The Ultimate Beginners Guide to Becoming a Blogger
I have been asked the question’s a few times from family members here in Barbados what is a blog and then how do you go about setting one up. Well I have put together my beginners guide to becoming a blogger. It really is a simple process that anybody can do, all it takes is a wee bit of an effort and time.
So you want to become a blogger, it seems that nowadays everyone has a blog or are thinking about starting one up. Whether you want to start a blog to make some extra money or are looking to promote your business or purely for fun, my simple beginners guide will help to get you started.
What is a blog, It is basically a type of website which has its content arranged in chronological order from the most recent post {or entry} at the top of the main page to the older entries towards the bottom. Blogs are updated frequently and are fairly straightforward to publish. The real beauty of blogs is that they require very little technical skills to update and maintain them, unlike traditional web sites.
Blog Content, you will have to decide what you are going to write about, the subject matter of your blog is of vital importance to you. Whatever topic or topics you choose to write about you will have to be prepared and knowledgeable enough to do so on a very regular basis.
Publishing your Blog, next you will need to decide the publishing method you are going to use to make your blog available to the world. The choices are either doing it the free way, through company a like, blogger.com, which is entirely free and straightforward. Or buying your own domain name, paying to host it and publishing it through something like WordPress.
Marketing of Your Blog, when you finally see your words published on the web, it is highly likely that you will want to share them with as many people as possible. If not why go to all the bother. The next best thing to do, is make all your friends, family, and work colleagues aware of your blog; this will get the ball rolling. The next step is to submit every article you write to social sites such as Del.icio, Digg, Stumble Upon, Tehcnorati etc.
These are just some simple steps to help you get started as a blogger. So what are you waiting for if you have something to tell the world go and do it.
Some more great tips which will help you to become a better blogger can also be found at 101 Steps to Becoming a Better Blogger
Some more great advice for those looking to become a blogger, which I would recommend reading can be found at How to become an authority blogger
For those of you that are interested in life in Barbados, visit the sister site to here, called Barbados Photo Blog.
Dam I Need To Know The Code
Yesterday I had a few international telephone calls to make and my brain and remembering numbers, especially international dialling codes don’t go too well together.
I had to call the UK, USA and Dubai all on the same day and believe me my head was spinning thinking about all the dialling codes and different time zones. Life in Barbados was feeling kind of confusing, I needed help real bad.
The answer to many of life’s tricky problems is of course Google; it has saved me on so many occasions. All I had to do was type in international dialling codes into the wee search box and all my prayers would be answered. Well it wasn’t quite as easy as I hoped, I tried a couple of web sites but they were what I would call utter garbage.
Eventually I was rescued by a site that not only very easily gives you the dialling codes required but they also have a time zone convertor. That sure made my job of calling all around the world a hell of lot easier.
The site I used was called time and date.com, and I think it is a great resource for travellers and business people alike. I may add I found this site all by myself through Google and that I’m giving a review for no other reason than because I want too!
For some real self promotion I’m going to mention my other Barbados related blog called Barbados Photo Blog.
Fusilier Road, A Must Visit Road In Barbados
Fusilier Road at Gun Hill Signal station was built by the Royal Scots Fusiliers during their stay there from September 1862 until February 1863. When I walked along this road it, felt good to walking on a such a historic road built by my fellow countrymen, who were so far from home.
Another historic signal station that I would recommend visiitng would be A Fun Day Trip – To Grenade Hall Forest & Signal Station
Star Struck In Barbados
I was visiting family members on Saturday night in the Parish of St John, and I couldn’t but help but be amazed at the amount of stars that I could see in the sky. It sure was a beautiful and inspirational site that I had the privilege of experiencing in Barbados.
I had to pull the car over and gaze at the wonderment of all those stars shining brightly in the sky over Barbados. It has been many a year since I have seen the sky lit up so brightly by so many stars, I think the last time I experienced such a wondrous site was when I was camping in the wilderness of Scotland, about 5 years ago at Sandwood Bay, which is near Cape Wrath.
I now have the urge to go and visit the Harry Bayley Observatory, which is open to the public on a Friday evening. It is seemingly the only observatory in the Eastern Caribbean and gives the public the opportunity to see the moon, planets and deep sky objects through a Celestron 14 inch telescope. I think it will be a good experience for not only my wife and myself, but the kid as well.
Hopefully next week, I will be writing about my trip to the Harry Bayley Observatory, if things go according to plan, but this is Barbados and things don’t always to according to plan…..
Barbados Provides Me With The Bumpiest Rides Of My Life
I’m sure that every car driver that has ever driven in the Caribbean island of Barbados will agree that the roads are ever so slightly bumpy. I use to moan about the condition of the roads back home in Scotland, but the unbelievable condition of the roads here make the ones back home seem like a bowling green.
I have already had 2 burst tyres and 2 slow punctures in the 2 months since I have had my car, all the shocks on my car are also needing replaced. There are pot holes all over the roads in Barbados and you could really mess up more than just your tyre if you had the misfortune of driving over some of the huge ones, and believe me at night when its dark it is difficult to see them.
I know quite a few people that carry two spare tyres just in case they have a real unlucky day. You really need to keep your eyes peeled to avoid the potholes. It kind of gets crazy when its raining as the roads do flood real bad in Barbados and of course the pot holes get filled with water and you cant see the dam holes. Also the you wouldn’t believe how some of the roads here just seem to crumble when they flood, I don’t know what kind of tarmac they use here but they need to change it real quick. An article I wrote about my recent experience of driving through floods in Barbados, The Heavens Opened And The Rains Came Down In Barbados.
I don’t envy those brave souls in Barbados that cycle or the motor bikers, they are most certainly dicing with death or serious injury on a regular basis. I’m living in hope that the huge increase in road tax will mean a huge improvement in the dire state of the roads in Barbados.
If Barbados wants to be taken seriously as a top quality tourist destination, they have to start doing something about things like the crap state of the roads and the lack of signs, because there are loads of countries out there that are doing everything they can to grab a slice of the tourist dollar. I have previously written about the joys of driving on the roads in Barbados, The Nightmare Of Driving In Barbados.
I recently read an article that helps to highlight how dangerous the roads are in Barbados and that something radical needs to be done to make them safer a safer place, More Road Deaths Than Murders.
Who Said There Was a Land Shortage in Barbados
I have heard it said on numerous occasions ever since I first had the good fortune and pleasure to start visiting Barbados that there is a severe land shortage for building houses. Ask the Prime Minister David Thomson and I’m sure he will tell you that there is a lack of land for building residential properties is a very real problem.
I personally don’t think there is a shortage of building plots on Barbados yet, I think the problem is that there are literally thousands upon thousands of building plots all over the island, that are owned by either Bajans that have moved abroad, people that own family land and are just holding on to it and it will be passed on again once they die, and land that the ownership of is unknown or has been lost through time.
For example there is street round the corner from where I live and I drove along it today and counted 27 vacant and overgrown building plots. I know that it is hard to believe that there can be 27 building plots in one street in a country where there is such a huge land shortage. There are hundreds of streets like the one I have mentioned in the Parish I live in Christ Church, and this situation is a fairly common one in most of the other parishes in Barbados.
I feel that the Government should start a database off every single vacant residential building plot and who actually owns them. Once this has been done, all the plots where ownership is lost or cant be proven, the land should be used to build government houses for those poor people that are working hard and struggling in life. Prime plots should be sold to help pay for this project.
I would take it one step further and lands where the land tax hasn’t been paid for say 10 years, the owners should be contacted and told if they don’t start paying their land tax within a stipulated time period, it will be sold with a percentage going to the government for future social housing projects.
I don’t think it would cost the Barbados government a huge amount of money to put together a small team of highly motivated and hard working individuals to get this project off the ground and in the long term the benefits would be amazing
I know David Thomson has a huge task ahead of him in not only solving the land shortage problem in Barbados but also the many thousands of poor people that are living in unbelievable housing conditions, I have been in houses that many people in the UK wouldn’t believe was possible in a country such as Barbados that they perceive as being a wealthy land.
Taking Things Easy In Barbados
It is Saturday and I’m taking things real easy, I’m just chilling out in my porch and enjoying the early morning warmth drinking some coconut water, which came out of coconut that was still hanging from a tree a few hours ago. If you haven’t tasted fresh coconut water, let me tell you the simple truth, you are missing out on a delicious and one of the healthiest natural drinks that you can find in the entire world.
I wrote all about the beneifts of drinking coconut water and you can read it right here, I Sure Do Love Them Coconuts They Are Delicious!
I have some sweet music blasting out of my PC and I have found one particular old traditional Scottish song that I haven’t heard for many a year blasting out. It is a real sweet song called “Wild Mountain Thyme” also known, as “Will You Go Lassie Go” and it seems to sound magical to me sitting in the warmth of Barbados. The Barbados Blog is featuring a version of “Wild Mountain Thyme that is perfomred by a Scottish band called The Silencers.
Fighting Boredom In Barbados
Last night it was another one of those boring nights here in Barbados, if I was back home in Scotland I would have headed down to the multiplex cinema or the indie cinema and went and watched a good movie. As much as I love life in Barbados, there comes a time when things get a wee bit boring and there is just nothing to do.
We have cable TV but it gets boring watching all the various American programs all the time. I wish someone would open up a ten-pin bowling alley or a proper cinema in Barbados. There is plenty of those stupid slots places, which I personally don’t see the point of, if I waned to gamble I will go to a casino or organise a private game of Texas No Limit Hold em and play a game of skill, which also happens to be great fun.
Barbados definitely lacks things to do; I just beats me why some business man with serious money man doesn’t grab the bull by the horns and create something such as a I mentioned, a ten pin bowling complex or multiplex cinema, there must surely be a profitable market for it here.
I think the problem stems from the fact that there are too many people living in Barbados that have never travelled anywhere and as a result they are not a aware of what exists in the big wide world. Also because so many old people come back to there homeland of Barbados to retire after spending decades working abroad, they are too old and boring to do anything apart from sitting in there front porches talking other peoples business.
Fortunately fighting boredom is only an occasional problem for me in Barbados and life really isn’t too bad here.
Wage Slaves You Can Escape Your Hell
I know from personal experience the personal hell of working for businesses or bosses that try to treat you with a total lack respect or treat you like you are almost an modern day slave. As we all know in life there are plenty of people in positions of authority that are not quite “the full shilling” as the saying goes and when they have too much power or the pressure gets a wee bit too much for them and they treat their staff or employees below them in the food chain like they are dogs.
Well if any of this rings a bell for you, what are you doing about escaping from your modern day chains of slavery. There is always a way to move forward with life, you do not need to suffer and endure working in a negative and depressing environment.
For some reason many people allow themselves to get stuck in a rut and allow their place of employment to virtually own them, because of the wage they receive at the end of the week or month. If you hate your job or boss, what are you doing to escape the situation, what are you doing to move forward with your life, or do you think you have no other option other than to endure and put up with it.
The answer my friend is that you owe it to yourself to do something proactive and positive in order to move forward with your life. We are all ultimately the masters of our own destinies and as a result if something needs to be changed in our lives, we can and have to change things ourselves. There is always a way to deal with things, whether it means finding another job or studying to improve your job prospects or even the possibility of working for yourself.
I personally allowed myself to work in my own personal hell for 10 long years and become a wage slave, because I allowed myself to be controlled by a secure and good wage that ultimately controlled me. I eventually decided to take control of my own life and destiny and formulated an escape plan from my job in hell. I started studying again during my spare time and I then took on a part time job as well as maintaining my full time job in order to give myself some capital in order to do my own thing.
If you are living in the hell of a job or boss that is having a bad effect on your life or your health, do something about it. Wage Slaves you can all escape hell if you really want too, whether you are living in Scotland, Barbados, America, India, China or whatever country you are living in.
A Picture Is A Worth A Thousand Words
Sometimes very few words are needed to describe a situation or a moment in time. Well today I’m going to let the picture do the talking for me as I enjoy live in Barbados.
The above picture poetically portrays what I love about life in Barbados; I suppose back home in Scotland the weather will be very unpredictable at this time of the year. In fact back home some days there will be four seasons on one day, which is kind of crazy.
Life is sweet, having the choice to be able to go to a beautiful beach to relax and take things easy any time I have any free time.
I have discovered a new business opportunity by chance, which I am avidly in the process of putting together and I have the Caribbean Sea and my time spent with my own thoughts at the beach to thank for lighting the spark.
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