Blurred Up!

Now, not sure if you are too late... but remember the praise I have heaped upon the talented photographer Neale James of Breathe Pictures? Well his blog contains a competition where you need to squint at a out of focus image and guess what it is. The first 10 correct guesses win a family portrait shoot with the this talented photographer!

I managed to do it, so there is hope for you all!

Even if you are too late, Neale's is an excellent example of a blog that is well established, often updated and offers real insight into the work he does.

Scaling the Dizzy Heights

I've had a number of emails and posts asking me how I've nabbed the number on slot on Google for 'nigel morgan blog' and also, how other bloggers from our district of the blogosphere are also appearing high on Google - via my blog.

This development was a surprise, but should have been obvious really. The very same actions that have pushed my blog up the search engine listings will work for everyone else mentioned in it too!

Interestingly, simply using the phrase 'nigel morgan blog' will help and I have not even started using tags yet - these identify key words that Google finds more easily!

Surely it is this simple:

• Post as often as you can.
• Place links within your blog.
• 'Ping' the search engines to tell them something has changed.

Basically I have used Ping-o-matic, which I have bookmarked and click on everytime something changes on my site. This prompts the search engines to send their spiders to my blog and index it. Then when we do these searches - when anybody does relevant searches - the engine has what it correctly believes is recent, relevant entries.

The more people click on these returns the more relevant Google et al will deem the site to be. You can create a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy simply by writing and pinging!

Hope this helps? We look forward to reading your comments.

Fortune Favours the Slave

What a difference a day makes! All that blogging is paying off!

Just 24 little hours and we’re back on top! I forlornly tried the same search for me and my blog on Google earlier this afternoon, convinced that I would still be foraging for scraps in oblivion… but lo, I am number one once more!

Interestingly, such dizzy heights have been secured with a different entry from the one that was there two days ago – and my Blogger profile has nudged up to the number three slot.



Incidentally, just in case you cannot read the small print - that infernal obituary is still number two! But the live me got the number one slot out of 176,000 pages! Hurrah!

Google Top Slot Euphoria Short Lived

In the fickle world of cyberspace I was delighted and thoroughly stunned to discover that my personal branding had been so enhanced by barely a week of blogging that a world search on Google would return 'nigel morgan blog' to its premier slot.

I was nearly as shocked to discover my obituary was number two. However reports of my death were actually someone much, much older who happened to have the same name. I suspect competition from this namesake will be short lived. The successful artist who specialises in painting larger ladies may be an altogether different challenge.

However, 24 little hours later and I've gone. Vanished. Well, my blog isn't featuring on the first few pages and I am not dignfying the possibility that I am there, but in double figures! The euphoria has been replaced by despair! Not least because the dead namesake has the top slot! (I suspect those I emailed with news of my rise to the top have clicked on the obituary out of morbid curiousity and prompted Google to think it is more interesting than this blog! As if!

As a precaution I have not given you links to any of my competitors!

Interestingly, searches for titles of my individual entries do reap rich rewards and comments I have added to more established blogs feature too. I do particularly well with a mention on mental health blog The Trouble With Spikol when blogger Liz Spikol thanks me for sending her an article from Guardian Unlimited. I stumbled across her blog on a search engine months ago and keep visiting. A columnist in the Philadelphia Weekly she is a terrific example of good prolific blogging. Actually that mention has driven traffic to my blog and prompted a few emails.

What has clearly helped my cause is using a website called Ping-o-matic that tells search engines and archives when I have posted a new message. Within 24 hours I can find that message online, albeit with some pretty precise searches; but it does mean my blog is out there to be found.

Exceedingly Good Takes

Wow! The Best of Newbury Photo Exhibition is fantastic. Come up with a stunning superlative and it will only begin to describe the creativity and originality of over 150 images of a host of people.

Neale and Sam James from Breathe Pictures and Karen Holmes from www.thebestof.co.uk/newbury deserve a veritable mountain of credit for taking an idea to the wondrous fruition in the space of just nine months.

You must go and see it – at the Corn Exchange in Newbury – to appreciate how original each photograph is. Photographer Neil has taken each subject and interpreted them in such delightful ways it makes for good entertainment. Further depth is added by the short statements beneath each canvas, adding more depth to the face above.

There was also some very clever positioning of the different subjects that variously compared and contrasted. My favourite was the Big Issue seller next to a peer of the realm.

The exhibition was launched last night at a special preview and opened by the Earl of Carnarvon, who is among those pictured. He spoke passionately about the Thames Valley Air Ambulance, who will benefit from the sale of the images. I suspect there will be a lot of Christmas presents resolved thanks to this exhibition.

The evening was particularly entertaining seeing the reaction of people to discovering their photograph. I even managed to capture a few people with their portraits, as you will see below.

Pictured (from the left) are Graham Chapple from Gardens 4 You, Richard Hayman of the Madagascan Gin Palace - currently taking Christmas bookings! Next is Tony Quinn of Recognition Express

Here is another: Richard Benyon, the MP for West Berkshire, whose own photograph has given him movie star appeal! Or at the very least it looks like he is modelling a very expensive shirt!

Richard had also been at Lou Cummins memorial service earlier in the day and recalled some fond memories of the former editor. Not least how unimpressed Lou had been with his political aspirations!

I was delightfully surprised to discover that my photo was not the blog shot I use of me on the mobile, but another one taken the same time of me just cracking up with laughter. I do that a fair bit. If you have read this far you will have already seen it at the top of the page.

The exhibition is free, open whenever the Corn Exchange is and on show until the 18th November, when it will go on tour.