I have been attempting to grow the traffic on this site since I first started blogging.

I have concentrated a lot on the magical world of search engine optimisation and found this to be a bit of a “dark art” that is incomprehensible to most, although having an SEO plugin for wordpress seems to be helping, expect a post on that soon (when I actully know more about it).

Technorati - what is it?

As for other sites for social media; Digg is widely regarded as the grand-daddy of all of them and then there is StumbleUpon, which pretty much does exactly what it says on the tin.

But I was quite interested in Technorati, it is completely blog focused and seemed to have more “things” than I have seen on the other sites.

So off I went to find out more. Technorati states that:

Technorati was founded to help bloggers succeed by collecting, highlighting, and distributing the global online conversation. Founded as the first blog search engine, Technorati has expanded to a full service media company providing services to the blogs and social media sites and connecting them with advertisers who want to join the conversation, and whose online properties introduce blog content to millions of consumers.

So I am now signed up, have entered all my information and you can now find my profile here

The steps for your own profile are reasonably simple: creating your own profile, creating your blog profile, adding a description (250 characters max) and adding keywords.  Nice and easy so far.

Back to my profile page after the set up and I have an authority of 0 (zero).  hmmm.  Next up – how on earth to increase this rating.

Well that my dear readers wil come in another post.  As I am still actually finding this out.  See, I told you that this blog was indeed “live”.

I have an idea of how to work Technorati but I really need to investigate.

Have you got any information on how Technorati works?

Hello all, how are you?

Well I have been doing some planning for my travels recently.  Which makes a change to messing around with the look and feel of this site. (Which I hope most of you find ok).

So, what have I been up to?

Well I have come up with a “first draft” of the route, this is by no means finalised and there are going to be a few changes to it, but here it is draft numero uno.  Official Travel Route of Overland Wannabe.

Any suggestions of places along this route are very welcome!

A guest post from the brilliant Kevin Littleton at kevinlittleton.blogspot.com

Keeping Memories

Don’t delete photos too quickly. I don’t delete anything when I’m taking pictures somewhere because looking at them on that tiny lcd screen doesn’t give you a clear view of what it really looks like. When you get home and upload those pictures to your computer you get the real look. You can’t really tell what a picture looks like from your camera. Some of my best shots were later “discovered” after going through them on my computer. Then there is Photoshop where you can take those “awful” shots and touch them up to make them look “better”. Remember though, when in doubt make them black and white and then they instantly become art!

To take this practice further I don’t delete a single photo. Ever.

The reason behind not deleting any pictures is because each picture is a memory and each memory is something beautiful that needs to be remembered. So what if the picture isn’t artistically sound, it’s your picture and it’s your memory.

Not all my pictures are in focus or of anything particularly exciting but I do keep them all. I don’t want to throw away memories. It’s the same thing as writing in a journal. Let’s say you had a bad day and you write about it in your journal or diary. Just because it was a bad day would you crumple up that piece of paper out of your journal or delete that entry from the computer? I hope you don’t because you can use that bad day later to grow and learn from. Each memory in our head is equally important. We need them.

Kevin Littleton

Please leave a comment for Kevin below.

Ok, well on my previous post I discussed the kind of things you should think about when transferring from Blogger to WordPress.

Patty Mooney commented on that post and asked:

I am curious why you decided to transfer to WordPress from Blogger? Looking back, would you do it again?

Well that will make a good post, thought I,  and so here it is.

First of all, Why set up a blog on Blogger?

I am a bit of a Google convert to be honest.  I love GMAIL, Adwords, Google Analytics, Google Connect, Google Docs etc, etc (and it really is a long list!) So it was only natural for me to set up a blog on Google’s blogging service, Blogger.

I didn’t really research into WordPress too much, at the time I set up my original blog WordPress 2.7 was just a sparkle on the motherboards at WordPress.  The older version did have loads of people recommending them, at the end of almost every post about how good WordPress there was the word “BUT”.  And then a whole load of things that WordPress was bad, slow or just confusing at doing.

So with my blogger blog set up and running, and with a boost from Blogger by being nominated at “Blogs of Note” (which resulted in over 20,000 visits) why on earth would I change?

What are the limitations of Blogger?

Now I’m not going to discuss all of them, but only the ones that were relevant to me.

First point was the ability to add pages, I wanted to have organised content so that people could easily search through, find the information they wanted more easily.  Secondly I also wanted the ability to add contact forms, places for a store (secret project coming soon!) and other ways to make more money online.

I am also a bit of a geek, well actually quite a large geek.  Having my own domain and the ability to add Plugins, Widgets and complete access to my own domain, add to that my own email domains an hey presto, that’s the geek in me fulfilled.

Also I wanted to have a professional looking site that would allow me some funky ways to access and upload to it.  having FTP access allows me to upload things much more quickly than having to wait for Blogger’s image uploader.  All of thee are things that I had to think about for travelling – time on Internet = money, even more so than when online at home.

Of course the final push came from trying out a free wordpress blog first of all.

The immense plugins library and availability of themes really tipped it for me.

I have a plugin for a contact form, a plugin for search engine optimisation, a plugin that automatically creates a sitemap, a plugin that automatically cuts posts to previews, a plugin that enhances the site search (try it, it’s load of fun) and there is also a secret plugin, if you leave a comment you will find out what it is!

And – These plugins are so easy to use!

There is no painful set up  – most of them do not require any coding skills or to even touch the website’s code!  All I need to do is download, unzip and upload the plugin into my library and WHAM, I can see it in my Plugins page on the admin area – go into it’s own settings page and that is it.

And I think that is the real beauty of WordPress.  Think of it as being the iron structure within a skyscraper, you can clad the outside however you want and also furnish the inside of the structure to make it work the way you want it and look the way you want.

Having the ability to grow and expand this site was a major factor in changing to WordPress.

Looking back, Would I do it again?

Yes – I can definitely state that I would still have moved from Blogger to WordPress.  I would of course do it differently, but then again, would I know what I know now?

I’d say to everyone to think carefully about changing your blog. I know for a fact that I got it wrong, I moved too quickly and had a far too complex template to start off with.

Have you changed your address or service or are you looking to? Or do you have any further questions, please add them to the comments below and I’ll reply to you.

How to survive the upheaval of changing from Blogger (Blogspot) to WordPress.

Be prepared for a hell of a lot of hard work, things not working correctly and basically everything going wrong.  Also make sure you have everything in place and tested before you tell your readers about the new site.  I told my readers far too early, which led to all kinds of catastrophes and it may take quite a while to build up my reader network again.

For now though, here is what I have learnt:

Lesson Number One

Don’t run with the first theme you find, try some out, add posts to them for a while and see how it works

The first WordPress theme I used was a free theme from WOO Themes.  I thought that the exciting front end would work well for the site, allowing me to categorise posts left, right and centre.  I then discovered the plugins library for WordPress, which is full of easily installable widgets.  This is where my problems really came in.

Lesson Number Two

Use a theme that gives you a bit of room to customize, in my old theme I was unable to edit much on the sidebar, which is a great place for bloggers to add tools for readers.

Ultimately though the theme was too business like, it didn’t really feel like a blog and it detracted from the storyline way of viewing the site.  I still needed a theme that would allow people to be able to look through the categories as lovley drop down menu’s (which you can do above).

I found brilliant theme that ticked all the boxes, downloaded it, unpacked it (you will need Winzip or similar) and off I went.  Here I encountered my first error, the stylesheet appeared to be missing!

I went back through the files and found the stylesheet, tried reuploading it and then went thourgh the whole process about three times, until I realised what I had done -

Lesson Number Three

Always make sure that any theme, plugins, widgets or whatever else is designed to work with your version of WordPress, if it isn’t then you could waste hours of valuable blogging time!

I finally found a theme (the current one I am using), made  a number of changes to it and am now back to blogging.  If I look back I now realise that I should have been a lot more patient, actually waiting until I had the site completely set up before changing all my links across.

Speakling of links, I had expected to be able to do a simple 301 redirect from my old blogspot address.  I assumed this was possible, well, I assumed wrongly!  I have now tried a number of redirects from my old blogspot address, none of them really work, and those that do get Blogger breathing down your neck and calling you a spammer!

P.S. If any one knows of a good one that works then please let me know!

Lesson Number Four

Don’t assume things will work, Google them and try them out first.  This will save a lot of disappointment and re-thinks at the later stages.

So after all that do I still think that the change was worth it?

Well yes, mainly because I was able to do a good deal with ITSimple.co.uk for hosting etc. But even without that I do really enjoy the awesome and powerful features of WordPress and it’s plugins.  I shall be here for a very long time ladies and gentlemen so no need to update your bookmarks anytime soon. (Famous last words)

So what about you – where and what is your blog based on, what features do you think would really benefit a blogger? And what could we all do without? And should Blogger allow a simple re-direct feature?

VersatilityLiteScreenshot

A great big hello to everybody out there.  And also an apology for taking so long to get everything sorted.

We have had more issues than you could believe and more themes than you could create parks for.  But now we’re back.

We’ve got a theme that works and blogging is once again top of the agenda – please remember to change all of your bookmarks, favourites (or whatever you want to call them) are changed and also please sign up to the new email updates.

I hope everybody likes the new look site, the categories will make it easier to update our travels and for you to look through each country and also all the other random advice we will put up about travelling.

I’ll get loads of the widgets back up as well very soon, if you see anything wrong please let me know, also any comments regarding anything on or about this site are very welcome.

A weekend break filled with Scottish bars, delicious pancakes and lunchtime soups, and some hidden side streets.

I’ve never really liked France.  So when my friend suggested a weekend in Lille I was very prepared to not like it.

I don’t really have any reason to not like France.  I suppose it all came from a holiday many years ago when we crossed the border from beautifully clean and efficient Switzerland into a rather backward looking French countryside with the old “hole in the floor” toilets, rubbish strewn everywhere and absolutely no efficiency – in fact almost everyone was sitting back, drinking wine and not doing any work.

I’m ashamed to say that I reverted into some sort of British Army Major, and started sprouting thoughts such as “who do they think they are, lazing around, not working, you should be working”!  Of course another reason I had a dislike for the French is their love of disruption.  A cleaner was sacked, so the natural course of action is to block the port of Dover, causing chaos in England and ya de ya – oooo I feel a rant coming on, but that’s not what you want.

So we left on a Friday evening after work, sailing with Norfolk from Dover to Dunkirk (the ports weren’t blocked by striking fishermen this time).  2 hours later we rolled out of the ferry and onto French terra firma, Vive la France!

Lille is only an hours drive from the port, and with the sat nav bleeting out her instructions it was fairly easy to navigate to our youth hostel.

Parking at a youth hostel is a rareity, especially in a city, but we were lucky enough that ours had a small car park round the back.

We had pre-booked our hostel through hostels international, making the check-in procedure incredibly swift and without so much as a wiff of brie we were safely unpacked in our rooms.

Being young folk in a city and in need of a good cold beer to distract reward ourselves for actually making use of a weekend we headed off towards the bars of Lille’s “Rue de Solférino” and happily plonked ourselves in the authentic French bar called “The Highlander”.

This was indeed a happy little place.  the bar had more beers on tap than any other bar I have seen and whilst my travel partner picked a rather fruity cherry larger I opted for the rather more manly 1 litre of larger! After scratching my armpits, beating my chest and uttering a few good grunts I slaughtered my large beer, thrusted my manly glass at the waitress and said “Un autre, s’il vous plaît“.

Polite and manly.  I was on a winner here.

Until of course the tiredness kicked in, and I wanted my bed.  France, and Lille in particular, are looking on the up.

Stay tuned for the next part coming soon…..

You can subscribe to this site at the top right of this page.

Bring on the trumpets, roll out the red carpet and marvel at the wonder.

Yes the front page is just one of the massive changes we’ve made around here.

You may also notice the menu bars at the top, where all the pages reside and the wonderful categorised posts to allow you all to find your way to the information you want an awful lot easier.

I would love to hear from you all, both old readers from my blogger blog and new readers who have found this site.  Posts will be more focused now on the conversion side of things, as the new van is coming soon.  After that we will have a little spree of planning posts then off to the travel posts!

We’re also planning for a little video action here as well, all in time though folks.  Unfortunately I am a man, meaning I am unable to multi-task.  A woman could have probably created this site in half the time, but then again a woman….. No, had better not.  I’d be shot, or at least loose some readers.

Well enough of the chitter chatter.  Please Bookmark this page, subscribe to the feeds or subscribe to the email feed, all of these can be done using the links at the top right hand side of this page.

Are you thinking about doing your own thing like this site?  contact ITSimple.co.uk

Well, I’m breaking out the champagne, who’s joining me?

Ah yes, the great C.W. McCall song “Convoy“.

Well I haven’t quite got myself an (LDV) Convoy yet but I certainly have a clearer idea about what I am going to go for. And no, I haven’t got a “thousand screamin’ trucks” in a convoy either – Rubber Ducky anyone?

After my post a few days ago on a good piece of music I have decided to direct you all off to another lovely piece of music, this time a bit more upbeat and comes from my love of Samba, why yes blog readers I am also a talent (lacking) musician – and play with the wonderfully colourful and incredibly noisy Bloco Fogo.

So here is today’s music suggestion – a bit of sunshine direct to your PC or Mac or phone or whatever; Daniella Mercury – Nobre Vagabundo, foot tapping, chair rocking, smile enthusing fun all in 4 minutes. I have now learnt the wonderful skill of embedding videos – tis simple really, so here it is below, click play and listen to it whilst you read if you wish.

I spent most of today dashing about through Kent, Sussex, Essex and London looking for the now elusive LDV Convoy of my dreams (yes – I now dream of hi-roof, long wheel base vans, I’m also single – I make no connection between the two.)

Well I have made a great discovery dearest readers…

This is the discovery that you can actually turn a relatively new and brightly coloured van into a war ravaged wreck in just 4 years.

How? I hear you ask – well the answer is simple, hand it to our dearly beloved Royal Mail. I honestly had no idea that you could seemingly drag a van around on its side and that it would survive, nor did I realise that there were just that many poles, posts and walls to hit – and that they came in so many different shapes and heights, all perfectly moulded into the side of one van! Impressive.

Most LDV Convoys come from fleets, one of the reasons why they are so cheap, there are several major fleets out there and by far the best I have found so far are ex-Anglian Windows vans.

Although the insides of them are a bit tired out they are generally OK and I am hoping that my theory – the one that states that they must have been driven slightly more carefully because they had glass in them – will hold up before, during and after 6000 miles trekking around Europe and Scandinavia.

So I have pretty much settled upon one van in particular… It has the newer Ford Dura-Torque engine in it and is the more reliable than the “banana engined” predecessor.

So there we go readers. This is what I have been up to today. Tomorrow promises a few secret projects and this blog should be available on overlandwannabe.co.uk tomorrow as well thanks to ITSimple.co.uk. Simply awesome!

Also – a bit of an aside, what daily things do you come across that you wish were designed better? My sister has a design project on and needs some inspiration. Comments welcome as always.

Happy Travelling
Overland Si

And I mean Good – For this morning I do not have any work to go to. The sun is out and I am off to view some more LDV vans for converting.

That’s all for now folks, will update more later on.