Written on July 30th, 2005 at 12:07 pm by Darren Rowse
31 days to building a Better Blog
update: see a summary of all of the post in the ‘31 Days’ series here.
August is going to be a frenzy of Blog Tips here at enternetusers.net.
Starting Monday I’m going to turn up the ‘Blog Tips’ volume to 11 and am going to attempt to vomit onto you everything I know about how to make your blog better. Each post will be in a normal category but also in a new 31 days to building a better blog category also.
In a sense it’s nothing different to normal (there are hundreds of blog tips in my archives already) but I’ve noticed recently quite a few bloggers are in a bit of a slump with their entrepreneurial blogs - lacking inspiration, slipping in their posting frequency and even considering throwing in the towel.
Whilst it’s every blogger’s prerogative to let their blog slowly die - I’d like to be a part of giving bloggers a shot in the arm (or a kick up the butt) and hopefully in the process give them the motivation (and practical know how) to get their blog reaching it’s potential (whether that be financially or in some other way).
So we’ll be revisiting some old tips, coming up with some new ones and hopefully will all improve in our blogging as a result.
All I ask of you as readers is that you join in the frenzy of Blog Tips. I do not and will not know everything there is to know about blogging - but I have a suspicion that the wider enternetusers community does. The only way to get at this communal knowledge is to make a commitment to share what we each know.You can do this in two ways:
1. Leave comments on the blog tips that I post here. enternetusers is increasingly becoming a place of conversation and group learning. I learn so much from you and hope that you continue to teach us via your comments.
2. Post your blog tips on your own blog and let me know about them. If you’ve learnt something about blogging recently the rest of us want to hear about it. Post it on your blog and then email me with the title and URL. I will attempt to post something every day or two with a summary of the blog tips that have been written.
3. Suggest a Topic for me or someone else to write a Blog Tip on. To do this simply leave a comment below. I won’t guarantee it’ll be answered by me - but if you see a question and would like to tackle it on your own blog (see #2 above) feel free to do so.
I’m looking forward to the learning that we do as a community in August!
update: see a summary of all of the post in the ‘31 Days’ series here.
Written on July 30th, 2005 at 09:07 am by Darren Rowse
Promoting your blog with Advertising
Duncan over at Blog Herald has a good guide to Promoting your blog with advertising where he looks at Google’s Adwords, the BlogAds system, smaller advertising firms and direct advertising on other blogs.
I’ve used Adwords twice and like the idea of it but had pretty average results. Apart from that I’ve never advertised any of my blogs. Having said this I’m interested to hear others experiences. Do you advertise? When, how, what were the results?
Written on July 29th, 2005 at 05:07 pm by Darren Rowse
Last Chance for T-Shirt Design Entries
Just a quick note to remind those who are thinking of submitting a T-Shirt design to the competition I’m running that you are about to run out of time as entries close on 31 July - details of prizes and guidelines are here. I’ve had more submissions than what has been added here so I’m pretty confident we’ll come up with a nice design for readers to purchase in a few weeks time. Looking forward to seeing a few more last minute designs.
Written on July 29th, 2005 at 02:07 pm by Darren Rowse
Alaska Blog
Taughnee Stone writes that she’s starting a new Pro Blog - the Alaska Blog and writes an interesting post about the first four days blogging and the response that she’s had so far. At the bottom of her post are some good reflections of what she’s learned from the experience so far.
1. It’s important to write what you know, and have passion.
2. It’s important to choose a topic that people are interested in. I’ve heard that niche topics are best, but I’m not entirely convinced that’s the only way to do it.
3. It’s important to consider the quality of the keywords that will appear in the AdSense ads, checking the Overture Bid tool has been my guide there. I know which topics are of interest to advertisers, and I can plan accordingly.
4. One blog is probably not enough to make a living at this, unless you happen to win the “blog lottery”—Time, patience, perseverence, hard work and constant research, adaptation and original, quality content development seem to be the key.’
Taughnee’s approach to the Alaska Blog seems pretty solid to me - she’s picked a niche (not as narrow as some - but a good one) that has some real commercial possibilities, both through Adsense but also affiliate programs. Tourism sites can be lucrative if you can climb the rankings (it will take time but it’s possible) so it’s well worth the attempt to do so.
I’m looking forward to following Taughnee’s progress.
Written on July 29th, 2005 at 12:07 pm by Darren Rowse
AdSense Plugin for WordPress Blogs
Digital Point’s forums has an interesting post announcing an Adsense plugin for WordPress with the following features.
* Define unlimited AdSense ad styles for use in your WordPress blog posts.
* Use multiple, different AdSense blocks within a single post.
* Enable/disable individual ad blocks with two clicks.
* Enable/disable where ads are shown (home page, post pages, archives, search pages, etc.)
* Change ad styles globally from the control panel.
* Includes an AdSense Preview tool within the AdSense-Deluxe control panel for quickly viewing the ads Google would place on a given web page.
* WordPress 1.5+ compatible (requires 1.5 or later)
* Simple installation, no understanding of plugin code or PHP required.
* [naturally, …] it’s free!
I’ve not tested it so can’t comment on how good it is - but it seems to have some good features.
Thanks to William for the tip
Written on July 29th, 2005 at 11:07 am by Darren Rowse
The Best Blog Content
Just stumbled upon an article at awesomeblogs.com which looks at Why Blogs Have Become the Search Engine Optimization Equalizer. It’s one of those mass produced ‘free articles’ that I warn bloggers from using too much - but it does make a useful observation about some of the top sites on the internet:
‘The big sites on the internet got to be that way because the consistently add new, original, and exclusive content to their websites.
While you and I may never have as much content on our sites as the big boys do, we can benefit from the lessons they teach to us.
Now that you have also learned this important lesson, it is time to put this knowledge into action. Make it part of your daily or weekly schedule to add fresh, interesting content to your website. ‘
The lesson is a good one. The following are some of the words that describe the best type of content if we subscribe to this theory:
fresh - original - interesting - exclusive - new - daily
This is the type of content that will get you ranking higher in search engines, its the type of content that will get your readers coming back every day and its the type of content that will generate incoming links to it and referral readership.
Of course most bloggers have a mixture of this type of content and other content - links to other sites, quotes from others etc - but in most cases the more you increase the quotient of the fresh and original stuff the more chance you give your blog to grow.
Written on July 29th, 2005 at 10:07 am by Darren Rowse
Teens and Technology
There’s an interesting report at Pew Internet on Teens and Technology which is the second this week that highlights the opportunities for tapping into the younger internet using market. Here’s a snippet of their introduction:
‘The number of teenagers using the internet has grown 24% in the past four years and 87% of those between the ages of 12 and 17 are online. Compared to four years ago, teens’ use of the internet has intensified and broadened as they log on more often and do more things when they are online.
Among other things, there has been significant growth over the past four years in the number of teens who play games on the internet, get news, shop online, and get health information.
Not only has the number of users increased, but also the variety of technologies that teens use to support their communication, research, and entertainment desires has grown. ‘
Written on July 28th, 2005 at 07:07 pm by Darren Rowse
G’Day World - enternetusers Podcast
Cameron Reilly (from the Podcast Network) and I have a semi regular breakfast together and today he pulled out the microphone and interviewed me for his G’day World show podcast.
Cameron may just have been desperate for an interview (or maybe he was impressed my deep thoughts on everything from blogging, to emerging church, to my reflections upon camera phones, to my thoughts on Paris Hilton) because in just a few hours it’s already online. If you’d like to hang out with me in an auditory fashion today you can download the podcast here.
It’s not a purely ‘blogging’ interview - but some of you might be interested.
I had fun and came home again wondering if maybe it’s time to dust off the old microphone and do an occasional podcast myself. Tell me what you think (be brutally honest!).
Written on July 28th, 2005 at 05:07 pm by Darren Rowse
enternetusers - the Comic
I’ve been immortalized at in cartoon form at Comic Strip Blog. I’m not sure that I’m really in the league of Robert Scoble and Dave Winer or deserve the compliment of the strip - but it’s definitely a first - an a pretty good likeness at that!
See the full cartoon at Comic Strip Blog
Written on July 28th, 2005 at 09:07 am by Darren Rowse
Google Ranking Factors
I want to give a prize today to one of the most ugly yet useful sites I’ve seen for a while.
I hope I don’t cause any offense by saying that - but the prize goes to Google Ranking Factors.
Don’t let the ugliness factor put you off because if you scratch a little under it’s spewy color scheme and boxy look you’ll find some very useful information on factors to keep in mind as you think about optimizing your blog for Google.
The factors are divided into four sections.
1. Positive On Page SEO Factors - things that you should consider including on your blog/web page
2. Negative On Page SEO Factors - things you should avoid including on your blog/web page
3. Positive Off Page SEO Factors - factors that you should seek from other web pages that point to your blog
4. Negative Off Page SEO Factors - factors you should try to avoid in those that link to you
Keep in mind that SEO advice is often speculation and that one can become obsessed by it. Rather than treating this as absolute truth you might want to try to keep some of these factors in the back of your mind as you blog.
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