Is Your Blog A Sandbox For Learning?
Garry Conn dot Com in many ways acts as a sandbox blog for many things. This blog, as many regular readers know, is a place that harbors content related to tons of ideas that I have, some get executed, others do not, some turn out to be successful and others do not.
Is your blog a sandbox for learning? I have no problems admitting that mine is. I am going to share with you some information that I think you’ll enjoy reading. For almost 14 months now, I have taken this blog from zero to whatever label you want to call it now. Some people consider me as an A-Lister, others are getting to know me for the first time.
For what its worth… this didn’t happen flawlessly. Many, many, many mistakes have been made and learned to get my blog where it is at today.
Is my blog the most popular? No! But, it’s not a ghost town, nor is it the best kept secret on the Internet either. The point is this, my blog is healthy. I have a decent amount of readers (thank you by the way!), it does very well ranking in the search engines and it seems to create quite a bit of buzz in the blogosphere.
That all sounds great! But, how would things have been if I started this blog 14 months ago, already having the skill and experience I have today? How would things have been if this blog was not a sandbox?
With that being said, bloggers make tons of mistakes during their ventures of learning how to become leaders within their niche. Most of that entails just learning the ropes of the blog world and learning the ins and outs of understanding the general mentality of bloggers.
I am not saying that GCDC or even your blog for that matter is a mistake; however, what I am saying is this: Wouldn’t it be neat to start a second niche blog of a different topic that instantly powers leadership, strength, knowledge and answers.
That is what I am doing with my latest blog, The Airplane Blog. I am bypassing 14 months of mistakes, training and errors and applying everything that I have learned while playing in the sand with Tonka trucks in my sandbox on GCDC. You might consider doing the same, it could make you money, could give you fame… it could very well do everything you want on your regular blog in half the time.
Want an example?
Have you heard of a blog titled, Bob Meets World? I am sure there are a few including myself that know this, but majority of people don’t know that the author of Bob Meets World is also the author of the quickly growing and practically famous John COW dot com. Pretty cool, huh? Maybe it’s time you start a second blog and apply all you know with a fresh clean slate.
By the way… with just a little help you can help me push my Airplane Blog into #1 status in the Recreation / Aviation category on Blogged.com. Below is a widget that will allow you to rate my blog. I don’t want you to cheat the system or anything like that, but I do want to ask you a favor and rate my blog and provide maybe a sentence or two in a written review. If you do that, I think I could easily become the #1 Aviation related blog!
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12 comments
I consider all of my blogs as sandboxes. I try different things on different blogs and see what works and apply the things that do work to my other blogs. At least thats the theory.
How has that been working for you? Take your bike rack niche site. I saw last night that you are getting indexed very quickly. I’d like to collect some more feedback about your experiences with your niche sites. It would be great for you to come back and share some of your personal experiences so far to date.
I guess you already know that Bob sold Bob Meets World a couple of months ago? I liked Bob Meets World and I missed it when he gave his attention to JohnCow, but I LOVE the John Cow blog.
I’m in the sandbox alright! When I moved my blog it changed direction on me and now I have no idea where’s it going or how it’s going to get there. lol
Hey Laura,
No didn’t know that part… thanks for informing me about it.
I clearly remember your last comment earlier this month. Seems like you might be experiencing what I am experiencing too. You know… you might have fun with a second blog. I am having a ton of fun on The Airplane Blog. I am not trying to discount this blog here, as its my personal blog, but it sure is fun having a second blog that allows me to lead another niche.
BTW if anyone want so to help me rank #1 in aviation, please rate and review my blog.
Laura, I think I also remember helping you fix your post titles in the search engines and if my memory proves me right, THIS PAGE is looking a lot nicer than it did about a month ago when I last checked it and provided you with the search friendly title code.
I think you have a wonderful writing style and I have dropped by your blog many times for what it seems like over a year now. You and I have both grown so much as bloggers. I think you have a ton of talent and the motivation and desire to lead a niche… you just need to go out there and find one that fits nicely, like a shoe!
You’ve got the skill, you’ve got the talent… I think you’re just missing the niche you can totally call home.
I might be wrong… who knows…
You’re still awesome no matter what..
By sandbox I mean a area where I can test things out. Such as the PayPal sandbox which allows you to play around with the PayPal API and make transactions with fake money just to get a grip on things. I don’t mean “sandboxed” in the term that I hear used by some SEO people.
I’d love to write about my experiences.
Almost unrelated, but I like the idea of footnote advertisement. A nice change from all the blogs going only with 125×125 advertisement.
Thanks Frank!
And special thanks to Pat who just bought the first slot!
I have plenty of room for everyone, so hop on board and get a footnote ad spot for just $10 bucks!
Yep I definitely think that all of my blogs are sandboxes. I know I’ve learned a lot over the past year and I know I have even more to learn yet. The good news for me is that each new blog I launch seems to take off a little bit faster than the previous one so I know I’m learning and applying my new knowledge appropriately.
That is great to hear Steven!
** Are others who are reading the comments experiencing the same as Steve? Are there folks reading in who have multiple blogs? Are you finding that each blog you launch is easier to get it to the current level of an existing one?
*** Anymore thoughts on Footnote Advertisements? Do you think this will be something you’ll do on your own blog?
**** Owen says, “I try different things on different blogs and see what works and apply the things that do work to my other blogs. At least thats the theory.”
Who can relate to this? Anyone passing by, feel free to chime in with your thoughts. One thing that comes to mind is having MyBlogLog widget on one blog and then BlogCatalog widget on another. Another example would be to have two blogs of close or very similar topics… one blog has left sidebar and the other has right?
What are some things that you guys are doing for case studies and experiments?
Thank you for your encouragement Garry. My Google links look much better too!
You’re right though, I haven’t really found my niche. Although I have found topics I enjoy writing about, they aren’t always practical for search engine listings, but it’s fun. I also have niche blogs that were designed from key words that “fit” the criteria for success but no success so far. They are fairly new so it will take time to gain rankings and visitors.
I really enjoy your site and it has helped me in a lot of ways. Thank you for all the work you’ve put into it. I will write a review of your airplane blog as soon as I get a chance.
I already put links in the footer of my posts. I have it listed on my advertise page but so far the links that are there have only come from pay u 2 blog that pay $5.00 each. The main problem would be that I can’t use no follow on them.
I am doing an experiment on my new niche site. I started it on blogspot with one post and did all the things to get it in circulation. Then I made another one with the same keywords using hubpages. The articles are similar but different. Then today, one week from the first post, I added a second post to the blogspot site. So far the hubpages is ranking higher in Google and has received more total visitors in less time then the blogspot. Neither have brought any sales yet. If the niche turns out to be profitable over time, then it will be moved to a dot com but in the meantime I’ll continue to experiment.
This was a great topic Garry, and a lot of interesting comments!
I haven’t really tried much out of the norm, template changes, ad positions, post slugs, titles, alt tag combinations, post frequencies and writing style. I’ve got an experiment for my main blog which we will see how it turns out.
Great post, thanks! It is something to think about
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