What is a sitemap you may ask and why do I need one? A sitemap is a list of all the links to the pages on your website. I’ve recently added a sitemap for this blog using a Wordpress plugin (see Arne Brachhold’s sitemaps-generator ). If you don’t use Wordpress then there are lots of other types of free software that you can use (for a list of tools you can use see code.google.com). The good thing about using a sitemap generator is that you do not have to create it by hand, making it very simple to keep up-to-date. Every time I add a new post the sitemap is updated automatically. There is lots of other free software around to use, depending on what’s suitable for your website.

The benefits of having a sitemap include increasing your chances of getting all your web pages indexed on Google, as it makes it easier for Google’s automated “googlebots” to crawl your website (ie. index all the content for display on google’s results page). This helps with SEO or Search Engine Optimisation.

If you want to know more about SEO see my webpage http://www.how-to-be-a-bad-artist.com/market.html

Yes, lot’s of people ask this. I could reply with another question, what is the point of a diary? You write down all your thoughts, supposedly for your own amusement, and occasionally someone nosey will have a peek and read bitchy things about
themselves or find they have been omitted completely. (I don’t know what’s worse, being bitched about or totally forgotten). In the same way, a blog for most people is a collection of thoughts and pictures with occasional reference to others thoughts and pictures that people can pick up and read.

But is a blog more than just a diary? Does it have other benefits? The answer is yes. It is interactive and available to the public, readers can leave their comments and share your ramblings with others. The other major advantage, so I’ve read so many times on other blogs, is that it is good for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). A website that has fresh content added to it on a regular basis is not only more likely to be indexed by Google but will attract more users to the website (or so the theory goes).

So far the effects of having a blog on this website have been positive. Since that flurry of initial interest from friends and supporters, I realise that this blog is destined to be read by accidental readers who stumble upon it through Google. Hopefully they will find the content relevant and useful and are not looking for something completely different. (This happens to me often, as I drift into irrelevant random websites and then forget what I was looking for in the first place.) That is why your blog needs to be relevant to the rest of your website. It needs to contain the “keywords” that will bring the right people to the right place. In other words, there is no point writing about your cat’s sleeping habits if your website is about selling cars.

But does this bother me? No. In fact, I feel at liberty to say what I like, a great freedom not available to many people of the world. I can give my theories on this and that, show techniques, take photographs and all to my heart’s content. The only censorship comes from me. I’ve always wanted to keep some sort of record of what art techniques I’ve tried, paintings I’ve done and forgotten about, places I’ve visited and exhibitions I’ve seen. And this is ideal. If it offers something interesting for others, then that is an added bonus.

I have to admit though, as an incredibly nosey person, I enjoy reading other people’s blogs. It gives a snapshot on someone’s life (well a part of it) and is a lot more interesting than watching TV. I’ve found a lot of blogs that are incredibly useful. This blog wouldn’t exist without other people’s blogs, who told me how to do it in the first place. But I’m not one of those secret blog readers that never leave a comment. I like to give an acknowledgement to the author that I’ve read what they’ve written.

Talking of words, this brings me on to my next question, what is the point of dictionaries? To look up a word you have to know how to spell it and if you knew how to spell it you wouldn’t need a dictionary…

I’ve recently discovered a way of checking if I have new email, job search updates, blog updates, latest weather, news…the list is endless…all in one place instead of visiting several websites individually. There are several “feed readers” that do this, but the one I’ve tried is http://www.netvibes.com.

What is a feed reader, you may ask? Until recently, I’d never heard of them either. Basically you create your own page within a website, such as netvibes.com, and then collect the RSS feeds from your favourite websites or blogs and add them to this page. I don’t know how this works in technical detail, but all you need to know is that it is dead easy to do.

For example, if you wanted to add this blog as a feed, you would click on the “Add content” button in netvibes.com and enter this url: http://www.how-to-be-a-bad-artist.com/index.php and from then on you will know whenever I add something new. Or you could click on the icon that says “RSS” (top right on this page) and choose which feed reader you want to add it to. You will also see a similar symbol on other websites that update their content on a regular basis. I have found, however, that it doesn’t always work on all browsers (the software that enables you to access the internet such as Internet Explorer), but it seems to work on most. You can also add your email accounts and Facebook and know straight away when someone has sent you a message. Couldn’t be easier. Go on give it a try…