 I tried it on a whim, just to see if it was easy to use and what would happen with it, meaning, would I get more visitors to my website? Would the indie biz community bloggers and vloggers get more traffic to their own websites if I included links to their work within the collection I’d established? Ya never know until... I built not only one, but three collections, initially. Then, I decided that I’d go back to just one and let it grow for a bit before making any others. Another reason for doing this is, it makes it easier for readers browsing the collection of links to see everything in one area rather than having to hop around here, there and yonder. If they ventured into the collection area to view a video posted on ThinkerThunker’s YouTube Channel they might be inclined to stick around and browse through other links in the collection, like a Squatch It! post via On Story Street. The two have common ground in content as well as being produced within the indie biz pro blogger and vlogger community. Did it work? Oh yeah! That stretch of fewer views and lower statsA few months ago I realized I was needing some elbow room for other projects that are important to me. Manuscript editing and web-mastering take up a good bit of my time. I also have two books of my own I want to actually get written. In addition I’d taken on some contract work in the medical field to add some coin to my income, help me re-sharpen some old skills and to give me more opportunity to work away from my desk for a few hours a week working with something other than literature and software. Yup - I do indeed have many other interests beyond writing. That doesn’t mean I lack passion for what I do, it only means I need a bit more variety in my work to maintain a higher energy and interest level. I get to work away from my desk during occasional interviews for articles but most of the time even those are conducted at my desk via Skype or simple email correspondence. My mind was in need of more fresh air and sunshine and of course, time is precious so I wanted earned income while spending time in other arenas. The step back into the medical field on a per-diem basis proved to be just the thing to help me accomplish both. To gain the additional time needed to accommodate the changes, I had to reduce my blogging schedule to one day a week, rather than the two-days-a-week schedule I’d maintained for a few years. The result was a reduction of visits and reads on my site by about half. Not good, but I expected it and didn’t panic or get discouraged. So far, most major changes on flashPress have resulted in a reduction in visits and reads for a few weeks but the numbers have always recovered and even grown after a while. I was relieved that although I had a loss of monthly visitors to the site, my income from tips via the virtual tip jar on flashPress had remarkably increased (Muaaah!!! Thank you flashPress tippers!!!). I attribute that to God bringing awesome-sauce people into my life, many of which regularly interact with my business by being regular visitors here on flashPress. That’s how I’ve been able to see a continued increase in income while working for myself in a field I love. Why Google⁺ and Google⁺ Collections?I noticed in my website stats, that although I’d had a decrease in monthly visitors, I’d had an impressive increase in how many of those guests arrived at flashPress via links on Google+. If you’re not familiar with Google+, it’s a social site established by Google that (in my opinion) is superior to Facebook for both personal and professional reasons. I spend less time on Facebook, and very little traffic to my website is generated from there. Since the large majority of my professional life happens on my website, I have to devote the majority of my social site time to where it’s most productive. Google outranks all other social sites when it comes to my business traffic, and thankfully a growing number of my kith and kin are stepping into the Google+ neighborhood and learning how to navigate it. Some never will, and that’s okay. I still spend at least a little time every week on Facebook to keep up with friends and family who don’t use Google+. Google⁺ Collections is a new-ish aspect of Google⁺ that allows G⁺ users to set up collections of things they want to share with their G⁺ connections, like posts, vids and photos, website information, artwork, music, etcetera that have something in common. There are collections established by other Plussers I follow and love how it works. It’s how I discover new indie biz community members producing work I enjoy, as well as a fountain of information on topics that interest me, such as gardening, OffTheGrid lifestyle alternatives and solutions, natural medicines, even Bible studies I love to follow. I can even incorporate items in other Plussers collections into my own. Below are a few pics to give you an idea of what Google⁺ looks like, in event you're not familiar with it.  Google⁺ is simple to use and I don't have trouble with loads of ads and tons of sidebar activity going on to bog it down on my tablets, phone or laptop. From the home page (showing below) I can navigate to the Google⁺ Collections page by clicking on it in the side-bar's navigation area.  When I land on the main Collections area, I can browse through to choose new collections to follow, or I can move straight to to the collections I'm already following, or view my own collection(s).  Next is my own Collections page...  By clicking on my IndieBiz Pro Bloggers & Vloggers tab (pictured in the image above), I can go inside the collection. It's the same view everyone else gets that accesses it.  I've not had it established long, but I've already added quite a lot of articles and videos to it. I'm hoping that the increase I'm seeing in guests arriving to flashPress from Google⁺ is also being seen by the site and channel owners whose work I'm sharing here. That was the point of making the collection. One of the reasons the indie biz community works without having to spend loads of coin on advertising is because so many of its members are consistent in promoting it and educating others about it. If you're a part of the indie biz community, I hope you'll consider either following some of the G-Plussers collections, or even establishing one (or more) of your own. It's a great way to share your interests in all sorts of topics with others, and of course, like so many of the awesome features of Google, it's free! The wrap!Before you go, here are a few links for you to enjoy by a few fav indie biz bloggers...
God bless you, thanks for the read and see you next week! femmeflashpoint
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Follow me on...Site LinksThanks for sharing!Good for what ails ya!
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