Do You Make These Six Common Blogging Mistakes?

Ever had one of those days?

Damned Computers!I seem to be having several in a row. I’m getting to the point now that I almost regret ever signing up for a web hosting plan, given the fact that I seem to be spending more time fixing, maintaining, or re-installing websites and sections than I do with any sort of writing or content driven tasks of any sort, which didn’t seem to be such a problem when I was just doing the “amateur” blogging thing over on the google blogs. Plus, I seem to have generated a lot more interest over there than here or in any of my other blogs, I think I sort of took my momentum and chucked it out the window by signing up for the WordPress world and splitting my time and energy into three different directions at once. So far, I seem to be either paralyzed trying to figure out what to do next, or else going nowhere fast by fixing one thing on one site only to have some different problem show up somewhere else. A lot of two steps forward, three steps back in other words.

It certainly has sucked some of the fun out of doing internet stuff, something I never seemed to have a problem with in the past. Or perhaps it’s just growing pains of a sort.

As for the headline of today’s post, here are some common mistakes, or perhaps some not so common (?), that I seem to have made in the past few weeks. Ever had this happen to you?

  • Delving into the “guts” of your blog, the editor section in the case of WordPress, and screwing up the works badly enough that completely re-installing the whole bloody thing seems easier than trying to repair the damage?  Check.
  • Deciding to restore a backup of one of your sites, only to accidentally restore the wrong site, thereby losing a weeks worth of content? Check.
  • Taking the time and effort to link your blog up using the social networks only to realize that the only visits you actually received for your efforts were your own clicks when you were checking to make sure the links worked right? Check.
  • Working yourself up into a frenzy because the Google Webmaster tools were telling you you were getting zero traffic only to realize that you hadn’t set it up properly in the first place? Check.
  • Trying to strike up a conversation about blogging over on some other blogs, only to realize that you’ve replied to a post or a comment that is over a year old?  Check.
  • Getting in deep trouble with a website master for putting your website address in your signature on their forums, which happens to be well within the written rules except that you happened to make the text bold (this was a little known rule I found on page 82, subsection 13d of that website’s rules list…oops)? Check.
On the other hand, on the bright side, however you want to put it, I can say without a doubt that I’m learning a lot. So maybe that will come in handy some day. Maybe I’ll even start a tutorial series of some sort. Something about what not to do when you’re a newbie blogger such as myself lol. And on the fun side, just as I was starting to feel more and more down I decided to write up this topic and, lo and behold I discovered a neat “full screen” feature I’d not even noticed before which makes writing up a blog post a lot more fun and enjoyable for some reason.

 

Neat!

 

Onward and upwards, and thanks for reading! :)

Boy does this webmastering thing take up a lot of time and effort!

Well, I’m writing a quick blog post this evening because I’m in the midst of yet another crisis over on my other site, UpbeatRhythms.com, which I thought would be my easiest effort but has turned out instead to be far and away the most troublesome and time consuming of my three sites thus far.

I mentioned the possibility of Drupalizing the place, that sort of petered out when I realized I’d need a college education in computer science to make it work. So I decided to try and max it out wordpress-wise as much as I could. Thinking I’d be all smart about it, I changed my settings around to allow multi-user, multi-blogging, though I have neither multiple users nor the need for multiple blogs. It was just the easiest way, I thought, to allow myself the flexibility to change around the page themes throughout the site.

Hasn’t worked out as planned. I’m getting error messages and it seems unable to accept files or “write” whatever it needs to. Tried to head it off at the pass by directly FTPing my files (any bloggers reading this can understand and sympathize with my plight, I’m sure), and it seems as though my folders are claiming that I’m storing hundreds of gigabites of crap when I know full well all I have is a couple dozen low resolution images in there.

I guess my next step will be to contact the host, again, although I’m not really in the mood and I’m starting to feel like a real moron for not being able to work this stuff out for myself. I guess I got spoiled with Apple products, there just doesn’t seem to be any of these kinds of issues but going to the server and the host and all that is bringing up all kinds of windows nightmares form my former life as a PC user. I am SO glad I gave that all up, now they just have to invent internet hosting the Apple way, somehow.

Or else maybe I’m just a complete idiot. Sure feels that way.

Back to the drawing board. Again.