Written on August 15th, 2005 at 07:08 am by David Shawver
Unanswered enternetusers Questions
Since starting the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Project I’ve received quite a few suggestions for topics that readers would like me or someone else to cover. I’ve got a list as long as my arm of posts that I’m planning to do in the remaining 17 or so days so thought I’d make some of the questions public in the hope that some of you might be able to write tip posts on them on your own blog (and let me know of the URL). In this way we all learn something and its not just me doing the sharing of knowledge. Here are the questions I’ve received (I’ve decided to keep them anonymous). They are direct excerpts from emails that I’ve received:
- ‘Tips on blog design and editing tools. A poll on what people use perhaps.’
- I’d also like to see thoughts on thinking beyond the blog into CMS software.’
- I would like to get your opinon (and that of your readers) on “Donate” buttons on personal blogs. I am seeing them more and more. Is it “begging”? Are they tacky? Or is it simply requesting a donation for providing entertaining or informative commentary?’
- ‘Could one of the 31 days to a better blog be about getting started and what sorts of things newbies are likely to run into and need to do?… It would be interesting to see sort of a generic road map to getting a new blog off the ground.’
- ‘One fairly major topic in this series could address hosting effects on indexing. Darren and most of the people who comment here are self-hosted. I went the other way, with a Blogger account, knowing that I would be indexed faster by Google.(Oddly enough, Yahoo indexes Blogger sites even faster than Google itself.) One of my free hosting issues - which is quite surprising - is the inconsistent way Google spyders my Blogger blogsites. Sometimes it indexes the individual posts, which maximizes keyword effectiveness and relevancy; sometimes it serves the searcher an entire month’s worth of posts in response to a keyword search hit that should deliver a single post’s link. I am trusting this anomaly will straighten out over time, but it is a little frustrating. Would be interested in hearing the experiences of you self-hosted folks eventually.’
If you feel you’ve got something to say on one or more of these topics simply write it up as a blog tip on your own blog and let me know of the URL. I’ll then feature it in one of my daily summaries for readers tips.
Written on August 14th, 2005 at 11:08 pm by David Shawver
31 Days to Building a Better Blog - Day 14
The weekend’s here at submissions for the 31 Days Project are a little slower today as we approach the halfway point. Here is the lonely reader submission for today for your enjoyment:
- The Seven Deadly Sins of Blogging - Submitted by Dominic
Written on August 14th, 2005 at 09:08 pm by David Shawver
Organic SEO Panel - SES
Chris Richardson has an interesting post over at WebProNews that reports on a panel session at the SES conference in San Jose this week. The panel looked at organic Search Engine Optimization techniques and covered some of the following topics:
‘Link Buying: The panel said that link buying wasn’t a punishable offense as long as it is clear that the intention of purchased links advertising and not solely for search engine ranking. For example, a legitimate link like Yahoo’s travel.yahoo.com on SearchEngineWatch would not cause your site to be penalized….
The Sandbox: The panel was in agreement that there is in fact a Google sandbox, even if it is an inadvertent nether region created by the nature of how the search engine works. New sites with large amounts of links from the same IP block will appear unnatural and will not be weighted nor penalized. The site is thrown into the Sandbox because it will not receive any ranking benefit from these links and therefore will likely not be ranked very well for what they are targeting….
Duplicate Content: A lot has been made of penalties for duplicate content, but as long as it is judged to be duplicate content for legitimate reasons, there should be no penalty. You ask, what constitutes a “legitimate” reason? For example, if your goal is to expand from a US market and you want to target a new market in the UK, then a sister site with duplicate content and alternate spellings (color, colour, aluminum, aluminium) may be a necessary adjustment….’
I’m definitely going to try to get to SES next year (maybe the New York one which would allow me to meet with a few bloggers that I know there also) - I’ve really enjoyed following the various reports on this year’s event and think it might be worth forking out for an airfare for.
Written on August 14th, 2005 at 09:08 am by David Shawver
blogon 2005
Is anyone going to blogon 2005? - the social media summit - in October? Looks like it could be a worthwhile conference to attend looking at the speakers that they’ve already announced. Check them out!
Looks like an interesting lineup. Sigh - so many conferences - so far away from Melbourne.
Written on August 13th, 2005 at 11:08 pm by David Shawver
31 Days to Building a Better Blog - Day 13
13’s an unlucky number for some - but not for enternetusers readers because I’ve got some more great reader submitted tips to go into the 31 Days Project.
- IO Error has a tip on Building Traffic for Bloggers with four tips for getting people to visit your blog (on the right hand side)
- PC Doctor has submitted Site search, calendars and search term hilite - a brief look at some blog tools you might want to consider using
- Christine has submitted another interesting post with the intriguing title - Blog Better By Learning from the Rapper
- un papier writes about Blogging for its own sake
- Michael writes a tip on Help for the Business end of a Business Blog
Keep your submissions coming in because time’s ticking away - we’re almost halfway to day 31!
Written on August 13th, 2005 at 05:08 pm by David Shawver
Behaviors of the Blogosphere - Controversy Continues
Nick Denton has responded to criticism of the critique by Jason Calacanis of the Behaviors of the Blogosphere Study in an article at CickZ where he’s quoted as saying:
‘”I know it galls Jason Calacanis that his sites are about as memorable as Burger King franchises, and that none register among the top blogs, except Pete Rojas’s Engadget,” he said.
Denton added, “But Jason Calacanis misses the big picture. The study finally provides evidence for what we’ve all hoped for: that blog readers are younger and richer than average, and, one hopes, thinner.”‘
I’m not sure where the ‘thinner’ comment comes from - or is Nick preempting a ‘diet blog’ announcement?
Meanwhile Jason’s blog has become even more focussed upon the study (5 of his last 7 posts are on the topic).
Where will this all end I wonder? And is anyone taking any notice anyway?
Written on August 13th, 2005 at 12:08 pm by David Shawver
enternetusers Disclaimer
I’ve been working on a enternetusers Disclaimer Page for a few days now in order to be more transparent about this blog. As regular readers know, I receive a lot of both positive and negative feedback (more good than bad) to what I write here so I thought some sort of disclaimer might be helpful to increase the transparency of what I do.
I’ve decided to list both the things I gain from writing this blog and the costs I incur in doing so. I was tempted to leave out the costs but part of my philosophy here is to be as honest as possible about Professional blogging and I hope in showing the underbelly of what I do that readers will develop a realistic understanding of blogging that helps them to make informed choices about it as a possible endeavour. I hope it’s not too negative - but to be honest I’ve had a bit of a low blogging day and so the costs are written out of that context.
I’m sure I’ll add to it later as I think of more things but here it is (also linked to in the menu above). I’d appreciate your feedback on it in comments below.
Also I’m interested to know how many others have developed disclaimers like this for their blogs. Perhaps we could have a discussion below about what they should and shouldn’t include?
Written on August 13th, 2005 at 03:08 am by David Shawver
Using Comments on your Blog
Human beings are relational. We like to be acknowledged. We like too participate and contribute. We like to feel that what we have to say is valuable.
Most of your blog’s readers are human beings (well most of mine are). So acknowledge and interact with them.
The most common way for interaction on blogs is through comments. An an old study I once read found that 43% of blogs use comments - I suspect the figure would be much higher today with most blogging platforms now integrating them (remember the days when you had to use a third party comments system!?).
Not everyone likes comments. Some bigger bloggers don’t use them because they get overwhelmed by too much interaction and some smaller blogs don’t use them because they don’t get any comments at all and are embarrassed with the ‘comments (0)’ at the end of each post. Still others gave up on comments because of comment spam.
The Upside to Comments
I personally think commenting is the best part of my blogging - especially here at enternetusers. You see I’m not that profound or wise, but many of my readers are. Comments add value to my blog. They take my posts to the next level and often take my ideas in rewarding new directions. I have learnt a lot from comments left in this blog and have even met some new friends through them.
Comments have the ability to help create a ‘virtual community’ at your blog. It sounds strange but I’ve seen a number of blogs where the commenters seem to know each other really well and where I suspect people keep coming back to purely to interact with each other. I’ve noticed this starting to happen here at enternetusers as I constantly get emails from readers who tell me about the relationships they’ve started with other readers that they meet here.
Comments bring accountability to bloggers. If you post something that is inaccurate, controversial or not thought through, expect to be told about it in comments. Whilst this doesn’t always feel the best at the time - it does make you a better blogger in the long run.
Comments add to the content on your blog - One of the things I’ve noticed over the years as I watch my blog referral statistics (which show how people end up on my blog) is that quite a few of them actually end up here having search for a word/s that someone wrote in my comments section. The more comments you get the more content you end up with.
The Downside Comments
With all good things there is a negative flip side. Comment spam has become an increasing problem for many bloggers in the past year. The key to comment spam is to read every comment as it comes in. (Mine get sent to an email address to help with this) and to delete spam as it arrives. Many blogging tools now also have built in means to stop or limit comment spam - learn to use them - don’t let it overwhelm you. Whilst it might take time to monitor your comments it is worth it in the end as a blog infected by hundreds of spam comments decreases the value of your blog not only to readers but in the Search Engines.
You’ll also receive a lot of comments from people trolling for hits at their own blogs. I personally don’t mind these too much, unless they are serial trollers. Flaming in comments can be an issue also. I’ve had a fair share of comment interactions from people that have gotten too personal. You might want to develop some sort of comments policy to help with this.
How to Get Comments on your Blog
- Ask questions. I will often end a post with a question or invitation to comment.
- Interact with comments left. I read every comment left on my blog. I try to either reply to it via comments or email (this gets hard when you start to get a lot!). In my opinion a key to whether you will get comments will be your willingness to use them yourself. Don’t expect your readers to go to the effort of commenting if you ignore them.
- Be humble. People will not comment if you write in a way that presumes to know all the answers. Acknowledge that you’re on a journey, post honestly about your own failings or gaps in knowledge and show people that you believe in them. If you do this, more often than not people will feel comfortable having their say.
- Be gracious. You will get angry, nasty and rude comments. Attempt not to take them personally. Don’t reply to comments in the heat of the moment when angry. Delete comments when they step over your boundaries and attempt to respond to such comments with grace. You may even find that when someone is trying to push your buttons with their comments that the best way to defuse them is to ignore them or simply reply politely with a quick ‘thanks for your comment’. I know it is hard but you will win the respect of your readers if you do.
- Be controversial? - This is a strategy that I see a lot of bloggers using to get readers and stimulated comments. I’m not convinced that it is a good one. It is easy to stir people up and get a lot of comments by saying something controversial just for the sake of it - but I wonder if you do more harm than good this way. Do it too much and you’ll disillusion your readers. I’m happy to put the cat amongst the pigeons occassionally, but don’t do it purely for comments or hits - do it because you believe what you’re saying.
Do I need to even invite you to comment on this post? What’s your experience with comments on a blog?
Written on August 12th, 2005 at 11:08 pm by David Shawver
31 Days to Building a Better Blog - Day 12
We’re well over a third of the way through the 31 day challenge now - I hope you’re finding it to be worthwhile. Here are the latest reader submitted blog tips from the past 24 hours:
- Christine writes 6 Ways To Get Out Of The Deserted Blog Island
- Connected Internet gives 10 Useful SEO tips
- John posted 4 Steps To Get Your Website In Googles ‘Back Door’
- Jim has a post titled Keep Searching Blogs
Keep your posts coming!
Written on August 12th, 2005 at 09:08 pm by David Shawver
Has Yahoo Publishing Network led to Higher Adsense Click Values?
Jason has a theory that click values in Adsense have increased since the introduction of the Yahoo Publishing Network and writes:
‘Just got that comment from a Adsense publisher. I can tell you we did see an up tick the last two days. I can’t get into exact details because of Adsense TOS. However, last week we set a single day record with ~$2,450. The last two days we did $2,913.23 and $3,070.11 with just a couple of more clicks (yes, that puts us way above the $1M yearly run rate… yahooooo!!! I mean… Yeah!!!).
This is not scientific, but it looks like a 10-15% boost when I take out the added clicks.’
I’m not so sure about this. I’ve done a quick survey of a few publishers via IM and they report mixed results this past week. Some are up - but I wonder whether it might be more to do with the change to vary the number of ads they are now showing per ad unit which they explain should lead to an increase in earnings:
‘To increase monetization on your site and improve the relevance of ads, AdSense now varies the number of text ads that appear in a given ad unit. In cases where we determine that increasing the size of the most relevant ads will improve performance, we’ll drop the lowest-performing ad or ads and expand the remaining ones to fill the entire unit. Showing fewer ads works to your advantage, allowing the better-performing ads to draw more user attention and click-throughs. Google AdSense technology will automatically determine the optimal number of ads to display on any page and will only show fewer ads when doing so will make you more money!’
Read more at AdSense Update - August 4 2005
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