ways to drive traffic to your site that I haven’t even considered.  If you know of some noteworthy methods, please feel free to comment!  If not, realize that you have a long journey ahead of you, with many MANY long nights in your future, but once your blog has its sea legs, it’s smooth sailing from here.  Maybe at this time next year you’ll be the one showing bloggy newbies the ropes!  Cheers to that!

So, I took a leap of faith.  I changed my header.  My header!  My darling header that everyone either loves or hates, but it is a topic of conversation nonetheless.  That photo of Jax that sucks people in and has them comment, “I saw your button and I just had to come to your site!” or “Oh, your header just made my day.”  Needless to say, it’s important to me, and apparently, to you.  But, times, they are a-changing.  And thus, I felt the need to make a new header–one that acknowledges both of my beautiful children!

But why today?  Why now?  Well, in case you haven’t met, let me introduce you to Hayley J,

a dear blogging friend of mine whose blog I salivate over and look forward to reading because she is living the life we all dream of, literally globe-trotting.  I’ve enjoyed her posts about her time in Germany, her trips to Amsterdam and Scotland, and now she’s coming home to the US of A.  But I know I will still love to follow her around California and the parts of the country that I used to call home, which are now just a vague memory as my children throw macaroni and cheese at me and stick their finger up my nose.  However, besides enjoying her blog for her travelocity, she is an amazing photographer!  Go see for yourself!

My point?  Oh, yes.  My header.  Why did I choose today as the day to make a change?  Because of Hayley’s fabulous tutorial about how to make beautiful banner for your blog!  It inspired me and gave me the heads up that I needed as to where to start, and then I took it from there.  I love the photo text banner she made, but I realized it wasn’t for me.  Is it for you?  Go see, because she is offering to make a handful of them for people before she starts charging y’all for her genius!  If you think your blog needs a little face-lift, this is the perfect opportunity!

So, now, please tell me what you think about the new header.  Not sure how I feel about the outside border now, but I thought it was too stark with just the chocolate brown.  Thoughts?  Questions?  Concerns?  I’d love to hear about them, and remember to sign up to receive my and anyone else’s replies!

Thanks, Hayley!

Final Update:  I still can only get photos to upload to my posts half of the time.  There seems to be no rhyme or reason as far as size or location.  But I DID find a work-around to upload my pictures!  I can upload them and save them through picnik.com.  I don’t understand why–sometimes the new picnik version is even larger than the original, but it worked 100% of the time.  In my next post, some of the picnik photos have frames, some don’t.  I was just trying to see if any variable made a difference.  So far, no pattern.  Sorry for the inconsitency; next post I’ll be more consistent!  But at least it’s working!  Thank you thank you thank you for your patience!  Business as usual, from now on, I hope!!

New Update:  I tried to upload four photos to my post on my husband’s work computer and on my in-laws’ computer.  My husband’s was 4 for 4, and I could do 3 of 4 on my in-laws’.  My laptop is by far newer and faster than either of those two, and yet, I can’t upload a single photo.  Is there something going on that is making my photos even BIGGER than they already are?  They range from about 400 KB to 1.3 MB in size.  Yet I can upload them on other computers, but not here.  Could there be something that is happening to them based on their location (like the folder where they are stored on the desktop?).  Tomorrow my husband is going to double check their size on his computer and I am going to try to compress the images and see if that helps.  What’s the point in shooting in RAW then?  Sigh…still no new post.  I am so sorry, blog friends.  Thank you for your continued patience and support.

At least I am going to bed at a reasonable time. 

Update:  I have a plan.

I just spent an hour on the phone with my 3rd Hostgator rep.  This guy completed agreed with you and me, and agreed that the other guy had no clue what he was talking about!!  Ah, the frustration of potentially wasting money because I am out of my field here.  This last guy, Billy (I think), logged in as me and had me email him my actual photos and was able to upload them fine on his end.  Therefore, WP is fine, Hostgator is fine, his computer is fine, my photos are fine; that just leaves MY computer as the variable.  I am off to my husband’s work and my in-laws’ to use their computers and hopefully determine if it’s this piece of crap laptop (oops, did I say that out loud?).  Fingers crossed it is!  Then at least we’ll know WHAT the problem is, if not how to deal with it.  Yet. 

There’s hope!

Also, thanks to all of you and your kind words of support here and on twitter.  Thank you, Dwija, for your help especially!  I meant it when I said I love and miss this  blogging community!!  You’re all the best.

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Hi everyone, I just need to vent and figure this whole f-ing WordPress deal out.  I hope somebody can say, “No!  That’s not right!” or “Yes, dumbass, what did you think?”  Maybe I’m a complete idiot, but this whole thing is making me so overwhelmed.  I don’t know what I’m doing.

Okay, so I hired someone to transfer all my Blogger posts/images/followers, etc. to WordPress. She did a great job and I was ready to start blogging here at WP.  I wrote that quick first post, and last night I began my first “real” post–with all my photos and happiness oozing out of every sentence.  Then I tried to upload photos.  Uploaded two, and then I got an error.  Out of memory.  What?  According to the guy at Hostgator, it means that the most I can upload is 64 MB.  For my whole blog.  What?  Some of my photos are over 1 MB large–how is it possible that ALL THE PHOTOS for the past 500 posts equal less than 64 MB?  When I go to upload a photo it says, Maximum Upload File Size: 64 MB.  Doesn’t that mean the most each individual file can be is 64 MB?  Not that I can have 64 MB of data in my entire freaking blog??  I know I have way more than that already.  What the hell?

So I talked to Hostgator, where I have a hatchling plan.  I don’t know how much it cost me per month, but it’s less than $10 per month, and maybe less than $5 if I signed up for a lengthy plan (which I did but I forget for how long).   I’ve paid Hostgator $82 already, so I’m sure it’s the 2 or 3 year plan.  He says that I’ve used up all my memory for my entire blog and that I have to upgrade to VPS hosting, which is $40 per month!!!  I don’t make nearly enough  on here to justify spending that kind of money.  I’m feeling so overwhelmed and out of my league.  I don’t understand a lick about computers, coding, technology.  How do I know this is legit?  It doesn’t sound legit to me.  I’ve spent so many hours on this transition already, staying up until 1 in the morning the past two nights, trying to get back to the business of just being me.  I can’t go back to Blogger.  I’ve already invested way too much time, energy, and money.  So I’m trapped here, and I’m in bed with Hostgator for a lengthy period of time.  I’m such a novice at this that I could easily be taken advantage of.  How do I know if this is right?

All I want to do is WRITE.  I miss blogging.  I miss musing and editing and photo challenges and blog hops and interacting with my bloggy community.  I am trapped in a technological hellhole and I don’t know a damn thing about it.  I’m trusting my baby, this blog, to the expertise of strangers and customer service on the phone and help forums online, and all I want to do is sit next to someone and say, “Fix this.  It is very important to me.  I know I’m just one of millions of people to you, but you are all I have.  Help me like you know me and care about me.”  But is that even possible in this world?

I just want my blog back.  My boring, stupid, easy-to-understand, frustrating, basic blog.  It feels like I’ve lost a friend, and I want it back.  What do I do?