The NEW Blazing Minds Giveaway

Hey folks, as a lot of you know I also founded and run the website, Blazing Minds, an entertainment website that in the last 6 years or so has built a massive following and is regarded as one of the key websites for the reviews that it publishes and also for the coverage that it gives to events around the country.

Anyway, a new giveaway has just started on the website and it gives the winner a chance of getting their website seen with a Month of FREE Advertising on the Blazing Minds website, now how cool is that.

The competition is being run over on the Blazing Minds Facebook page and entering it couldn’t be easier. So if you have a blog, small business or a blog, stop on by and get entering the giveaway now and you could be the lucky winner of a month of advertising on Blazing MInds

The Day My James Smith Tweet Went Wild!!!

Hey there everyone, just a quick post today, it’s been a pretty mad weekend with the Rhyl Beach Fest that has taken part in Rhyl, North Wales, but you can find all about it over on Blazing Minds.

Anyway, as I was taking the photos of the event after been given Access All Areas for the day, I managed to get a photo of Britain’s Got Talent finalist James Smith as he finished on the stage and started a meet and greet with fans.

It was an exclusive shot as I was in the right place, right time and armed with the right lens on the camera. The tweet of the picture has got a good deal of RTs and favourites and I put the call out on Facebook to help boost it.

But for those of you who may not be on Facebook and would like to boost the Tweet and photo then please, please RT and Favourite the tweet below, let’s see if we can break over 100 ReTweets with you help.

James Smith greets his fans @rhylbeachfest @jamessmithvocal @rjournal @RhylTIC @regeneraterhyl pic.twitter.com/wCzSbo62Zb

— Blazing Minds (@BlazingMinds) July 28, 2014

So thanks for your help everyone, very much appreciated 😉

Blazing Minds covered an event at ZipWorld in North Wales

Hi everyone, just a short post today as I want to bring to your attention an article that I wrote over on Blazing Minds and one which I would love you all to share and like.

It has become extremely popular on Facebook with over 100 likes so far, I wonder if we can get another “0” added to the end of that!

You can read the full 900+ word article at 4 Brave Fundraisers For North Wales Pride Took on The Big Zipper!

Always good to have a rather early blog spring clean

So the other day, I was reading about the many ways of having a spring clean on your blog, so I decided to spend a few hours over at Blazing Minds and have a spring clean of my own!

So after sifting through thousands of articles that were either completely outdated or weren’t getting visits, I deleted them from the blog.

And with the news that Guest Posts are getting a bit of dirty press, specially those ones from groups that add links that have been added by companies, I went with a complete flush of those as well.

Has It Made A Difference To Blazing Minds?

Well to be honest several factors have come in to play on my website, I’ve been adding NoFollow to links, specially banners, after a friend of mine mentioned he’d been slapped by Google for having DoFollow banners!

So the changes I made with the use of a WordPress Plugin called External Links, which allows me to add “NoFollow” and open all external pages in a new tab/window, have made an improvement in the traffic etc., which is always a good sign!

Also, I have noticed a change in traffic and the search engines after removing articles that are outdated and ones that were guest posts with blatant keyword links URLs.

So now, it’s just a case of seeing how this affects the website over a longer period of time, hopefully with me taking back Blazing Minds to what it was before someone said, “accept guest posts, they’re great for your site!“, a site for entertainment and reviews, which is what people are finding the site for now anyway, just like they used to.

I adopted the NoFollow rule for the sister site, Ask The Usher, when I started that in January and it has proved that it works, with the site getting lots of hits and people finding it and using it as what it was intended for.

So there you have it folks, remember be careful what you link to and make sure your banners are NoFollow!!!!!

Related articles

• Launched a Website, Blogged a Bit and Did Other Stuff!
• Ask The Usher, The New Entertainment Website Goes Live

Watch “Marty Wilde Interview with Blazing Minds” on YouTube

We interviewed Marty Wilde for the Blazing Minds website, please watch it and give it the thumbs up and don’t forget to share the video 😉

Creating a New Sister Site for Blazing Minds

So has some of you may have recently read over on my main website, Blazing Minds, I’ve worked pretty hard lately and have had A Week of Exclusive News, Author Interviews so much more, with some fantastic interviews with some great authors and there are more on the way.

Not only have I had and are still doing some great Author Interviews, I was lucky enough to break the Exclusive News of the band Straight Jacket Legends signing a new Record Deal.

But I have decided with my photographer that works with me at all the big events that we cover to expand out a little further with a sister website for Blazing Minds.

Now don’t worry the sister site will not be taking over from Blazing Minds, it will be working with it quite closely, the reviews will still be where they are now and I’ll still be doing everything with Blazing Minds that I’m doing now, so nothing will change there.

The new site is just going to be opening up some new doors on the entertainment side, I’ve already set up a new Twitter, @AskTheUsher, to coincide with the new site and I would love you all to start follow it for updates on how it is going and for news on the launch of the new site.

Greetings Everyone, this is our new Twitter, please bear with us as we get the ball rolling 😉

— Ask The Usher (@AskTheUsher) September 29, 2013

I don’t really want to give too much away about the site at the moment, but by following the Twitter you will get all the news as it comes in, I am hoping that all my loyal follwers of @BlazingMinds will follow the new twitter and once the new site is launched they will all help promote it.

So thanks for all your support with Blazing Minds and I do hope that you will all support the new sister site as well, it’s going to be something special and something that I know you will all love.

So until, the next update, ciao for now.

Related articles

• 5 Years of Blogging, Where Have the Years Gone! (blazingminds.co.uk)

Main Website Issues!

Hi folks, I’ve moved over to my “back up” blog for this rather important post for you all to get updated with.

It appears that after the shenanigans of the plugin issue last month on “Blazing Minds“, the site is yet again having some problems.

The site is very slow and is not loading pages. The CPU usage has also took a right panning with it often topping out!

I’#m really not sure what is causing the issues, plugins have been removed and the database has been optimized, so for now, there isn’t much that I can actually do, it’s now in the hands of the support team.

I will keep you posted via this blog, with any updates on how the site is going, hopefully it can be resolved and Blazing Minds will be back on its feet very soon.

For further updates you can also follow my Twitter @BlazingMinds as well as subscribe to this blog.

Thanks for your support everyone 😉

UPDATED

The website is back on a new server and is faster than ever before, it also appeared it was under attack and this has also been taken care of!

Sci-Fi Weekender 2013 – Blazing Minds Articles – Where To Find Them

Ok folks, just a quick one for you here on my ponderings blog with a few links back to the articles that I’ve written over the last week with regards to covering this years outstanding Sci-Fi Weekender in Pwllheli.

So without further ado, here’s a list of the articles that I have completed for the weekend with some exclusive photos by Lee Howard (Celeb Exposed) who joined me over the weekend.

SciFi Weekender Preparing For The #SFW4 Event

Going AWOL For A Couple Of Days From The Blazing Minds Blog #SFW4

SciFi Weekender In Wales, A Weekend Of Fun And SciFi

Presenting An Article Of Parts For The SciFi Weekender 2013

SciFi Weekender 2013 Part One: Early Bird Arrival

SciFi Weekender 2013 Part Two: Let The Fun Commence With The Opening Ceremony

Sci Fi Weekender 2013 Part Three: Cosplayers, Fans and Celebrities

Sci Fi Weekender 2013: Part Four The Final Frontier

You can also find all the above in the Sci-Fi Weekender Category, enjoy and please remember to leave a comment over on my official blog 😉

Christmas Time, Hard Work, Teddy Bears and Being A Publicist!

Hey everyone, yes I know it’s been a while since I posted up here on my ponderings blog, but I thought it would be great to post up today, Christmas Eve, and you all know what I’ve been up to since my last blog post.

Christmas Time And Hard Work

So yes it’s Christmas Eve and as per usual I haven’t stopped working, I’ve still been reviewing films for my official blog, Blazing Minds, as well as being on the radio at Point FM giving listeners the chance to win tickets for the films. But it’s all go for me, OK I may have a couple of days off 😉

Teddy Bears!

Yep you read that heading above right, “Teddy Bears”, with the recent flood that hi St Asaph, which isn’t far from where I live, I was out and about doing my bit to bring people the news of the flood and as the River Elwy was racing through the village of Rhuddlan, down the road from St Asaph, I saw a Teddy Bear racing down the river.

My first thoughts were that some little girl or boy has lost their furry friend in the devastation  so, I got in touch with Build-A-Bear and asked if they would like to help some of the children, they said yes and donated 10 Build-A-Bears to Blazing Minds to give to 10 children who have lost things in the flood.

So I’ve been giving the bears away to the kids of St Aspah, radio station Heart heard about what I was doing and interviewed me about it and the Daily Post newspaper has also done some photos and an article about me and the bears 😉

New Work As A Publicist

As you can see I never stop and have now become, not only a on-line journalist and blogger, but have become a publicist, I’ve been working with my good friend Lee for a while and we are now working with Internationally Renowned Medium Tracy Poskitt, Lee is her manager and I’m her publicist.

Suffice to say I love it, it’s everything that I enjoy doing and more, we put on our first event with Tracy Poskitt some weeks back and it was a success and it was a sell out event for Tracy Poskitt.

I’ve even started work on the official Tracy Poskitt website and it’s going very well at the moment.

An Awesome End To 2012

2012 had a bit of a slow start, but my popularity across the Internet as grown, my website, Blazing Minds, has rocketed , my Twitter @BlazingMinds has become more popular and life is getting even better. So I’m really looking forward to 2013 as I can see that it’s going to just get better as the years rolls on 😉

Related articles

• Build A Bear Workshop Have A Heart Of Gold (slappybear.co.uk)
• St Asaph and Rhuddlan Floods! Oh The Weather Outside Is Frightful! (blazingminds.co.uk)

Blazing Minds And Friends Are Walking Up Snowdon For Charity

Snowdon (Photo credit: Mark Taggart)

Hi everyone, just a short blog post for you all with some information on something that myself and friends are doing for Charity.

Walking Up Snowdon For Charity

On the 8th September 2012 we will be walking up Snowdon to raise money for the Abandoned Animals Association and we would love everyone to please help us out by donating whatever they can so we can raise loads for our furry friends.

I’ve posted up about the walk on my official blog over at Blazing Minds and we also have an official page for the walk on FaceBook, “Blazing Minds Snowdon Charity Walk“.

Both the blog and the Facebook page will allow you to make donations no matter how big or small, so every little will help us raise as much as we can.

Thank you everyone for your support and for your kindness in helping us on our sponsored walk up Snowdon.