Written on June 2nd, 2005 at 11:06 am by Darren Rowse
Gawker’s Oddjack
Gawker Media has launched another new entrepreneurial blog - Oddjack - the gambling blog. It has categories on Event Betting, Politics, NBA Playoff Lines etc.
Whilst Adsense won’t be an option for this blog (they don’t like gambling sites) there is plenty of opportunity for affiliate programs and other advertising and I suspect it’ll generate some good income.
Written on June 2nd, 2005 at 11:06 am by Darren Rowse
Seeking One Good Digital Photography Blogger
I’ve decided to open one more position up for Guest Blogging on Digital Photography Blog.
There are already two bloggers who will be working on it - but I’d like one more blogger to help lighten the load on them.
Ideally you would have an understanding of digital cameras and have some experience of blogging (as this is my main blog).
You would be posting mainly news items (I can give you some RSS feeds to watch) and would be welcome to submit digital photography tips or reviews of digital imaging products.
Ideally I’d love you to post one post per day or more.
Once again you’ll be getting a link back from each post you do (it’s a site with a page rank of 7). These positions are not paid positions but as with other ones I’m open to evaluating how it goes at the end with the view of adding a few bloggers on a revenue share model.
If you’re interested please contact me asap. All applicants will be considered but I’ll be looking for the right person - so it’s not a first in best dressed scenario.
Written on June 2nd, 2005 at 08:06 am by Darren Rowse
The importance of Blog Taglines
Steven is doing another interesting experiment over at Vaspers the Grate and is looking at Blog Taglines. He’s put 59 blogs with their titles and taglines side by side and is asking for comment on them. He writes:
‘I strongly urge every blogger to use a tagline on your blog. It can give your blog that little extra edge of clarification or intrigue that could prevent a first-time reader from leaving your site, due to not seeing any personal relevance.’
I agree with this statment by Steven completely - a tagline can be a very powerful part of your blog on a number of levels.
Firstly it can convey a strong message to your reader about the content that they’ll find if they decide to explore your blog. We know that readers make very quick decisions about whether they will stay or leave a page and so any way that you can quickly communicate them the benefits of your blog is important to put some thought into.
Secondly your tagline is often one of the first things that search engine spiders look at on your site because it’s usually at the top. We know that words at the top of a site have more weight than words at the bottom in terms of search engine optimization - so if you have a text tagline it might be worth including some keywords in it.
So the take home advice is to see your tagline as an onsite advertisement for your blog. You’re advertising the benefits of them staying to go deeper inside and perhaps even become loyal readers. As a result you want to capture their attention, communicate a message and include some keywords to help the search engines index you well.
Written on June 2nd, 2005 at 05:06 am by Darren Rowse
Protecting RSS Feeds from Theft
Paul has come up with a cool way to put off those wanting to rip off your content by republishing your full RSS feed - he’s found a way for WordPress bloggers to insert a copyright notice into the feed so that it appears on any site using your content.
‘Anyway, for other bloggers using WordPress who want to throw a scare into the scrapemasters who swipe their stuff and use it as spam, I took the liberty of modifying the wp-rss2.php file so it includes a visible copyright notice in every post in the feed.
First thing your (RSS) readers will see is your excerpt from your post followed by a horisontal line and this underneath:
“© 2005 YOUR-BLOG-URL.com This RSS Feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you’re not reading this material in your news aggregator, the site you’re looking at is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact YOUR-CONTACT-DETAILS so we can take legal action immediately.”’
Read more at Stop Stealing My Stuff | BlogLogic.net
Written on June 2nd, 2005 at 03:06 am by Darren Rowse
When Blogs Grow Too Quickly
There is a great post over at The Return of Design that shows the danger in your site becoming too big to quickly in the eyes of Search Engines. James Archer reflects upon the rise massive popularity of Forty Media when it first launched and the consequences:
‘There’s a catch, though. We were a new site with a new domain name, and within weeks we had thousands of incoming links from keyword-rich sites. We initially thought that it would be great for our search engine rankings, but there was one critical point we had failed to consider:
Sudden movements make Google nervous.
The great success that our marketing effort, from the perspective of the objective mathematical formulas that run the Google search engine, probably looked a whole lot like search engine spam.’
The tips that James gives at the end of this article are well worth listening to. The message is to build a site slow and steady where you have some control over it. This is a lesson I’ve had to learn on a number of my blogs of late - including this one here at enternetusers.net.
I’ve been amazed by the amount of links that have been pointed at this blog since moving it to this domain in February this year - however the downside of this is as James says being seen as a suspicious site by Google for getting too popular too quickly.
Life goes on however and if you’ve been ’sandboxed’ like this have patience - keep blogging and in time you’ll find things change (as they gradually are here).
Written on June 2nd, 2005 at 12:06 am by Darren Rowse
Building Blogging Relationships - Blog Projects and Memes
In continuing my building blogging relationships series I now want to turn our attention to blog projects and memes.
As I look back over my 2.5 years of blogging to some of the most interActive periods in my blogs - I realize that many of the key relationships have developed out of working on shared projects - both those initiated by others and myself.
Back in 2003 on my personal blog I started a project called Celebrating the Underblog where I invited bloggers to submit blogs that they thought were underrated and deserved more publicity. That year we uncovered 100 blogs. In 2004 I ran the project again and we uncovered over 500 blogs. This year I moved the project to enternetusers.net and refocussed it upon business blogs - the response was smaller but still worthwhile.
Another project that I ran on my personal blog was Blogger Idol where I nominated a theme each week and got other bloggers to submit a post on it (here is week 1). Once again the response to this was massive as over a three month period hundreds of bloggers participated - all linking back to my blog each week - all interacting with me and one another.
I’ve run a variety of similar projects, awards, memes and experiments over the years and every time find people respond. They serve as an ideal place to meet other bloggers, to get the word out about your blog and to create a space for other bloggers to meet one another and interact.
Starting your own blog project can be powerful - but it can also be a lot of work. The other way of doing it is to get involved in other people’s projects. These are great places often to meet and interact with the wider blogging community - you never know who you might meet.
What blogging projects and memes have you started or been involved in? How have they helped or hindered your blogging?
Written on June 1st, 2005 at 05:06 pm by Darren Rowse
Blog Layout Continued - The Perfect Number of Columns?
Peter Flaschner has a great post on The Perfect Number of Columns which I think bounces off my post on Blog Layout (I say ‘I think’ because he doesn’t link to it - but was part of the discussion here in my post so I’ll take some credit! :-) ). He writes:
‘How many columns is the perfect number? I’ve seen passionate opinions voiced in favor of 1, 2, and 3 columns. People seem to have very definite opinions about which is best. I’m here to tell them they’re all wrong.
There is no perfect solution. The right number of columns is determined by two things: your site’s raison d’etre, and your audience. Asking “what’s the right number of columns” is like asking “what’s the best colour”. The answer in both cases is it depends.’
Peter then goes on to talk about some factors to consider when choosing your blog’s layout, in particular your own needs and those of your audience. It’s a great post if you’re thinking through blog design issues.
Written on June 1st, 2005 at 05:06 pm by Darren Rowse
Less = More with Adsense
Scrivs gives and insightful update on his decluttered design approach to adsense - the results speak for themselves:
‘Ever since I made the changes to the design of many of my sites to the extra minimalist style I have seen my eCPM increase anywhere from 50%-100%. My CTR has increased over 100%-200%, but this also has to do with the fact that I added an inline ad on FG for extended entries.’
Written on June 1st, 2005 at 10:06 am by Darren Rowse
Building Blogging Relationships - Email
Taughnee left a simple but very helpful tip on my last post in the building blogging relationships series that I thought was worth promoting up as a main post as it’s something that I too do.
If I read a forum post, blog or even a comment and think, “hey, I like the way this person thinks, we should know each other” … I’ll drop them an email and introduce myself. Sometimes I feel a bit silly or shy doing this, but then I remember that I LOVE it when people contact me this way.
Also, if people post their IM information in forums or blogs, I’ve been known to do the old, “You don’t know me but (insert flattering ice breaker here) …” and it has lead to some great connections as well.
It is amazing how powerful a simple email can be.
Whilst we live in a world where mass generated, impersonal, irrelevant, unsolicited email is incredibly annoying - so when a personal, relevant, genuine and relational email hits your inbox it can actually have a real impact.
I too do what Taughnee does and go out of my way to send emails to other bloggers when they write something that resonates with me. Many times I don’t get (or even expect) a response - I know many bloggers are incredibly busy - however from time to time the email can lead to a wonderful conversation and even occasionally to some fruitful relationships that directly impacts my blogging (either through a link, working together on a project, generation of ideas etc).
Having said all of this you might want to keep some of the following guidelines in mind when emailing other bloggers:
• Keep it brief - don’t make your first email an essay. There is nothing worse than working through a full inbox and finding a massive email that will take a lot of time to wade through. Get to the point and see where the conversation might lead. If the blogger responds your next emails might be a little longer - but don’t waste their (and your) time.
• Make it personal - people like friendly people. Keep this in mind as your write your first email. Don’t send emails to bloggers that sound like they’ve been mass produced or spam like - I occasionally get these emails that are obviously cut and paste together with my name on top (and sometimes they don’t even remember to put my name on them correctly) - these emails get trashed.
• Make it relevant - most bloggers blog on a particular topic - if you want to connect with them it might be a good idea to show that you’ve read them by staying on topic and referring to what they’ve written.
• Don’t demand too much (if anything) - An email that basically says ‘you don’t know me but I was wondering if you could ((insert favor here)) for me’ is much less likely to be read and responded to than emails that don’t demand anything of the recipient. Sure they might help you out - but you’re much more likely to be helped out of a relationship than demanding lots up front.
• Lower your expectations - Many of the times you write emails like this to other bloggers you won’t get a response. Don’t take it personally - most people lead busy lives and can’t possibly keep up with all of their email. I personally have over 200 emails in my inbox that I want to answer or respond to - it’s difficult and not because I don’t like the people who sent them - it’s just that there are only a certain amount of hours in the day for such tasks. I’d recommend that you do reach out to other bloggers this way but don’t expect that you’ll be best buddies after just one email. It may take time and it may never happen.
• Make it constructive - One of the best ways of making an impression on another blogger is to give them a gift. I’m not talking a physical gift (although if you want to send one my address is on my contact page) but one of your time and energy. Make a suggestion, offer to do something or go out of your way to make something easier for the person you’re writing to.
• Keep it low profile - I’m much less likely to respond to emails that are all about the other person. You know the type, they go something like ‘hi, I’m ((insert name)) from ((insert blog name/URL)) - I like your blog and think you’ll like my blog ((insert URL)). I’ve written these 43 posts ((insert URL)) that you should link to. From ((insert name, blog name, URL)).’ These emails don’t want to build a relationship with me - they are all about the other person. Whilst when I write to other bloggers I do include my URL in my signature I try to keep a lower profile and make the email about the other person. Sure if you’ve written something that is relevant you can mention it - but maybe wait for the second or third email (after they’ve responded to you) to promote yourself.
Read the rest of the building blogging relationships series.
Written on June 1st, 2005 at 09:06 am by Darren Rowse
Corporate Bloggers earn $40k - $70k
There is an article in the WSJ today on how Blogging is becoming a Corporate Job for an increasing number of people:
‘In its short lifespan, blogging has largely been a freewheeling exercise in online self-expression. Now it is also becoming a corporate job.
A small but growing number of businesses are hiring people to write blogs, otherwise known as Web logs, or frequently updated online journals. Companies are looking for candidates who can write in a conversational style about timely topics that would appeal to customers, clients and potential recruits.’
Duncan points out that the jobs mentioned pay between $40,000 and $70,000 ($US) per year.
I’m not sure what the average wage in in the average wage is in the US but considering exchange rates it would put an Aussie on between $52,000 and $91,000 which at the lower end is around the average Aussie wage (from the last figures I saw) to a pretty decent income at the upper end.
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