Maui, I’m Back In The Saddle Again

Every now and then I get knocked off from my saddle here on A Maui Blog.  Because this is more of a hobby and not a primary source of income, it tends to be put on the side burner  when that primary source of income needs more time and attention. That’s what happened this month.  In July I was officially employed to do some Social Media coordination for a realtor broker on Maui. It was a good challenge for me.  The goal is to jump start all his social media involvements, which I think I did a good job.  For example, their FB Fan page which was stagnant for a long time with 14 fans, now is up to 360+ fans within a month.  More importantly, there is now engagement going on. That FB fan page is all about Maui, so it was fun for me, but I totally neglected the A Maui Blog Fan, LLC fan page because of that.   The work was going well, but glitch came about when I was required to come to the office more.  You see, I love working from home. (Oh, I do work at Starbucks too using their wifi, but that’s a different story).  And so, without telling you the details, bottomline is we mutually decided that yesterday was my last day working for them.  And I am fine with that.  Totally fine.

One thing I realized during that experience is how much I really enjoy and love my blog and all my social media involvement here at A Maui Blog. I really missed it when I was doing it for someone else.  With that thought, I came to a decision to be intentional about improving this blog. This A Maui Blog managed to be on top of Google Search for Maui Blog without me doing any SEO work on it.  Oh I know all those SEO tricks.  I’ve hang around long enough with enough great geeks that I know them.  However, I do not have the time to implement them.  Thus my blog hasn’t reached its potential and hasn’t had as much page visits as it should for the popularity and influence it has.

I was good with it.

But now I am thinking…  I should really strive for excellence, not just on A Maui Blog’s influence but on the number of visits as well. There are many companies who are wanting to advertise but I need to get my act together. While working for this realtor last month, I was introduced to this guy named Ken Rockwell.  To some of you, he’s a big guy.  You know him already.  For others, you will be like me asking … Ken who?  Funny how popularity is relative.  It really means something to someone who is into something that someone is onto, isn’t it?

Back to Ken Rockwell.  I was told he’s the “god” of “photography review blogs”.  Oh… so sorry, I didn’t know him, but I quickly Googled his name to find his blog.  That’s what we are supposed to so, right? You know what caught my attention on his website? On his landing page, there’s this button labeled “make a donation”.  Hmmm … I thought he is so popular and is making a lot of money from the blog … why is there a “make a donation” button in there? Tada! The lights went on!  In order for me to be able to spend time improving this A Maui Blog and talking story online about Maui, maybe I should also add a “make a donation” button on my blog as well as the “ways to help A Maui Blog” button similar to Ken’s.  There won’t be any pressure.  Everyone would still be welcome to read A Maui Blog for free.  The only difference, the only thing new would be the fact that the readers would be given the opportunity to help me improve this blog. Hmm… I think I am liking this idea.  I will think more about it and will let you know.  What do you think? Yes? No?