Am I On The Right Path?

[Andrew Michaels]

I recently started Home | Lifecrafting, a personal development website.

So far I've got two articles up there, and my primary focus is to create a lot of good unique content. My goal is to turn the site into a revenue producer, and I've thrown up an adsense ad on every post, but I've decided against going crazy with the monetization of the blog until I've got a decent amount of traffic, as I feel that I should be concentrating on content.

So, I want to know if I'm doing everything I should be to attract readers, who I hope to form into a returning group. So far I've:

1) Submitted all my articles to Onlywire, which submits my articles to 25 social bookmarking sites, though I've yet to get a single hit off of this.

2) Submitted my articles to a number of relevant blog carnivals.

Should I be doing something else?

I was also wondering what people thought of my site. Is the layout good? Easy to navigate?

I would love it if someone would give me some feedback on my two articles:

1) Chasing Arete
2) Unplug the Cable, Rediscover Your Life

Any thoughts? Would you like to see something changed? Suggestions?

I should also note that my blog is in a very early form. The about, contact, and other pages are in their infancy or not even added. Some of the menus may not be completly operation either.

Thanks for your time,
-Andrew

[Shamou]

Hello Andrew…

First, it is obvious that you have read extensively in the Personal Development field and that you know quite a bit about it… however, it is also evident that, though you can talk the talk… you have not yet walked the walk…

You want to teach people how to expand and to grow… yet your personal achievement in that field seem quite modest by comparison…

There are thousands of motivators and self-help gurus out there who have already achieved much more than you have… so why should people chose to listen to you rather than seek the advice of someone who “already has been there…???”

Also, the quality of the writing should be improved upon… those articles are good enough to post in a casual forum… but they fails to have the professional touch necessary to reach today’s level of excellence…

So, my advice to you would be to seek personal success first… work on your writing skill… then, go out in the world and lead by example rather than with rhetoric…

Good luck to you…

.

[Andrew Michaels]

I'm curious as to your definition of success. How do you know what my achievements are when I haven't written about them? "Seek the help of someone who has already been there?" Been where? You speak in rather vague generalities.

Also, why should I ever wish to go out into the world and lead? I'm hardly trying to turn myself into a slick PD entrepreneur and lead a social revolution or give seminars of possibly dubious value. I'm merely someone who has had problems, has found some solutions, and wants to help other human beings improve themselves.

I'm afraid that you've ascribed to me goals which are both erroneous and in opposition to my actual ones.

All the same, I appreciate the feedback and your time.

Best,
Andrew

Originally Posted by Shamou

Hello Andrew…

First, it is obvious that you have read extensively in the Personal Development field and that you know quite a bit about it… however, it is also evident that, though you can talk the talk… you have not yet walked the walk…

You want to teach people how to expand and to grow… yet your personal achievement in that field seem quite modest by comparison…

There are thousands of motivators and self-help gurus out there who have already achieved much more than you have… so why should people chose to listen to you rather than seek the advice of someone who “already has been there…???”

Also, the quality of the writing should be improved upon… those articles are good enough to post in a casual forum… but they fails to have the professional touch necessary to reach today’s level of excellence…

So, my advice to you would be to seek personal success first… work on your writing skill… then, go out in the world and lead by example rather than with rhetoric…

Good luck to you…

.

[trevord92]

Hi Andrew

It's a good start in my view.

Try putting something in the "about me" part that's actually about you (easy to overlook the generic stuff blogs put in when they try to be helpful).

Submit articles - ideally different ones, not identical to the ones on your site - to places like Ezine Articles.

Make sure the headline is attractive and that the author's bio has something to intrigue people enough that they click through to your blog.

The layout looks like a reasonably standard blog - most people will be able to navigate it fine.

Keep writing interesting articles and people will (eventually) pick up on them. If you can add a newsletter (maybe delivered by autoresponder) and get sign-ups then people will have more reason to come back to you.

Just my 2 cents,

Trevor

[Andrew Michaels]

Thanks Trevor. Much appreciated.

Originally Posted by trevord92

Hi Andrew

It's a good start in my view.

Try putting something in the "about me" part that's actually about you (easy to overlook the generic stuff blogs put in when they try to be helpful).

Submit articles - ideally different ones, not identical to the ones on your site - to places like Ezine Articles.

Make sure the headline is attractive and that the author's bio has something to intrigue people enough that they click through to your blog.

The layout looks like a reasonably standard blog - most people will be able to navigate it fine.

Keep writing interesting articles and people will (eventually) pick up on them. If you can add a newsletter (maybe delivered by autoresponder) and get sign-ups then people will have more reason to come back to you.

Just my 2 cents,

Trevor

[Russjm]

The site has some technical/formatting issues. For example, on the left navigation bar, the "About Me" section says "Put something about you here by editing the right sidebar", so it looks like you haven't added anything about yourself, but you do have an "About Me" listing. The problem with the listing is two-fold. Number 1, it gets cut off mid-sentence. This is exactly how it appears:

"My name is Andrew; you’ll forgive me if I don’t give you my last name, as my field of employment would not look kindly upon any kind out outside association, though that sounds far more serious than it is in real life. I’m extremely interested in personal development and improvement, and enjoy helping other improve themselves as well. I believe that"

The second problem, which is also a problem with both articles, is that the text is located all the way below the navigation bar. So in order to access the articles and the "About Me" listing, the visitor has to scroll down for a while before reaching the text, and there is a big chunk of blank white space above it, which makes the site look poorly designed/amateurish.

Fix those issues and focus on adding more content. In addition, my personal opinion would be to scrap the current "About Me" that you have and rewrite it. As it is now, it has a spelling error in line 2: "...upon any kind out outside association...". In addition, the whole vibe that the paragraph portrays is of someone who isn't very confident about what they're doing. It sounds like someone who just decided to start up a blog about something and settled on personal development as a topic. I'm not saying that's what you have actually done, but that's the feeling that your "About Me" section portrays.

[Andrew Michaels]

Originally Posted by Russjm

The site has some technical/formatting issues. For example, on the left navigation bar, the "About Me" section says "Put something about you here by editing the right sidebar", so it looks like you haven't added anything about yourself, but you do have an "About Me" listing. The problem with the listing is two-fold. Number 1, it gets cut off mid-sentence. This is exactly how it appears:

"My name is Andrew; you’ll forgive me if I don’t give you my last name, as my field of employment would not look kindly upon any kind out outside association, though that sounds far more serious than it is in real life. I’m extremely interested in personal development and improvement, and enjoy helping other improve themselves as well. I believe that"

The second problem, which is also a problem with both articles, is that the text is located all the way below the navigation bar. So in order to access the articles and the "About Me" listing, the visitor has to scroll down for a while before reaching the text, and there is a big chunk of blank white space above it, which makes the site look poorly designed/amateurish.

Hmmm. All of the page problems don't appear for me, but you're not the first person to tell me of the messed up formating. I'm actually using a pretty good looking theme, but I guess I'll just have to replace it.

[Peter S C]

Firstly, well done for taking the first step and creating a website. I had a quick look and can see potential, but there are definately some areas you can work on.

About Me - even before people look at your content, they want to get a sense of who you are. Don't want to mention your surname? Fine, but why point that out to people? Open yourself up to people so that they can try and connect with you. People's perception of you will affect how they read your articles.

Google adsense - to be honest I find the large block you are using distracting. Maybe consider a smaller advert at this stage.

Content - some interesting content, but it didn't really "grip" me. Maybe consider some images for your posts, or highlighting key points, or shorter paragraphs.

Good luck!

[Russjm]

Originally Posted by Andrew Michaels

Hmmm. All of the page problems don't appear for me, but you're not the first person to tell me of the messed up formating. I'm actually using a pretty good looking theme, but I guess I'll just have to replace it.

I'm using Internet Explorer 6 by the way. If you can get the browser info from everyone who is having the problem with the formatting, it may help to narrow down the cause of the issue.

[Andrew Michaels]

Originally Posted by Russjm

I'm using Internet Explorer 6 by the way. If you can get the browser info from everyone who is having the problem with the formatting, it may help to narrow down the cause of the issue.

I believe the problem should be fixed. Can you check now please?

Thanks,
Andrew

[Russjm]

Originally Posted by Andrew Michaels

I believe the problem should be fixed. Can you check now please?

Thanks,
Andrew

The new layout looks much better and more professional than the old one, and the formatting issue is resolved. However, on the Meta section on the left, when I click on "Entries RSS" or "Comments RSS" I get this display:

"xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
- <!-- generator="wordpress/2.1.2"
-->
- <rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/">
- <channel>
<title>Comments for Lifecrafting</title>
<link>http://lifecrafting.net</link>
<description />
<pubDate>Sun, 22 Apr 2007 02:20:20 +0000</pubDate>
<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=2.1.2</generator>
</channel>
</rss>"

[AndrewJ]

Looks ok here in both IE 6 and Firefox.

Andrew

[Andrew Michaels]

Originally Posted by Russjm

The new layout looks much better and more professional than the old one, and the formatting issue is resolved. However, on the Meta section on the left, when I click on "Entries RSS" or "Comments RSS" I get this display:

"xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
- <!-- generator="wordpress/2.1.2"
-->
- <rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/">
- <channel>
<title>Comments for Lifecrafting</title>
<link>http://lifecrafting.net</link>
<description />
<pubDate>Sun, 22 Apr 2007 02:20:20 +0000</pubDate>
<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=2.1.2</generator>
</channel>
</rss>"

Strange. Works for me. Anyone else have that problem? When I click I have the option to subscribe to my feed.

[Russjm]

Originally Posted by Andrew Michaels

Strange. Works for me. Anyone else have that problem? When I click I have the option to subscribe to my feed.

The "Entries RSS" link now works for me, but the "Comments RSS" one still doesn't. Looks like the links to the feed aren't updating properly when you're making the changes. When I click on "Entries RSS", which now works, the URL that I am taken to is the correct host for your feed, "http://feeds.feedburner.com/Lifecrafting". But the "Comments RSS" link is not taking me to a feeburner URL, it is taking me to this URL "http://lifecrafting.net/comments/feed"

[ZHereford]

Andrew your site has already improved substantially since I looked last time.

Your article on Arete is fascinating! However, I think you need to edit your writing a few times before your put it up on your site.

e.g. Under:
What to Expect ....financially responsibility....
The Aftermath ....that they mediocrity... & Depsite what you may think
In the biblical quote you have (arte) in brackets

I definitely think you are on the right track and you have an interesting and relevant perspective.

[Freelancer]

Very nice blog, start cranking out more content and you have yourself a loyal reader.

[Andrew Michaels]

If anyone is interested, I've just posted my next blog entry.

[Brutha]

From your About Me Page:

lost a large amount of weight,

How much? The reader needs to be able to form a mental picture in his mind.

if you wish to maintain iArete is the height of

[Andrew Michaels]

Just to update, I just posted another article: Finding And Setting Goals

[Andrew Michaels]

Next Post Up: Meat Part II: How It’s Layering You With Fat And Giving You Diabetes.

This will probably be the last mention I make of additional posts on this forum post.

[ken nubo]

Hey man, good work! Keep up the good posts and shizzle.

If you want more income stream, at kontera.com ads, which is the double underlined ads you see on steve's post ... they're somewhat good and obviously you could use it with conjunction with adsense.

Throw in some clickbank.com products and you'll fly brother. And don't forget text ad links

Keep it up!