New Blogger Template

Many thanks to BTemplates.com, I'm proud to release a stunning new Blogger template for DondeQuiera.  I was looking for some updates colors, and a dash of the beach or the sea, and I think I got lucky.

I'm still working a few kinks out after the template transition, but it was a long time in coming.  The old template was the last remnant of DondeEs.com, so parting with the Don Dees was way overdue.   Don Dees was a big part of my life, so seeing bits of him disappear brings on a little melancholy.  Oh, course, you can always get a peek at on the Way Way Back Machine.

New Focus on Dondequiera - Building the Next Million Views

A Strong Finish for 2014

Back in the January 2007 I started the Dondequiera blog as an integral part of Dónde Es.com.  Now almost 8 years later, DondeEs.com is dead, but Dondeequiera lives on!  To celebrate it’s on-going legacy, I’ll putting new focus on the blog to finish out 2014 stronger than ever.

Why Now?

Dondequiera now at http://dondequiera.mistribus.com

As my most popular online publishing platform, Dondequiera is on the cusp of reaching some amazing milestones.  As it stands today, the blog has received over 425,546 page views in it’s history, and has 904 published entries.  So today I commit myself to make up for lost time and push Dondequiera forward.  By the end of the year, my goal is to surpass 1,000 published entries and with the fickle Internet gods willing, break half a million page views.

Last year, I was forced to switch the primary website address to Dondequiera, when Dondees.com finally went dark.  It was a painful switch, and I lost years of diligent SEO work when the old DondeEs.com addresses became missing, but it was a switch that had to be done.  Thankfully, google has been slowly reindexing some of the pages, so I’m still getting some link love, but I’m hoping that I can help it along by regularly posting new content.

Then What?

I’m still carrying the last branding legacy of DondeEs.com, so every time I post a new entry it is with both wistfulness and melancholy.  I’m glad to have had the startup experience, but I think it is time to finally leave the last vestiges of that adventure behind.  So, while I’m busy generating new and improved content for the blog, I’ll be secretly working on a new blog design.  When I hit either of my goals, I’ll unveil a new look for the blog to carry it towards the next half a million views and another 1,000 posts.

Ohh the humanity. Trivia contest bombs.

Ahh, what a disaster. Well we didn't get any takers for the free Palco tickets. Pity. According to Tom Peters, one of a hundred such business gurus, those companies that learn to "Fail Faster," succeed. If the trivia contest was any signal, LOL, we're going to start succeeding VERY soon.

Anyway, we learned a few lessons:

1. Launching a short time limit contest on a Friday in the summer, uhh, maybe that wasn't such a good idea. But we had no choice, we didn't get the tickets till late Thursday night.
2. Once again, we are frustrated and stumped on our inability to generate any response from readers of the blog; as well, we still don't get many users to enter Events or Ratings over on DóndeEs.com.
3. In the end, this is a numbers game, just like everything else. Successful sales is a numbers game. For example, in order to make 5 sales a week, you need to visit 25 potential clients. In order to get 25 appointments, you need to talk to 125 business owners. In order to talk directly with decision makers (business owners, usually), you have to make 625 calls. All assuming a 20% success ratio.
   
   So it is with reaching and joining into a conversation (engaging in some sort of interaction) with Internet Users, in a very interesting article I found about "Nuggets from Social Media workshops as of late…", Sean O'Driscoll shared some powerful insights into the social sphere, the most pertinent to our trivia fiasco is:
   

   "Let’s assume we can generally agree that ~70% will lurk, 20% join, 9% will be regulars and 1% participate in the community in extreme ways."

   Looking at out traffic numbers for yesterday, we had approximately 107 visits to the blog, it could be more, but we don't have anything else to go on, but Google Analytics. So yesterday, the blog got 107 visits, if Sean's assumption is right, means that maybe only 9% are regulars, 9 visitors, and only 1% will participate in extreme ways, that's (holy crap) 1 visitor. So you see why point number one is so valid.
   

On the bright side, did get quite a few number of users to register over on DóndeEs.com, for the family ticket give-away. So thanks everyone for your support. For those who actually won tickets and attended the game, we hope that you enjoyed the courtesy tickets. And for everyone that is registered on DóndeEs.com or a fan of our DóndeEs.com Facebook Page, maybe soon we'll invite you all for a Palmolive bien firiiita. Very soon.

Flickr Creative Commons Contributor: s-t-r-a-n-g-e

Events and You

In the past when I asked readers of Dondequiera what they most appreciated about the blog, they responded with information about events. And obviously, the superb writing, and charming wit. ¡Claro! I know, shut-up and tell us about more events.

Reader CO2nut left a comment recently and asked why all of the events seem to happen on the same weekend. Since I follow the news and announcements looking for interesting events to pass along, I had noticed the same thing. Quick answer, I'm not really sure why that is, probably just coincidence.

However, one thing I do know is that I would have a lot more to choose from if I had some participation from YOU. Believe it or not, that's mainly what this blog is all about, trying to inform everyone about all the cool stuff that happens in Puerto Rico. So it would be a great help if you would send in links and information concerning events. The information could be for events in your church, school, business, or any organization you are affiliated with. Or it could be information about popular events that happen in your area. I especially would like to share more information for events on the west-end of Puerto Rico.

If you can send me the information to info at dondees dot com, or just leave a comment on a blog entry, and, if possible, be sure to include a link. I'll be sure to give credit, where credit is due. Think of this as your 21st century community events newsletter, with a twist of course.

Also a quick word about how I choose what to post. Well first off, I love anything to do with music, art, nature, the environment, fine dining, and helping to promote local sports. That's a pretty broad range of topics, so what's the magic formula for what eventually gets posted. I have to confess, it's mostly on whim. Sort of whatever I feel like on any given day, but what I try to do is cover all of those areas, while focusing on the new or unique. I also try to give as much lead time before events as possible. In my opinion, many events get announced too late (i.e., too close to the date of the event). That typically leaves too little time to make good choices about how to spend your time. So if possible, I like to give at least a weeks notice, that is unless I think something is too special not to announce.

Finally, I mostly like to cover events which take place in locations that are in our directory. Another one of the missions of this blog is to provide information to help people actually find events, reliably. With soaring gas prices, you can't afford to waste gasoline (read $$$) hunting down where an event is. So I prefer to blog about events where I know I can help YOU arrive reliably. Of course, if you know about a really cool event that is taking place in a location that is not in our directory, by all means, you can add it using our "Add your business form."

Yes, I know it's corny, but I want to take time again to thank you for reading Dondequiera. Let's work together to make it better, because as you already know. It's all about YOU!

Flickr Creative Commons Contributor Today: TheAlieness GiselaGiardino²³