Tag Archive - blogging

Just another day in my life as a Guitar Player

March 22, 2011 in Day to Day with 0 Comments

What a busy day it’s been!

I couldn’t sleep all night so I spent most of the night shooting and editing flash video’s for my new Guitar School site.

I’ll have to get a good sleep tonight as I’m starting to look like a zombie in my most recent guitar instruction video!

A couple of days ago I came up with a really great domain name and found it hadn’t been registered yet.  My on line guitar lesson web site is now called “www.YourGuitarSchool.comIs you guitar playing in a rut? Visit www.YourGuitarSchool.com to Ignite the Guitarist in You!” What do you think?

Anyways, I bought the new domain a couple of nights ago. So this morning I’ve been up tweaking the site as well as my blog. Thank God for WordPress! A few years ago all this website work would of taken me months worth of 24 hour days to put all this together. Now it’s all so much easier.

Yesterday I took a really big risk and changed my blog from a free WordPress site to a premium paid site. I though for sure the whole thing would blow up and destroy months of work.

To my surprise it all came together very easily!

I decided on purchasing a new WordPress theme called “Standard Theme” as it had been rated one of the top ten themes for blogging. I now understand the value of purchasing a well written wordpress theme. Until now I had been bouncing around from one free theme to another trying to find the best one for my blogging needs.

With all that said I’d like to pass along a few tips to changing a wordpress theme.

Number 1 is to log into your wordpress admin page. Then go to appearance / widgets. From there remove all your widgets from your side bars.

By removing them you have deactivated them temporarily until you have installed the new theme.

Number 2 is to go to your plug ins tab and deactivate all your plug ins. You can easily globally select them with the top check box. Then they can be deactivated with a single mouse click.

Btw… It’s a real good idea to back up you blog file before you begin to change your theme.

So now it’s time to install the new theme. Most premium themes such as Standard Theme have great instructions on how to upload and active it.

I use a free program called FileZilla for all my ftp file transfers. It Rocks! So I highly recommend it.

You can easily choose a new free theme from your theme menu in wordpress. You will also find there your new uploaded theme.

Once you have activated the new theme it is time to re-activate you plug ins.

A word of Caution! Activate 1 plug in at a time previewing your blog every time. I guarantee there will be some plug ins that will not work under your new theme. No big deal as there are hundreds of other plug ins that can take the place of your old one.

As your plug ins are activated you can also replace you widgets to the sidebars.

That’s pretty much it!
Happy blogging everyone.

John Gilliat Joins Music Alley and the Podsafe Music Network

August 6, 2010 in Day to Day with 0 Comments

Music AlleyAs a huge fan and advocate of blogging and podcasting, I’m happy to announce to all the podcasters that my music is available for you to use royalty free.

Visit MusicAlley.com to find my music for your podcast. If you would like a Custom Station ID from me please let me know I’d love to record one for you.

All the best,

John Gilliat

Music Success in 9 Weeks – Week 5

August 3, 2010 in Music Success in 9 weeks with 2 Comments

After a successful week 4 it’s time to begin week 5…

This week is all about my newsletter vs my email list and conducting surveys. (If you have “Music Success in 9 Weeks 2010″ this week is really about blogging) However let’s begin with my first task to identify who is my marketing demographic? Who really listens to my style of music and would come out to a performance or buy a cd?

In business I know it’s very important to identify your demographic and I’ve always skipped this step however, this time I’m going to spend the time to do it! So with my pen in hand and Ariel’s worksheets at my desk to guide me, away I go…

Week 5 – Day 2… this is really tough trying to pin down who my fans are. For sure, the number 1 fan is the part time guitar player, 30 to 55 years old, male with a middle class income. Then there is also a large demographic that loves to listen to my music in while commuting in their car or during a dinner party. Mostly men and woman 30 to 55 years, professional people such as lawyers, optometrists, restaurant owners and managers, etc… Ariel lays out a lot more details to determining my fan demographic. I guess that’s why I tend to pass over this task. I think this could be a good poll question to ask my fan base in one of my Newsletters.

Week 5 – Day 3… Creating an Engaging Newsletter. The 3 G’s (I guess you will have to buy the book to find out what the G’s stand for) However, This is great! I never realized how generic and dull my newsletters have been. Up to now they have been a big Ariel Hyatt no-no! I’ve been just sending them out to announce my next gig, cd, video, etc… How awful, I apologise to my subscribers! I vow from today forward they will be way more interesting and engaging! Today I’ll begin crafting my next news release to go out this week.

Week 5 – Day 4… Today I’m thrilled that Ariel stopped by to comment on my blogging efforts and passed along a few extra tips. I was also a little puzzled today to see my week 5 tasks were not in sync with my book. As I kind of suspected, I have an older version so, this is great! (and I mean that in a very positive way)

So this week is really all about Blogging!! Yipee! Now as a newly blogging addict, I can’t wait to dig in to Week 5 – 2010! I’ll also spend the week re-reading the first 4 weeks to see if there is any updated info I missed. As for Fan’s and Newsletters, I’ll jump back into that next week as week 6 is now all about my newsletter.

Wow! There is a lot of great additions in the latest edition of Music Success in 9 weeks. I’m doing a little back tracking today by adding a few more good Facebook apps to my Facebook page and next I’ll join I’m off to join Music Alley. With a little more reading I should be back on track and on the revised week 5 tomorrow. Btw.. just finished signing up with Music Alley (Podsafe Music Network) and uploaded a lot of tracks for all you wonderful pod casters out there. Now back to week 5 and Blogging…

Week 5 – Day 5… Ok, I have finished re-reading the first 5 weeks and it looks like I’m now up to date in my blogging challenge. As for the revised week 5… I have my blog and I still need to find more bloggers to connect with and more blogs to leave comments. This is a task that I know in my gut is supper important however, it’s really eating up a lot of time finding a great blog to read, do the reading, post a good relevant comment, add the site to my blog roll and then to my Google reader to continue to read and post comments. I know I can’t possibly find and post to 50 blogs in one week, so my goal is one a day. (like my vitamins) At the end of the year I’ve hit 200! (ok, I’m allowing myself to miss a day or two)

Today I was also busy submitting more tracks to Music Alley. (with 5 cd’s under my belt it takes a little while to upload everything) BTW… If you are an artist with your own cd’s and music, may I suggest signing up with Music Dealers. It’s free, you set up your band, upload your tracks and if you get selected your music could be licenced for TV, movies, commercials, etc…

Week 5 – Day 6… Today I have my Google reader in place and I now have a few blogs I subscribe to. Also, I’m now connecting with a few other bloggers. I’m also now signed up with mybloglog.com & Google friend connect.

Week 5 – Day 7… Today I’ve added many more Twitter followers and added a new app to my blackberry to help with posting pictures & video instantly to my Facebook, Twitter and Flickr accounts. (The app is called iTookThisOnMyPhone)

I’m now really starting to understand the power of Twitter Although, I’m still having a hard time understanding how to effectively use it. I’ll keep posting and will continue to get involved with my new network and I’m sure I’ll be a TwitMaster in no time. I’ve also found a few great blogs and sites that are helping.

Music Success in 9 Weeks – Week 4

July 26, 2010 in Music Success in 9 weeks with 0 Comments

After a successful week 3 it’s time to begin week 4…

This week is all about the power of blogging, twitter, facebook and flickr!

I visited commoncraft.com and watched all the videos recommended by Ariel and yes, these were great. The video’s were all about social networking, rss feeds, wiki, etc… There’s lots of good info here.

Next it’s time to create a blog and this is something I have done and now I’m a daily blogger. Yes, there is a lot of power in blogging! Here’s a couple of examples why blogging is working for me…

#1: I’m now posting new content to my webspace which in turn gives visitors and fans a reason to return to my site to see what’s new with John Gilliat. It’s my own reality web show. I post behind the scene gig pages so people can see and read what it’s like living a guitarist life.

Because of my posts I’m adding content and keywords that is increasing my google ranking and relevant web traffic. I have currently increased my daily traffic from an average of 125 visitors per day to 225. And I know that’s directly related to my blogging.

#2: I had a client contact me because they read a post about a wedding I played. The client was considering the same venue for their wedding and was looking for a guitarist. I was found by a google search for the venue and a guitarist.

Week 4 – Day 2… Now my big task this week is to find blogs related to my music and my guitar style and post comments, I need to be involved with other bloggers and begin developing my social network of like minded bloggers. I’m going to dive in and develop a circle of new blogging friends. I’ll also have to be sure I include the blog sites I comment on to my blog role. My goal this week is to find and comment on 50 relevant blogs!

Week 4 – Day 3… Today I didn’t have any time to find my 50 blogs however, as I’ve been doing regularly I created a new blog post. “Back to Whistler Mountain, home of the 2010 Winter Olympics to perform at the Squamish Lilwat Cultural Centre” It’s been a busy day with travel and a gig were I have to set up 2 sound systems, perform in 2 locations, etc… Some days it’s hard to find the time to put my social networking hat on.

Week 5 – Day 4... Today I’m going to learn to take twitter a little more serious. I already have a twitter account http://twitter.com/johngilliat and I’m going to tweet and hook up with new friends here. Also, I have found an app for my blackberry which allows me to tweet anytime/anywhere. It’s a free app called UberTwitter for anyone interested. I can also see what’s new with Twitter friends I’m following.

Week 5 – Day 5… So here’s what’s going on today, Just downloaded and installed twitbin – very cool browser app to keep me up to date tweeting. Also I’m posting to as many relevant blogs as I can find and having fun meeting other bloggers. It’s fun getting involved!

Week 5 – Day 6… Today it’s Flickr day. I wasn’t aware of this photo gallery, social networking site. I checked it out as per Ariel’s book and it looks great! I have re-activated my Google account and will create a Flickr account as soon as Yahoo re-activates me. (I created an account some time ago and never used it. Yahoo takes up to 24 hours to get me re-activated. Then I can create my Flickr account.) I really need a good and easy to maintain photo gallery on my website and blog. This has been a task on my to do list for years. Flickr looks easy to create and I should be able to instantly upload photo’s from my blackberry to my website, blog, facebook page. Keeping my fingers crossed that this comes together easily as it could be a wonderful edition to my internet space!

Week 5 – Day 7… Flickr is up and running visit me on flickr here. Lot’s of work to do here at flickr… upload photo’s join groups and discussions, create galleries, widgets and I need to learn to embed a flicker gallery into my website. (all great stuff, I need more time!)

I almost missed checking the CyberPRMastermind blog this week for the supplement post. I must begin following at least 100 tweeters and need to add Ariels “must have” apps to my facebook account!

In summary the toughest part of this week is finding really good blogs (at least 50) to become involved with, add to my blog roll and post comments to. I’m continuing to forge on with Ariel’s program however there is a lot more on going work to be done from this past week.

Also for others working through Ariel’s Music Success in 9 weeks program, be sure not to miss signing up to be involved with Ariel’s CyberPRMastermind Group/Blog. There are some fantastic supplement posts to each week that you must not miss!

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