Welcome to another episode of “The Naked Truth” on DailyMorningCoffee. Dee Ann of DeeAnnRice.com has been a wonderful acquaintance from quite some time now and I love reading through her articles ranging from challenges to pet peeves, from social networking to blogging fun, from How To guides to competitions. All of them have a unique flavor of the writer and she brings out her personal thoughts and experiences in each one of them.
When I asked her to answer a few questions about herself and her blogging habits, she immediately agreed and I was pleasantly amazed at how in detail she went about answering each of my questions. She is a person who devotes her time 100% when she is onto something and a person of that nature can achieve tremendous success in this writing and blogging industry for sure.
Dee Ann, I am extremely thankful for your time and cooperation in this whole exercise and am sure my readers of this article will gain to know much more about you through this.
I hope you are enjoying the naked truth series here on DMC. If you would like to get featured, reach out to me using the Contact Form.
| Dee Ann Rice | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1. | How long have you been blogging? | About 8 months |
| 2. | How many blogs do you own and contribute for? | I own 3 but am only really writing on one of them right now – www.DeeAnnRice.com. I also contribute to 1 other blog – www.Off-The-Deep-End.net |
| 3. | What is the main purpose or objective of your blog? | I think the main purpose of my blog would be to help others learn what I know by writing about my journey as a blogger. Secondly, I would like to use my blog toward my final goal and that is to make some money online. |
| 4. | How many posts do you write on an average per week? | I write between 1 and 3 posts a week depending on if I write more than one for my deeannrice.com blog and if it is my turn to write for the other blog that I am one of many authors on. |
| 5. | How much time do you devote for your blog on a daily basis? | This is a really hard question for me to come up with a good answer to. The best way I could think of to answer this was to just tell what I do. I work as a school bus driver about 3.5 hours a day, I drive once in the morning and again in the afternoon. I have 2 children left at home, ages 14 and 17(Dec. 29). I home school my son (14) and my daughter (17) is attending college for her last 2 years of high school so I end up tutoring her on some of her subjects. Then there are all of the activities that teenagers seem to get themselves involved in. I do my blogging during any free time I have left. Some days there is no time left for blogging and others I manage to fit in as many as 5 hours. It really varies. I start worrying about my blogging when I hit several days in a row where I do not get to do much on it. I always try to spend at least 30 minutes on my blog each morning between 5:30 am and 6:30 am before I go to work. I also try to spend time over the weekend. So I guess in short I spend anywhere between 0 and 5 or 6 hours a day on my blog depending on my schedule that day. |
| 6. | How much time do you spend on tracking RSS feeds? | I track my RSS feeds with Google’s Feed Reader so it is easy to do. I don’t know that I spend that much time doing it. I just bring Reader up and all of my RSS feeds that I am tracking are right there. |
| 7. | What is your favorite social bookmarking site and Why? | I like StumbleUpon. It is easy to use and there are a lot of people that surf this site. |
| 8. | What is your blog’s monthly revenue? | Right now I am not making any money on my blog. It is something that I would like to see my blog do in the future though, actually the near future. |
| 9. | How many page views does your blog generate daily? | About 2500 page views and it is going up. I have received as many as 3500 page views and do not drop usually drop below 2500 at this point. |
| 10. | Name one blog(apart from yours!!) you read every day without fail. | Most of the blogs that I follow do not have posts published daily but, rather once or twice a week. So, I do not have another blog that I read every day. I do read several blogs regularly. Some of those are AdrienneSmith.net, Barry-Wells.com, DawnKaysblog.com, BasicBlogTips.com, Randolfsmith.com, Blog.EffortlessEbookWriting.com. |
| 11. | What is your blog’s main revenue generator? | Again it is not generating revenue at this point. |
| 12. | Do you believe in Alexa rankings for measuring traffic? | I think that Alexa is a good guide line. I am not sure it is the only measure or even the most accurate measure of a website’s traffic. I do enjoy watching my Alexa ranking go up. I think it at least tells me I am moving in the right direction. If nothing else it makes me feel good when I see it moving up. |
| 13. | Do you accept Guest Articles on your blog? | 1. Do you accept Guest Articles on your blog? I have not had any guest posts yet. I was just thinking about implementing some guest posting for 2012. If anyone is interested in guest posting at my blog I would be open to it. |
| 14. | Do you believing in spending money on promoting your blog? | Yes, I think you need to be willing to spend money on anything you want to succeed. Nothing is really free. Even if all you do is buy a domain name and pay for hosting you have spent money. I really think that people using wordpress.com, blogger or any other free hosting service are doing themselves a disfavor. In order to really do a blog right you need to invest in the blog and that starts with purchasing a domain name and hosting. |
| 15. | Do you answer to all the comments on your blog? | Yes, I answer every comment that I approve for my blog. I also visit everyone’s blog and comment on their blog after they comment on mine. |
| 16. | How did you market your blog during your initial days to get the readers that you have? | All I did was blog hop. I went to as many blogs as I could, read posts and commented on them. I spent hours commenting. I think blog hopping is still the most time consuming thing that I do. I am not overly fast and try put thought into my comments so it takes me some time to do. I also listed my blog in blog and RSS directories and book marked every post. I wrote a few articles as well. |
| 17. | Any mistakes to learn from and avoid? | The biggest mistake I have made is not backing up my blog. It is never too early to back up a blog. Another mistake I made was working on my blog late at night. I ended up deleting my blog in one click of the mouse. I did not have my blog backed up. I had only been blogging for about 1 month and only had a few posts but it took me a couple of weeks to redo the whole thing. |
| 18. | What is your source of new post ideas? | Reading other people’s blog posts, things that happen to me and brain storms that I have, often in the middle of the night. I will literally wake up with an idea for a blog post. |
| 19. | Is having a “niche” important to bloggers? | I think having a “niche” is important because it gives your blog direction. This does not mean that you cannot comment on blogs in other niches. I comment on peoples blogs in all kinds of niches and they reciprocate by commenting on mine. |
| 20. | Any advice to a start-up blogger? | Find a good course that shows you how to set up a blog right. This will save valuable time in getting started. There are several good courses out there. I would recommend John Thornhill or Sally Neill. They do a fabulous job of helping you get your blog up and running as well as getting traffic to it. I think the most valuable piece of advice I could offer though is back up your blog immediately. Even if you have only spent an hour or two on it. You do not want to have to spend that hour or two again. There are lots of posts on backing up blogs. I put at least one on my blog. |
| 21. | Bio | As you are aware my name is Dee Ann Rice. I have had a very interesting and exciting life so far. I have traveled and lived all over the world. I also have friends in many different countries. At this point in my life I am not able to travel physically however, I would love to travel again and plan on it. I think that is why I love the internet so much. I love to meet people and now have even more friends all over the world who I met on the internet. I also love to help people. I have always loved to give. I think this is reflected in my children. When my children were young it was a struggle to purchase coats and boots at times. When I would finally be able to go and purchase the coats and boots I had to instruct my children that they could not give their new coats and boots away because, if they saw another child without a coat they would take theirs off and give it to the other child. I am sure this is because they watched me give things to people constantly. |
| 22. | My Blog | Visit My Blog Here and You can find more information about Dee Ann here - About DeeAnn |
| 23. | Follow Me: | LinkedIn YouTube Google+ StumbleUpon Skype: deeannrice |
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What a lovely introduction to Dee Ann! I look forward to getting to know her better. I can so relate to the mom-juggling and fitting in blogging, too.
Leora – I am sure you will find Dee Ann to be a very interesting writer and blogger. Glad I could make this connection between us bloggers and hope to bring more people into this circle of “Naked Truths”.
Thanks for leaving a comment.
Praveen,
Thank you for featuring me in your blog.
It has been a busy couple of days. We are being hit with a snow storm that actually closed the schools. On top of that my daughters car broke down so am playing catch up here. So, just got your email about this post being published or I would have been here sooner.
Looks great. I will let others that I know, know about it.
Thanks again.
Dee Ann
Dee Ann – The pleasure was all mine to know more about you and let all the readers know about you and your website and social profiles. Thanks for being a part of this.
What a great interview with Dee Ann, Praveen!
Dee Ann – you did an AWESOME job answering his questions and gave excellent advice.
Congrats on the interview!
Linda
Linda,
Thank you
It was fun answering the question. I kind of got stumped on a couple then thought about it and came up with answers. Made me think.
Dee Ann
Linda – Welcome to DMC and thanks for your comment. Glad you liked the interview and of course thanks to Dee Ann for answering with an open heart and mind.
Great to know you better Dee Ann, and a well done up interview Praveen!
I have just recently got to know Dee Ann, and am thankful for my new acquaintance, as she surely is one hell of a juggler and great writer! It is indeed inspiring to know how you manage the time to write even when you have such a busy schedule! I know the teenage years are the trying time for parents, and when you are also working, and looking after your kids and home, writing surely does take a back seat. And to be able to find the time to write even then, shows your dedication. Keep it up :)Thanks for sharing and its always nice to learn more about fellow bloggers and friends through these series Praveen 🙂
Thanks Harleena and I agree with you that Dee Ann has a tremendous amount of dedication to her writing with all the other fun things happening around her.
Glad you are liking the series and getting to know everyone a little better.
Harleena,
I have enjoyed getting to know you as well. We are all here to help each other. I look forward to knowing you better over the next year.
Dee Ann
Ah, one of my favorite people Praveen. Great interview with Dee Ann and I always enjoy hearing more about what she’s doing. I so admire her for everything she has on her plate and one way or the other, she’s able to get everything accomplished. I seriously don’t know if my blog would be where it is today if I lived Dee Ann’s life. All I can say is how very impressed with her. Not only do I love her blog but I consider her a dear friend.
Thanks for spotlighting Dee Ann Praveen, wonderful job!
Adrienne – Thanks for visiting and leaving your comment.
Dee Ann does a wonderful job at her blog even with all the other things keeping her busy throughout the day. It is a very difficult task and I really am amazed at how she finds time for all of it.
Adrienne,
I do have a lot going but ask my husband, I can not sit still. I have to be doing something at all times so I am always busy.
One day I was just sitting and everyone thought I was horribly sick.
Thanks for stopping by and have a great week.
Dee Ann
I try to visit Dee Ann’s blog regularly, I really enjoy reading her posts, she an open and easy person. This is a great interview with some terrific advice and we can also see that Dee Ann is one busy lady and certainly got plenty to keep her busy every day outside of blogging.
Thanks Praveen for the interview and to Dee Ann for sharing
Julie
Julie – Welcome to my blog and thanks for the comment. I am glad you liked the interview and I am hoping that you learn a little bit more about all the wondeful bloggers featured here.
Julie,
Thanks for stopping by and commenting.
I am glad that you enjoy reading my blog. I really appreciated that.
Have a great week.
Dee Ann
Hi Praveen,
Great interview with some fantastic questions being asked.
I have had the pleasure of getting to know Dee Ann since she started blogging and am a regular visitor to her blog. I think she has some great content and I love the way she details her journey and even talks of the mistakes she’s made and how she has corrected them.
For example: Dee Ann once deleted her blog by mistake, she meant to delete one but ended up deleting her main blog. Not to be knocked down, she re-installed the blog from a back up and created a video showing others how she done it. Like wise she also created a video showing everyone how to back up their blogs from C-Panel.
Dee Ann is a rising star in the blogging community and I’m amazed that she gets so much done, whilst holding down other commitments. Having seen some of her answers here I’m even more amazed than I was before, driving the school bus, home tutoring, running the family home and helping her husband on the farm and still finding time to blog in the way she does….. not to mention the studying she is doing.
I wish Dee Ann every success and will assist her in any way I can, she’s that special in my book.
Congratulations on a first class interview Praveen and thank you for linking to me.
All the best to both you and Dee Ann,
Barry
Barry,
Thank you for the complements. I feel that if I am going to commit to something I need to do a good job at it. So, I work hard at my blogging. I am glad that my hard work shows.
Sometimes I feel all I do is get further behind but I keep telling myself, I am the tortoise just plodding along and I will eventually make it.
Thank you for the comment Barry.
Dee Ann
Barry – Welcome to my blog and thanks for the wonderful words about Dee Ann.
I am glad you liked the interview and thanks for all the sharing. Dee Ann is worth while to be featured and known to every blogger who is either a newbie or an established one, there are many things that one can learn from her and how well she manages her time.
Hope to see you back soon.
Dee Ann – I learnt a couple of things from your interview, so I can imagine how much more I can learn from your blog!
Praveen – Great interview – as usual!
Thanks for stopping by and leaving your comment Corinne.