I am ready to let it all out. It’s time for me to share with other bloggers and for other bloggers to share it with me. What am I talking about? The burning question that I come across everytime I read a blog is what does the blogger do beside blogging? I am pretty sure you have the same questions arising in your mind as well. Most popular bloggers like Darren, John are pro bloggers and they make enough money to survive off of their blogs but what about us ? We are the “underdogs” and we do have to do something else besides blogging to keep our means rolling.

My life as a blogger isn’t easy for one. I have to constantly think about when I am going to have enough time to dedicate myself for a good post ( and if you haven’t found any good post on this blog, that’s why ). I wish I could say I blog fulltime and make enough to make a living but then again you know it, I don’t. My other job besides blogging ( I consider this blog my passion as well as a job ) - a labor worker at a printing company in the production department. That’s right. I don’t have a job where I could say I am a computer anlayst or consultant but I hope you still find my blog and my content good enough for your elite types.

A lot of times when we read a blog we automatically think the person must be a developer or a consultant and what not, but this certainly is not true in my case. I work four days a week, 12 hours and a typical day at work starts at 6 AM ( Yawwwwn ) and ends at 6 PM. So I am in there testing my physical abilities to its core trying to get the job done, 12 hours for four days every week. During that time I constantly have something in my mind, what am I going to write today? How am I going to turn visitors into subscribers, what can I do to make my blog more appealing? These are the questions that hits me for 12 hours at work. [Read more →]

Tags: Blogging, Ramblings by Ritu - 19 Comments »

In the never-ending struggle to increase your blog readership, generating traffic to your blog is only half the battle. The other half involves retention of traffic, or better yet, to get these visitors to subscribe to your blog. I was inspired after reading Moshin’s article to write a post on what makes me, as a reader, subscribe to a particular blog. In the style of Work n Play, I have given this topic a personal spin by providing five requirements that would make ME subscribe to YOUR blog.

1. Eye Candy

Everyone (males and females) like eye candy. Whether it’s Jessica Alba’s beautiful smile, Brad Pitt’s handsome mug, or a well designed webpage, we all enjoy looking at nice things. Simplicity, well coordinated color schemes, innovative designs, elegant font types . . . they all come together to present a powerful first impression to a new visitor. If your site has great content, but doesn’t appeal to the eye, you have already lost the battle! Here are two examples of nicely designed sites (besides the one that you are currently looking at)

Smashing Magazine
psdtuts

For you new bloggers, I know it can be difficult to find an excellent Wordpress theme for free, but there are certainly some decent themes out there. The only problem is that those themes are probably being used by other bloggers as well. But you always have the ability to customize your theme and fiddle with the CSS to differentiate yourself. And if you become somewhat successful, you can ask John to help design your Wordpress theme.

2. Advertisements

The bane of all blogs and websites (if not done in good taste). I refuse to subscribe to any blog that does an egregious job incorporating their ads. If you have ads, it’s a good idea to place them onto your blog strategically so as to not interfere with the visitor’s viewing experience. Contrary to popular advertising opinion, I think a good ad is one that is NOT noticed by the reader. Let’s face it, no one really likes to look at ads, but it’s a necessary evil. So if you’re going to have them on your blog, at least put them in tastefully. Here are some good examples of websites incorporating ads into their website smartly,

Pixel2life
Freelance Switch (bears a striking resemblance to a certain blog)

3. Content

Eye candy is great, but most readers are sophisticated enough to look underneath the glamour. When I visit a blog for the first time, I like to explore the recent posts and the popular posts to see if I’m interested in what the blog has to offer. If these posts are located on the sidebar, that just makes my job as a reader that much easier. Catchy titles, informative posts, and up to date news are three things I look for. But most importantly, regular updates are essential! [Read more →]

Tags: Blogging, RSS Feed by turtie - 10 Comments »

We have all had times during our blogging career when something unexpected happens. You can’t really say whether it was funny, crazy or inspirational. Today, I had been wondering all day as to what to write and finally I had decided not to write anything ( remember, when you have nothing to say, it’s best to say, well, nothing ) until I got an email from a person asking me if I was hiring.

Ok, let me clear something first. I don’t own a company or a business, I am not in any position to hire or fire anybody where I work and this email came out of nowhere, asking me if I was interested in hiring him at Work N Play. My first thought as you can imagine was ” Wow, this is crazy ” which later shifted to a laughter and I called it ” Man, that was funny “. After thinking about this email for a while my whole perception changed as to what to think of it. [Read more →]

Tags: Ramblings by Ritu - 7 Comments »

The 10 commandments - we have all heard of it, most of us have read it and hopefully all of us try to incorporate it into our lives as well. As I was reading the 10 commandements, I thought there should be commandments for blogging as well. I could relate some of the 10 commandments directly to blogging.

There needs to be rules, expectations and do’s and dont’s in everything we do and blogging is no exception. The 10 commandments of life guides us to lead life as a better human being and hopefully my 10 commandments of blogging will guide me ( and you if you find it useful ) to become a better blogger.

The Ten Commandments Of Blogging

1. Thou Shalt Not Steal

If you want to grow as a blogger and make a name for yourself in the field of blogging, this is a big NO! A lot of times we find bloggers longing for good content and they can’t seem to write one. It’s ok. Go ahead write what you can and slowly you will find your content and writing maturing along with your blog. Do not copy and paste other popular articles, if you are using a post from somebody else as a reference, give them the credit that is due. This is one of the most important thing starting out a blog, do not cheat the system and your readers because you will be cheating yourself. [Read more →]

Tags: Blogging, Ramblings by Ritu - 28 Comments »

It’s pretty exciting as this marks the 100th post on Work n Play since it started in August 2007. This blog has grown in terms of traffic, hopefully quality and been through many changes and I myself think I am growing as a blogger. I thought of sending out a thank you that is long overdue and what better way to utilize the 100th post. I look at this as a milestone for a new blog and would like to thank one person who has helped me tremendously. [Read more →]

Tags: Blogging, Links, Ramblings, Reviews by Ritu - 14 Comments »

You can call this post a successor of a previous post where I had written about 10 interesting sites. I think all the sites listed here are worthy of a bookmark and have proved to be extremely useful in someway or the other. Some of these sites you might know already and some you might not. Hopefully this list will introduce you to a service that you didn’t know about.

20. Similicio.us
Similicio.us is a search engine that finds related articles based on tags or bookmarks on Del.icio.us. If you find an interesting article, and want to explore what other similar articles are there on del.icio.us then this site is a must use. If you like an article, simply paste the URL and hit search, you will get results with related articles based on tags or bookmarks on Del.icio.us

19.Oovoo
Multi–user video chat application which supports upto 6 people simultaneously.You can use this application to send video messages and file to other oovoo members and video messages to people who don’t have this application as well.

18. Builtwith
A web based website profiler that lets you quickly look up all the technologies implemented in creating a website , example google, msn, etc. This nifty website is capable of capturing and identifying widgets, analytic tools, hosting software, advertising networks and the list goes on and on.

17. Splitbrowser
This one is for the mac fans. This browser allows you to split your screen into four parts so you can view and work on four different websites simultaneously. [Read more →]

Tags: Websites by Ritu - 10 Comments »