This would have been post one hundred if I actually kept all of them but anyways this is as good as time as any for a little recap into what I have learned so far.
1. There is no chance you are going to be able to keep everyone happy all of the time. There has been a couple of posts that brought up less then favorable reviews. This is my fault of not being clear with the intentions of the article but I was not expecting the reaction that it got.
2. Traffic. As this blog grows more and more of the traffic is coming in from search engines but the main source is still stumbleupon. Through this rather helpful tool I have learned articles that I think are good and articles that the stumbleupon users think are good are rarely the same.
3. Other blogs part one. There are so many self improvement sites out there that basically read the same way and are difficult to tell apart. Most of them have the same five to ten goals then for the real answers want you to buy their book or ebook. I guess they may be doing good business as there are a lot of copycats out there.
4. Other blogs part two. There are a lot of people out there in a similar situation to mine that are basically trying to do the same thing which is push for a change when it comes to mental health and the stigma attached to it. These are the ones I try to seek out and have met a number of the writers who willingly expose their souls in order to help someone else. Every week there is a new batch popping up and some last while others just fade away for a variety of different reasons but each one is special and teaches a valuable lesson. Days when I struggle to write a quick visit to one of many sites provides a shot in the arm and a kick in the ass to remind me of the bigger purpose.
5. Stealing. I spent some time at www.xinureturns.com/ which shows the number of sites that are linked to your own plus some other handy tools and I was shocked to see some of my creations on other peoples sites which A) They never asked if they could B) Had nothing to do with the topic. The best example is a golf site that had part of my article “The Story In The Picture“. In this particular article I described how I searched my house with a “golf club” in hand in the middle of a paranoia/psychosis moment. I am guessing that the site has some sort of program that scours the net and grabs articles that have basic key words in them. Stealing by proxy is still stealing. I really do not know how to stop the above thefts so if anyone has any ideas please let me know.
I am still in the learning curve when it comes to the world of blogging and have a long way to to go but that is okay as in some ways its part of the fun. Mind you yesterday I was trying to implement a new theme and about half way through had an urge to see how far I could throw the computer but no one ever said it would be easy.
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You’re so intellectual I’m not surprised you have trouble finding piers with similar reading habits. I try and read some of that detail packed scientific stuff but quite frankly I don’t have the intellectual chops to deal with much of it. I found this blog, depression introspection the other day (and stumbled it) and it made me think of you. The posts are frequently meaty, on things like drug trials and stuff. Of course she’s a chick, so there’s chick stuff too. (Plus she’s religious. Obviously bright though.)
Yeah, you got it on the sites linking to you. They’re almost certainly trying to play the Google Adsense game. The deal is, you need lots and lots of original copy to improve you search ranking. (Among other things you need to do.) So they usually pingback to the blogger with just a snippet on their site. I use a Creative Commons license on my blog. It doesn’t stop them because I choose to let anybody use my stuff as long as they attribute it to me, share it freely, and don’t make money on it. There are several licenses to choose from. I have no idea if there’s any point in actually doing that but maybe if you hit on something where there was a lot of money involved it would give you a leg up if things went to court. I try to look at it like any publicity is good publicity. I mean who knows, some borderline golfer might be out there …
Good luck.
It annoys me that someone else can just grab any post they want and put it up on their site. It would be one thing if it was just the occasional post but there are a couple out there that are taking everything that shows up on this blog. I wish I knew the answer to solving this dilemma. Will look in to the licensing to see if that will make a difference. take care