Category: Blogging

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Quick Cheers to Postcards From TLC

This post won’t be about anything travel related. It’s more of a quick cheers to progress and a thank you to all who have contributed.

Postcards From TLC has just hit some major milestones! Every year, I set new goals for my blog and then I check in on my progress a couple of times each month. So far, for 2018 I’ve already hit most (not all) of my goals, but it’s only August. It looks like I may have to raise the bar a bit higher and re-set some goals soon!

It may not seem like much to you, but I just gained my 1000th follower on FaceBook. If you are a blogger, you can relate to the blood, sweat, and tears that goes into promoting. But, if you are not a blogger, trust me, a lot of time and energy went in to getting those followers. Promoting a blog is quite important and social media is a top way of doing it. The number of followers you gain helps determine what advertising opportunities you may have and how successful you may be at monetizing your blog. While monetizing my blog has never been a top priority, it is nice to earn a little return on my efforts.

When I first started Postcards From TLC over a year ago (read my first post here), I had no idea what I was getting into. I thought it just might be a fun hobby to allow myself to share some of my writing. If you would have told me then that I would soon be sharing my posts with a thousand people I would have thought you were nuts. (In actuality, tallying numbers from all social media outlets we’re at the 3,000 mark.) This seems so unreal, but is a very rewarding feeling.

I remember how difficult it was to gain my first real follower who wasn’t my husband or one of my relatives–thank you so much Melanie Irish! You really gave me hope when you clicked that follow button. I also remember gaining number 1000 on FaceBook–thanks to Michelle DeHaven! I can track each person on each social media platform to see when you clicked on follow. All I can say is thank you to each and everyone of you for helping to turn my fun hobby into something more insightful than that! I’m so grateful to have the followers I have and I will strive to gain more. In retrospect, I will also reciprocate to other blogs as much as possible. I will follow, click your ads, buy your products, and in general attempt to support as many of you as possible. Feel free to share my posts where ever you access them, and maybe you’ll help me gain a few more too!

♥ Tracey L Clark

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Happy Birthday Postcards From TLC!

We made it! We have reached the 1-year anniversary of Postcards From TLC. What was once only a thought/dream/idea became reality when our first post was published on May 12, 2018.

I had been thinking for a while that I would love to get into blogging. It would be a fun project to work on in my spare time. Who knew that it would be much more time-consuming than my “spare time”? I’d estimate that most weeks, I put in close to what I work at my day job, around 35 hours. Granted, some weeks are less, and I can control that, but I always keep my goal of 3 posts per week in mind. (Although, due to some technical difficulties, I didn’t always hit that goal this year.)

I owe a ton of thanks to my financial advisor, Eric Niswonger. In one of our yearly meetings, chit-chatting over lunch, I had mentioned that I would love to set up a blog but had no idea how to do it. He gave me a few suggestions and the motivation to give it a shot and so far I’ve made it a whole year. He not only steered me in the right blogging direction, but he also takes really good care of my investments! If you want help with your investments, comment below and I’ll get you his contact info.

I’ve had an incredible time learning the technical stuff about how to set up a website, how to promote my blog, and well, the content is really the easiest, fun part. As someone who has always loved to write (even if it’s just a list) and majored in English, the writing is the fun part. Now, whether anyone else actually reads it or enjoys it–who knows? The point is, a blog can be totally self-serving. I can write posts and even if no one else reads them, I have an ongoing documentation of things I’ve done and places I’ve been. I just hope, that along the way, someone can glean one helpful tidbit, or moment of entertainment from it.

Going forward, I’m excited to see what year 2 brings! I’m hoping to continue cranking out my posts each week, tweaking the site a little bit more, and learning additional skills that will help me in my blogging future. I’m also looking forward to acquiring more, new content, which means hitting the road. Cheers to Postcards and I hope you continue following!

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A Sigh Of Relief

It’s done! I can breathe again! Well, I’ve always been able to breathe, so maybe that’s not the best analogy. I’ve finally been able to get my blog rolled over to the new, self-hosted platform–see my previous post here–but it was not without it’s challenges. Or maybe I should say self-perceived challenges.ecstatic-2821540_1280The transition started off easy enough. All I had to do was roll all previous posts to the new site and then tailor it to look the way I wanted. And it was easy, except that I just figured out that I somehow left 60 posts on the old site. I guess that wasn’t as easy as it seemed…I might just leave them there for now. If you subscribe to my blog, you were also moved over to the new site. Once everything was set up, moved, and situated the way I wanted it, it was time to move my domain.

I had to wait for Siteground to release my domain name, which is tlcpostcards.com. You may have noticed my recent web address being a temporary address more like box 5501.temp.domains or maybe not. Or you may have had trouble finding my blog on the new platform, like I did. I now know that when a hosting platform tells you it will take 7 days for your domain to be released, it doesn’t mean it could take that long, or may take UP TO 7 days. It means IT WILL take 7 days. And during that 7 days, who knows what will happen with your blog. (I’m sure someone way more techy than me might know, but a simple end-user like me has no clue.)

Some days I could post on my temp domain, then my temp domain disappeared, along with some draft posts. I could still draft a post on the old platform, but it was down to having only 2 subscribers left on it. All the changes I had made to my theme (which is the way it looks on screen) were gone. I was sure I had done something seriously wrong. woman-2696408_1920

I called my new hosting platform (BlueHost) twice only to be told that my domain hadn’t been released, but my blog was fine. I even had them check that my domain was pointed to the right servers–even though I still don’t really know what that means…Their service reps are so kind and patient, especially with a newbie like me. They assured me everything was fine. Finally, after still not being able to access my new blog for almost a week, I called BlueHost a third time. Once again, the rep assured me my new blog was fine, still there, and even described it to me over the phone. When I explained I still could not access anything, she said, “Oh, you just need to clear your cache”.

Now I’m not sure about you, but I had no idea what a cache even was or that I had one, much less did I know I needed to clear it or how to. Soooo, I next asked her for instructions on how to do it. I know by this time she surely thought i was one of the slowest people she had ever spoken to.

It took me about 15 seconds to “clear my cache” and VOILA! There’s my blog, back in business on the self-hosted platform, looking just the way I had left it. I was even able to publish a post from last week with no issue.

I’m hoping to get the rest of it cleaned up in the coming days/weeks (hopefully it won’t take months) and tweaked to look EXACTLY how I want. If you happen to be a fellow blogger who is looking to switch your hosting, do give BlueHost a look, they are so helpful and knowledgeable. Thank you so much for following and thank you for your patience!

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A High-Five To Myself

I have to high-five myself at this point. When I started this blogging gig, I knew there would be some “techy” things I would need to learn about. I don’t consider myself very “techy”, but apparently, I can Google instructions and follow them in order to make things work which has saved my butt on this blog.

As time has gone on, I’ve surprised myself along the way. Learning throughout this past year about graphics, widgets, headers, footers, HTML code,affiliate marketing, SEO, crawling bots, and so on was really beyond my reach. Or so I thought. BUT, I got most of it figured out and set up the way I wanted it on my blog. AND I can even carry on an intelligent conversation with my colleagues about, say, SEO and what it is.

Fast forward my learning to February, 2018. This is when I realized the way I had my blog set up was limiting. I couldn’t do certain things I wanted to do, I couldn’t use the theme that I really preferred (how the blog looks to you), and soon, I would have more traffic than it was set up to handle. stop-1013732_1280From what I could tell, I would need to move to a self-hosted platform.

And guess what? I did it!  You may have noticed recently, that my webpage looks different. Not drastically different, I still have the same logo and same pics used in my header. The coloring is still the same so I think it still has the same feel. But, I now have a side bar menu instead of dropdown at the top, a different layout and blah, blah, blah. Not to bore you with the details, let’s just say that I’ve re-vamped this blog literally from top to bottom and had to learn so much in order to do so. presentation-1454403_1280Thank you for your patience as I’ve transitioned over to the self-hosted platform. I’m still waiting for my domain name to be released, so you will see something besides “box5501.temp.domains…” in your address bar when on my blog.  Once the domain privacy on my previous platform releases my domain name, tlcpostcards.com, everything on my blog will be fully functional again and I will be able to proceed as usual and hopefully probably learn some more “techy” things. I hope this results in you have a better experience with my postings. Thank you for following!

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Beginning 2018

When I first started this endeavor called blogging, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I just knew it made sense to write about something I knew something about that would (hopefully) interest others. After 7 months of blogging, and learning, and learning, and blogging, and learning some more, while I don’t feel like I have this mastered, I do feel like I’m accomplishing some goals and am now striving towards even loftier ones.

Based on what I thought were solid growth numbers, I was hopeful I would grow my blog followers to 200 by the end of 2017. (And I thought that was setting the goal bar pretty high). Thanks to fellow bloggers, my followers, and never-ending research I’ve actually went over 1,000 by the beginning of this year. For 2018, I hope to surpass that number. Since I know 1,000 is possible in less than a year, I should probably attempt 3,000 to keep me on my toes.

I’ve also begun learning more about SEO and affiliate marketing. This allows me to (potentially) earn cashola from blogging. While I have watched those numbers grow and can see some patterns as to what works and what doesn’t, but still haven’t earned anything of substance yet, for 2018 I will attempt to generate more clicks/views/sales which will hopefully come along with increased traffic. If nothing else, I would just like to earn enough to actually receive a check for one month. (Most affiliates don’t cut you a check until you’ve earned at least $100.)

Finally, I am committed to continuing to publish quality content. It’s hard to look at other travel blogs and see all the wonderful locations they write about and realize I have a lot of ground to cover. I’m hoping time will allow me to broaden my wings and check out some of the more exotic and cultural places. Now, if I can just learn to develop the patience to take a flight longer than 4 hours that should be easy to do, right?

Above all else, I’d like to send a thank you to my blog followers. I know in today’s time-crunched world it’s sometimes difficult to commit to reading anything. I just hope that I can continue to hold your attention in this ever-speedy world long enough for you to get a bit of enjoyment out of it.

For 2018, onward and upward really will be my mantra!