The Friday Most Excellent – An amazing week

This has been an amazing, but incredibly busy week for me.  I've been a little concerned about my services business for the past month or two.  I was still getting work, but it was really small stuff and was just trickling in.  I'm used to things slowing down in December, but picking right back up after the first of the year.  That didn't happen this year.  Instead, things were slow until late last week, when I received around seven emails in a row from existing and new clients asking me to do work for them.  Nice to be busy again, and I really love doing the work.

That new client work alone was enough to keep me very busy and excited, but then the following happened this week:

Google+ Success

I published an article I had been working on for a few weeks.  An article I was growing more and more passionate about and was looking forward to sharing with you because of how important I felt the information was.  That article was on Google+ and how critical I felt Google+ was going to be for bloggers in 2013.  If you aren't on Google+ yet, or you're on, but not active, I would really recommend you give it a read.

Anyway, long story short, that article became very popular on Google+ and ended up getting more than 280 plus ones and was shared more than 20 times.  The activity caused it to show up on Google+ "what's hot" and resulted in a large traffic spike for me.  My follower count so far has increased by more than 100 and my email subscriber list by more than 150!  Needless to say I was very excited and it just shows the real power of Google+ to drive traffic to your blog and help it grow.  The graphic above shows the spike.

Following this, I had the honor of being mentioned as one of Rand Wilson's top influencers on Google+ along side some of the top people I follow on Google+. If you aren't following all of these folks, including Rand Wilson himself, you're really missing out.  These folks are paving the way.

Formed and Joined a blogging network

For a few weeks now, I had actually been pulling together a list of names of people I might want to form a blogging network with, then Michael Belk posted his interest in pulling together a blogging network as well.  Him and I talked a lot and along with a few other members, formed the initial framework of what I hope to become a really great blogging network.  We're still working through all of the details of how things will work, requirements for membership, activity policies, recruitment  etc, but I'm really excited about this.

I'll discuss more about this in future articles on Google+ so stay tuned.  Oh, and if you're friends with me on Google+, don't feel slighted that you haven't been invited.  Like I said, I have a short list of people I'd like to bring in, but we need to get the base framework established a bit before we do.

Then, my wife got sick...

My wife is an amazing person, and even when she's sick you wouldn't generally know it.  We have six kids, and she's up taking them to school in the morning, picking them up in the afternoon, going to the grocery store, running them to after school sports, and somehow in between all that, finds the time to have a home cooked meal on the table every ingle night.  She manages the house and the kids, which allows me to work my full-time job and run my blogging side business with little distraction.

When she gets really sick though, the well oiled machine jams up pretty quick.  Unfortunately that happened yesterday.  We're pretty sure she has the flu.  I've had to pick up her duties and try to keep as much of mine going as I can, which is a challenge.  Some of you will probably note I only published one article this week and haven't been as active on Google+ in the afternoons the past two days.

But, all is good.  This serves as a great reminder that "life happens" and we just have to shuffle our priorities around.  Sure, the blog might suffer a little.  Yes, my client's might get their work completed a few days later, but the world won't end, and my wife's health and my kids being taken care of is far more important.

This weeks most excellent

Here are a few of my favorite reads (the most excellent) from the week.  The list is a little shorter than usual because I haven't had that much time to read!

• I already mentioned Rand Wilson's article with a list of 6 top Google+ influencers, but I'm including in here again.  Follow these people and pay attention to what they're saying, you will learn incredible things from them.  Make sure you follow Rand Wilson as well, he is absolutely an influencer.
• Sharing, Re-sharing and Circles - Chris Jennings Penders is another person you should be following.  I linked out to an article he wrote from my Google+ article earlier this week, and the sharing, re-sharing and circles articles is another great write-up on how most effectively use Google+.
• How to main professionalism and workplace ethics - While focused more on the workplace, I think the underlying concepts in this article apply to anyone in business - and your blog is a business.
• Query Deserves Freshness - Copyblogger talks about how one of their top ranking keywords, and number 1 position was outranked for short period of time by Mashable, who wasn't even trying.  Very very interesting read.  I'll admit, QDF was new to me.

How's your week been?

Larry Deane is the founder and editor of Side Income Blogging. He is a full-time IT professional and part-time entrepreneur, writer and software developer. Larry loves teaching and helping others about how they can start and earn money by blogging. Most importantly, Larry loves spending time with his wife and 6 kids. You can find Larry on Google+ and Pinterest.

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