Written on August 31st, 2005 at 11:08 pm by Darren Rowse
31 Days to Building a Better Blog - Day 31!
Well we’ve finally made it to the end of the 31 day Project. What an amazing experience it’s been. Including tonight’s last group of submissions we’ve now got 179 blog tip posts on the central 31 day Project page in addition to my own 48 tip posts. That’s 227 blog tips for your use. Some of the tips in the bunch are excellent value and have taught me a lot.
Here are the last reader submissions:
- Martin wrote How many Visitors: Quality over Quantity
- Tony let us know about his post, Blogging Security
- Athomemama has written A workable Blogging Schedule
- Alexander submitted Context is Everything and Blogging on a Mac
- Hatem wrote Thoughts on Articles Websites and How to Convert Visitors into regular readers - Part 2
- Yaro contributed Bloggers Write Articles for traffic
- Jay notified us of Moving Beyond the Blogroll: Looking for New Ways to Link-Share
- Andrew wrote Blogging and procrastinating (he’s been meaning to write this for a while and waited til day 31!)
- Edrei let us know about Theming: How it Isn’t Just About the Looks
- JErm submitted Get Your Visitors to Subscribe to your RSS Feed via Email
Thanks to all who have contributed to this project. I’m planning to do a summary post on the project tomorrow where I’ll try to make some sense of it all but right now at one minute to midnight I’d like to declare the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog project officially Closed!
Written on August 31st, 2005 at 02:08 pm by Darren Rowse
T-Shirt Competition Debrief - Was it Successful?
Quite a few readers have asked how successful the T-Shirt competition has been. How many shirts have we sold? Is it worth it?
I’m not going to go into specifics about which shirt sold how many or even what the total sales have been in the enternetusers shop - but I will say that overall this venture has not been my most profitable one and I don’t think I’ll be retiring any time soon on my earnings from enternetusers’s T-Shirt range.
After CafePress takes their cut each item brings in only a few dollars and while there was quite a lot of interest in the competition and quite a few have gone to the shop for a look - sales have been very low. Lets just say that enternetusers T-Shirts are collectors items due to the limited print runs at this stage - some of the designs are yet to have any sales at all. I don’t think that this is the fault of the designers - rather there are other factors at play (see below).
The cost of having the shop has been covered but the prize ($100 from Amazon) could take quite a few months to earn back from sales.
Why hasn’t this project been a raging success? Let me offer a few suggestions:
• The nature of the topic at enternetusers - blogging for money isn’t the ‘coolest’ topic in the world and probably doesn’t lend itself too much to T-Shirts, mugs, mousepads etc. I suspect some blog’s topics will be much more suitable for selling T-Shirts than ours.
• Link Positioning - I could have the links to the enternetusers shop in more prominent positions on my blog. While I like the structure of my blog - one of the costs of only having two columns is that there is less room above the fold for such links.
• Poor Briefing of Designers - One thought I’ve had since this competition is that I didn’t give designers a good briefing in terms of both the logistics of what type of image I needed (I gave them the run around - sorry friends) but also in terms of who I thought might buy the end products. If I’d been a little clearer on this I think perhaps we could have produced T-Shirts that MAY have been more appealing to readers who themselves are bloggers seeking to make money from blogging.
• CafePress - I like quite a few things about the host of my shop - cafepress.com - however there are a few limitations. One of these is the limited colors of T-Shirts. I have had a few readers tell me they’d buy a T-Shirt if it wasn’t white or grey. Another limitation is the shipping costs to international readers (a few have mentioned this). Perhaps cost is also another feature. I selected the ‘medium’ mark up price on the T-Shirts. I could have lessened this slightly and reduced my profits to a dollar per sale but if I’d done this I’d need to sell 100 T-Shirts to make my $100 back.
I’m sure there are other reasons.
Overall I’m not too disappointed with the project - I’d do it differently in future (and perhaps in 6 months we’ll try again) but in the process I got about 30 or so people involved in enternetusers in a tangible way - I learned some lessons - I added a small but interesting revenue stream to this blog - and I got myself a T-Shirt or two (mine are hopefully on the way form CafePress as we speak).
I wouldn’t write off T-Shirts as a way of making money from your blog - in fact I’ve seen some bloggers use it effectively - however you’d want to enter into it with realistic expectations.
If you are one of the people who ordered a enternetusers product I’d love to get a photo of you wearing/using it. Shoot me an email of your picture and I’ll post it on the blog with a link to your site as a mini thank-you. I’ll do this for the first 10 or so people to send pictures in.
Written on August 31st, 2005 at 08:08 am by Darren Rowse
Advertising on blogs
Rachel has an interesting post on Advertising on blogs where she compares how much advertising takes up on TV, in the Newspapers and on a pretty well known blog:
‘While online ads are on the increase, are we being bombarded by online ads like we are offline?
I had a look at what TV would look like if it were a computer screen. How much of the screen would be covered in advertisements? I then had a look at our local newspaper’s first section last Saturday. If it were a computer screen, how much would be plastered in advertisements? Finally, I had a look at Engadget, a blog renouned for its revenue made via advertising. How much of the screen* was taken up by advertisements?’
Interesting comparisons.
Written on August 31st, 2005 at 05:08 am by Darren Rowse
Niche Top Blog Lists
I think Robert Scoble is onto something when he says that having a single ‘top blog’ type list is pretty useless. He writes:
‘The whole concept of a single list is just stupid and doesn’t add any value.
The thing is there isn’t a single blogosphere. There are thousands of blogospheres. What I want is a list for each blogosphere. For instance, scrapbooking is a big deal, according to Technorati. There are 36,218 posts about scrapbooking. Tons of ads too.
But, quick, look at Technorati for Scrapbooking and tell me who the most linked-to blog is in that blogosphere. Or, tell me who has the most traffic. Or tell me which link has been clicked the most times….’
While I wouldn’t say it doesn’t add ANY value (on a big picture level it shows where the activity in blogging is and its helped me find some pretty interesting new blogs) - I agree that one single list isn’t as useful as many smaller lists would be. I know if someone were to put together the type of lists that Robert is talking about I’d be frequenting them quite a bit - not just to know who is ‘hot’ - but as a source of information.
Of course I’m the most un-techie person you’ll ever meet and don’t know what such lists would involve to code - but as an idea it’s something I’d love to see happen.
I’m still not going to argue against lists like technorati’s top 100 or feedster’s top 500 but I think a variety of lists would be great.
What lists would you like to see? - Add yours (serious and humerous) in comments below.
Written on August 31st, 2005 at 02:08 am by Darren Rowse
The Power of the Link
On of the aspects of blogging that I love is the way in which a link can change a persons life in so many ways (some of them big, others small). This is illustrated pretty well over at Solution Watch which was the first blog mentioned at Blog Herald’s 100 Blogs in 100 Days series. That link led to a chain of events that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside:
As I have said, this last week has been the biggest week for Solution Watch yet. I was lucky to be the first mentioned on The Blog Herald, 100 Blogs in 100 Days. His mass amount of visitors scavenged my page, left nice comments, and was very supportive. Thanks, Duncan. Not much later, TechCrunch mentioned my Social Bookmarking List. This brought even more visitors. Because of this, the Social Bookmarking List was posted to Del.icio.us many times and quickly made it to the Del.icio.us Popular and Populicio.us pages which got Solution Watch even more noticed. Then, on top of that, Paul Scrivens dropped me an email inviting me into the 9rules Network! It has been a crazy week and I am still rubbing my eyes because I must be dreaming about all this hype going on. I owe a thank you to everyone who has supported Solution Watch, all my visitors, Del.icio.us users, and everyone else.
Ok - so it might not be an earth shattering event or change the course of history - but it does illustrate the power of a link and is one of the reasons I continue to ignore the advice of many SEO experts who tell me I have too many outbound links on this blog and thereby decrease my chances in the Search Engines. Frankly I’d rather have a blog here that plays a part in processes like the one above than one that just accumulates readers for myself to enjoy.
Written on August 30th, 2005 at 11:08 pm by Darren Rowse
31 Days to Building a Better Blog - Day 30
This is the second last daily wrap up of the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Project and readers are making the most of their last chances to be included in what is turning out to be a pretty good collection of Blog Tips.
- Chris submitted Overcoming Blogger’s Block
- Andrew lets us know about Use your blog as a personal wayback machine
- Max submitted Improving Your Writing Skills: Lessons Learned Online
- Tony submits Blogging Personality
- Jerm writes Increase your PR with Yahoo
- Robyn pointed us to RSS for Dummies
- Ignat writes Helping Bloggers get to the top
- Mike has put together a post called Expand the Blogstream
- Steve wrote Those Special Dad Moments
- Syntagma let us know about Will Windows Vista be good for enternetuserss?
You’ve got 24 hours to get your own submission on - don’t miss out!
Written on August 30th, 2005 at 03:08 pm by Darren Rowse
enternetusers T-Shirt Competition Winner
It’s been such a long time since I started the enternetusers T-Shirt Design competition that when it finally ended a few days back it had completely slipped my mind!!!
Apologies to the finalists for not announcing this sooner but I’m getting a absent minded in my middle age.
Anyway - the finalists in the competition were Abe, Chris, Ray (no blog), Retz and Stan and I’m really happy to announce that the design that sold the most items in the enternetusers Shop was the one submitted by Retz (see picture left for the design) Retz wins:
1. $100 (USD) worth of products from Amazon
2. A free T-Shirt of his design
3. 1 hour of blog consultation for his blog
4. A link to your blog on my side bar for free for 1 month (starting today)
5. A highlight your blog in this ‘winners’ post (consider it done)
6. Being added as the number one blog on my RSS feed which will mean I’ll check it multiple times per day.
Not sure how much worth the last few are but if nothing else he can buy himself something nice from Amazon. Congratulations Retz and thanks to the other finalists.
Buy your enternetusers T-shirt (all five designs are still available) at the enternetusers Shop
Written on August 30th, 2005 at 03:08 pm by Darren Rowse
Judith on Managing a Blog Network
I really appreciate Judith Meskill’s blogging as it gives an insight into some of the mechanics of running a blog network which go beyond some of the big picture posts, squabbling and boasting that some others from the big networks (no names mentioned - or probably needed here) go on with on their blogs. She has been a bit quiet recently but today posts an update that shows some of the inner workings (if you read between the lines) of WIN but also shows her love for blogging/bloggers (and grilled cheese). She writes:
‘Since there is nothing rigid about the deals we make with our bloggers here at WIN - end of month activities are insanely detailed and last for about a week! But fun is key, as our WIN bloggers are team players one and all. Our model of having anywhere from 3 to 20 bloggers posting on any given blog wouldn’t really work without the full cooperation of our ‘team’ spirited writers….”
I can’t imagine the process of keeping track of 120 bloggers - I have trouble keeping up with one - me!
Written on August 30th, 2005 at 02:08 pm by Darren Rowse
Blog Apprenticeships
I normally work at home alone but today I have company - two ‘work-mates’. They are not really working WITH me (they are electricians - rewiring our house) but it’s nice to have people around.
One of the things I’ve enjoyed watching today is the interaction between these two guys. One is around my age - he’s the owner of the business and the other is a young guy - 16 I’d guess - who has just started as the apprentice.
He’s a wide eyed young guy who is just soaking in information about his new trade. Every step along the way the boss points out what he’s doing and then stops to allow the young guy to have a go for himself. I can see learning happen right in front of my eyes and it’s kind of cool to watch. He’s obviously benefitting from the relationship - but so too is the boss who now has an extra set of hands, someone to climb into the dirty roof etc. It is a win win situation for both parties.
As I observe this interaction I find myself wondering what it would be like to have blogging apprentices. I’m dreaming out loud here - so don’t be too harsh - but lets see where this leads us.
What if an experienced blogger was to take on a novice blogger for an agreed upon set of time - to teach them the craft of entrepreneurial blogging whilst on the job.
The Blogger would commit to teach the apprentice their craft, would allow the apprentice space to study, learn, experiment and grow in their knowledge and experience of the different aspects of blogging. They would pay the apprentice an income - at a level to reflect the growing experience of the apprentice (gradually increasing over time).
In return the apprentice would commit to working for the blogger - writing, designing, SEO etc - whatever the blogger needed. In this way the blogger benefits from the arrangement as any work the apprentice did would become the property of the blogger who they were working for.
Such an agreement would have to of course be a win win situation for both parties - the blogger would have to be in a position to pay a reasonable income and the both parties would need to agree to stay in the relationship for a set period of time. At the end of the period parties could either go their own way or re-negotiate a deal to continue some type of association.
Just a pie in the sky idea - interested in others thoughts.
Written on August 30th, 2005 at 02:08 am by Darren Rowse
The Blog Manager
Peter over at the Blog Studio has written a stimulating post titled The Blog Manager which puts into words some of the things that I’ve been considering recently. He’s wondering if perhaps a new type of job for bloggers is coming - one where an experienced blogger helps individual bloggers manage their sites. He explains it better than I do:
‘I think there’s a huge opportunity to manage these sites. The manager would earn a percentage of the increased revenue. It would have to be done tastefully, and with respect for the audience: ie no selling a crappy e-book just for the sake of the revenue. It’s not in the spirit of the program, and will just backfire anyways.
The manager would be responsible for managing traffic as well as revenue. White hat SEO would factor heavily. As could technical and style issues. The writer could be freed to just blog, or to think, or to whatever. The writer maintains ultimate authority, having to approve changes before they’re made. There is no risk to the writer.’
A blog manager would help other bloggers to reach their potential - as a coach and a mentor but perhaps also be in a hands on way. There could be a few logistical and trust issues involved in determining remuneration for the manager’s services - but I think it’s a legitimate suggestion and a service that many bloggers would sign up for. Would you?
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