My First Year Anniversary

cakeWell today my blog is celebrating its first birthday on WordPress, it’s exactly one year ago today that I first set up this domain and blog on this address using independent hosting, and using WordPress as the blogging platform.And what a year it’s been despite the fact there were some low’s to start off with when I first started off, on WordPress mainly because I didn’t really know what I was doing at first.

And also due to the fact that I was in away starting from scratch although I was on blogger previously, I was literally starting from zero, so really one year ago I read in have a clue about how things would work out or where I would end up.

But it has turned out better than I have ever expected, I am still here, I am still blogging and I have to say I am glad I stuck it out even along the bumpy roads that have come along every once in a while, at one time earlier on this year my traffic levels seem to be quite low and I was quite concerned that something was really wrong, but really there was nothing to worry about because within a few weeks my traffic levels returned to normal.

This year has been the best so far as far as my blogging is concerned, things started to turn around I would say at the end of January, looking back over my stats over the year this is when things started to turn around, I started posting more posts and also did one or two tweaks on the blog.

Which seemed to make a huge difference, I also started to put into practice what I had learned from the blogging course I was doing namely Blog Mastermind, then about March time I think it was my posts started to appear on Reuters which bought me even more exposure, I have been a member of blog catalog, and my blog log for quite some time now, and started to join various neighbourhoods within those two blogging networks which are very big indeed.

I also make sure that I was getting exposure by leaving comments on a authoritative blog every so often, I think the combination of this and doing many other marketing activities, has really paid off I also concentrated on SEO for my blog which consisted of directly submissions.

But also this year there has been a lot of natural organic growth, I am finding now even more that a lot of people who are within the same area as may as far as blogging is concerned are finding me and also syndicating my content.

My blog is starting to pop up all over the place on the Internet which is a really good thing, sometimes when I am looking at my stats to see where people come from is quite amazing where they do come from, it does seem to pop up in the most strangest of places.

Sometimes there is no actual path as to where the visitor has come from so I’m assuming that people must be passing my site around like a bookmark, because also I noticed that some of the referrals are coming from e-mails, and people saving their pages to their hard drive perhaps somebody saves the page off line and then sends it to another person and so on.

This in itself all creates a natural organic growth which the search engines do like and also it gets me lots of free exposure, I haven’t had to spend any money whatsoever advertising my blog at all the only investment I have had to make is time.

When I initially set up this blog on WordPress one year ago I suppose you could say I had quite a. I don’t know what is going to happen, attitude as far as things are concerned and didn’t think too much about where I would be this time this year, or even if I would be still here, although I must say that I didn’t really think that at the time.

All in all though I have really been quite pleasantly surprised at how things have progressed, it may seem quite strange saying this but I never expected it to grow as much as it has.

When I used to think about seeing other people doing well with their blogs and wondered if I would be ever able to be as good or do as well as them, when I was on blogger initially first starting off I seem to be struggling all the time to get anywhere as far as traffic and anything else was concerned for that matter.

But looking back on that experience, I can actually see that the platform that I was on was very limiting, WordPress just changes the whole ballgame as a whole when it comes to blogging.

You have far more power at your hands than you ever could imagine I used to hear people talking about it all the time and raving about how good it is, but I must say I don’t think I really took much notice, and probably thought it was something I never would be using myself.

Over all as far as things go with my blog it does seem to be gaining a lot of traction over the Internet, I am getting more comments now than I used to, more people are subscribing to the RSS feed, and the e-mail service which is provided also.

So in conclusion one year on I can honesty say that is the probably, the best thing I’ve ever done for a very long time. Starting this blog has made me realise that I can stay at things when needed, and I would also say that it has made me grow as a person and made me become more confident as well. I never actually realised it before but I find writing now quite therapeutic.

So much so that I am now in the process of starting another blog I still need to add some more content to it and get the RSS feed setup and so forth, but it won’t be too long now before I will launch it. Funnily enough when I first started to think about this blog I ummmed and arrrred about it for ages but then just decided to get it up and see what happens with it.

That particular blog is about the way my life is going and life as a whole really and how I have got to where I am now, as I get nearer to where I want it I will announce on this blog when I am ready to launch it.

That’s all I want to say really does want to say thank you for everybody who take’s the time to leave comments, about my blog and posts, all the people who read my blog how many there are of you I don’t really know sometimes it is hard to judge because a lot of people do lurk and don’t say anything.

So one year on to this very day all I can say it’s been a very learning, exhilarating, and exciting experience for me as a whole I really am hoping now that blogging will open a lot of doors for me and hopefully get me some kind of recognition which I would truly love.

And on a ending note if there is anybody who is interested in any kind of sponsorship deals then please do get in contact with me as I would be very interested to talk business.

Or also if you have any questions about blogging in general or anything really doesn’t matter just drop me a line.

Blog News

Hi all things with the blog are going great, I am really amazed at how well things are going with it my RSS feed readers peaked to about 70 at one stage, I am now ranking in Google for weight loss on page 2 at the present, also ranking well for the term weight loss blog and move up and down slightly for the term lose weight between page 1 and 2 position 10 and 11.

And this is something I don’t check all that often but my page rank now is a 4 yipeee !!!! so all in all things are heading in the right direction, also I am getting a low of natural link growth from other bloggers people asking me to join there health communities, traffic is stable although it has slowed a bit with the warm weather.

So all this offsets the technical problems I have been experiencing of recent have a great day.

P.S wrote this on my laptop in the garden isn’t technology great.

Blogger Interview Amelia Burton

Hi all I have a real treat today as I managed to get a interview, with a gym owner and personal trainer, whom I got to know through blog catalog.

Her name is Amelia Burton from Oz Australia

images.websnapr.com

Hi Amelia and welcome to my blog and thanks for allowing me to interview yourself.

Mark

Would you like to introduce yourself and give the readers some background information about what you do, who you are and your blog.

Amelia

am a fitness nut who has been in the industry for 11 years. I was a trainer full time for 7 of those years and have been running my own health club for 5 years.

I have a science degree majoring in human movement, and love most forms of exercise. I am an avid runner, weight trainer, horse rider and love nothing better than to smash the punching bag (or my opponent!)

I started blogging because I am always asked great questions about health and fitness so I decided to put the answers in writing. It gives me an opportunity to connect with my members and friends and hopefully motivate the odd person along the way.

Mark

Do you yourself follow a particular eating plan or any diets per se, is there any that you recommend to other people or your clients ?

Amelia

Eat less, move more! That’s my philosophy. I follow a 1200-1500 calorie per day regime including everything from carbs to protein. I have 2 secret weapons, Juice Plus (multi Vitamin) and fish oil. Protein features high on my list as well.

Mark

What would you say is the most enjoyable thing about being the owner of a gym and is it something that you have always wanted to do ?

Amelia

When you are a personal trainer, you get so much reward from helping your clients. Well owning a gym has multiplied that feeling for me. I speak to so many more people each day so I feel like I am helping even more people. In addition the business experience has constantly stimulated me. I did not always want to own my own club, it happened about 5 years after I had been training.

Mark

How did you decide on the keep fit industry was what you wanted to do was inspired by someone or something earlier on in your life ?

Amelia

I have always been active but more of an autonomous exerciser rather than team sports. I loved training in the gym so I decided I might do some aerobics instructing whilst I was studying. Before long I had learnt more about PT, and decided that was more my scene. I did a PT course and worked as a trainer for 1 year before enrolling in a science degree. The rest is history!

Mark

What foreseeable plans do you have in the near future are there any other things in the pipeline that you would like to do or haven’t done just yet ?

Amelia

Keep doing what I am doing! I am speaking at some corporate health events, which I love and will continue to do. I am excited as I am upgrading my website soon, and expanding the topics that I write about.

Mark

Do you follow a particular exercise routine yourself and if so would you like to share it with the readers ?

Amelia

I am 11 weeks away from a marathon, so all I seem to do is run! I do around 60-80km per week, and 2 strength training/sprint sessions. Once the Sydney marathon is over, I will get back in the weights room in a big way as I have lost my ass!

Mark

If there is one particular piece of advice as regards losing weight diet and keeping fit, that you could give to people and if so what would it be ?

Amelia

Can I give two tips? Firstly, follow a calorie restricted diet. Take the time to work out how many calories you eat each day and stick to it. Secondly, when you start exercising, don’t eat more. Many people thinks 3 workouts per week gives them licence to eat what ever they want

In regards to exercise, learn to love pushing yourself. Many people make excuses for why they can’t push themselves, but whatever your physical condition, find a way to go out of your comfort zone.

Mark

What you think about all the slimming products are on the market at the moment would you say they are a waste of money, or in your experience do any of them work at all ?

I don’t endorse slimming tablets, and chemicals such as xenecal, however when following a calorie restricted diet, I think slimming shakes/ meal replacements have their place. For people who struggle with appetite, shakes can help suppress the urge to eat, whilst keeping to daily allowances. My personal preference is all natural products though.

Mark

Are you enjoying being a blogger and is it everything you expected it to be, and do you get concerned at all about all the competition from other health and fitness blogs ?

Oh yes I love it!!!! I never run out of ideas, in fact I have too many and sometimes can’t decide which direction to go. I am not threatened by other bloggers as I look at them like partners, aiming to inspire people to lead active, healthy lives…

Well that concludes this interview I would like to thank Amelia, for taking the time to do this for me as. I know she is very busy.

And here is Amelia’s blog address http://www.ameliaburton.com.au/ if you want check it out.

Stay tuned for more.

Incoming search terms for the article:

amelia burton ,amelia burton or amelia * burton or burton amelia ,ecgc questionnaries tyre ,amelia burton blog ,amelia burton tumblr ,interview with gym owner

Blogger Interview The Fit Shack

dscf0014

Blogger Interview The Fit Shack with JoLynn Braley

images.websnapr.com

A bit of a change of direction for myself this week I’m going to start doing blogger interviews on a regular basis.

So here is the first in a series of interviews, and my very first guest is JoLynn Braley, so to start off I was like to say welcome to my blog JoLynn, and thanks for doing this interview with me so without further ado let’s get started.

Thanks for interviewing me today Mark, I’m happy to be a guest on Lose That Tyre!

Mark

How did you first become interested in blogging and can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your blog?

JoLynn

Well, here’s the simple stuff – my name is JoLynn Braley and you can find me blogging at The Fit Shack about weight loss, health, and fitness from a whole mind, body, spirit perspective. The bulk of what I write about is based on my own life experience with being overweight and addicted to refined sugar, however I also love to do research and have written several posts on topics that required a good deal of it.

I first became interested in blogging when I learned of it at the end of 2006. Even though I hadn’t heard of blogging until then, I had been active in a weight loss support forum since 2004 and blogging seemed like a natural extension of forum posting in my mind. While it’s not exactly the same, if I hadn’t been involved in that forum I don’t know if I would have started blogging.

Mark

Your blog revolves around mind body and spirit how does that fit in with your blog and the message that you want to give to other people?

JoLynn

That’s an excellent question and is based on what I’ve learned throughout my life, struggling with overeating and overweight. What I’ve learned is that there is no quick fix, that being overweight is a complex issue for many people, and that if prescribing a healthy diet and exercise plan to an overweight person were enough then no one would be overweight, would they?

I’ve learned through my experience that it takes a complete mind, body, spirit shift in order to embrace a healthy lifestyle – this shift is needed to not only lose weight, but to keep it off for life. For example, if you’re an emotional eater (using food for emotions), addicted to refined sugar and white flour (or other foods like unhealthy fats, excess salt, or even dairy), or think that you don’t deserve to be healthy and fit, then there are other changes that need to be made.

Sure, you need to change how you eat and exercise, but if you don’t change how you think and feel about yourself and food then you very likely won’t maintain your loss for life.

Mark

I see you have an interest in the law of attraction would you say this has helped your blog go in the direction you want it to and that it helped you in your life as well?

JoLynn

I have several teachers that I gravitate towards who teach the law of attraction and how your thoughts create your reality, Abraham-Hicks and Louise L. Hay being two of them. I am still learning every day about the law of attraction and I do feel that it has definitely played a positive role in growing my blog.

Mark

Was it your own weight issues that make you want to start a blog about weight loss or was it something you was just interested in anyway?

JoLynn

I started blogging about this topic because I have personal experience with it. I wouldn’t have seen myself blogging over the long run about a topic that I wasn’t truly interested in, and I also wanted to spread the word on just how unhealthy processed food filled with refined sugar is for the human race.

Mark

What would you say the most rewarding thing is about being a blogger?

JoLynn

It’s most rewarding when I receive feedback that I’ve helped one of my readers, either through a comment, a blog post, or an email response I’ve given them after they have contacted me. If I didn’t receive any feedback from my readers and know that I was making a positive impact I think it would be difficult for me to continue putting time and effort into the posts that I write since my goal is to provide value for my readers.

Mark

Would you say that blogging has helped you grow as a person and make you more accountable for things in your life such as keeping your weight on track?

JoLynn

Yes, blogging has definitely helped me grow as a person. It has helped me grow in the areas of time management, communication, personal growth, self-improvement, customer service, diplomacy, conviction, persistence, consistency, just to name a few – and these don’t necessarily have anything at all to do with my personal weight loss and fitness goals!

Yes, blogging in itself is an experience in personal growth, however it also helps me stay accountable for my personal health and fitness goals.

I’ve even started Twittering about my fitness progress for an added measure of accountability, as well as to help motivate and inspire others to get moving with their own fitness goals.

Mark

Where do you see your blog going in the near future as to how it is now do you have any exciting new developments for the near future?

JoLynn

I have several ideas that I have not gone live with yet on my blog so at this time they are surprises for the future – good question though! :)

Where I see it going in general is that it continues to grow in readership and exposure to more and more people who are interested in not only losing weight, but in living their life to their fullest potential. After all, if you don’t have your health, then what do you have?

Incoming search terms for the article:

the fit shack ,jo lynn brailey scam ,jolynn braley review ,the fit shack review

We Are on Problogger II

Hi everybody I just wanted to share something with you that happened in the eaDarren Rowserly hours of this morning. I stayed up quite late this morning in order to listen to a webinar, which as it happens was about a micro-blogging platform, well several actually, as I was waiting to listen to the call.

I was sitting on twitter and noticed that Darren Rowse, was feeling a bit uninspired and wanted people to send him their best post of the week, so at first I wasn’t really sure which one to send then I just thought why not send the post about being on Reuters, it seemed to me to be the perfect fit.

So I sent that tweet to him on twitter, and just left it at that I know a lot of people follow him on twitter, so I didn’t know whether or not he would see my tweet, so a few minutes later I noticed my e-mail program was showing new mail being as, I am quite a curious type of person.

I had a look and it was a e-mail from my blog asking for a comment to be moderated, as I looked at the e-mail in more depth, I noticed it was from a domain in Australia so I went to my dashboard to moderate the comment and where it had come from.

It just so happens it was a trackback from probloggers, website he had kindly put my tweet in his post, so this naturally created a link back to my blog. And as a result of this I am now starting to get traffic from it, and because some people have republished the original post that is bringing other sources of traffic and other links as well to my blog.

I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am about all of this happening, in short a short space of time what with the posts on Reuters and now this well I am just speechless.

So far it’s been and in amazing week for me and my blog and it just seems to keep getting better all the time. And to finish this post I would just like to share something with you, which goes to prove if you have the right mindset you can accomplish amazing things.

Quite some time ago now I wrote down a list of intentions and one of them was to have a successful blog bringing in lots of traffic, I did have a look for the piece of paper on which I wrote this but I can’t find it, and now that very dream that I had written on that piece of paper is now happening.

I don’t know if you have seen the movie The Secret, but when I first saw this I really enjoyed watching it even if it is supposed to be hocus-pocus, but the mindset that I’ve been adopting quite recently is constantly telling myself that I’m going to be successful and make it.

And quite amazingly it seems to be working, even when I meditate, I tend to see myself at my computer focused and writing all these great posts, I would just like to say, Darren thank you so much for doing this for me I am so truly grateful I really am.

To put into words how I feel at this very moment in time, would be extremely hard to explain, but if there is such a thing as cloud nine, then I think I am on it now, and will be for quite some time. And for anybody who is reading this post and thinks, I wish I could be successful like that well there is only one thing that I can say based on my experience just do it, I used to stop myself from doing things all the time because of a fear of failure.

But one thing I learned was that successful people do in fact fail in order to succeed, you have to take the rough with the smooth there is no other way, so you understand what I’m saying I haven’t just banged this blog up and got all this straight away, I was on blogger for a year struggling like crazy to get any kind of traffic let alone recognition.

And at times I kept asking myself what am I doing this for I’m not getting anywhere, but nonetheless something kept me going, I did have long periods of time where I didn’t write anything at all due to unforeseen circumstances that happened about 15 months ago.

I suffered with bouts of depression on and off since Christmas, due to the anniversary of losing my father. Then at the end of January something told me I needed to be doing something now so I came back to my Internet Marketing roots, turned on the computer and more or less started from scratch.

Even though last August I had moved my blog to, WordPress and its own domain I did have some success in that month due to the fact of what I learnt in the 30 day challenge. But because I wasn’t writing any posts for such a long time my traffic levels dwindled down to about between 20 to 25 visits a day.

And just before Christmas I had signed up for the blogging mastermind programme that Yaro, runs, I had even gotten way behind in that and really hadn’t looked at the lessons at all, all in all I think there was about eight lessons in total that I hadn’t even looked at.

The real truth is I just couldn’t be bothered my head just felt numb that is the only way, I can really explain how I felt at the end of January, for some reason I was drawn to face book and remembered in the back of my mind that Sarah Harris had said that she was busy running a site called kaboom marketing.

At one time we will used to meet in a Skype chat room and discuss things and share links etc and what things were and weren’t working for as regards Internet Marketing, this was about the time that the 30 day challenge was being run. So I decided to see what this site was about I got a rough idea by reading the front page and also there was the mention of a book at the end of the information that was provided about the service they were running.

And it contained the methods they were using so I decided to buy it and with that I got two weeks free and decided well I have nothing to lose, so became a member I have known Sarah and Camilla. Since the 30 day challenge although I didn’t know Camilla that well at the time.

But that was the start of it all really I told Camilla and Sarah, about that I had been doing that much and so on, and when I first started they gave me a nudge here and there, when I would stray and forget to do things.

And from there I started reading my blogging mastermind lessons one a day so within about eight days, I had managed to catch up with that program and came up to date, I then started to write posts again and social bookmark my posts as well.

And slowly but surely as I added plug-ins to my blog and wrote more posts optimised my posts for the search engines things started to gradually start to happen traffic levels started to increase but I also did a lot of other things as well in the process, like adding my social site profiles to places like friend feeder and so on these are sites where you put all your things like twitter jaiku and pownce.

So people can see what you’re bookmarking and blogging etc. Then as time went on I decided to buy a new theme which I did, not long after that one of my posts was picked up by Reteurs and really it has all snowballed from there.

I really do hope that you get some inspiration from his post I know it isn’t related to weight loss or diet or food etc. But I felt that I would like to share my struggles how I’ve been feeling and what’s been going on hopefully some people will gain inspiration from this post and see that great things are possible no matter how bad things are at the time.

The moral of this story is a change of mindset can make amazing wonderful things happen as I now know.

if you would like to follow me on twitter here is my twitter profile

Here is the post as it was shown on pro-bloggers website

P.S a quick note to the blog burst team this would look nice on Reuters website don’t you think. Sorry couldn’t resist that if you can’t manage it Im ok with that.

[Read more...]

We Are On Reuters !

reuters 2Hi everybody well imagine my surprise, a couple of weeks ago, I was checking my stats and I noticed a link coming from Reuters website, so as you do I followed the link back to see how it got there.

And then to my amazement, there it was one of my posts on their website well I was gobsmacked to say the least, I have been meaning to do this post for quite some time now, so decided to do it and let everybody know my good news.

Since this has happened it has given me more of a feeling of recognition and a lot of hope for my blog. Everything is going the right way now my, RSS subscribers are gradually increasing, as is my traffic. And I am really pleased with the direction that my blog is going.

I would like to thank you to all the people that have left me positive comments, and the ones that have e-mailed me and said, how much they enjoy reading my blog.

I would also like to thank some other people as well who have made me believe in myself and kept me going, firstly I would like to say thank you to Joe Cheray, for persistently telling me I had something good from the very start.

I would like to thank you to Ed Dale and Dan Raine, whom ran the 30 day challenge, which I can safely say changed my whole life. And for all the wonderful people I came in contact with whilst doing it.

I would like to thank you to Sarah Harris and Camilla Ricketts, from Kaboom Marketing for making me believe in myself also. And thanks to someone called Spider whom when I was on blogger kept leaving me comments and kept me going also, and thanks also to Pete Cohen for dropping by when he did leaving me a comment which was another big surprise also. And my grateful thanks to the Blog Burst Team for putting me in the spotlight.

There is one just last thing to add to this, I am currently a student on the blogging mastermind program which is run by Yaro Starak, and I believe that since I have been doing this course it has taken my blogging to the next level and will continue to do so.

You have probably noticed by now that I’m using a new theme which is the WordPress Dream Theme which was designed by Ben Cope, I would like to say thank you to him also, for helping me when I had some niggling problems at the beginning, and sorting them out so quickly with a minimum of fuss, if your thinking of getting a new theme for your blog. I can highly recommend Ben as he does care about his customers and gives outstanding customer support.

In finishing this post all I can say is this year so far has far exceeded my expectations, here are the links to the posts that are on Reuters so far nine in total.

Post One

Post Two

Post Three

Post Four

Post Five

Post Six

Post Seven

Post Eight

Post Nine

There is a morale to all this of which, I am well aware of now you do get more of what you focus on.

Incoming search terms for the article:

reuters ,رويترز

Blogging Is It Good for your Health ?

Is Blogging good for your health my thoughts

This is what computers looked like back when we first made BloggerWell based upon my own experiences of blogging, I would say that most of my experiences have been good as far as blogging is concerned. The reason for writing this post is I came across a article on Discoveries website which speaks about this very thing.

How it helps

Blogging as a medium has a social aspect to it, which means you can tend to feel less lonely in your everyday life if you don’t come into contact with other people very often, also you have freedom to express yourself in writing, this can be very therapeutic if you have something on your mind that you would like to get off your chest. Lots of people write about lots of different topics as far as blogging is concerned whether it be a health problem, or what you did today it doesn’t really matter.

Blogging as a whole can give you a sense of community very much the same as in the real world when someone leaves a comment on your blog, it can mean such a lot especially if it is a positive one, you will get negative ones but that is just the very nature of blogging. Comments as a whole are a great way to get to know other bloggers.

The study information

In the study that was conducted it was found that the participants that blogged, felt that they were more socially supported, than those who didn’t blog. The mental health of people hadn’t blogged previously were put side-by-side, to see what differences there were, the researchers messaged 600 members on my space.com, who filled out a questionnaire. They said that what they would call potential bloggers felt less satisfied as people.

They felt they had no community connection with other people and felt more isolated and therefore a lot less happier, and they were far more likely to use vented anger, as well as expressing their emotions.

When they were more inclined to become bloggers it was as if they were saying to themselves “I’m going to do this because I know it will help me”.

Two months later the potential bloggers were asked the same questions again about how they felt as people. This time round they said they found that they felt a sense of community, with other people because they were interacting with other people whom were doing the same activity as them.

Also some participants who didn’t blog but networked socially through my space felt less stressed and depressed over the two-month study period.

How blogging helped me

Well firstly when I started this blog initially it was my way of documenting my weight loss journey but now it has evolved way beyond that now, for instance when I first started trying to lose weight I used to document my weekly weigh-ins. People would come along and leave a comment, and tell you how well you were doing which is like having support in the real world, in order to help you towards your goal. Which gives you moral support very much like in the real world.

But other aspects of it are doing the research for posts you become very knowledgeable about what foods to eat, which stop cravings and leave you feeling fuller for longer, what kind of exercise will give you the best benefits. I don’t think if I would have started this blog that I would know what I do now about food nutrition etc and exercise.

Also it gives you a focus, when you’re bored you’re far more likely to eat food rather than if you are doing something ,I know it tends to work for me. I eat far less when I am writing posts than I would do if I was doing some other activity such as watching television.

Conclusion

I would say that from my point of view I would agree with everything that has been said as regards the study, it would be interesting if anyone else reading this would be able to add their own experiences by leaving a comment thus proving that the theory of this does work.

So if you have had any positive experiences from blogging then please let us know.

Source Discovery

Incoming search terms for the article:

conclusion of benefits of exercise ,conclusion to benefits of excercise

Bad Behavior has blocked 1842 access attempts in the last 7 days.