A Blogging To-Do List

If I were up on this sort of thing, I’d have an image to go with this post, maybe one of those canned clip-art pics of a dynamic pencil charging forward to check off an item on a page. But I realize that that is a trite idea, one that too many people would go for, and despite the dictum I’ve seen on so many How-To-Blog websites that every post should be accompanied with something more eye-catching than mere text, my battle against the cliche dooms me to plain text.

And already I’ve dug myself a hole: Now I am vulnerable to attack at any future point when I do lapse into cliche (count on it), and worse, I’ve dodged the real issue, and that is that I haven’t spent the time to figure out efficient ways to get more images into my posts.

That’s the real truth: If I were more savvy about grabbing useful images for posting, I probably woulda gone with the first idea, just like everybody else. And regretted it afterwards for being trite.  I am a sad mass of contradictions.

KillThisBlog has been running for two months now. I’m pleased with my progress. I’ve gone from knowing next to nothing to knowing the bare minimum, and that is an advance that I don’t want to dismiss as trivial. It’s a necessary threshold that every new blogger must cross. So yay for me. I’m walking through walls. Even better, I’ve managed to get several of the snazzy doo-dads onto my pages: I’ve gotten videos into my posts. Images, too. I’ve set things up from WordPress and Google to track my traffic stats. I’ve got the social marketing links at the ends of my posts (even if I’m still unclear on how to use them to bend the Internet to my will). And I’ve managed to get ads onto my pages, which is another important threshold to cross.

It’s been a fun project, and even with my teeny levels of traffic, I’m getting people clicking in from all over the planet. That’s cool in ways I thought I was too cynical to find exciting. So thanks to everyone who has been clicking in, even those who only got here by mistake.

With all that in mind, here are some of the main things on my mind, stuff I want to learn next:

• My blog header. I’ve found the theme I’ve been using (Greylagoon by Sureshjain) has been quite functional for now, but I want to learn how to dress things up more. I’d like to learn how to manipulate some images, to customize something that I can put up in the header to make this site less generic and more eye-catching. That means getting PhotoShop Elements, which I’ve already ordered. It should arrive sometime in the middle of this week (Toys are good). It also means learning some HTML (gulp!)
• E-Mail. I’ve been online since 1995. I’ve used AOL as my e-mail host almost from the beginning. It’s been fine for my needs until now, even though I know that in some circles an AOL e-mail address is considered the mark of a true Internet Doofus. So it’s time to set up some @killthisblog.com e-mail accounts. That I don’t know how makes clear to many of you, I’m sure, of how much of a novice I really am.
• My About Page. What is there now is just something I slapped together off the top of my head to fill the space. I need something more informative and more inviting there.
• RSS Feeds. I’ve only started using RSS feeds myself in the last few months. I want to make it as easy as possible for those who do use it to subscribe to this site. That means getting one of them orangy buttons that everyone seems to have. I’m guessing that it’s fairly easy to set up, but I’ll need to do some study.
• Better Understanding and Use of Ads. So far I’ve just got the Google Adsense, but I want to learn about Amazon, iTunes, and perhaps some other affiliate programs. I also need more finesse in ad placement — the one ad I do have is in the place where it decided to go, and not in the place I would have chosen to put it had I had any skill at such things.
• Better Understanding of Social Media Sites. I’m talking about sites like Digg, Twitter, Stumble, and so on, sites that allegedly provide bloggers with tools that can help them engage more thoroughly with their readers. I am skeptical about these tools, but I don’t want to dismiss them without more study. And I already have the doo-dads at the ends of my posts, so I should know what to do with them, yes?
• Setting Up Other Sites Under My Hosting Plan. I use HostICan as my web host and so far I have had nothing but positive experiences with them. I am supposed to be able to set up multiple sites under the hosting plan I have, but that would require mucking around with my hosting files. It’s probably easier than it appears to someone with zero expertise, but I’m still finding the project a bit daunting. I’ll get there. I’m never going to build an online empire if I don’t.

So those are the main things. No time limits — I’ll be satisfied as long as there’s steady progress month to month.

If anyone who happens on this post has any suggestions, please leave a comment — any new resources that come my way will be very welcome. And I hope that others find value in watching me grope my way through this process. I’m finding it more and more interesting the deeper I get into it.

Bookmark It