Grits for Breakfast site update: December 2006

Just a few housekeeping notes:

First, I'm proud to announce that after a summertime lull, Grits had its highest ever traffic volume last month with more than 18,000 visits according to site meter, around 4,500+ per week, and Grits total traffic has now exceeded 319,000 since the blog began in October 2004. I think that's pretty good for a state-level, single-issue blog. Thanks, readers, for your patronage and support! I appreciate both those who visit Grits, and the bloggers who link here. (And if you haven't added Grits to your blogroll, what's stopping you?)

There are a couple of new, user friendly changes I wanted to mention.

I said earlier I was going to get my first small Google ad check, and it just arrived (for $112.05, as it turned out). I know what you're thinking. Two words: "Lap. Dances." But I already pledged to spend the ad money on blog promotion when I installed the ad links (they appear at the bottom of the sidebar and more prominently on archived pages), so somehow I feel obligated to follow through.

So, with my first-ever blog income I purchased the URLs www.gritsforbreakfast.org and www.gritsforbreakfast.net so that users looking for the blog could more easily find it. (.com appears to be occupied by some sort of link farm). That means you can now type in www.gritsforbreakfast.org (or .net) in the address line of your browser and you'll come right here.

With that done, I figure I'll now create some sort of business card or promotional handout to walk around the Texas capitol and hand out in lege offices, to committee staff, and maybe a few key agency folks who work on criminal justice issues. That's about the best blog promotion strategy I could come up with, given my audience and goals for the blog and a miniscule budget. Plus I'll get to see some old friends while making the rounds, and a chance to meet the newbies.

Another housekeeping matter: I've mentioned it before, but I've had a couple of readers ask again recently how to receive Grits as it's updated. One way is to enter your email in the subscription tool in the sidebar and you'll receive an email each morning with links to the previous days posts. Or many people prefer to use RSS feeds, which stands for Really Simple Syndication. Grits' RSS feed is here. There are many RSS readers out there, or you can "personalize" your Google home page or MyYahoo page, which is what I most often suggest.

If you use a "personalized" Google home page it's really easy to add Grits' top headlines. Once you're signed into your personal page, click on "add stuff" in the upper right hand corner. On that page, right by the search box at the top, is a small link that says "Add by URL." That will give you a box where you can just type in www.gritsforbreakfast.org.

It's that simple. So get to it: Go add Grits to your Google homepage.

Thanks for reading everybody, and I'll be announcing a few more changes at Grits soon, perhaps, as my life and blog continue through a period of signficant transition.