Written on July 25th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse
If I had to Start My Blog Again - Group Writing Project
Over the past two weeks I’ve asked 14 of my favorite bloggers what they’d do differently if they were starting their blog again today. Their responses were varied and left us with plenty of food for thought (see their responses here).
As I’ve been posting their responses I’ve noticed quite a few enternetusers readers have been tackling the question themselves - a couple have even sent me emails with their thoughts.
As a result I thought it’d make a great Group Writing Project.
So - let me turn the question over to you my friends. If you’d like to participate and be included in the results of this week’s project simply follow this process:
1. Write a post on the topic of ‘what I’d do differently if I had to start my blog again’
- Be as creative as you’d like - take it in any direction you want from writing a long list of what you’d do differently to a single short point.
- You can write it in any form you like (last time we had poems, rants, humorous posts etc).
- Consider calling your post something a little different to ‘what I’d do differently if I…..’ as last time we had 80 submissions, most of which had similar titles. Your title is a key to making people come and read your post.
- Ideally it’d be great if you could write it on your actual blog but if it’s completely inappropriate to do so I’ll post them again on enternetusers on a ‘page’ (not a post) with a link back to your blog.
- Feel free to write your post in your own first language - I’ve previously included a number of non-english posts and am excited by the prospect of making this a multi-lingual project.
2. Let me Know about your post
- Once you’ve posted your post simply let me know about it by sending me an email via my contact form.
- Make sure you include your name (as you want it to appear in my list), your post title and the URL to your post (not just to your blog’s front page).
- Submissions must be received by me the the end of Thursday 27 July (as long as it’s still Thursday where you send it from I’ll accept it).
3. I will post 2 links to your post
- In the day or two after you let me know about your post I’ll post a link to it in two places. Firstly there will be a daily (ish) list of the submissions from the last 24 hours. Secondly there will be a central list of all submissions for the project so we can see everything on one page. From what I could tell last time - people did visit the posts that were submitted - some bloggers seemed to get more traffic than others depending upon what day they submitted and a little on how their title read.
- I’ll post my final list of submissions on Friday.
4. Surf Surf Surf
- This is where you take over. Surf the submissions received. Leave comments, make connections with other enternetusers readers and enjoy reading what others have to say.
5. Link Link Link
- There is no formal ‘judging’ as this is not a competition. Instead - I encourage you to surf through the submissions at the end of the week and announce your own winners on your own blog. Name a top 5 or so and share the link love.
- Probably the best part of the last group project was the amount of inter-linking I saw happening between participating bloggers as a result of their posts. It was obvious that people found new blogs through it and that the benefits of participating was way beyond getting a link from me but flowed on to a lot of new connections and links between other bloggers.
Written on July 24th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 11:07 am by Darren Rowse
Analyzing Influence and Popularity of “Blog Marketing”
Onalytica have posted the results to a study they’ve done exploring the question of Who are the most influential authorities on “blog marketing”?
In their research they attempt to explore the difference between ‘influence’ and ‘popularity’.
Perhaps it’s the fact that I’ve woken up with a migraine and that coffee doesn’t seem to be working this morning - but I’m left a little underwhelmed by the research to this point.
I’m interested in exploring the difference between popularity and influence of blogs but even after reading their full report (pdf) I’m still not completely sure how they’ve come up with the figures or how they’re really defining either popularity or influence. Like I say - it’s a worthwhile thing to explore, but I’d like some practical outlining of how they come up with the figures.
The other thing that leaves me wondering how useful the information is is that the topic of ‘blog marketing’ is obviously being written about in different ways by the different sites that they’ve tracked in their study.
For example I was surprised that my blog was ranked at all for the term as it’s something I rarely write about. The only times that I can think that I’ve used the term are when I’ve written about marketing your blog (as promoting it) or when I’ve linked to others who have used the term in their title and have linked using their title.
Others on the list used the term quite differently:
For example Seth Godin talks about marketing ON his blog. Others in the list talk about marketing THROUGH blogs. Others talk about other topics (like PR or advertising) that are similar or have some cross over with the topic of marketing. Others yet again talk about search engine marketing primarily.
So while the study might be looking at one term I wonder whether it’s actually a good one as there are so many different contexts that it is used in. Perhaps a similar study on a different and less loosely defined term might be a better way to illustrate the difference between influence and popularity.
Anyway - I’m interested in finding ways to compare popularity and influence as it is an important distinction to make in my opinion but I’m just not sure that this study is quite there yet in terms of illustrating how to do it.
Thanks to Duncan for the heads up.
PS: I was also a little surprised that Onalytica chose a Sunday to release their study. I almost missed it myself and would have thought a weekday would have been a much better day for it’s release if they were hoping to get the wider blogosphere’s attention with it. Perhaps holding it off until Monday or Tuesday would have been a better strategy? Just my two cents worth.
For more on the study you might also like to read hyku (2nd most influential - congratulations Josh) and Business Blog Consulting.
Written on July 24th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 10:07 am by Darren Rowse
More on What Blogging is Buying Bloggers
Two days ago I linked to a couple of people who had written about what blogging had bought them and asked readers to tell us what blogging had enabled them to buy also. Little did I know what the response would be like - even though it is a weekend. Here’s a collation of the list of what blogging has bought people so far (ranging from coffee to houses):
Blogging bought Dee a sixth birthday party for her daughter, CDs, books, concert tickets and covers her blog’s costs
Blogging bought Bank Locator a trip to Vegas plus lots of free schwag
Blogging bought Billobanger a house, furniture, new computer and gadgets
Blogging bought Retrospector money to cover the costs of starting another blog
Blogging bought Darren M an office, two companies, a paycheck for him and his wife, a car, a condo, 3 cats and vacations
Blogging bought Elliot various trips away with his girlfriend
Blogging bought Ken the ability to work at home and have time with his kids
Blogging bought Jon a trip to Phoenix to meet his hero
Blogging bought feral cat DVDs
Blogging bought brem dog id tags
Blogging bought Designer Ella lots of handbags and shoes.
Blogging bought Kevin all the startup costs for the music label he’s launched
Blogging bought JErm his freedom to quit other jobs and work at home - plus a trip to Bali for his entire family
Blogging bought eSearing more web site development business which pays for cell phones, net access and a computer
Blogging bought Esther her Son’s college education
Blogging bought John gas for his car, a lot of fun and something to put on his next job application
Blogging bought Kim Bah Lee a pint of beer
Blogging bought Tim a Nintendo DS
Blogging bought Greg web hosting, a valleyschwag subscription and domain renewal
Blogging bought Swade a laptop, free Saab goodies and the inspiration for a new car.
Blogging bought Thejesh GN a domain, hosting, a few drinks and lunch
Blogging bought Marek a Pentax Optio W10
Blogging bought Chi An a Dell laptop
Blogging bought Bill a $10,000 Spa
Blogging bought Ray hosting and other blog related costs plus the odd latte
Blogging bought Melissa lots of stuff ($1,100 to $1500 USD a month)
Blogging bought Renee monthly installments on a home
Blogging bought Keeton a successful home business and time with family
Blogging bought hacker not cracker a laptop
Blogging bought Dale plenty of CDs
Blogging bought Adam a domain name and hosting
Blogging bought pcunix - hard to tell as all income goes into the one pot but he’s earned $250k from online activities
Blogging bought Chris hosting fees
Blogging bought pjm satisfaction
Blogging bought Oscar hosting fees, domains and coffee
Blogging bought Jill lots of ’stuff’, a phone, admission to conferences, other jobs and work etc
Blogging bought Candy Addict lots of Candy
Blogging bought Jayvee a new DSLR and speaker set for video games
Blogging bought Rick a new Car
Blogging bought David an xbox, LCD Monitor and Camera
Blogging bought Me a house, car and virtually every other living expense for the last year or two
Feel free to keep adding to the list in comments below
Written on July 23rd, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 12:07 pm by Darren Rowse
Sending Traffic Away or Keeping Traffic On Site?
Kevin at LexBlog has a post that has got me thinking. It’s called Best blogs send audience away. In it he refers to a post by Jeff Jarvis which talks about portals and how they try to lure you in to them and keep you there as opposed to what Google is doing (get you in and out as quickly as possible).
Kevin rightly points some examples of some great blogs that are great because they find great content elsewhere and point their readers to it. They are great because they find useful information and collate it in the one place - often adding their own insights, but also quite often just putting up links so that people can explore for themselves. They are successful because people know that they’ll point them to quality information on their topic of interest.
Does this mean that the best blogs should all do this?
I would argue no. There are other models in my experience also.
Another model is quite the opposite and is embodied over at Steve Pavlina’s blog.
In comparison to some of the blogs that Kevin points out Steve Pavlina rarely links to anyone but himself from his blog. Take a look at the front page of it and you’ll see that the only links in his posts (at present - and he might update and make a liar out of me) are internal links to other parts of his blog. The only outbound links on the page are sponsors links.
I know some people have critiqued Steve for this - someone told me once that he’s not a real blogger because he doesn’t link out - I disagree. While I enjoy blogs that have lots of outbound links I also enjoy blogs that don’t.
The key if you’re not going to link out is that you’ll need to have high quality content that people find useful and unique. It will be what you write that draws people to your blog and keeps them coming back for more rather than what you link to.
Of course these are two extremes of blogging and many (if not most) bloggers fall somewhere in between - with some link type posts and some longer original content type posts.
Is one method more legitimate than others? I guess that’s something each person will have their own opinion on, however my own opinion is that they are just different and both can work.
Each method will have its challenges:
No outbound linking blogs have the challenge of building relationships with other bloggers. One way to get on the radar of other bloggers is to link to them and without this you’ll need to find other ways of getting the attention of others.
Blogs that link out ALOT can be more challenging to monetize (if that’s what you’re into). Having short posts without much actual content and lots of links can make it difficult to use AdSense (which likes lots of content) and if people are always clicking on your links they are less likely (perhaps) to click your ads.
Written on July 23rd, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 09:07 am by Darren Rowse
digg Sports Launches
digg / Sports has just launched and sports bloggers everywhere are cheering!
Written on July 23rd, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 03:07 am by Darren Rowse
449 - 3 Day Professional Blog Design
Chris Garrett (not the Chris Garrett from Performancing… there’s two of them out there!) emailed me this morning to tell me about a new service he’s put together for his blog design business.
It’s called 449 and is a service that promises to deliver you a professional blog design for £449 (at present that’s just over $834 USD or around $1100 AUD).
For that price you get a WordPress blog with free hosting and domain name for a year as well as the blog’s design.
Previous work from Chris can be seen here, here and here.
It’ll be interesting to see how his service goes. In my experience dealing with bloggers - there are a lot who aspire to professionally designed blogs but in most cases I find when I mention the type of prices that designers charge that people decide to either give the design a go themselves or go for a free template.
Is this a good deal?
I guess it comes down to personal taste (if you like his work), your own design ability, your blogging goals and aspirations as well as your budget. $834 isn’t the cheapest I’ve seen blog design advertised at but by no means is it the most expensive.
Written on July 22nd, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 12:07 pm by Darren Rowse
What has Blogging Bought You?
Blogging bought Jayvee a new DSLR Camera (good choice Jayvee). He also points to the car that blogging bought Rick, the camera, xbox and LCD Monitor that it bought David and the house it’s paying off for me.
What has blogging bought you?
Or… What are you hoping it’ll buy you next?
Written on July 22nd, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse
What would I do different if I had to start my blog over? - Hugh Hewitt
The following is an answer from Hugh Hewitt responding to my one question interview question of what he’d do differently if he had to start his blog over again. Note - this is the last interview in this series.
So many things, so little time.
Here’s the Baker’s dozen short list:
- Find a blog program with spellcheck.
- Find a designer that would have allowed me to avoid the intervention at Lileks’ Jasperwood. Amazingly, the design matters.
- Start sooner.
- Post more frequently.
- Praise/critique ratio at 7:1.
- Turn my tech stuff over to Joshua Sharf in ‘00 rather than ‘05. (jsharf@jsharf.com).
- Align with Townhall.com sooner.
- Bring on co-blogger Mary Katharine Ham earlier.
- Proscribe FratersLibertas.com earlier.
- Ask Duane to start Radioblogger.com in ‘00 rather than ‘04.
- Dine out with Roger L Simon more often.
- Persuade Peter Robinson to post with me and not “The Corner.”
- Suggest to the Powerline gents that perhaps they’d like to post at www.HughHewitt.com.
But I can’t really complain about anything. “Baseball [blogging] has been very, very good to me.”
Written on July 21st, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 10:07 pm by Darren Rowse
AdSense Diagnostics - Take 2
Just over a month ago I reported that AdSense had added a new features - Site Diagnostics - to what they were offering publishers. A few days later (actually from memory it was just a few hours later) it disappeared again - the official explanation was that it was a ‘temporary test’.
Well today it looks like it’s reappeared again (for how long I’m not sure). Here’s a screen cap just in case it does (click to enlarge)!
The point of the diagnostics tool is that it will show you which pages (that have AdSense on them with your publisher code) that AdSense is having trouble crawling. This will help you to make sure every page possible is optimized well and at it’s earning capacity.
The report is generated weekly. So far so good for me but I guess I’ll only know if there’s a problem this time next week.
The ‘help center’ link goes to this page on ‘Why is my URL showing up as blocked‘.
Written on July 21st, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 10:07 pm by Darren Rowse
Earners Forum
Lee Dodd at the new Earners Forum discussion forum has just posted an entry on his blog celebrating their 3 week anniversary.
I’ve been watching the forums for the last week or two but haven’t had time to jump into them yet but from what I can see they would be a very worthwhile place to stop by from time to time as a blogger looking to earn income online.
The forums have already been joined by over 1500 members and have over 17,000 posts already (pretty amazing for three weeks).
Joining the forums might also be quite profitable also because it puts you in the running for a pretty amazing prize (actually there is 5 prizes).
Like most forums about making money online I’m sure you’ll get a spectrum of users with different experiences, different approaches to making money online and different backgrounds. This can be a little frustrating at times but I’ve always found that if you’re willing to dig deep into forums and stick with them you’ll find some amazing gems in the midst of them. In fact it’s partly through participating in forums that I learned to blog for money.
Interestingly they have private discussion areas that are limited to people in your income earning level. You have to reveal your income in an application to get into these areas where you can talk to others at a similar level to you. I guess they’re relying on the honesty policy with that one.
Anyway - I’m going to join up and have a bit of a surf around - I hope to see you over at Earners Forum.
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