Hey guys, I have a fantastic post on it’s way hopefully tomorrow about ’5 Ways To Take Your Blog To The Next Level’, where I will being using examples of probloggers who have had a simgle moment where everything seemed to fall into place and their blogs kicked it up a gear – so keeps your eyes peeled to your readers for that one – and if you are not subscribed I encourage you too so I have the opportunity to humiliate Shannon!

But today I would like to get your opinions on the changes I made to my blog design!

If you are a regular reader then you would have noticed the changes just the other day where I:

1. Removed the boxes that were under the header
2. Moved my rss signup to the sidebar
3. Replaced my 125×125 ads with one hostgator ad
4. Added a banner above my latest post to advertise my competition

I think it makes it a whole lot cleaner, but you are the ones that visit my blog, so I obviously would love to hear your thoughts!

Challenge Update!

Well I have gained 35 readers (I think). Which I think is fantastic! I’d love to hit 250 or even 300 by the end of this challenge with Shannon and get the opportunity to see him humiliated – so make sure you subscribe to my feed to help me along the way!

• The challenge was made!
• I stepped forward to meet it.
• And this contest was the result! :D

So here is all the details you need to know:

That is how easy it is for you to help me win this little competition with Shannon. But seriously here are the ‘five w’s’ that will tell you all about whats going on!

• Who?
  Well that’s an easy one! This is a contest between two blogs, StandOutBlogger.com and InfectedByBugs.com.Head to Head.
• What?
  Ok you know it’s a challenge, but what exactly is the workings of the contest? Well simply put, it’s a 2 week contest starting today where we both have to try and increase our RSS feed count the most. (Shannon has almost 3 times the amount of subscribers as me so help a brother out and subscribe to StandOutBlogger :D)
• Where?
  Right here! Haha…where did you expect?
• When?
  Right now, til the 20th of October! 2 weeks to be exact.
• Why?
  Because we can! And because we both think we have what it takes to beat each other, and have put our money (well not literally) where our mouths are and the losing blogger has to write a scripted video blog written by the winner that will absolutely HUMILIATE the loser! Now this isn’t going to be a wussy humiliation video like the one Gyutae made Tyler read in their contest. Expect all the stops to come out when the winner is announced. (So subscribe to make sure you don’t miss it!)

Well thats pretty much the extend of it all, and I really need your help so that I can win! So if you have visited here for the first time, or you come back everyday but just havnt subscribed I would really appreciate your vote of support!

Plus if you have any ideas on how I can totally inihilate Shannon in this contest, I am all ears :D

It’s that time of the week again! Wow, I can’t believe it is sunday already – the weeks are going so fast.

Well I got inspiration for this question this morning when I woke up and notices I had received an email and a comment(from two different bloggers) asking me the exact same question.

Are your comments broken, because mine never seem to show up!

Now the reason they never see them show up is because I individually approve each new comment because I want to make sure my blog is free from spite, bad language, or anthing of that nature. Now about 99.% of comments do get approved and honestly I’m not that slow at approving them – usually a couple hours.

That brings me to todays question:

Should bloggers auto approve comments or approve everyone before they are visible?

EXTRA STUFF:

1. I will probably not be approving comments til tomorrow now as I have my cousins wedding this afternoon – but I’ll be sure to take a heap of photos and I might even post some on hear and find a way to weave a blogging message through it.
2. I must say I am really impressed with my fellow bloggers! I have been emailing a whole lot of the top bloggers in the MMO and blog about blogging niche in regard to their input in a new project especially for you guys, and their response has not only been fast (I only sent them emails yesterday and most have already replied) but so far they have all been positive!

All I can say is the rest of October is going to be huge for StandOutBlogger as I prepare myself for the next version of Blogging Idol – which starts on the 1st of November! You may remember that the initla success of this blog came from a great performance in the initial Blogging Idol contest, where I placed in the Top10 for largest RSS feed increase. I am looking to improve on my results from last time and my RSS count goal for the end of the year is 500(Been stable around 180 for the last month)!

I have been harnessing the power of networking with other bloggers and I have managed to score myself a bit of a warm up for Blogging Idol, an soon to be published interview about me and my blog and a few creative blog promotion ideas.

So lets take a closer look at what you can expect from StandOutBlogger for the rest of October:

• 2 Week RSS Challenge With Shannon From InfectedByBugs.com
  After answering Shannons call for a challenge competitor, we have decided on a RSS contest. Launching with a bang on this coming monday, we will have two weeks each to gain the most RSS subscribers for our blogs. We don’t have money on the line. We don’t have prizes for the winner. What we have to fight for is something much bigger and much more important. PRIDE. You will have to wait til we launch on monday to find out what is going to happen at the end, but let me just say ‘PLEASE DONT LET IT BE ME!’ :D

  This is going to be a fantastic warmup competition for me to try and re hone my skills after plateauing a bit ove the last few months, and let me tell you, the ideas are already flowing. I am going to have to kick it up a notch with Shannon having close to 3 times the subscribers as me, but Shannon had better watch out, cause this challenge is mine!

• I Am Going To Be Interviewed On MomsCashBlog.com
  A short while ago  was contacted by JJ from MomsCashBlog.com and asked if I would be willing to participate in an interview. I readily agreed for a couple of reason:
  1. JJ is a valued regular at my blog
  2. It gives me an opportunity to get StandOutBlogger.com seen by all her visitors! :D

  I have just received all the question and am looking forward to answering them. Just from the questions I can tell this interview will be quite a bit different to most blogger interviews and you wont want to miss it (so I’ll make sure I link back to it when it goes live!)

• The Blog Debate Concept!
  I am really excited about this one! Adam from Creadiv emailed me just the other day with a very interesting concept to help us both gain more visitors. After chatting with him on MSN for a bit about it I instantly jumped at the opportunity.

  The idea is that we select a topic and it is literally like a debate. I will take one side and Adam the other and we will both write 5-10 points on why we believe our side of the story is the right way for bloggers to go – of course linking to the other bloggers post! This is something I have never seen before and I am looking forward to seeing your response to it.

• My Most Popular Blog Post Ever
  I know thats a big call but I have already spend a couple of hours researching this and with a fair bit more to go I just know its going to be a hit with the social media websites! Yes it’s a list. Yes it’s blogging related. But for now, that is all you will know. You are going to love this one!
• Possible Teaking Of My Blog Design
  Although I love my design and it has served me well, especially with branding. I am always seeing new designs and learning new thing, and there are a few things with the design I would like to change. Like:
  • Removing the RSS, latest posts and Social Bookmarking buttons row.
    Looking at it, I don’t think it is that important and is just taking up space and making the design look a little bit cluttered. Of course I would move the rss info the the top of the side bar.
  • Look at better use of individual post pages
    Right now I have the image asking people to subscribe at the bottom of each post, but I think this whole section of the design could be redone to include relevant posts, RSS and social bookmarking buttons, and possible a little bit of advertising.
• I am looking for guest bloggers because I will be away for a week!
  With all these great things said, I am actually going on a road trip to Sydney for about a week from the 17th-24th of October with two friends of mine. We are mainly going for a one night event called ‘Passion World Tour’ but just chilling, shopping and site-seeing for the rest of the week (with shopping probably being done more than anything else :D)

  The Passion World Tour is a Christian even that will include Louie Giglio speaking, and two massive international names in Christian music, Chris Tomlin and David Crowder Band (I linked to videos instead of their websites because that would give you a quicker idea of what im going on about) I know it probably all doesnt interest you that much, but another thing I am super excited about doing is going to Hillsong Church and Youth when we are down in Sydney. Hillsong is a church produces some of the most sought after music and their youth band United play to crowds of 30,000 all over the world. Here is one of their songs called ‘Point Of Difference‘.

  Anyway, all that aside, I need some guest bloggers for while I’m away – so Shannon doesn’t get ahead of me in our challenge :D. So hit me up if you’re interested!

Well that is the extent of my October (Plus working!). It’s going to be full on, but it should be a whole heap of fun! If you have any thoughts or comments comment below!