Lap Band Blog: House Keeping

A Few Things About My Blog

After a lot of trial and error, I've added a few new features to the blog. I thought I'd point them out so that all my boo-boos might actually pay off with more readers.

•  First off, I've made a "blidget" for the blog. This is a blog widget. I didn't even know such a thing existed, but I found this site, widgetbox.com, and I think this is so cool. You can click on the "promo badge," (black, in left sidebar), and it will take you to a page where you can download the blog widget. Then you can post my blog, in the form of a sidebar widget, on any web page. If you have a band related site, or would like to tell people about my blog, this is a great way to do it. Its pretty easy, and they offer instructions on how to use it as well.

• Second, I've learned about some new ways to get more people to read the blog, and you can help me out here. One important way is to subscribe to the blog. There are buttons to do this on the left sidebar. One will let you subscribe to posts, one to comments. This somehow helps me in the search pages, so if you do follow me, this would be great to do.

• Another thing you can do is share any posts that you think are helpful. The is a share button at the bottom of each post, and it allows you to share on other sites. The sites important to me are digg.com,  reddit.com, twitter.com, stumbleupon.com, delicious.com and of course, facebook.com. If you share on even one of these sites it will help me get more readers. You do have to join the site you share on, but they generally don't bother you and all of them are really cool sites. This will get me higher placement in search engines, and therefore, more readers.
  
• Next is my Shelfari bookshelf. This is so cool! You can click through the various shelves and link to books I've read and recommend. I have some great books about lap band, and also some great lap band and low fat cooking cookbooks on my shelves. I also review some of them and link you to amazon.com to order them.
• This brings me to my last enhancement. I've tried to "monetize" my blog. (This means I'm trying to make money from it.) I put a lot of time into the blog and I would like to be able to make a little extra cash from it. So I've added some links that allow me to make a small commission if you buy something through them. One is my cafepress shop link, which features my t-shirt shop. I've got lots of cool designs on many, many subjects. Another is a link to Amazon.com that will take you to Amazon to order anything you like. If you shop at Amazon, and you get there through my link, I get a little commission. I also have "Google Adsense" ads on the blog. Those also pay me a little commission if you are interested in the information there and click on them. I also link you to amazon whenever I review or mention a product in the blog. If you buy them by clicking the link, again, I get a little commission. We are talking very small amounts of money for each of these things, but if I get enough clicks it can add up to a little extra income for me. So I thought I'd mention it, and hope you will consider using these links. 
• I've also added a Technocrati button. Technocrati is a site that tells people about blogs. If you click that link then Technocrati will make note that you are reading the blog and move me up in their list of blogs. Again, this will get me more readers.
• Finally, and yes, this is shameless promotion of my child, but I had to do it... I put a link to YouTube where you can see my daughter in her rabbit care video. It's just cute and I'm proud of her, so if you want a little sweetness in your life you can watch here. 

Hope some of these things are of interest to you, and thanks to everyone for their encouragement and good wishes on the blog. I really do appreciate it, and enjoy writing the posts.

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