Maybe your blog or website isn’t everything, but I bet it is pretty important to you. Especially if you’re relying on it to be an income stream. Now, when was the last time you backed it up? I take it it has been a while…

Right after you Stumble, Digg, Reddit and Twit this post, do it!

Backing up isn’t difficult, it just takes patience and diligence.  I back my sites up about once a week (or just before and after I’ve made significant changes).  And while you’re at it, don’t forget to back up the databases too.  If you’re using Wordpress, you have a MySQL database that contains all of your posts, pages and categories.  If you have any questions on how to back up the MySQL database, check out the support pages of your host.  Most have easy to follow instructions.

Do your friends a favor and send this to them as a reminder.  Back up your site!

I’ve seen it posted in various places that one of the keys to maintaining traffic to your site is to post daily. Seems like a good idea. But when you really start thinking about it. Daily is a lot of work. Daily would mean you don’t take a day off. Noone wants to work every day.

Then consider things like this critter:

One of his little friends decided to make a ruckus all night long the other night. I got no sleep and wasn’t in a very good mood yesterday. Last night was more peaceful (Although I haven’t seen that peacock lately so he might have met his demise. Heaven knows I thought of it a few times.).

Point is, a blog has a tone. Tone is just as important as frequency. I’d rather write a good blog post and post every few days than post poor ones in between.

Wordpress 2.5 does have a function that can help it look like you post every day. You can schedule posts to hit on certain days. As a result, you can go on vacation (as I am now) and have your blog continue to roll. You’ll still have to manage your comments, but that is far easier than posting good quality blog entries.

No peacocks were injured during the writing of this blog post.

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Yes, there are situations where hot chicks (or hot dudes) sell, but that only plays so far…

What most of us are out here for is content. Pure, accurate content. Something that educates us, and if possible entertains us. I wouldn’t normally post a Youtube vid on this blog, but there are people who manage to do both. Enjoy!

Hot For Words - YouTube

Of course, I’m a guy, and I fancy myself as a writer. So, when I find an extremely intelligent woman that looks like that, I lose it. That’s not supposed to happen, right? Well, it does. Blogger and topic (or video blogger, depending on the topic and individual) do find a resonance from time to time. The question is, are you finding your resonance?

I’ve been scanning blogs and I’ve found the distinct camps.

The first one posts no pictures. They have pictures on their site, but the posts are pure content. They are clean, but as I look at them… They’re relatively blocky.

The second set posts pictures that are obviously just stock photos. The pictures are cold and obviously have little to do with the blogger.

And the final set have photos that are real. They include pictures of the blogger in action. “Out in the field” so to speak.

My initial impression is that it is best to go with either no photos or real photos. The stock stuff is just wrong. It seems like a simple lesson, but “real” sells. Be real or don’t bother.

On my continual search for good tools/tips, I found an old post by TallFreak.com for generating a flavicon file for your blog/site. The site htmlkit.com has a great tool that allows you to build a flavicon file from any picture. For those that don’t know what a flavicon is, it is that little graphic up in the url box of the browser and in the bookmarks/favorites drop down. It is one way to demonstrate a bit of polish on your site (read professionalism).

Htmlkit.com also gives you the HTML code you’ll need to add to your site to have the favicon work (note: for most Wordpress installations, the HEAD… /HEAD section is located in the header of the theme).

Let me know what you think of my new flavicon and the tool.

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