11 Ways To Increase Views On Your Blog

Posted on April 20, 2013 by brownvagabonder | Leave a comment

Photo Attributed to Thenix

I am not an expert on the subject, but I do some little things to ensure that Google knows I exist in this vast blogsphere. I am sharing those little tricks with you here. Let me know if you have any questions. I’ll try to explain best I can.

1. Get a domain name (they are only $18) but they will ensure the web spiders can actually find your page and Google can rank it (not brownvagabonder.wordpress.com, but brownvagabonder.com).

2. Within your blog post, link back to old blog posts as much as you can – at least 2-3 links in each blog. That again ensures the web spiders can find your posts (called hyperlinks).

3. Put pictures into your post (and be sure to put your blog post name as the alt-text when adding the image) – that ensures that Google can find your images and through that your blog.

4. Always put at least 3-4 tags (but not more) – and make sure they are relevant.

5. Link to your FaceBook or twitter account to get more followers – that will automatically post those blogs over to your social networks – easy-peasy.

6. The permalink - which is your blog post web address – should be short and simple – one to two words maximum.

7. Attach a Google Plus account to your blog post – that will ensure Google ranks it higher.

8. Have a little blurb at the bottom asking your fans to like you on FaceBook or subscribe – it gives a call-to-action.

9. Ensure that your subscribers only get a little blurb of the post in the email – so they have to come to your website to read the whole post – this ensures that you are getting increased views and Google ranks you higher.

10. Make sure your page is uncluttered as much as possible – the fewer additional items on the page, the less distracting it is for your reader.

11. Comment on other blog posts that are related to your own – that ensures that those readers if they find your comment useful and interesting will track back to your blog and check it out.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to BrownVagabonder and connect with me on Twitter or like me on FaceBook.

Censoring Myself While I Write

Posted on March 6, 2013 by brownvagabonder | 1 Comment

Photo Attributed to Thenix

I am working on a second book at the moment, writing about yoga and other tenets of it, minor things that I have learned about in the past few years of my yogic journey. It is not a bestseller in my mind, because I am way too critical of anything and everything I do. Even if it helps a few more people to initiate yoga, I believe that the book will have served its purpose. But the reason I write this post today is to talk about the voice in our heads that censors us while we do anything creative.

It might be writing, painting, or playing music. Anything to do with the creative genius that is inside all of us, and this mini-critic comes piping up. You have heard the speech as much as I have, I’m sure. Things like, ‘You will never be a great writer’, ‘Everything you write is crap’, ‘Why do you even bother with this’, ‘You should give up right now, before you waste too much of your time’. I have included the less graphic ones in order to not disturb the audience, but you know what I’m talking about. You can substitute writing with anything else that you might be doing in your life, that requires you to put a little bit of yourself out there in front of an audience.

Even if the audience just includes your family or friends, there is always the fear of judgement and the inner critic comes censoring. I find that I usually write my best pieces after I wake up and meditate. After a good meditation, my mind has been given a good scrub. It is clear of doubts and anxiety at least for a few hours. I can sit down and write a good, first draft without any censorship or back-tracking. I have learnt that after a whole day of telling myself off in my head, my writing is at its worst. I second-guess every word I write, and I second-guess the reason I write.

I sometimes let the voice convince met that there are others out there who are sharing the messages of yoga, spirituality, meditation, minimalism and travel much better than I am. I should get away from blogging altogether. At that point, the loving, kind words of my readers, the likes and comments, come into play. I see that people like what I write and they are sincerely using it to better their thoughts and lives. That prods me to share more and go deeper to come with better blog posts. Thanking my readers, I quell my inner critic and continue writing.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to BrownVagabonder and connect with me on Twitter or like me on FaceBook.

The days I don’t Blog

Posted on November 26, 2012 by brownvagabonder | Leave a comment

Photo attributed to flickr user mikebaird

Why do I blog? This question has come up again and again in my head. The minute I start thinking that I am doing this bloggin’ thang for my readers, I start feeling the pressure to get more readers, more likes, more subscriptions, more of everything.

That is why I have decided and I have to keep on realizing this again and again, that I am doing this for myself. Myself and myself alone. The readers are lovely and welcome, but the real reason I keep on going, the real reason, I keep on writing, the real reason, I haven’t missed a day of writing in 3 months, is because I need it, like I need water. I feel incomplete without it.

It is not the same feeling as when I miss yoga or meditation, or if I miss food or water. It’s definitely not the same feeling as when I miss Thenix or my siblings, my parents or my friends.

But it is the kind of thing, that festers deep in your subconscious, and after a while, you start noticing the void, as the void starts getting bigger and bigger. And then a day comes, where you cannot avoid it anymore. You have to write, just so you can get that outpouring of words and emotions out of paper, before it threatens to overwhelm and drown you. A lot of blog readers are themselves writers. And I feel that they would appreciate the words above, because they themselves probably have felt the utmost pressure to write, write anything, when they haven’t written a word in a few days.

During this ‘need to write’ time, I usually end up writing at least a 1000-2000 words without very much effort. It is as if the words are just sitting inside of me, waiting to come out, and like a pressure cooker, they just need the release, to be poured out on any surface, a piece of paper, or a computer screen.

Sometimes I wonder if it is just the universe writing out through me, I’m just an instrument, but then, I tell myself to start being practical and think like the others do. But that thought never really disappears.

Sharing my blog with the people I know

Posted on November 2, 2012 by brownvagabonder | 3 Comments

Photo attributed to ukhviid

As most of the readers on my blog know, I like to keep things anonymous on here. It started out as a way to cleanse myself, get rid of everything that is in my head and heart, help others realize that maybe they are holding onto the same issues, maybe reach a higher level of consciousness on the way, always striving to do more and reach the ultimate goal in life, figuring out why I exist.

I have been slowly sharing my blog with my friends and family. Thenix found out about my blog by chance, when he read a comment on a blog post that I sent him, which seemed to resonate very much with my thoughts. I realized once he knew about my blog and the conversations that ensued after on some of the topics of the blog that interested him, that I liked that. I like the feedback on my thoughts. I like to know what others are thinking, what they think of what I know or think, and what they think about in their spare time. It is the give and take that I love, that I have been missing on my blog.

I then shared my blog with a few of my closest friends, who I knew wouldn’t judge anything I write on there, and with my siblings, who are my best friends and with whom I like to share everything. The circle grew, more people knew about my blog, I got more feedback on my posts, and I realized I liked it a lot.

The final step in this journey would be when I share the blog with my parents. Just the thought of that freaks me out. I do not want them knowing what I think. Especially my mother. Some of the stuff I share on the blog, I feel would devastate her. She is amazing and very open-minded in her own way, but she would find out more than I think she wants to know about me.

But I have this feeling that this blog’s purpose would not be complete without her being in the know.

That is the target of the next few months of my practice and life. I want to be open. I want to be able to share. I want to feel connected to my parents, and everyone around me, without lies, deceit or deception. Let’s see how that works out.

Early morning bliss

Posted on October 21, 2012 by brownvagabonder | 1 Comment

Photo attributed to Thenix

It is seven in the morning in cold Toronto. I’m sitting here in the wee hours of the morning, on my couch, dressed in my pyjamas of choice, a bra and undies. Sleeping next to Thenix, I don’t need to bundle myself as I normally would when I sleep alone. The sun hasn’t risen yet. Everything is dark outside. I can see the millions of lights around me, in all the buildings, and the Rogers Centre. The CN tower is sleeping for now as well, the LED lights that buzz up and down its side, all silent in the early morning, getting ready for the rising of the sun and waking of the city’s inhabitants.

I wasn’t always a morning person. When I was a young ‘un, maybe 10 years old or around there, my Dad would wake me up at 5am to do multiplication tables or study Maths with him, so that I would always get a perfect in it. I hated getting up early. I hated him for a few brief moments when he wouldn’t let me sleep. I would have rebelled but I was deathly afraid of my father. I learned Maths in the morning, hating every minute of it. But now I love Maths, I’m really good at it, solving Calculus problems is my favourite way to pass a lazy Sunday afternoon.

And I love mornings. They are, of course, a new beginning for everyone. A fresh start to the slate. You are well rested. You just rejuvenated yourself. Your energy levels are high again. Your body is ready to go for another day. Your mind is fresh. You get up with verve, and then you look around, and the silence is just so juicy.

Ah, the silence. After working in an environment, where the phone rings incessantly, I am glad for the silence. I long for days where I can be quiet all day, with the silence overwhelming the space around me. Mornings are that time for me. Where I can just be silent on my own time. I can choose to do breathing exercises, or I can just sit and watch the lights twinkling in a distance through my windows. I can choose to sit in a cross-legged position and meditate, focusing on my senses. Or I can just do nothing.

I guess I’m lucky I’m a morning person. I have received so much from being up in the mornings. I do my most creative blogging in the morning. I have changed my life through meditation that I spoke about here. I have accomplished a lot more by being active in the mornings. Let me know what you think of mornings.

Money as Debt

Posted on October 17, 2012 by brownvagabonder | 2 Comments

Photo attributed to flickr user yewenyi

I’m sure you have noticed the Money as Debt videos that have been circulating around FaceBook and other social networks. I am not going to ruin the plot for you, but basically, the premise is that ‘If there were no debt, there would be no money.’

Now think about that for a second. I’m sure you haven’t really read the line above. So read it again. And again, until that fantastic concept blows the top of your head, and makes you wonder what you have been doing for the past 30-40 years of your life.

I’m sure you are going to watch the movie now, because you are wondering what does it all mean? I just wanted to share what went through my head as I watched through 47 minutes of this documentary.

Because the concept of money is so ingrained in my head and my preconceptions, I couldn’t even think of any alternative to money. Even now I am staring at the computer screen, looking around me, at all the items I have accumulated through the use of money, all the vacations I have gone through the exchange of money, and life, and I cannot imagine any other way of doing it. Of course, the movies do depict an alternative to money, so watch on for it, but I realized the money myth is so ingrained into us, that we cannot even think of anything else.
The 9:1 reserve ratio that the Banks need to keep in order to lend out money and the fact that Banks lend out money they do not have, absolutely blew my mind. There is a little bit information here for you to read through to understand the concept better. It took me several tries at it to get it.

Let me know what you think of the video and its severe implications.

Repression

Posted on September 7, 2012 by brownvagabonder | Leave a comment

Photo attributed to flickr user Leighton Cooke

I was at my yoga studio, after a long two weeks without any yoga, when I realized I had a half an hour to kill before the previous class would be let out. There is a library of books that the new manager, Julia, has bought in with her. I picked up a book randomly, and flipped through the pages, randomly, to start reading at a particular section. It is funny how the universe gives you exactly what you need at the exact moment that you need it.

T and I had been talking about repressed feelings. I do dream analysis, and a lot of my dreams in the past few weeks have been about my childhood. I always end up at the two streets from my childhood that I remember, one from Doha and one from Dubai – they are both really distinctive in my head. I always end up there, and I walk from there, to a fair, where I see all these people having fun, and then I try to go home, or back to my family. The main theme doesn’t vary. I wondered why my childhood is coming up again and again, and T suggested maybe there is a repressed memory there that you need to deal with.

I opened up the book, by Deb Shapiro – on body-mind relationship, and guess which page I randomly fell onto. The page about backs. I don’t remember the exact wording now, but she said, that the front side of your body is your social side. It is open and happy, because it is the one that gets shown to the world. But your back is a completely different story. Your back is always hidden, it is literally in the back, it never gets shown to the world. It is where we store everything that we do not want to think about, everything that is repressed, everything that in our minds is demonic or shameful, hateful, shadowy.

I imagine the reason I have been getting so much in my back in the past few months is because I haven’t dealt with something that I have stored back there, and is now coming up, because I am doing all of these yoga poses to open up my body in every way possible. Also, I think being in a relationship, where you are opening yourself up to a complete stranger, telling him all the details of our life, results in this coming up as well.

I have blogged about the molestation already here, and I am going to blog about my bed-wetting, hoping to get my back moving again, and my repressions going onward and away from me.

Why do I blog?

Posted on July 22, 2012 by brownvagabonder | Leave a comment

Photo attributed to flickr user Pearl Photo

I had a few moments of doubt over the weekend, where I noticed that my readership and followers have stabilized and haven’t gone up in the past two weeks. I started wondering about why I blog. Why am I doing this? Why am I putting my thoughts on paper? What is the point of it? If there is no point, why keep on spending hours a week, crafting my hopefully-interesting blog posts?

I thought about it through a yoga class, and then I decided to follow the intention espoused by yoga in general, non-attachment, non-grasping, detachment.

To let go of wanting a specific outcome. To just let go of wanting in general.

I find that a lot of people think of detachment as not caring. Detachment doesn’t mean that you stop caring or you give up with life. In fact, I find those people who are going through day-to-day motions without thought behind it, are the ones who do not care. They are the ones who have given up.

I find that detachment teaches you that you should think about every action that you are undertaking, you try to work as hard as you can in every situation, but once you have done all you can, you should just stop thinking about it. Leave it up to the universe to take care of. It will happen as it is going to happen, worrying about it, or analyzing it, or doing anything related to it, is not going to help.

This expansive way of thinking helps relax you. You are just chilled out. You are letting things happen as they happen.

The universe will take care of things. As long as you do all you can to take care of things on your end.

So now I practice detachment over the blog. I am going to keep on blogging because I like it, because I think I post interesting matter, because its cathartic. And I am going to forget about the future.

You can’t handle the truth!

Posted on July 3, 2012 by brownvagabonder | 1 Comment

Photo attributed to Thenix

My parents are good people. They are hard-working, grain of the earth, honest-to-goodness, good people. They are the reason there is progress every day in the world. Who believes that without hard work, you cannot get anywhere. Without them, without the industrious, hard-working people in the world, like my parents, the world would literally come to a stand-still.

And then, there’s me. A lazy person who wants to get the maximum for doing the minimum amount of work. Who is always looking for the easy way out. Who wants to find a way to use her blog and other skills to travel for the rest of her life. Who believes that life is supposed to be easy. Isn’t it? That is me.

I love my parents a lot, but I have realized that we are living very different lifestyles, with different paths, and no matter how much I try to share my path with them, it just will not make any sense to them. They are going to look at me like I have grown a third eye in the middle of my chest. Or just shake their head in misery, wondering what wrong they did in their previous life to deserve a child like me.

I try to be honest with them as much as possible, because it makes me feel better. When I am honest, and open, I feel like my body is open and free, and my mind is free and restraint-free. It makes everything in my life run smoother, as I do not have to remember all the lies that I have spoken to everyone around me. It takes a lot of energy and mental power in order to remember what you’ve said, and what you need to hide.

I lived for a long while with a lot of secrets. I lived with secrets in my heart, in my head, and in my spirit. I was a liar. I lied about the little things and I lied about the big things. I lied even when I didn’t need to, because I was just so used to lying. Suddenly, I started doing yoga, and I realized I was holding back from the world, because of all the lies that I was holding in my heart. Once, I started telling the truth, and just letting it all go, I was fine. I was more than fine. I was in alignment with the universe. I was whole again.

The other problem obviously was that the people around me weren’t able to handle the truth that I handed to them. They were surprised at first with all the changes in my life, then they were disdainful and annoyed with me, for being the person I am. They would’ve been happier if I had lied to them. Which is the sad part of it all.

That is the reason, they say, the Truth shall set you free.

Guest post at The Yoga Diaries

Posted on June 20, 2012 by brownvagabonder | Leave a comment

Photo attributed to flickr user Zanthia

Check out my guest post at The Yoga Diaries – The Logic of Having No Expectations.

Let me know what you think.

Mad at myself for caring about other people’s opinions

Posted on June 19, 2012 by brownvagabonder | Leave a comment

Photo attributed to flickr user kirainet

I was speaking to a loved one yesterday and he asked me why I cared so much about what other people think. He had read my blog post from yesterday and he couldn’t understand why I cared.

He explained his thoughts to me like this.

“it’s not that I like losing friends… or that I don’t care about their opinions, but I know that I have to do certain things with my life, and I listen to their point of view… if they have a good point or a good argument they can change my mind… but I don’t worry too much about how much they like my decisions…but it doesn’t break my spirit or my resolve”

I heard the words but all I could feel was anger at myself. I felt stupid for caring myself. It is one of those points of contention in myself – that I love to hate, or hate to love. I can’t bring myself to be happy about the fact that I am sensitive or care about other people’s feelings. I can’t bring myself to be compassionate towards myself for being the way I am.

I am sensitive. I do care. I am going to work with what I have. All I can do is not let the stuff that happens break my resolve or spirit, as my friend put it.

It is a shadow inside of me, it is something that I don’t like about myself. But instead of ignoring that aspect of myself, and pretending it doesn’t exist, I am going to look it in the eye, every single time it comes up and figure out what exactly is going on? Am I doing something because I care about other people’s opinion, or am I doing it because it actually, truly matters to me?

Because that is my paramount concern. To do things because they matter to me, because they are going to bring me closer to my goals and dreams. To be the person I am meant to be. To be the person I was put on this earth for. To not live a life full of lies.

IT is a constant struggle, of course. But the more it keeps on coming up, the more it means, I have to deal with it better. I obviously didn’t resolve it the last few times it came up.

What do you think of caring about other people? Is it important or not?

Professional food taster, perhaps?

Posted on May 21, 2012 by brownvagabonder | Leave a comment

They say that you should look at the people’s lives you envy to figure out what would your ideal life be. I have always envied the lives of Professional Travel Bloggers and Professional Yogis (a contradiction in itself).

I envy people who can travel around the world and get paid for it. I also envy those people who go around the world eating different foods and getting paid for it as well. I envy people who get to go around the world and teach yoga and get paid for it.

I am just building a draft of my ideal life – I’m sure the draft will evolve as time goes on.

Some things that have been coagulating in my head are as follows –

I want to have lots of travel, yoga, and food in my ideal life.

I want to meditate every day for an hour or two.

I want to do yoga for two to three hours.

I want to dance in different places around the world.

I want to have no set hours when I have to get up and go to work.

I want to get paid for writing out my thoughts in a blog. I earn enough money from my blog to sustain my lifestyle of travel.

I want to have lots of reading in my life, reading amazing books from all around the world.

I want to spend time on self-improvement, learning new languages and skills, and exploring the inner crevices of my mind.

That’s just what is in my head right now. Let me know what you think below.

Technology and loneliness part 2

Posted on March 12, 2011 by brownvagabonder | 2 Comments

As a blogger, whenever you write something, you hope that it will be received well. I usually write random topics ranging from what happened during the day to world events. All my blogs are based on my powers of observation. I love people watching and my job as a server allows me to do that on a daily basis, which is a total bonus. I am sometimes surprised by what topic suddenly takes hold and the public seems to like. It is usually the blog that I wasn’t really interested in, I just wrote it because I thought it was something to write about, that a lot of times garners a lot of interest.

I find that technology and loneliness, despair in the old age, surviving the end of the world, are common topics that people search for and come by to my blog. Looking at topics, either I am writing a really dire, unhappy blog, or a lot of people out there are really dire and unhappy. Whatever it is, I have also found that people search a lot for happiness online. I can understand lonely people searching online for companionship, to relieve themselves of their loneliness, the only way people really know now, after being shielded by technology all their lives. But I cannot understand people searching for happiness online. How can you find happiness online? That is something incomprehensible to me. I find distraction online very easily, through the various blogs that make fun of awkward family photos or fail blogs.

I wonder about the future generations. My generation, who are in their twenties now, has had the internet in their life only for about ten years, so half their lives. Maybe that has caused the internet not to be such an influence on their life as much as the next generation. The generation born in 2000 or later, who has been the internet generation. They were born into the privilege and with it comes great responsibility. They have no other way of communicating with others. They do not know what letter-writing and mail is all about. It would be really interesting to see how these people delineate loneliness and technology, or despair in old age. Will they be searching for such terms? Maybe they are so used to the notion of being separated by technology that they will not even think of it as anything different?

Technology isn’t all bad, of course. It was able to prevent the loss of thousands of lives in Japan, by forewarning the people about the earthquake to come. When you consider the devastation that could’ve happened, a thousand lives lost is pretty discerning.

Blog goals reached for August

Posted on September 3, 2009 by brownvagabonder | 1 Comment

I have reached my goals for this blog for end of August. I wanted a 100 posts written and I have. I wanted 300 views and I have more than 300. I wanted 5 comments and I have 7, which is great.

My goals for this blog for September will be less ambitious, as I will not have computer access every single day of the week, due to travelling. I want to have at least 10 blog posts written and a 100 views added in the month of September. Lets see what happens.

I also want to get a travel-writing gig for the month of September. Inshallah!

Changes to the blog

Posted on July 28, 2009 by brownvagabonder | Leave a comment

As you must have noticed, I have made certain changes to the blog. I am so happy that I am learning so many new things about my blog, so I can make changes, and make it as perfect as possible, at least in the way it looks. I have always looked at the various blogs out there and wondered, hmm, how did they do that? A lot of them admittedly were computer programmers, so they were proficient with making any changes that they needed to make, but I am sure someone like me, who isn’t great with software in general, would be able to figure things out as well.

I am waiting impatiently for my library to send me notice, that the book WordPress for Dummies, that I put on hold last week, is available for me to pick up. I can’t wait to just browse through the book, and figure out some new detail that will enable me to create a better blog in general. I just want as many like-minded people as possible in this world, to read my blog and comment on it, and generally just engage with it as much as possible. I have some desires for the blog, like I want to make a custom-header and put me with my backpack in the header, as this is a PF/Travel blog in one. I also want to add my debt counters and RRSP counters to the side bar, again, I can’t wait to read the book and figure out more about that.

I also wanted to add a widget that would have links to similar posts in the blog at the bottom of each post, so people could read similar posts. I really love the stats on the site, that has been added to the side bar, as well as the archives, and the blog roll. It makes me feel like I seem more professional, and that really makes me happppy.

On a completely different note, I wanted to bike to work today and the weather report said, rain and thunderstorms, so I didn’t, and what do I see when I look out the window? Sunny, beautiful clear skies. Makes me wanna kick something.

Boom And Thenix

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