Weblog -> About the Weblog

about the weblog

Why I started a weblog and how it developed, including the tools and programs used to build it and promote it.

in the beginning

I started the weblog out of consideration for my friends. I got fed up of forwarding and recieving url's, so thought that a blog would be a useful central point for anything interesting we found. I also thought it would be an interesting record of sites I visited and of topics I have been interested in.

I signed up with blogger and took advantage of free hosting on blogspot using a template and little customisation.

Initially it was a basic page with a single logo. then I built the quarsan.net site around it, and various articles, photos I had lying around. I never expected it to get any hits, apart from friends, so didn't put too much thought into it. however, I found it was getting a bit stale and fancied a better design, so I decided to put a bit more effort into it.

the turning point

in december 2001 I redesigned the site, and, out of interest, put a free counter from site meter on the page. To my amazement I found I was getting around 10 unique hits a day. this was a suprise, to say the least.

Since people were visiting the site, I decided to really pull my socks up. I started submitting it to search engines and specialist blog search/directories like gb logs, globe of blogs etc etc.

I found a way to make my life a little easier by using the wonderful bloggar posting tool. This really made adding posts really simple and quick. Previously I was using the blogger right-click bookmarklet. Although I was pretty good, it didn't have as good an interface or features as bloggar.

adding useful features

As the blog grew, I wanted visitors to have easy access to the archives. The first thing was a free google site search.

To improve the archives I used a free javascript which made a nice drop down menu instead of a list of numerical dates.

Now the site was more user friendly I wanted to work on involving visitors and interacting with them. After a little looking around, I used the yaccs commenting system. This has been working well, but they have stopped taking on more users. here's some alternatives.

I kept up to date with sites that linked to the blog and replied to comments left by visitors. I signed up for blogsnob, which has increased traffic to the site and have just signed to blogster enabling visitors to sign up for an email update of all the days posts and links.

And there we have it, visitor numbers have doubled and there are regulars who add comments and send the occasional email. wonder what'll happen next.....