And the winners are…
A big THANK YOU to all who participated in the drawing to win copies of Sonny Barger’s new book, “Let’s Ride”! The winners of the books, whose names were drawn randomly by Corn Dog’s teen-age daughter and then notified via email by Corn Dog, are:
Jules B., aka “Dr Tigger” of Rhodes, Iowa, and
Cathie K. of Clermont, Florida
Congrats to Jules & Cathie!
Blog behaving badly
A new “real” post is coming up shortly! For the moment, if you’re reading this, please take a moment to attempt to leave a comment on this post. I say “attempt” because I’ve had reports from some readers that comments they’ve left are not appearing on the site. (And, I’m pretty sure a few comments that WERE here – are no longer here!) I have no idea how to begin trouble-shooting these issues, but thought I would start with a quick test to see if I can isolate the symptoms. So – click on the “comments” link and write something, and we’ll see if it shows up! Thanks!
We’ve got a mobile edition!
I bought a Motorola Droid for use with my Verizon wireless service this past weekend, and discovered a neat website called www.womenwithdroids.com. What I noticed was that the site had a “mobile edition” that appeared by default on my new phone, while still giving me the option to view the full site in a browser. I loved the idea of offering a fast, slimmed-down version of the blog content on the small device, so decided to create one for BCN.
So – if you’re visiting Biker Chick News on an iPhone, Droid, or other smart phone, you’re probably getting our new mobile edition! I’m excited to provide this feature – it offers “just the basics” of BCN in an easily readable format for smaller screens:
- The top 10 most recent blog post headlines – a click takes you to the full articles complete with photos.
- Links to the full “About” and “Archive” pages
- The text of the “About page” in its own little box.
- A link to exit the mobile edition and view the full website.
Of course, the full site includes so much more – that’s what your device’s web browser is for – but for a quick and easy way to keep up with the blog, hopefully you’ll dig BCN Mobile.
(By the way, if you blog using WordPress and have the capability to use plug-ins, try the plug-in available from AlexKing.org which auto-generates the mobile edition.)
Fan, follow BCN around the web!
Been spending a little time lately setting up some tools to help folks find Biker Chick News in a few more places on the web.
First, I created a Facebook Page, Biker Chick News. I like Facebook a lot for connecting with old friends and keeping up with everyone in my life. The blog’s “fan page” is a little different from my personal Facebook page – it’s designed especially to keep “fans” updated on what’s new at the blog, AND I’ve also enabled the “discussions” feature so if you want to ask a question or just start a topic for conversation among other “fans,” you can do that too!
I’m also an occasional user of Twitter. Conan’s late-night scoffing aside, I found that twitter was really useful in my previous line of work. But, I was “tweeting” a combination of things from work and personal life, which I think was a bit confusing to the friends who were (are) following me. I don’t tweet much for work anymore, and most of my personal stuff is bike-related. So I decided to set up a new account under the name of the blog so the bike-related stuff I’m sharing would be associated with the blog. So, short version: if you use Twitter, you can follow @BikerChickNews and that will be me!
The road ahead
From time to time I like to stop and make note about the traffic levels on this site. A couple of interesting notes from the 2009 traffic logs:
The site averaged just over 20,300 visitors per month in 2009.
I almost (but not quite!) broke the 25,000 mark in monthly visits with 24,795 in August!
The number of visitors in each month in 2009 was higher than the number of visitors in the corresponding months in 2008, so, it was another record year for traffic despite some pretty big gaps in posting frequency.
It’s always interesting, too, to discover what search terms people are using when they find this site – generally my traffic report shows that most people are searching for pictures when they click through. And that’s okay with me – I’m sure the ones looking for “sexy biker chick pics” are disappointed, but at least their eyes get opened to the fact that real women actually ride motorcycles instead of just posing on them.
All that said, the one stat I’m resolving to really pay attention to in 2010 is this:
- There are currently 172 people who subscribe to site updates, either through an RSS reader or via email. (I’m sure that number is higher for many other “biker chick” blogs, and that’s okay too.)
Those people – you! – are the ones who are really interested to know when something new has been added. You’re the ones who actually read my posts and create the community that surrounds this blog.
My goals for this site have always been simple: to express and share the joy of riding, and to encourage other women to ride their own. Hopefully, for at least 172 of you, I’m doing just that.
I’m still here – are you??
Well how’s THAT for falling off the face of the earth?? I swear I didn’t mean to, and I am planning to re-start, jump-start, or whatever to get things going again. I have lots to share, lots to write about, and lots of great links to send your way – and hopefully, time to post everything while our Iowa roads and landscape are covered in snow!
I’d like to take a moment to thank the gals who sent me concerned emails, asking if everything was okay – it sure is, and I’m touched that you wrote and asked the question!
And, I also wanted to send well-wishes to my blogging friend and kindred-spirit-in-riding, Steph (aka Iowa Harley Girl) – I hope she’s feeling better and will be ready to ride this spring!
Finally, here’s wishing each of you a happy and healthy New Year!
You say it’s your birthday… wait, what?
Wow, how pathetic am I? After making all that fuss about the blog turning five years old… after encouraging you to “save the date” for August 23… after all that, I did NOTHING for the BIG FIFTH BIRTHDAY!
Yeah, I know. Really, really bad. And, if you really were holding the date, I sincerely apologize for not getting on the stick and planning something. I won’t even say, “Maybe we can do something in September…” because who knows whether I’ll actually follow through.
Good news, though, I have been getting some really great email from readers lately, sharing their stories and adventures, and have just been waiting to be done with the Sturgis ride reports to share these with you. Look for a few “guest posts” and other stray thoughts coming soon!
A clean, fresh look for our little five-year-old!
Decided that BCN deserved a new outfit for her fifth birthday, so I gave the whole blog a lean, clean update with a beautiful peacock-themed logo and coordinating color scheme – hope you like it! (The neat thing is, that peacock is actually the finished tattoo on my left shoulder, which I’ve had since last fall.)
A few changes to the layout of the site will make it even more interactive than before. Most notably, it’s much easier to find the “Comments” link to either read existing comments or post your own comment about everything you read!
Also, I added easily-found links to some of the most popular “sharing” websites at the end of each article, so you can stumble, digg, or tweet anything you wish! (Note: I’m working on a better solution for Twitter, because the code I’m currently using doesn’t automatically shorten the URL of the article you’re sharing. With Twitter’s 140-character-per-message limit, you could easily use up all your characters just with the URL – not good!)
Finally, you can now see “tags” at the end of each article. If you click on a tag, it will show you a list of other articles from elsewhere on the site that relate to that same tag. Right now, the list is a little skimpy – I’ve only tagged a few of the most recent posts, so I’ll have to revisit the older stuff and tag articles individually.
Still to come, I’m planning to clean up the category list so there aren’t so many. It will make the whole page look a lot cleaner, but it will be time-consuming – I’ll have to review every post and re-assign some to other categories. I’ve also got plans for adding occasional guest-posts from other authors, so be on the lookout for some new “biker chick voices” in the months to come!
Thanks as always for reading and participating in this blog – I’m so thankful to have you here!
P.S. – If you’re a WordPress blogger, the theme I’m using here is by Eric Hamm and it’s called Frugal. I love its simplicity and easy customization. Plus, Eric’s the first theme author I’ve ever encountered who a). has created a user’s manual for editing the code in his theme and b). makes me want to stand up and cheer whenever I read his blog.
BCN receives the Community Blogger Award
In addition to being listed with FindingDulcinea.com as a “website that matters,” BikerChickNews also received another nice recognition recently: Liz (aka Rippin Kitten) gave me the Community Blogger Award for creating a website that not only contributes to the community of bikers and bloggers (and biker-bloggers!), but also recognizes the importance of blog readers – like, oh you know… you!!
I really appreciated Liz taking note of the great group of readers/commenters that frequent these parts, and as always, I thank YOU for continuing to stop by and take part in the conversation here.
In the spirit of the award, though, I didn’t just want to accept it – I wanted to share it with other biker chick bloggers who also entertain us with their writing, welcome comments from readers, and/or share the joy of being a biker through blogging.
So, here are my choices for the next round of the Community Blogger Award, and rest assured these are three FOUR (!) blogs you won’t want to miss!
Froggi Donna
The Delaware Curmudgeon
Shanon/Bloody Wench
Iowa Harley Girl
Keep up the blogging and riding, girls, I hope to see you on the road!
Site news: new videos, traffic hits all-time high
Hey thank you all for taking time to check out the new Biker Chick News Video Channel! I wanted to be sure you knew I’ve added a BUNCH of videos since I first introduced the channel a couple weeks ago… including two great ones from Liz (aka “Rippin-Kitten”). She’s got a great photo montage from Laconia 2007, and also an instructional bit about what she went through in a recent re-jetting project. (I also recently added my own Sturgis 2006 slide show!)
Here are some direct links:
Kitten’s Laconia Video
Kitten’s Rejet Video
BikerChick’s Sturgis ’06 Video
Main video page
AND - did you know that this site is set to clear over 12,000 visitors this month? That’s right, more than 12,000 individual visits to the site – either folks stopping by once, or coming back again and again – in this one month alone! That’s double the traffic from just the end of last year, and more than four times the traffic from August, 2006! Now I realize that compared to the Internet’s most highly-trafficked sites (like Google, MySpace and Amazon), that’s pretty small potatos. But hey, I am just SO appreciative that you find this site worth a visit!
THANK YOU for reading, and don’t forget to leave your comments and send me an email if you have something you’d like me to post.
