Open Directory Project Listing

I have no doubt you have heard about the Open Directory Project, that is a human-edited directory of sites and weblogs, and should be considered if one is serious about blogging and posts regularly. As the submission guidelines inform you, submission is free, and it may take up to three months to have your project listed. Whether you are successful or not, the editor of the category in which you submitted your blog will inform you accordingly. But, as I've just read elsewhere, the editors, being very busy people, may not have time to send a quick e-mail to you.

I feel lazy to go through my e-mails to check exactly when I submitted Los Cuadernos to the OPD. It was certainly earlier this year, and it's definitely taken over three months. Last weekend I noticed someone visiting my blog from http://www.dmoz.org/Arts/Weblogs/, which was a sign for me that my blog has probably made an appearance there. I wasn't disappointed, as indeed Los Cuadernos de Julia is now included in the Open Directory Project, in the Arts Weblogs category. You can find the listing if you follow the URL above. And in the spirit of co-operation I've included a nice little button in the side bar, clicking on which will take you to the OPD search page.

As to why the OPD project is important and why you would consider getting your site submitted there, please read these two articles. One is authored by Karen Zack from Custom Post-Its R Us. I shouldn't hold any grudges against my category's editor, as it hasn't taken my site as long as Karen's to be listed (not that I hold grudges, anyway!). And another article by Rocky John Tayaban from BloggingMix.com is fairly recent and will tell you everything you might want to know about the OPD project and the benefits of being listed there.

I now hope to regain speed with writing for Los Cuadernos after a period of stumbling, which was caused primarily by work. As some of you know and as I mentioned a few times on this blog, I live in Manchester, but for the most part of this year I worked in Warrington. I used public transport a lot, which on occasion provided me with much inspiration and helped me forge a wonderful friendship, but otherwise began to weigh me down. I also mentioned that I worked in Internet Marketing (or Search Marketing), which seems be to one of the sexiest sectors to work in these days. I don't deny the intoxicating joy of working in search, but as I am writing for the web I am more interested in natural (organic) search rather than paid search (PPC). I'm still very happy to have worked in paid search. Before February this year my professional and even personal scope was pretty much defined by Arts and Humanities, and I'm glad it now includes Marketing and Advertising. I've become a qualified Google AdWords Professional, and all in all, this was a very good time. Yet, with a lot of time being put into travelling and, obviously, working, I could barely find the opportunity to do what I felt was more important in the end of the day - writing in general, and writing for Los Cuadernos, in particular. So, to finally cut the story short, I left my Warrington headquarters, and for the moment I'm not involved into anything yet. It doesn't mean I'm not going to be involved - it means that for the moment I am open to consider various projects. I still love travelling, so maybe I'll be doing some more travelling from one county to another - as long as it's not 9 to 5, Monday to Friday!!!

Oh, and I don't know if I mentioned this before or not, but until recently I've never had a laptop. Now I do.