Article 500? What the –! What sort of title is that for a post?

Is it some declassified US Government document? An intercepted secret communication between Heads of State perhaps? A UFO conspiracy? An addition to the Geneva Convention?

Nope. It’s the 500th post on this blog. – Well it’s somewhere around the 500th: Probably more like the 501st to the 503rd; but a couple may have gone missing over time.

It has been about 15 months, almost to the day, since I wrote the very first post on this blog. In those days blogging was totally new to me. To be honest I didn’t have a clue; either about what direction this blog was going in, nor about the art of blogging itself in reality.

It all started back in the days when PC Mech Live was presented by both Rich Menga and David Risley. – June 2008. (Now it’s just Rich Menga only; (Wednesdays, 8PM EST.) as Dave is working his ass off on his various enterprises. – All of which, as far as the ones that are published go, have been to this day extremely beneficial, both to the author and to the customer; myself included.)

In May of that year I’d been subscribing to PC Mech as a free subscriber for quite some time; years in fact. I found out about the live show that they did at 8PM EST on a Wednesday night during a conversation with Dave. I also showed him my website, kustomkomputa.co.uk, (Which hasn’t been updated since as far as I remember.) and he said that I’d be better off with a WordPress blog than doing all that messing around in html.

I had a look at some people’s blogs, studied their source-code – Which worried me a bit: All scripts and php; both of which I was rather inexperienced in –and decided to make the jump to a blog; a WordPress blog, as Dave had recommended such and appeared to know what he was talking about when he said it was the best one to go for.

When I started I had no idea what I was doing. I’d fretted myself into a cold sweat just installing the blog on my domain. I’d created this domain, kkomp.com, especially for the purpose of putting this blog on it. – You see my original intention was to make this an interactive website as an extension of my computer-building business; and since kustomkomputa.com was already allocated for future expansion in tandem with kustomkomputa.co.uk – even though that never actually happened – I chose the next-best thing that was available at the time, kkomp.com: A massive abbreviation, and an easy-to-type name, which I assumed would help visitors to remember it.

Possibly I got that bit right; but most other things I got totally wrong: Like eventually choosing a theme: The one I chose; Serenity Pink, was quite girly and seemed to be rather me at the time. Unfortunately it wasn’t very appropriate for a computer blog of any kind. I looked at it with a view to customising it; but my php skills were virtually nil at the time, css likewise, and I didn’t know which files to edit even. – So I was between a rock and a hard place so to speak. – Neither of which were very comfortable.

I tried to run before I’d learned to walk and did everything I could to make the blog more attractive, despite in many cases having the opposite effect.

I did notice that a few of my articles were pulling most of the audience, though; and those were the computer-help articles and the electronics articles. The news articles, despite being the easiest to write, were pulling in the least readers, and even when I expanded them and added my own personal slant on them, they failed to do the business.

Content was the least of my worries at the time: I was determined to make the theme look nice, and I was studying hard with the help of Google in order to be able to do so; so rightly or wrongly I eventually built up enough confidence and knowledge to have a go at customising the theme. – With strange results.

Anyway; to cut a long story short it took until July 2009 before I was happy with the way the blog looked aesthetically. In January of 2009 I’d started paying more attention to content and a bit less to the theme files; and as I began to add more value to posts with better pillar-content, so my audience began to reach a decent size.

I’d been using social media; especially Twitter, as an advertising medium, so it hadn’t been that nobody knew about the blog, it was just that, initially, the look and content sucked due to my naivety and inexperience.

Now we jump forwards to today; and as you’ll note from the blog’s footer, I’m currently on David Risley’s Blog Masters Club course and things are running along swimmingly at present; having encountered and dealt with server issues last week. – Which could have cost me anything up to £120GBP, but didn’t –’ Long story. Let’s just leave it there for now. I’ve already done Yaro Starak’s Become a Blogger course; which was most helpful.

(If you yourself are interested in either of these courses, then it looks like the doors will be opening early in 2010 to new admissions with regard to both courses. Both have my personal recommendation; but in my opinion, beginner bloggers should enrol in Yaro’ s Become a Blogger course; whereas more advanced bloggers who want to go problogger and make a successful business from their blog would be better of attending David’s course.

To be in with a chance of a place on enrolment day, as places are already under high demand on both courses, click on the linked course name(s) above and register your interest.)

You’ve no doubt noticed, and will no doubt continue to notice, improvements; given time + a little trial and error combined with various tactics.

As for the future: Well with two main milestones drifting into the distance; those being both the 500th post, and the blog’s first birthday – back in June 2009, it’s time to up the ante somewhat and put a bit more in to it on my part; hopefully to get a lot more out of it in the future: That goes for both myself and my readers too.

This blog started as a mess, became something worth reading, underwent a little enhancement, and in the next chapter it’s time to take it to the next level.

I’ll say no more for the time being; as every time I announce plans or make promises, something beyond my control crops up and ruins all of it.

That’s it for this post: I thought of taking the day off in celebration; but that would just be unproductive or counterproductive. – So with nose applied to grindstone once again I bid you all farewell until the next article; coming very shortly on Beyond: -

Hardware + Software + Practical Electronics + more

- At kkomp.com; with that little touch of magick.***