A new blog
January 25th, 2008 | by Brook Durant |
Two days ago I finally had enough content to get pet-snakes.com up and running. It is dedicated to keeping snakes as pets (as if you couldn’t tell by the url…) and general care of other reptiles as well. Instead of leaving the blog posts open to commenting I installed a phpbb 2 forum on this site to facilitate discussion, and feedback. I took this approach as I wanted the main site to be more for disseminating information regarding snakes as opposed to open discussions. Currently there are 9 articles up on the site and 12 more currently in the works. I’ll be posting 2 or 3 a day until they’ve all been posted at which point I will be adding even more content with the help of some other folks. That’s the short story. The long story is how I came to decide on starting that project.
I’ve always been fascinated by snakes since I was about 5 or 6 years old. Throughout my childhood and early teens I had snakes as pets. At the time I really had no idea what I was doing so it was surprising anything made it, and sometimes it didn’t. As I got older I lost interest in snakes and became interested in all the wrong things young men become interested in. Except for one brief stint of taking care of a ball python for about 3 months I was virtually snake free for about 8 years.
Then a few months ago I had a really screwed up dream. I was being chased all over the place by a rat. This was no ordinary rat! This was Mighty Mouse’s big brother! I don’t remember much about the dream but I remember waking up thinking to myself I need a snake!, and at that the seed was planted and I began to absorb all of the information about snakes I could get my hands on. Until I was satisfied I had enough knowledge at which point I started shopping around.
The long and short of it was I got the snake and soon realized that I was beginning to forget half of what I learned. Rather than forget it all I started typing it out on the computer. After I had several potential articles lined out I put in place a plan start a new blog dedicated to snake care. At first I had intended to make it a regular blog with replies, widgets, and all of that stuff. I quickly came to realize that I wanted to monetize the blog because it lends itself well to that because of it’s tight niche focus. I’ve gone with the standard Google Adsense advertising for the moment but as it gains in popularity I will start approaching targeted businesses about partnership opportunities.
This will mark the first time I’ve truly focused on monetizing a site from almost the beginning. In order to draw in more traffic I am going to hold a contest for a free snake up to a $250.00 value. So if you or anyone you know is into snakes keep an eye on pet-snakes.com for details. If not you should still check it out anyhow. Just because you’re my friend…
And yes I know I need a header/logo. If anyone wants to offer me a nice one for under $25.00 I’m willing to talk. Just get in touch with me and we can discuss it.
I’d like to remind everyone to please sign up for my email rss feed. Once I reach 500 subscriptions I will randomly choose a member of the 500 signups and send that person $50.00! Tell your friends, tell your family, tell everyone about their chance to win $50.00! Hell, you’t even need to link back to an article, or write an article. Just need to be one of the 500 subscribers. Contest will run until there is a winner. So tell everyone because until we reach 500 subscribers no one has any chance to get that $50.00!
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Tags: Blogging, blogs, monetization
By clint on Jan 27, 2008
I can’t put hydrogen proxide in my ear got a busted ear drum this is very pain ful trust me.
clint’s last blog post..John Chow Can’t Do This
By A Blog about Nothing on Jan 28, 2008
Clint - I think you replied to the wrong article , lol. And I’ll take your word for the pain as I see no need to inflict it upon myself.