Random Jabber

Look Back at ‘07 and Moving Forward in ‘08

• January 2, 2008 ·
• Filed in Random Jabber ·
• 15 Comments

On May 26, 2007, Random Jabber was born. I guess time really does fly when you’re having fun because it definitely does not feel like I’ve had this blog online for seven months now. Everyone says that once you make it past the magical three month mark, you’re home free. I don’t know what the percentage is exactly, but I know it’s a very small number of blogs actually make it past the third month and I’m elated knowing that I’ve made it this far. In the foreseeable future, I don’t anticipate closing Random Jabber, so hopefully I can continue share my thoughts and someone out there will find them interesting enough to hang around.

A Look Back at ‘07

I don’t really have a list of goals to check off before I can declare something a success, but I definitely would classify ‘07 as a success. Here’s a rundown of some of the highlights of Random Jabber in ‘07.

Random Jabber Numbers For the First Seven Months

• 64 total entries. That works out to be about nine articles per month.
• 654 total comments. That works out to be about 10 per article.
• Google Page Rank of 4.
• Technorati Rank: 144.
• 21,724 total visits and 38,845 page views.
• Sizcons downloads: 16x16: 2,163 12x12: 900.
• 60 RSS subscribers.

I’m very happy about the numbers as small as they may be. It still amazes me that I even have a small following of readers coming back to read what I have to say.

Sizcons in Smashing Magazine
Sizcons was listed one of Smashing Magazine’s Best of September 2007 This was very surprising, but definitely appreciated. I logged into view my site stats one evening and noticed some 2000 visitors in a little over an hour and about fell out of my chair! Thanks Smashing Mag for the listing.

NiceStylesheet Launch
I successfully launched NiceStylesheet, which is my second site. Right now it’s nothing more than a simple CSS gallery, but I’ve got big plans for it in the coming months.

My Writing Skills Improved
If nothing else ever comes out of me running my own blog, one thing I can say for sure is that my writing skills have definitely improved. I’m a long ways off from being qualified to teach writing skills to someone, but coming from despising English class in High School and College to actually enjoying writing and having a desire to improve my writing is a huge step for me.

Moving Forward in ‘08

I have a lot of things I want to accomplish in ‘08, but I don’t necessarily have a list of goals laid out. I’ve never been a goal person in the general sense of the word. When I think of someone setting goals, I think of them getting out a pen and paper and writing down 10 goals and posting it on the refrigerator for an easy reminder. That’s just not me. I agree with Maki’s views on goals, in that you have to be open to the possibility that events can change you. Sure, I have goals, but I don’t feel like I’m so wrapped up in them that I couldn’t change my mindset. I think to many people get wrapped up in their goals and become oblivious to things happening around them, which prevents them from being able to evolve with the times and think outside of the box.

I think Maki put it best when he said:

The journey can exist without a destination: It’s similar to leisurely walking the streets outside your hotel, in a new city you just visited for the first time. The experience itself is immensely refreshing and pleasurable.

Launching my Third Site
I’ve had a website in the making now for going on two years. It was one of those things that I always wanted to start but never had the means to do so. I now have the means to move forward and I’m hoping to launch the site in the next month or so. It will be work in progress and start off initially as a blog/photo gallery. I’ll continue to add features (I’ve got a bunch in mind) as my schedule allows.

New Design Plans for Random Jabber
Once I find some free time, I plan on developing a new design for Random Jabber. It’s not that I’m tired of the current one, but as a designer, I’m never happy. In all honestly, I’m surprised the current design has lasted as long as it has. For the redesign, I’ll be keeping it minimal and uncluttered (or at least that’s my intention). I feel like my footer area now is not serving much purpose at all, so I’ll be possibly getting rid of such things as the MyBlogLog images and definitely removing the Recommended Books section.

Affiliate Marketing
Lately, I’ve been reading a lot on affiliate marketing. There are a lot of different forms of affiliate marketing, but the area I currently am trying my hand at is PayPerClick (PPC) marketing. PPC Affiliate Marketing is basically the marketing of a product through the use a search engine. If you go to Google right now and do a search for something like “scholarships.” One the results come up and you see the “sponsored links” section on the right hand side, majority of those sponsored links are just affiliate marketers pushing the products. Each time someone clicks one of their links and fills out a form or purchases whatever they’re selling, they make money. Sounds easy, but don’t let me fool you. I’ve yet to make a dime doing it, but the simple fact that I know there is money in it (a lot of money I might add) keeps me going.

If there are any affiliate marketers out there reading who’d maybe want to give me some inside on the reason I’ve not been remotely successful thus far, please get in touch with me and we’ll chat.

Stay Focused
The last thing I wanted to touch on for moving forward in ‘08 is staying focused. I do a lot of work online, but I’ll admit, I do a lot of unnecessary stuff too. I read a lot of blogs (I subscribe to around 100), and I spend a lot of time reading forums. It’s not totally a bad thing as you can gather a lot of great ideas and network with a lot of like minded people when you visit blogs and post at forums, but the time I spend reading and posting could definitely be put to better use by writing articles for Random Jabber or developing a new site. This is definitely one thing that I will need to improve upon this year.

What About You?

How was your ‘07? What plans do you have for ‘08?

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to the full RSS feed.

Related Posts

• Calling all Logo Designers!
• Random Jabber Turns One Year Old!
• I Was Tagged to Share My Secrets
• The Most Inspiring Video You’ll Ever Watch
• Will Getting in Over Your Head Make You Better at What You Do?

Comments

Commenting is not available in this weblog entry.