MapLoco visitor maps on your website are a breeze.

Click on the link below to go to their website. Select how you want the map to look, click a button, copy the code and your done.

Create your own visitor map!

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Darren Rouse over at Problogger.net posed a readers question that started this post. I’ve been meaning to write on the topic for a while, so this was the prompt I needed to get on with it.

The question is “What do You Know About Blogging that You Wish You Knew When You Started”

For me, the answer is the importance of reader interation both with other readers and with the blog owner.

You see when I started, I was determined not to get overwhelmed with spam in the form of comments and with spammers using my email addresses.

I deliberatedly didn’t provide any method of on-site contact. It worked pretty well. I could blog away without interruption.

Over the last few months, after reading a few posts from seasoned bloggers, I realised that my only traffic souces were from search engines. They provide a growing traffic source but if that were to dry-up I’d be dead in the water.

That lead to a decision to put in place some “defensive” traffic sources.

At about the same time I got involved in my first meme, the Technorati favorites exchange sponsored by Doshdosh. To grow my technorati popularity as high as possible, I visited many blog owners and asked them to favourite my site. That experience was a real eye opener, as it drove home to me how frustrating it was to find blogs with no contact form.

It also occurred to me that if I could provide visitors with an incentive to leave a comment, they might be more inclined to revisit my blog.

So as a result of that experience, a contact form was implemented and no-follow removed from the comments. Since then the results have been encouraging

• There have been over 225 new comments.
• I’ve receive a number of requests for link exchanges and approaches to join programs which I would never have found under my own steam
• Received requests for advertising with a few resultant sales.

The spam which I expected has not materialized. No spam has been recieved on the contact form. As for comments, Akismet has caught most of it. The comment spam which wasn’t intercepted required little effort to remove.

Unexpectedly blogging has been more fun. I look forward to new comments and the chance to interact with other bloggers. There are some very talented bloggers on the net and it has been my privilege to meet a few more than I would have without making the changes.

If you are reading this post and don’t have a contact form or haven’t removed no-follow from your contents, I hope this helps to encourage you to do so. My experience to date has been very positive.

Making both these changes may not work out for you, but then again there is very little to lose.

Heres the link to Darren’s post

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Heres a bit of fun.

A site called Linkiewinkie seems to have been setup to provide traffic back to people who link to it.

The notes on the page say:

Linkie Winkie is a bit of a social experiment and we want to see what happens. We’re not going to tell you much about it, except that its a very altruistic little site and loves to be talked about.

So if you can work out what it does, and get your timing right, then Linkie Winkie might help you out for a while

Not sure how they pick-up the back links – but its a bit of clever webmastering all the same.

Heres the link: Linkiewinkie

©2010 Home Based Business Opportunity. All Rights Reserved.

I was sent this the other day and couldn’t resist sharing. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did

Subject: LIFE IN THE 1500′S

The next time you are washing your hands and complain because the water temperature isn’t just how you like it, think about how things used to be back in the 1500’s.

Most people got married in June because they took their yearly bath in May, and still smelled pretty good by June. However, they were starting to smell a little, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odour.

Hence the custom today of carrying a bouquet when getting married.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then all the other sons and men, then the women and finally the children. Last of all the babies. By then the water was so dirty you could actually lose someone in it.

Hence the saying, “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.”

Houses had thatched roofs-thick straw-piled high, with no wood underneath. It was the only place for animals to get warm, so all the cats and other small animals (mice, bugs) lived in the roof. When it rained it became slippery and sometimes the animals would slip and fall off the roof.

Hence the saying “It’s raining cats and dogs.”

There was nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom where bugs and other droppings could mess up your nice clean bed. Hence, a bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top afforded some protection. That’s how canopy beds came into existence.

The floor was dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt.
Hence the saying “dirt poor.”

The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter when wet, so they spread thresh (straw) on floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they added more thresh until when you opened the door it would all start slipping outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entranceway.

Hence the saying a “thresh hold.”

(Getting quite an education, aren’t you?)

In those old days, they cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and then start over the next day. Sometimes stew had food in it that had been there for quite a while. Hence the rhyme, “Peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old.”

Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off.

It was a sign of wealth that a man could “bring home the bacon.” They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and “chew the fat.”

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning death.

This happened most often with tomatoes, so for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous.

Bread was divided according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle, and guests got the top, or “upper crust.”

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whisky. The combination would sometimes knock the imbibers out for a couple of days. Someone walking along the road would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up. Hence the custom of holding a “wake.”

England is old and small and the local folks started running out of places to bury people. So they would dig up coffins and would take the bones to a “bone-house” and reuse the grave.

When reopening these coffins, 1 out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks on the inside and they realized they had been burying people alive. So they would tie a string on the wrist of the corpse, lead it through the coffin and up through the ground and tie it to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the “graveyard shift”) to listen for the bell; thus, someone could be “saved by the bell” or was considered a “dead ringer.”

And that’s the truth… Now, whoever said that History was boring! ! !

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