Requesting review of my new Racing Ready blog, please

[Dan Scanlon]

Ros, et al,

I bought your Handbook over 3 months ago. After reading it thoroughly and then getting stuck on what niche to pursue & then how to properly select keywords - I "roamed around" looking for further guidance.

I finally got off my keister & started a blog a bit over 3 weeks ago. Your's (& Anik's) blogclassroom.com intro was a great help. I have tried a few things & know I need to fix a number of issues, but I want to make sure I'm going about this headed in the right direction.

One thing is for sure, I AM committed to writing something just about daily. Its an interesting challenge. Next week I will be receiving a product sample that I will promote as an affiliate. I know this is something that will appeal to my target audience. I'm thinking of setting up the display & review of this product as a separate page, in addition to the About & Bookstore pages. Yes, I know the Bookstore page (sourced by Amazon.com) doesn't fit correctly. I'm guessing I would have to source this out if I can't figure out the CSS tweaking...

I'm not happy with the current theme, but I'll deal with that later. I had downloaded & semi-tweaked another one, but then after setting up some WordPress plug-in settings, it broke. I'm currently back on the defuault theme, with just the header modified.

Thanks in advance for whatever critiques & suggestions you can provide. The blog is at racingready.com

Thank you SO much!

[Rosalind Gardner]

Hey Dan,

Your commitment to writing daily will prove to be what drives your site to success. Good for you!

Don't worry about the template for now. Just the fact that you are making the attempt to learn CSS (broke the blog and got it back) tells me that you'll succeed at getting that template together eventually... and probably sooner than later.

My only suggestion is to stay on topic, i.e. your visitors that are interested in driving/rally/racing are maybe not so interested in how your blog is coming along... although WE are.

Make a list of possible driving topics to post about for the next month on a day-by-day basis. And if you miss a day or two, so what? Just pick up where you left off.

Too, get your Feedburner or Aweber autoresponder links up there as soon as possible to start building your list.

Last but not least, have fun with it... you're definitely on the right track!

Cheers,

[GailT]

Hi Dan -

I had a few minutes and thought I'd add my two cents worth

I love the use of photos and images in blogs - try to alternate where they happen. You can put them on the right, left and text wrap to mix it up.

When I subscribe via email what are you going to do? Will you send an email each time there is a post or once weekly with a synopsis of the posts? Let the reader know so he expects it in his email box.

And doing a publishing schedule, like Ros described, is a phenomenal way of keeping yourself on track. If something else comes up you can always be flexible. Set up a Google alert for your keywords - this will help you develop new topics and stay up-to-date with what's going on in your niche.

But the best advice I've ever gotten about moving forward on my blogs is to make it fun. Once you start dreading the posting process it can be like pulling teeth. Keep it fun for yourself and you'll love what you do!

Gail