Nine Months to be Blogger

From Blind toward World Self-Publisher


By Jannerson Girsang

Waiting for Old and New (2009), from my house in the vicinity of Medan, Indonesia I will share you my interesting experiences of having blog for nine months, since I established Harangan Sitora on March 2009. This blog has carved my new life story.

Although it has been late, compared to some other colleagues who got the experience earlier and in their younger age, and even some friend has started bollger since 2006. As new blogger, I have spent part of my spare time in posting and publishing on blog, sharing with the world.

I have been a World Free Self Publisher. A status that was impossible without the 1995's broad application of internet technology and without mastering blog or other online media. Blog, prepared by Google has open new life of a 48-year old man who has never got formal education in blog or other online media. A new "illiteracy" in developing countries, such as my country Indonesia.

I believe that more people who are able to operate blog and create valuable or enhanced articles, will share more real facts or information and create better and better world.

I still remember nine month ago, when my "illiteracy" in blog was started to eradicate!.

With the assistant of my closed friend, I established this Blog. Before, I was envied to see my friends talk about blog and said blog can earn money etc.

At the time, I told my friend that the new blog was aimed at publishing my experiences, ideas and my responses to situation around me that can be read by others, directly from my own media.

For my friend short time of visit, he could only designed me a simple blog from original existing template with out any change.

I frankly tell you, until that moment, I have never heard or received any formal or informal education about blogging. I was blind on it.

Getting the Harangan Sitora as a title of Blog took long discussion. On the occasion, my friend simply told me that the title should be unique.

With a very poor knowledge of blogging principles, I then honored Harangan Sitora”—the forest name at my little village, to be my blog’s name. There was no knowledge about key word, traffic or other aspects of blogging.

Harangan Sitora is one name of nine small forests blocks, located besides my parent's farm/field in my village, Nagasaribu. The village is located in Simalungun Regency, North Sumatra, Indonesia.

The blog is named after the forest, just to remember forest in my vilage and warn people in the world that forest is very important for our future generation.

The titel was automatically appeared, since the forest has been worse since 1970s. I dream my forest back. That was all.

It is then really unique. My childhood memories in my village and forest.

In fact, I am not environment expert who know comprehensive environmental issues. I am a biographer and independent writer, and in addition, a man who has been working in various types of jobs. I would like to record and publish my experiences and ideas for the world.

Finaly, I put the blog title as : “Biografi : Menulis Fakta dan Memberi Makna”, an Indonesian name, which is freely translated to English as “Biography : Writing Facts, Creating Meaning”).

I put the name and the title without any consideration of key word and traffic.

In the beginning, when I started blogging, as a man who was totally blind in blogging, I did not understand key word”, “add link, registered, traffic, etc. I visit : http://www.recognizedexpert.com, a website that explains all aspect of blogging.

My friend always criticize the name and the title of this blog, but I have never concerned about the criticism. I only concern of publishing my ideas, and hope that those can help in explaining the mindset, situation around me, valuable thing from my place and people to the world. Tag—an important one for search engine was completely ignored.

What I knew at the beginning was simply posting and publishing articles.

Later, day by day, I got new knowledge. I learned blogging from tens of websites. As a man who was totally blind in blogging, I frankly tell you that blog has taught a lot of new knowledge. I visited http://www.webreference.com/authoring/blog_tips/ to increase traffic of this blog.

Afterward, I have been able to install several important widget, link to other website or web, registered to Google (webmaster tool), find making money although I have never received any money until this moment), make a name of website link when I write on blog and other small things but important. I also try to see http://hubpages.com/my/profile, http://www.get-paid-to-online.com/get-paid-to-write.html

With a very limited knowledge in the beginning, as blogger and managing publication blog, I have been able to publish my articles about my ideas, the stories of people around me, old documents, and others, reaching thousands of readers to 27 different countries in the world. I have been a small world self-publisher!.

However, I am concerned about my article which have been published in adult blogs or websites. Since several month ago, when I search at Google with Harangan-Sitora, I have found (I did not put in the list below) that several adult blogs and websites grabing and publising some articles and even my complete blog in their adult webs or blogs. My friends have complained for the existence of my blog or some articles at some adult blog.

I do not know how to protect this!. However, I hope and pray the content of Harangan Sitora will not be published in adult blog or web. Since the beginning, I have no intention to put any adult content to this blog.

I have no objection to any people using my articles for their advertisement or simply to increase their traffic, but not for any adult blog or website. My sisters and brothers, please delete my article from your adult web and blog. And for advertiser, please do not put any adult advertisement in this blog.

By the way, let me tell you my blog achievements. For your information, I managed this blog simply by posting and editing articles and adding links, without any investment or other tools. Some times I promoted this web by writing response on other blog.

On December 30, 2009, I conducted Google searching using key word of Harangan-Sitora”.

I found search result of 4870. It was a drastically increase from less than two thousand on September 2009. I do not really understand what the meaning of the figure. In my point of view at this moment, there were almost 5000 thousand views or clicks by other people to this sites. (Please let me know if this is true!).

This blog has been visited by 27 different countries. I knew this from flag counter which I installed on September, 2009. For me it is amazing, since in the beginning I directed this blog was only for Indonesian people. I have intention to gradually write articles in English to meet the demand.

Then, I searched popularity of this blog through http://www.iconinteractive.com/tools/pop/, an instant, online reports of a site's link popularity rating in 6 top search engines, including Google, Yahoo! Search, MSN, and others. I also visit KeyWord Database, http://www.pandecta.com/keywords.html,


http://feeds.searchengineland.com/~r/searchengineland/~3/T5Kq9KtKpQc/ppc-academy-toolbox-keyword-monitoring-37487

The website showed the figure as follows : AlltheWeb (113 Views), AltaVista (310 Views), Google (407 Views). Total popularity was 830. (Until this time, I did not understand this figure yet. I some times I was curious why this figure was up and down, not increasing in linier). In addition, this blog has been appeared in Zeal.

There were 22 links of this blog (I do not understand the meaning of this). However, there is a relation between total links to popularity and value as well.

I installed monitoring tools of good indicators of blog for evaluation. The value and rank was measured by esitestats (http://www.esitestats.com), and http://www.yourwebsitevalue.com.

Esitestats recorded value of US$ 120 (893,235 rank in esitesats) and the second recorded the blog value of US$ 85 (4,552,648 rank at Alexa, slightly increased compared to more than 22 million Alexa rank on September 2009.

I also learn how to create blog capability to automatically display new entries from other blogs, called "Really Simple Syndication," or RSS. I can add this capability easily to a Blogger.com.

However, Google Adsense--a prestigious for most blogger, has rejected second application of this blog. It is not a big problem for me, since this blog was not intended to be a commercial one. (However, I hope Google Adsense will approve my next application, when I match its requirements).

By December 30, 2009, Harangan Sitora has been followed or linked to the following blogs or websites (excluding adult websites or blogs).

Thank you for the website owners or bloggers who have participated in popularizing this blog. Reader comments and suggestions are very expected to improve this blog in the future!.

Let us be blogger, create better world!.