The 3rd Blogoversary

It was around this time, three years back; I was in first year then. It started with enthusiasm to have my own space online, which would somewhat look closer to a website. I remember I made a website for my school when I was in class Xth as a part of my school project. Having got appreciation from my computer teacher, gradually I gained interest in web development, and always wanted to have a website for myself. What exactly my website would be all about, what contents it would have I never thought of. ‘Blogs’, I came to know of when Mr. Amitabh Bachchan started to reach people through his blog. Blogs are the medium to express yourself and connect with people. Blogs serve as an online journal, linking to other sites and news stories.

My poetic verses and story making in messages/SMS for fun and scraps on Orkut started making their space at my newly made blog at Wordpress. But me being an enthusiast for web development, and a student of computer science, I was not satisfied to work within restrictions imposed by Wordpress at that time. Wordpress has turned a bit flexible now but then it not even allowed use of iframes and external scripts. 
I came to know of an online tool which could transfer a Wordpress blog to Blogger, keeping posts and comments all intact. And that marked the start of my exposure to web development and web designing.

I am in fourth year now, barely six more months to go at college. My blog completed its third year. Still I realize I don’t know much about blogging. SEO, using the scripts, external addons, and like them there are many things which keep updating in a way that it seems impossible to master them. Today I completed redesigning of my website; I made few of the updates in widgets and scripts, and tried to remold it for better traffic. And to some extent I think I have been successful, as my stats say that I got 900 page views for my website today. :D

Using tags wisely and backlinks help to boost the traffic on blogs. There are many sites which permit sharing of blog links. They are even better, as they not only help in bringing traffic but help you connect with people easily. Such blogging communities also exist on Facebook and Google+. We must learn to make better use of them.

Writing quality posts is the most important thing, but equally important is to reciprocate the favor. When a blogger comments on your blog, you must comment on his/hers and that builds bonds. I haven’t been very much active as far as reciprocation is concerned, and the reason being my various engagements at college. I managed to have some time for myself to blog here, but couldn't stick to reciprocation consistently.
The next thing a blogger must do is to get their blogs indexed in Google web crawler and in that of Bing’s. Search engines offer good traffic and for that the blog should be indexed.
Designs for a blog matters a lot, and I would post about this a little later. My semester exams are going to start within two weeks. But I will manage some time here. :D

On my third Blogoversary, I express my gratitude to lovely people here who inspired me to blog and helped me develop my skills. This stretch of time I gave for blogging, it was made possible just because of their good works which inspired me to grow and learn. If I start mentioning their names I am afraid I might miss out some, but only I know how each one of them has helped me grow. And this learning would never stop. I anticipate my seniors, my friends, and new bloggers I would be connecting with, they will keep on nurturing me with new ideas and groom me to the best.