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Archives for October 2007

41 Reasons Why Your Blog Probably Sucks

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This list originally started off with 22 common mistakes that new bloggers tend to make. But while writing the list, other mistakes I’d made – and corroborated by other bloggers – came back to memory.

No blogger makes all of these mistakes, of course, but the list serves to help those of you who are still establishing your name in the blogosphere, and to remind you that you’re not alone.

Design, Platform, Architecture, Hosting

  1. No banner/ header graphic. Having a header graphic on your blog gives you a brand, even if it’s simple. Not having one makes a page look odd and makes your site less memorable.
  2. Choosing a poor blogging platform. It’s important to choose the right platform. This will be hotly contested, but I believe the best blogging platform is WordPress. It’s readily available, has literally thousands of free themes, hundreds of plugins, and is available for automatic installation with most popular hosting plans.
  3. Poor blending of ads. I’ve seen evidence that even a targeted article in a high-CPC niche getting 3,000+ pageviews in a single day is no guarantee of getting high ad clicks. Especially if the ads on the page are poorly placed and/or not color-blended into the theme. (Keep in mind, too, that with some ad networks, high pageviews and no clicks reduces the CPC of those ads on your other sites – if you have others.)
  4. Poor hosting. Good content and poor hosting makes for negative results if you become popular. Think Digg effect: if someone submits your content to a popular voting site and the story goes popular, expect your site to crash if your hosting sucks.
  5. Using a really bad theme. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but there are some truly bad themes out there. Having a nice theme has a psychological effect on visitors and increases the quality of your blog – at least in a perceived sense.
  6. Cluttered themes. Keep your theme at least semi-attractive and uncluttered enough that it’s easy to find things – such feed subscription buttons.
  7. Not emphasizing your best content. Do what you have to highlight your best articles, including plugins to show the most popular posts, those with the most comments, links to similar posts, lists of recent posts, etc.

Of course, design isn’t everything. You’ve heard the saying “content is king”…

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The Other Side of Blogger Credibility

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If you want to be known as an expert in your niche, one of the best ways to build your credibility is to get published in popular media – whether that’s offline or online.

It is credibility through association – books and newspapers are generally associated with expertise, authority, research and knowledge, so if you end up writing a book or a column in a newspaper, you can establish your own credibility by virtue of association (this applies to industry-leading blogs too, by the way – why do you think guest blogging is so hot?)

Today I want you to look at it from a different angle – how getting published in a major newspaper or leading website / blog in your niche is NO guarantee that you’re any good at what you do.

These days self-publishing is easier than ever. Anyone can put together 50 pages and call it a book – slap it next to your profile on your blog, spin some hype and you’re on your way to being an expert.

And you’d be surprised at how much journalists usually know compared to the general population – usually it’s a lot of spin coupled with access to more news / gossip / rumours than the ordinary man on the street. Once you mash together opinion with half-truths, hype and metaphors you have the makings of a genius column.

As indicators of expertise, publishing a book and writing a newspaper (or blog) column are superficial signs – highly effective at manipulating mass perception on a subtle and subconscious level but not enough on their own to demonstrate expertise.

Earlier this week I got an article submission from an unknown blogger. It was an average article, and while we’ve published ‘average’ and sometimes below average pieces on that blog before, I chose to turn this one down because I wanted to stick to quality. In my reply, I told the author that the article was not ‘good enough’ to go up on the site. Perhaps a bit harsh, but that was the truth at the time.

The next day I get an angry email from an acquaintance, another blogger in the same niche and a friend of the first author. I was summarily presented with the original author’s ‘accomplishments’ and their status as an expert (thanks to them being a regular columnist for a leading news site).

The incident struck a chord with me because sometimes people – good writers – get to a point where they are too full of themselves to consider that their work is crap. I’ve been there, and I know how angry one feels at being ‘turned down’, but the reality is that if you’re not delivering what your audience wants and if you keep relying on your reputation rather than the quality of your work, you’re going nowhere, fast.

When it comes to trusting a blogger and estimating their expertise, don’t use their reputation or the fact that they wrote at so and so blog as a definitive criteria (although it does help to weed out the trash) – make sure that you read what they write without any bias and then decide if they are any good.

Three New Extensions for pMetrics Plugin

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The pMetrics plugin lets you display statistical information about your blog either privately in your dashboard or publicly in different places on your blog.

We think it’s a fun plugin, especially the way it gives you a quick glimpse of you blog statistics in the WP Dashboarad.

Yesterday, we launched three new one-click install extensions that we hope all pMetrics users have fun with.

Affiliate Image

Allows you to make money by displaying the pMetrics logo as an affiliate link.

Latest Locations

Displays the locations of your latest blog visitors.

Search Cloud

Creates a tag cloud of used search terms, and links them to the blog’s search function.

Update: Guest posts on their way

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Last week we announced that some probloggers behind the scenes at Performancing would be aiming to write 20 guest posts within a week.

We are well on our way. Below I’m listing the blogs on which various probloggers have agreed to write. This will be constantly updated until we’ve selected and finished all 20:

Ryan “The Lazy Ass” Caldwell

Travel Rants – 7 Things I Hate About Traveling
Nusuni Dot Com: A. The Four Dimensions of A Link Portfolio B. 9 Ways To Improve Your Link Portfolio
Dieting Battle – Ten Priceless Health Tips For Getting Started and Staying Motivated

Ahmed “The Sure Thing” Bilal

Randa Clay Design – The Art of Niche Linkbaiting
Freelance Writing Jobs – Does Blogging Pay Less Than Traditional Freelance Writing?

David “The Cherry Picker” Peralty

Geeks Are Sexy – HOW TO: Cheap Wireless For Your Xbox 360
Freelance Writing Jobs – What Blog Networks Look For in a Writer?
Net Business Blog – Marketing Your Blog In A Saturated Niche

Dee Barizo

SEO Scoop – How Offline Distribution Channels Relate to SEO
Yehuda – Board Games Are Becoming More Popular
Groovy Vegetarian – How I Became A Vegitarian

Deborah Ng

http://wonderlandornot.net
http://perfectlyshapedlife.com
http://whereisthatmoney.blogspot.com

Chris G.

Vandelay Design – 5 Skills That Boost Your Design Career
Freelance Folder – My Top 5 Biggest Freelancing Mistakes

Basic Blogging Tip: Link-out like a loose lemon

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I’ll admit it. In the past, I’ve been stingy with my links.

And I’ll also admit that I’ve been stingy with my links because of Google’s PageRank algorithm.

But Google’s PageRank is a theory surrounded by too many epicycles at this point. And now I realize that I’ve been hurting my websites by being stingy.

No more stinginess.

Here’s why you and I should be liberal with our linking:

1. Linking to other sites in your niche draws attention to your own blog
2. Bloggers are lovers. They need some love to give some love.
3. Free-linking breaks up your stale link-network and dissolves bad patterns
4. Quality linking adds value for your readers and establishes you as an authority
5. Quality linking adds value to the Internet

So forget about PR leakage. Forget about monetizing PR. Start linking out like a loose lemon (a loose lemon is one which is not sour).

How to Easily Prioritize your Projects

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You have a to-do list a mile high and no idea how to organize it. Worse still, the requests keep coming in and you just can’t seem to prioritize. Has this happened to you? Here’s my advice for getting a handle on things.

The first thing you should do is ask your boss. Oh, wait. You’re an entrepreneur. You don’t have a boss. When you quit your day job you also quit the opportunity to pass off the responsibility of prioritizing. Don’t panic, though.

Whenever I feel overwhelmed, my best friend reminds me to write out a to-do list to get everything out of my head. Once the stuff is on paper, it never seems as daunting. I can stop worrying and start working.

So the first thing I suggest is to make a list of everything you need to accomplish. At this point, order is not important. Just make sure you get it all down and we will work on order in a minute.

Now that you have it all written down, spend a minute or so considering the following elements:

Time

How long do you think this project will take? Is it a quick fifteen-minute fix or do you need to dedicate a full week to complete it? Projects have a way of mutating once you start working on them, so you don’t have to hold yourself to this. Just try your best to come up with an idea of the amount of time you will need for the task.

Resources

What (or whom) do you need to complete this project? Resources can range from a reserved room for a meeting to those finance numbers that Jim promised to get to you last week.

People are the most difficult resources to work with so make sure you give them plenty of notice regarding what you will need from them. The best organized project ever could fail if Jim doesn’t get those numbers to you before the deadline.

ROI (Return on Investment)

What are the benefits of this project? ROI usually refers to money, but the return on an investment is not always strictly monetary. Perhaps the return is a well-trained team or a more productive department. In any case, the ability to estimate ROI is a very important skill for a project manager in any field. To learn more about it you can check out this article: How to Estimate ROI on a Project.

Urgency

They say that the squeaky wheel gets the grease. As much as you do not want to admit that you deliver Sally the Squeaker’s project before Whenever Wayne’s, this is often the case. If the deadlines and importance are no different, then it will make your life easier to get Sally’s project out of the way first. However, if Wayne’s project is part of a large presentation requested by the CEO, the urgency clearly lies there. Just use your best judgment and you’ll usually come out okay.

These are just some basic factors I consider before creating a definitive to-do list. You might find that not all of these apply or that you prefer a completely different method. Whatever the case, the ability to prioritize plays a major role in the success of an entrepreneur.

How to Make Money from Projects You’ll Never Have Time For

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Have you ever had one of your ideas ‘stolen’ and used by someone else soon after you shared them in a public setting? If yes, you’ll know the frustration and anger that accompanies such a case. It could have been when you were in school and someone else stood up and took the credit for your work, or in a professional setting where a colleague took your idea and ran with it (and thus took the credit).

It’s always about ‘the credit’, isn’t it?

Experience tells us to keep our best ideas to ourselves – why give away the store when you can profit from it in the future, right?

The only problem with this approach – the hoarding approach – is that we don’t always have the time to work on all of our ideas. And that means that for every project that we work on, 20+ others go undone, because of a lack of time. So at this point, we’re at a cross-roads – you don’t want to share freely because those are your ideas but you also don’t have the time to work on them.

I don’t believe in giving it all away for free – sure, to some it may sound noble but in terms of value you know that your ideas are worth something, and in most cases, worth more than the goodwill that will be generated from giving them away for free.

An acceptable alternative may be to develop your ideas and then distribute them, for a price. For example, think of Private Label Rights (PLR) products. In theory, PLR products are components of a ready-made business that you can take, personalise and get started with almost immediately (a good example of this would be the PLR articles provided by PLRPro).

Depending on the time available to you, you could develop your ideas to the point of a short 10-page report ($7 value or even free), into a 50-100 page ebook ($19-$49 or again free), into full-fledged running blog (which you can then sell to make a nice profit) or anywhere in between.

Let’s say that I want to get into the self-help niche but don’t have time for it. So what do I do?

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Google PageRank Epicycles: Why the value of links is here to stay even if the PageRank theory is dead

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Google has this theory called PageRank, just like Ptolemy had a geocentric theory of the solar system.

As with any theory, as anomalies show up in the theory, Google (and geocentric theorists) manually jerryrig their theory with epicycles. Eventually, their theory is going to break down…

…but, mind you, not the reality that their theory is modeling.

In the case of PageRank, Google is manually adjusting the PageRank of high profile sites and using them as “whipping boys” to set an example. But manual adjustment is like throwing in epicycles to save a bad theory.

In reality, links will always retain value because they will always be the most fundamental metric of site popularity. And it will always be true that people will try to gain “perceived” value by purchasing links.

But that’s no different than a college education. Some terribly inept people effectively buy and party their way to a 4 year diploma (anyone can pass through 4 years of college these days) and in effect manipulate the system. They then have credentials to make themselves look valuable to gullible companies who haven’t developed a system for weeding them out.

But the fact is that this phenomenon of passing inept people through college will not destroy the college system. There is nothing good to replace it. And terribly inept people will continue to make it through, landing six figure jobs for which they are not really qualified.

The same holds true for linkage. There is nothing good to replace “the link” when analyzing “value” algorithmically. Links are the fundamental units of inter-site relationships.

Google’s epicyclic solution this time around seems be to penalize the high-profile linkers. It’s a short term solution for a theory that’s on the collapse.

Instead of manual jerryrigging, they should give up the theory and start from scratch.

A good place to start would be a proper analysis of the 4 Dimensions of a Link Portfolio?

In other words, why not buffer the PageRank of sites whose link portfolios are completely out of whack?

That would solve the problem. Webmasters would stop seeing their PageRank go up because of Text Link Ads. The TLA economy would stop perpetuating itself. The bubble would burst. And Google would have done what they normally do well: naturally force the web to conform to principles that encourage quality.

Yes, it is true that a good SEO could simulate the quality of a good link portfolio. Well, good for them. Maybe they’ll even use quality as a method to achieve the simulation…which raises the interesting question of when a simulation becomes the real thing…but that’s another story.