Category: Blogger (Page 4 of 8)

My 2016 in depth

I had goals going into 2016, it wasn’t much but I’m glad I made some of them come true.

Things I’m proud of

To be honest, I don’t have much to show for this year, I’m thankful for what I have indeed, but it’s been this situation where nothing can be achieved, I guess staying alive is an achievement to be celebrated.



 
 The gift of life is not to be taken lightly, life should be celebrated always. It’s just this civil war situation that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere soon.
This year was a tough year, things are getting worse in Libya and it takes it’s toll on everyone, myself included.

1. New job

I got a steady job, the same job I’ve been struggling to get for the last three years as a teaching assistant, despite the need for new teaching assistants the government won’t sign them until the political dispute in Libya is resolved -isn’t that a bit silly?-

sadly now due to financial issues I’m not getting paid (and none of the teaching assistants got paid so far) which makes me wonder if this is better than sitting at home or working part time for startups and non government organizations?

2. Self discovery

I’ve also taken some steps on the path of knowing who I am, according to the MBTI chart I am an ISFJ, knowing that and reading a lot about the subject has opened my eyes on many things I didn’t know about myself, and answered some nagging questions I was desperate to find out, and never really knew how to formulate!

3. My blog

My blog has done very well this year, possibly better than all the past years put together! It’s either I was really bad before or that I got insanely good this year, it goes both ways!

I’ve written a lot less this year compared to 2015, it doesn’t have to do with my “new job”, it was a resolution I took in order to improve the quality of my writing, posting less but meaning more. Being my own worst critic I’d say that the quality of my writing has improved, but not as much as it should.

This leaves room for improvement, I still need to build my blog’s fanbase and newsletter, to be honest I haven’t put much work into that and it needs to be on the list!

I know that blogging has taken a backseat to other social media platforms, but I do believe that blogging will be great again!

4. Radio head

Some of my good friends kept suggesting I should be on the radio (not sure if they mean I’m ugly and I need to be heard not seen or something else), so I’ve decided to give radio a chance. I’ve started to contribute to WTSLTY “Wrestling talk show Libya”, and I’ve attended comi-con with them in a very special episode.

I’ve also taken an internship at t radio Alsa’aa 90.7, first starting as a guest on some of the shows, I learned some things about the business!

The gift of moving on

I tend to over think a lot of things in my life, mostly the past and it’s events specifically.
I’ve set a goal for myself last year to move on past all the things that trouble me and hinder my progress as a human being, did I manage to achieve this seemingly easy goal? Well to a certain degree.
Moving on isn’t as simple as pressing a button! It requires time and effort in order to be able to move on, luckily life keeps pushing new obstacles down the road, which helps letting go of the old!

Thinking about my past won’t change it, it would waste the time I should be living in.The gift of moving on, it’s something that shouldn’t be taken for granted!

I’ve also learned some valuable lessons in life that I might share in a later post, some of them seem like  basic things, while they truly mean so much!

A quick site update

  • My blog has reached 189,400 thousand views, just a tad bit shy of 200 thousand views!
  • I have removed Disqus from my blog, it didn’t sync old comments and it confused people! I haven’t received a single comment the whole time it was installed! 

What do you think of this post? Did you review your past year? And what are your goals for the year to come? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
For an Arabic version of this post, click here.

How to be a consistent blogger and have fun doing it?

Many of my long time readers keep asking me this question: How do you manage to stay consistent with blogging? To be honest! Blogging isn’t as easy as sending a tweet or updating your Facebook status! But it is very enjoyable and more self satisfying than the two!

The excitement of beginnings

Let’s face it, many people get so exited at the beginning, and would spend hours on end choosing the blog template and colors, customizing it with cool widgets, some go as far as setting a proper sitemap and getting their SEO on. And then nothing, for weeks then for months!! What happens is that early burst of excitement ended and they found themselves with an empty blog with no topics and no readers, and then they abandon the blog once and for all! I know this happens very often, because I’ve been there more than once!

The joy of a new beginning

After a strong start people tend to lost interest fast and drift away from blogging.

Over the next few steps I’ll cover some things I had to overcome to be more consistent which I believe many people face whenever blogging and would like a little help with that.

Success doesn’t happen overnight

If success would happen over night it wouldn’t have been so satisfying would it?
Like many things in life blogging needs some work before you can see the results, luckily it doesn’t take much for your blog to stand up on it’s own and gain interest, besides blogging is so much fun that “work” isn’t actually work when you look at it!

 

Goals and success

 

Set goals for yourself on your blog

Like a successful career or a successful family life, you need to plan your blogging and set clear goals, your goals could be some of these: Create more posts. Reach a certain number of posts. Reach a certain number of page views. All of the above! Any thing you like! And you need to celebrate achieving your blogging goals! (I’ll be talking about it in a bit).

Blog about your passion subjects

If you are interested in sports, fashion, media or politics. Then it is your lucky day! Each of these subjects make a great blog! And those are just example! You can blog about almost anything! And since you are passionate about it. Then writing would be so much fun! Writing about a passion subject is a great deal of fun, you will look forward to blogging and it will be something you look forward to on a busy week!

Link blogging with a daily habit

It’s always a good idea to link an existing habit of yours with a new one you are trying to develop, if you are a coffee person then maybe you want to try to write a post while having a tasty cup of Joe, or maybe blog after coming home from a good run and a cold shower! Soon enough the two habits will become one and you find yourself sitting to blog without even thinking of it. Make sure to keep your drink (coffee or tea) away from the keyboard/laptop or you might spill the contents of the cup on the laptop, ouch!

Enjoy your coffee while blogging
Enjoy your coffee while blogging

Dealing with some minor nuisances

If you feel blogging is a heavy chore then you need to read on! Clearly identify what bothers you and makes blogging less enjoyable. Could be that your chair is uncomfortable and causes you back pain? Or that your computer is painfully slow and makes blogging a living hell, I’ll be posting soon on how to speed up your computer with little to no cost! 
Or that simply you don’t like the place you sit at, then simply go somewhere else!  Now that we took care of the annoying bugs that many bloggers have or suffer from silently on daily basis, lets get to the fun stuff!!

Create a flow

Once you got your minor issues worked out. You can finally sit and work on your blogging. Either it’s the living room shed on lazy afternoon, or your favorite coffee shop downtown, or a park near you that you always feel good when you visit or drop by it for an afternoon walk. Where ever you feel motivated to sit and create is fine!
As long you create a consistent habit that happens naturally without forcing then you are on the right track.
Setting the place and time will help you stay consistent with your blogging!

Don’t chase perfection

It’s unachievable! And you will achieve nothing! Being a blogger is different from being a writer or a journalist as you get a chance to edit your work without the world falling on your head, and since you use a blogging platform you can edit as many times as you like without “stopping the press” and causing a problem! Stop procrastinating and publish those drafts, they are good enough!

 

Perfection
Nothing is perfect

 

Something to add to your resume

When preparing a resume its always helpful to add some interests and hobbies to give a little bit about your personality to your potential employer. Any human resource manager would be impressed to see that you blog on regular basis. Not only that you will gain respect for what you do (as many people aren’t consistent enough to do that) your chances of getting certain jobs will increase compared to others with the same level of skill and experience! (coming from a personal experience).

Did someone say money?

Money is the power that moves the world. Love it or hate it we all need money to live. You can make money off your blog with some basic advertise strategy such as Google Adsense. If your blog is a heavily visited one then you can make a decent amount of money doing what you love and having fun connecting with your fans. That’s inspiring 😉 Even without money involvement, the sense of satisfaction of knowing that your writing could inspire another human, help them solve a problem or change their lives to the better is the best feeling ever! Blogging will help you reach people you never dreamed you could ever reach and have a positive impact on their lives!
Write with good intent and good things will happen!

Money
Money $$$

Be proud with what you do

You work hard on your blog, so its OK to brag a little about it (don’t be a jerk and ruin it for the rest of us!) It’s a blogger’s duty to offer a helping hand to his readers and be sociable and modest with them Encourage other people to blog too! You might think you aren’t that good, but compared to an absolute novice you know a lot! Get them started on the basics and offer some support and that is guaranteed to rekindle your love with blogging!

 

Connect with other bloggers

Seems like a given, but some  bloggers isolate themselves from society and don’t communicate enough with fellow bloggers. It would be a good idea of get together with other bloggers who share your interests, it will inspire you to write more and grow better as a blogger in general!

Connect with other bloggers
Connect with other bloggers

Reward yourself

It maybe silly! But offering yourself a little reward after writing a post and publishing it could wonders! It depends on you and what you think of as a reward. It could be something simple like a candy bar or something more meaningful as a walk on the beach (if you happen to live near one).
If a reward can encourage a student to study, why not you?

Have fun blogging!

Blogging should be something you enjoy doing! An escape from everyday stress and drama and a change from your daily working pace (unless you work as a professional blogger, then I have some bad news for you!).

Blogging is fun
Blogging is fun

 

You are making a difference

Since you are blogging about the experiences you had and your journey through life, you are helping someone else without even knowing it! When blogging the world is your stage and you may never know who read your post and felt better about themselves and decided to change their lives for the better. Therefore you are making a difference and it’s only a matter of time before someone tells you that! It will make your day, trust me 😉

I hope these pointers help you jump start your blogging career! Share them with your friends and family, and let the blogging spirit spread!

MY BLOG HAS REACHED 100,000 PAGE VIEWS!! (Video message inside).

I am really happy and a bit surprised too, I didn’t expect this milestone to arrive this soon!!

My calculations were off by an entire month! Based on the traffic and site views, this update wasn’t supposed to happen until September, I guess the blog was doing better than I thought! It caught me by surprise!!
100,000 page views!!
I’ve been building towards this update for so long, I can’t believe it finally arrived, I missed the magical moment when the counter turned 100,000 (thank you LTT) and despite some minor hiccups, I managed to make it here thankfully.
I promised my fans I’ll make a thank you video when I reach a 100,000 views, you can find it on this link.

Thanks to all of my regular readers, family and friends. And I’ll see you in another update 🙂

Blog updates and fan reactions, going for 100K views

This could be the last update I provide before reaching my 100,000 views milestone which I have been building towards for years now!
To begin my update properly, I have to thank the fans from around the world (mostly Libya) for showing me their support and standing behind me, it really makes my day even if you think it doesn’t!

Positive feedback
Just an example of positive feedback I’m getting from fans

Following up on my latest post (unplanned downtime) I began to look into second device options (still don’t know exactly what to get, any help?), and reading this article changed my views about my work flow completely, a must read if you are stuck in a third world country that’s struggling, funny thing about that post is that it relates to two of my posts, unplanned downtime and blogging from a civil war zone, so think of it as a survival guide in a country going down the tube, there is an Arabic version too if you like.

I finally finished creating my Facebook page, it took so long because I maxed out on friends and then turned my profile into a page (yes you can do that!). Despite my opinion against Facebook, I have to admit it’s my biggest visitor source, I can’t just let that go to waste without building on it, can I?
 Here is the link to the page.  

Hey! I have 5,000 friends 😀

I’ve started blogging on other sites too, lately I’ve posted on Itwadi and the feedback was rather positive, the post is in Arabic, expect to see my posts in other blogs very soon! I even started a section on my blog to collect all my guest posts in one place! It has only one post, but it’s going to change very soon god willing!


My fan feedback is very important to me, I wanted to what kind of posts you would find interesting. The poll was on the blog home page for 2 weeks, and not a single vote was casted! Luckily I put the same poll on Twitter and got some feed back I could use, the result was: 40% in favor of technical posts,
40% for Libyan affairs, and 20% for Diaries. No clear edge here, but I’ll try my best to give the fans what they want, and maybe to try on vlogging for a change.

Twitter poll results
Twitter poll results


I created a new youtube channel, I’m yet to add a proper user name to it, I need to get 100 subscribers first, subscribe please 😀  
I will post my 100,000 video on it once I make it and reach 100K, I’m still wondering whether to make an Arabic video with English subtitles or vice-versa, as it turns out Youtube doesn’t allow multiple audio sources on one video,  and I’m not open to the idea of posting two videos (when the idea was pitched my fan base was mostly English speaking, my blog caught the Libyan attention after the passport post series, and still does) uploading on video will be painful enough!

Page views number
Isn’t that a nice page view number?


 Thank you for reading this rather detailed update, please tell me what you think in the comments section below, and share the post with your people using the social media buttons 🙂

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