….. or maybe not.
After a few hiccups BenjaminPatton.com has finally been redirected to RealBloggingTips.com and as hoped the mighty Google has passed on all the juice from the old URL…. Horrah!!! So we are still holding onto a juicy PR3.
Now onto the surprise, of sorts.
As you may have noticed this post is not authored by Ben.
This is Forest. Some of you may know me from The Random Forest and some of you may have never heard of me but due to a long story and some extensive chats between Ben and I, I am the new management of Real Blogging Tips, aka Big Ben Patton’s Place.
I’m sad to see Ben go as I loved this blog and have been a long time reader. The last redesign was actually done by me and it was during this time that I really go to know Ben. Due to many things in Ben’s life he decided he could not commit to the blog anymore but, like me, he did not want it to die. So through a progression of Google chat’s the blog slowly became mine.
I’m going to bug Mr Patton every now and again for a guest post and I hope I can get him to produce some of his magic.
OK now that’s said I hope you have not closed the window and gone elsewhere…. I have big plans for this blog and I want the fantastic community here to be a big part of it.
If you have a few moments I would love some opinion….
The Design
The name in the header needs changing…. Would you like to see my ugly mug up there? Or do you think it should completely change?
Guest Posts
I’d love to get some community going on here. Real Blogging Tips has a PR of 3 and could do with some great guest posts. If you want to write something for the site then I you will get a permanent link back to your blog and i’ll donate $5 to you by paypal. Just email me personally forest.parks@gmail.com and let me know what idea you have. If I think it’s a good one then I will work with you and get it published.
Planned Posts
- Tomorrow we should be having an awesome review of a cool food website. I love food so I am extremely honored that someone paid for me to review them.
- Moving this blog, changing the URL and setting up a 301 redirect was pretty difficult but now seems easy…. So I think a blog post is in order so that you guys can easily do this if you ever need to.
- Cloaking Your Affiliate Links. This is important for a number of reasons. I will show you what I do.
- The relauch of The Great Blogging Giveaway. Ben sent his trusty list over to me for this promotion. I intend to keep his high quality list going and keep giving away free stuff.
……. What else would you like me to post about?
A little more about me
My name is Forest Parks and I started off blogging around 2.5 years ago now. Along the way I have learned a lot and failed a lot. But now… things are going quite well and I think I know my stuff.
My background is in Graphic Design so I am lucky to be able to live as a full time Freelance Graphic Designer / Blogger / Website Flipper and Internet Marketer. You can find me blogging over at The Random Forest and various smaller niche websites and have most likely seen some of my graphic work whilst surfing the blogosphere.
Anything else?
There is a lot to do to get this site running in tip top shape so if you have any words of wisdom, critism or anything to say, just let me know.
Thanks a million…. And I look forward to chatting with you.
Chat with me on Gchat: forest.parks@gmail.com
Skype: forest_parks
Related posts:
- How You Can Cash In With Entrecard, Explained….
- Musically Motivated….. er…. Friday!
- Looking Back And Looking Forward
- Keep Your Blog At Work While You Relax On Vacation….
- Site Updates Complete
Yes, now that you have redirected the URL, you will have to organize the whole on page structure of the site.
Hey Cathy,
Luckily the 301 redirect takes care of this. Google will eventually index all the updated links but for now the old links still redirect to the new ones.
Welcome to your new home Dude. When is the house warming party?
Hey Shaners… any excuse to party
… Maybe I’ll hold my own little party and video post it 
Forest,
Good luck with the take over. Ben is my friend wish the best for you. With that said, I have seen your graphic design work around the web and you got the chops, my friend.
Looking forward to networking with you and thanks for the post on my site. I will be back into full swing blogging next week as I have some special stuff planned as well.
I would like to drop some guest post, but let me get through next week and kicking off my run again and settling into my content.
Best of luck!
Hey Freddie,
Great to have you over here… Ben is a friend of mine too and as long as I am here I will try and make sure that news of him reaches the readers here.
I know he is working on a new project right now (as I am doing some work with him on it) so I hope he gets that going soon.
A guest post would be fantastic. I don’t want this to become a pure guest post blog but I thought it would be an awesome way to get the community involved and realizing that I am serious about continuing along the path Ben set.
Sadly the feed seems broken right now so news isn’t getting out as fast as I hoped… I am just waiting for Ben to transfer it over to me so I can get it all fixed up.
Well, it’s time for me to take down my link to Big Benjamin Patton’s blog. Good luck Forest.
No worries Jake, I hope you stick around for new posts to try me out
Hey, if there’s a going away party I’ll bring snacks..lol jk
Good luck with the takeover!
I wonder what Ben’s fave snack is… I’ll ask him next time he is online… I’ll take a bet on dill pickle flavored Lays Chips….
Thanks for the kind words
Its a great news i wish u all the best and Never think about the failures they are the steps for success
_sri
Thanks Sri
, I am keeping positive…
Well it is kind of sad to see Ben go, he was one of the first bloggers I knew and he helped me a lot. Anyway, good luck Forest, I know you did this design and it turned out well. I guess I’ll stop in from time to time.
Hey Nathaniel,
I agree it’s sad. I will try hard to uphold his values on this blog whilst injecting my own style and hopefully making this site continue to be a fantastic blogging resource.
Thanks for design compliment.
well, welcome aboard forest. Best of luck to your new project
Thanks Hugo,
I know I have big shoes to fill…
indeed you have hehe
I hope all the changes are successful for you. I think the header should be kept simple. A lot of bloggers don’t have their picture at the top, but it is good to be different. Maybe you could put the picture on the right hand side of the screen with a short “about me” section. Good luck!
Thanks Olga,
I have never been one to show my picture on a blog so this would be a leap of faith for me too…
Forest,gald to see your here.Keep surprising us with your posts.
Thanks Solar Panels,
I look forward to seeing you around.
PS: Your comment was hiding in spam… sorry I took so long to get back to you!
good luck and all the best for the future.
Thanks Mike, hope to see you around.
I’ll miss Ben. But I’m curious as to what direction will you take this blog in. Good luck!
I certainly will miss him too
… I am hoping that he gets some of his new projects up and running soon… Thanks for the curiosity, I will try hard and keep the integrity of this place.
Hi, thank you for the post and the introduction!
I am very interested in what you have to say about moving your blog. I will need to move my blog to a new URL soon(within the next weeks/months, hopefully weeks), and have never done this before.
I would LOVE to see information on how you do this entire process – the move, the 301s, and also how you handle the RSS feed.
Thank again and welcome to the blog!!!!
Hey Anna, thanks for the welcome
… Your avatar pic is very cool.
I just recently wrote a post detailing the process to move a blog here: http://www.realbloggingtips.com/8-easy-steps-to-move-a-wordpress-blog/, however I have not yet dealt with changing the URL…. this is coming soon.
Will be excited to see your posts in the future and we can all use real blogging tips.
I’d love to write a post, but I don’t think I’m quite at the level I need to be, yet. Plus I don’t have my own site, just my niche blogs at this point.
Hey CD Rates, good to see you here….
Well when you feel like you may want to guest post just get in contact with me.
PS: Your comment was hiding in spam… sorry I took so long to get back to you!
Hi, thanks for the complement
My husband took that picture, I always liked it. Plus it is relatively anonymous looking … makes me feel dark and mysterious.
Okay, I’ll shut up now about that.
Thank you for posting about the blog move! I have saved the link for when I am ready to do it. By that time you might have posted more as well
I’m excited. But I’m forcing myself to follow through on the revamp of some of my other niche sites before I do it … oh yeah and finishing another 30,000 things.
Great to have you here, looks like you will be posting some very useful and interesting stuff!
You sound just like me with far too many projects on the go!!!
Yep – except where I’m concerned that’s a bit of an understatement
Ha ha!! I was just updating my privacy policy for Google and found some missing projects that I had forgotten about!! Maybe I need to learn a little more about project management!
I think you’re doing a good job so far – Keep it up!
Is your real name actually Forest? I’m quite curious
Thanks very much… sorry I took so long to answer, this comment was hiding in the spam folder!!
My real name is actually Ian but Forest has been a nickname for many years so I decided to use it as my online pseudenum.
I’m not going to cry as long as there will be occasional guest posts from Ben. I really enjoy forest’s posts and I’m glad he’s running this place now.
Thanks very much
… I spoke to Ben yesterday and he is doing well. I’ll coax him in for a guest post soon 
this new look of our blog is catching my eyes in everycorner everytime, you are such a nice blogger i must say.thank you verymuch for helping me.
No problems thanks for the compliments…
Gonna miss Ben alot.
He has been gone for a while… I hope he starts a new blog at some point in the future.