Being a Blue Star Mom means I hang with all the moms of our Armed Forces. I respect each one the same and know I can share my worries, excitement and more with them. I know quite a few of them read my blog and I told them I’d share when I got this made…so here it is. The first of many Marines shirts….

the Proud Marine Mom shirt!

Proud Mom of a United States Marine Shirt by WendyMilonas

This is made and available on my Zazzle store. I think they are having a special this month too…no shipping charges for June. That’s a pretty cool deal I might take advantage of myself.

I’ve been working on some big projects lately and I’m so excited about where they are going.  I have to admit I was getting a bit scared that the economy was going to effect my business so much I’d have to go get a second job to get through it all (there is no quitting, but supplementing with a job at Starbucks was a very real possiblity!)

I just wanted to pop in and tell you…if it’s tough out there…have faith! I see signs that this slump is turning around, things are going to get better.

I kept trying to keep my site simple and the code clean…but you know what? Sometimes that means keeping it from functioning to it’s greatest ability.

I evaluated the site and decided it was time to just give in and make it a Wordpress based site. Why would I do that? Well, I already created a custom Wordpress template that works just fine. Why waste time making something new? Wordpress allows you to designated a page other than the one with the blog loop on it to be your “front page”. I haven’t decided if I will make the portfolio the main page or just keep my loop in front. I think there are traffic benefits to having your blog loop on the index page. I am going to research that and let you know. If anyone else has any experience with testing traffic on such a setup (a page other than the blog loop on the front page) then please feel free to share your thoughts here.

I’m still adding portfolio items. That will be a never ending process I think. The old set up made it hard to add each item, but now I can just add it really quick and keep my site up to date. That is the most important thing to me right now, keeping it all up to date.

I’m not thrilled with the rotating thumbnails plugin (NextGEN widget) in the sidebar. I want to find out how to make the images link to the gallery they belong in. Linking to their full size image isn’t working for me. Suggestions would be more than welcome!

A while back I started my Blogger blog to discuss the emotional roller coaster that an Army Mom goes though. I chose a public blogging forum hoping that I could connect with others within the Blogger network. I know that not everyone searches the internet for what they want, but they find a familiar place (name) and land there. They then explore within that world until there is a reason to venture outside the safety of it’s walls.

Well, I started my blog, sent the address to a few others I had developed friendships with and found out my friends are not only on Blogger, but on Wordpress.com as well. And they aren’t happy with Blogger. So…do I just leave them out of the loop?

No…I sensed the opportunity to do some traffic experiments instead!! LOL I just set up shop at Wordpress.com as well.

My blogs are both the same content with some minor changes, but the basic content is my own thoughts, Soldiers’ Angels announcements, and my military products that I have on Zazzle (I post them as I make them to show my friends and hopefully attract some potential customers to my store).

After having the blogs for over 6 months, I see that whenever I post on Blogger (according to my own Google analytics account) I only get a handful of hits. But then I see that the Wordpress Google analytics account says I have 3 times as many hits over there on most posts, but some do attract a large number of hits – like when I’m talking about current events in the military. I would think that would be accurate for both…but Blogger stats don’t really rise and fall that drastically.

Now, my question is this…can I safely compare those two stats sources? I’m not questioning WP’s honesty but…I really don’t like that they will not let me have my own analytics code on my blog there. I don’t think it’s an equal comparison. It’s like it’s possibly tainted, or filtered, or something I can’t control and I’m not sure if my experiment has to end now that I realize it’s not really comparable. Or is the audience on Wordpress.com really just more attuned to what my blog is about and Blogger not so much and I’m seeing an accurate accounting of visitors.

Feedback would be most appreciated, as I really would like to offer clients my experience as a guide to what they should try doing.

Thanks!