There are times when I worry about our future in France (quite a few times, as it happens!) Our adventure is not for the faint hearted.  Will I make a success of the gite business? Will I make enough money to live on? Will we starve? Will my children be walking barefoot to school in Winter?

Here though, is an article packed with relevant information on advertising and marketing that I may find useful in the future.

Mental note: Remember to keep hold of the cardboard packing boxes as valuable advertising space. Could be useful in the future…..

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A new theme was introduced the other day to us WordPress users and I quite took a fancy to it! I have been looking into introducing an extra column for all the extra widgets I keep finding, but there aren’t any, or if there are they just not right.

I saw this one and liked it…the big, split picture, the colours, the feel…so I thought I would give it a go. A change is as good as a rest ‘n all that jazz….

I know it’s not perfect. For example, the first column is perhaps a little too narrow, which leads to long thin posts. Oh, another slight hic-cup is that the third column on my little screen is, well, you know, just not visible! But no problem, I have put all the boring widgets in there, out of the way!

So I shall leave it up to you guys. If you really don’t like it, or feel that you are doing too much scrolling, or you just don’t get on with it, let me know and I shall review the situation.

In its defense, I like the widget layout and I love the picture, which is the view from the gite, by the way. That particular picture was taken last week and I guess, in theory, I could download a fresh one every day if I wanted, to give you a seasonal and changing view. I rather like that idea!

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I feel a bit of a hypocrite at the moment! I seem to remember saying once how I was not a great fan of all the bumpf and bling that seems to accompany a lot of blogs.

I have just taken a look at Beauregard the Blog and realise that slowly but surely, I have been adding to the widget bar on the rhs! The problem is, every time WordPress introduce another widget, or I see another application that takes my fancy or something else with a button, I can’t seem to resist! I mean, Google Earth…what a cool idea! In time I can add little snippits of info, (when I’ve found out how to do it) and maybe photo’s too! I quite fancy those World maps, that show you where your readers are from, but have managed to resist so far! Not sure I’ll be able to hold out for much longer though….

I really don’t think, however, that I will be putting those flashing, chasing words and phrases in though, unless it’s Christmas I suppose. Lets face it, we all go a bit bling-potty during Christmas! And no cutesy animals, unless they are really cute and maybe French or something!

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In a bout of shameless self-publication, I would like to direct you to another blog that I have set-up, here at WordPress.

It is called Blog de la Bouffe and is, well, about food. As I quite openly admit, I am not a foody, by any stretch of the imagination, in fact I have a long standing love/hate relationship with food. I am becoming increasingly confused, bamboozled, fed-up with, paranoid and dissatisfied with the whole issue of food and eating. Especially now that there are children involved. This blog is an exploration of these feelings.

Please feel free to take a look. It’s fairly new and green but hopefully, there is something there for you. Don’t forget to leave comments too….it feels quite lonesome sometimes!!

Say hello to the Strawberry Family too!

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I remember reading somewhere that ‘Happy Birthday’ is the most commonly sung song ever, probably a Trivial Pursuit thing.

I now think that ‘Happy Birthday’, (in all its variants) must be the most commonly used search term on the internet. Since writing my ‘Happy Birthday to me’ entry on 25th January, the Beauregard The Blog readership has gone through the roof.

Is it because people are interested in my insights and observations on moving to and living in France? Are people looking forward to my next funny YouTube clip or Newsbiscuit article? No! It would appear people are searching for all things ‘Happy Birthday’ connected. I am getting so many hits, day after day, related to this one article. Not that I mind, you understand! It’s good to have readers and lots of them. Some of them may become regular readers and RSS subscribers…. But it has rather taken me by surprise! And it doesn’t appear to be abating either…

So next time it gets a bit lonely here at Beauregard The Blog….I might just write about another birthday!!

Oh, and Happy Birthday to all those people who find their way here!!

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I have been having a good read today of my feeds and getting lost in the MyBlogLog world of communities. With a few links and clicks, it is easy to get immersed in a different world and explore many paths.

I have noticed though, that I seem to read more blogs that deal with blogging itself than anything else. Not a problem; after all, I am constantly reminded that it is good to check out other blogs. In fact, I find them quite addictive, as I glean further nuggets of information that is going to improve my blogging.

But I do admit to finding it a bit disheartening. There are a huge number of fantastic, informative, clever, fascinating blogs that offer advice from SEO tips, to how to create great ‘copy’, how to ‘monetise’ your blog, how to attract and keep a huge readership. I find it disheartening because when I think to my little Beauregard blog, I feel very parochial. It’s that kind of ‘Closed for Lunch’ feeling! The Radiator Springs of the blogging world! It is easy to feel like the poor relation as the ‘expert’ bloggers dominate the horizon.

I’m often left wondering if the only way to succeed in blogging is to write a ‘how to’ blog of some description or perhaps an up-to-the-minute news blog or a ‘widget/plug-in’ blog. I mean, are there any people out there who write  blogs about ‘ordinary’ things with even the tiniest amount of success that the big blogs seem to muster? Are there any people out there who write blogs about ‘ordinary’ things full-stop?

But, hey…..I enjoy doing what I do and that’s the most important thing, let my enthusiasm shine through! I need to get back to basics, focus on my direction, write killer headlines,  get my opening sentences sorted, think about my audience, inject my personality, write ’sticky’ posts, at least four a week…..oh, and read lots of other blogs!

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 Oh dear….it would appear that all of my carefully crafted header images have gone AWOL at the moment. I thought it was me but having gone through my other blogs, they have reverted to the default too. Not that it’s not a good default…just not what I  want.

It’s too late to fiddle  now, I’ll check it out tommorrow…besides, Prison Break is about to kick off and all might have gone back to normal by the morning.

That didn’t sound very dedicated to the blogging cause did it? I promise to try better next time!

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It would appear that the latest ‘hot’, potentially money-making venture out in the blogosphere at the moment is Agloco. I know, ’Algloco’ doesn’t exactly trip off the tongue, but if the hype is to be believed, we will soon forgive them the name!

I have heard it mentioned on a few blogs recently and reading the article on Perigord Vacance today, I decided to do some research of my own.

Agloco’s tag is ‘Own the Internet’ and simply, if I have understood it correctly,  it is a system whereby, you, in your normal, everyday internet surfing get a share in the revenue created by the big advertisers/big fish.

 Here is a quote from the OwnTheInternet blog:

This is AGLOCO™ ’s proposition, just three words: Own the Internet.

Whenever you are online, either surfing, blogging, clicking on an ad, making a purchase, all the money generated by your activities is pocketed by a small number of players. At AGLOCO™ they say not anymore!

AGLOCO™ is a global community, whose owners are its Members (you and potentially the millions of internet users out there). Their goal is to capture a significant portion of the value generated by our online activities and return it to Members in cash. Best of all, it is totally free, Members will NEVER have to pay anything, nor will they have to disclose ANY personal information!

So, is it too good to be true? I guess we’ll have to wait and see!

At present, they are recruiting like mad (via referrals), in order to build the community. In February, they launch the Viewbar download, that places a little toolbar on your browser and you carry on surfing as you normally do.  

So, am I cynical? Well, I guess I am! I’m British! But I must admit the write-ups and blogs that I have read are quite convincing, although they emphasise this is not a get rich quick kind of thing.

Did I sign up? Yep, I did! Why? It’s free, I could always do with some more cash, it’s fascinating being in on the ground-floor with something, it has piqued my curiosity.

So what could I lose? No money, a bit of face perhaps, some time checking it out on the net.

But don’t take my word for it! If you are interested in Agloco, do a Google search, read the articles. If you are intrigued, click here to go to the  introductory/sign-up page….it could well be the best thing you ever do!

Let me know how you get on… 

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Since going ‘live’ with the Beauregard website a few weeks ago, I have been sporadically checking on Google to see if we are listed. But we have been nowhere to be seen! I told myself not to worry, it takes at least a fortnight to get spidered apparantly….

Having nothing better to do tonight, I did another little check and guess what?….We’re ranked right at the top….number 1 on page 1! What a result!

The search-words I used were ’self catering Gite Duras’, so it is pretty specific, (I’m ok, as long as people want to stay near to and have heard of Duras!). I’m sure if I had used ‘Aquitaine’ or ‘Lot et Garonne’ or ‘SW France’, we wouldn’t have even surfaced. I’ll try it again with these words in a minute, once my elation has passed( I don’t want to ruin the moment!).

I am doubly surprised, because, apart from a little tweaking to the name of the blog to include the words ’self-catering’, ‘Duras’ and ‘gite’…..(I noticed what others had been doing), I have paid no heed whatsoever to writing with SEO in mind. I am of the opinion that too much pandering to SEO tactics, can render a blog unreadable, especially if you’re not very skilled at it. Besides which, as with all things, when you start looking at it in detail, it can become quite complicated. And I’m all for an easy life! Seems to be working anyway!

Right, off to check out other search words now….wish me luck!

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It was recommended by Craig, from This French Life , that I put invitations to sign up to the newsletter/ RSS feed on each entry that I make. This I did the other day, as you know.

And so far, I have had a really good response. I have increased my feeds by  ’big’ %’s, and all in one day! I was amazed to see the amount of people that had signed up.

So big thanks to Craig for the suggestion and Welcome to all those of you new to the feed…it is great to see you here, thanks for joining!

Maybe next time you read Beauregard..The Blog, take the plunge, introduce yourselves and say ‘Hello’…it would be good to get to know you.

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