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Archives for December 2007

Blogging ROI Beyond Advertising

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Money money money. How can we make more? Why am I not making enough? My feeds today seemed to be full of the same questions. I can understand it, we have all been there.

I think the main reason bloggers struggle to find ROI is because most of the advice out there is about adsense, advertising and commissions.

Blogging does not have to be all about the banners, aff and selling reviews.

What else do you have to offer? What more is there to gain?

We have spoken here at great length how bloggers can become master networkers. Networking alone brings in terrific opportunities that vastly overshadow most blogs advertising potential.

Then consider people like Seth Godin and Joel Spolsky. Neither are concerned about direct income because their businesses grow because of their blogs.

Of course for many of us the joy of blogging is its own reward!

Where do you find ROI from your blog?

Boring Article About Excerpts (Blog Design Basics)

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You are ‘designing’ a blog and you stumble over the phrase ‘article excerpt’.
What do you do? Ignore it?

I’m curious. Nowadays you see more and more blogs changing there blogposts to “Click here to Read the rest of this entry” posts.

The question about what people are using excerpts for was thrown up in “Click here to Read the rest of this entry” ???.

In general excerpts are a great way to condense content to give readers a faster way of scanning your article lists.

What is an excerpt?

A passage or segment taken from a longer work, such as a literary or musical composition, a document, or a film.

  1. To select or use (a passage or segment from a longer work).
  2. To select or use material from (a longer work).

Source: Excerpt on Dictionary.com

Speaking of blog design excerpts are all ways to generate controllable granulated content snippets from one article. Automatically! This way a search parameter, a list of article keywords, the article title, custom fields, etc. are little bricks (read: modules) to control my blog design.

My definition for ‘excerpt’ is more technical: Granulated content

Places on your blog where excerpts make sense

I was wondering if you have any experience with excerpts. Did you or did you decide not to do this and why?

Excerpts are a great way to enhance the reading experience. Additionally using excerpts will avoid duplicate content on your blog. There are a couple of places on your blog where excerpts make sense:

  • Homepage
  • Archive pages
  • Category lists
  • Tag search result lists
  • Search result lists
  • Original RSS feed(s)
  • Secondary RSS feeds
  • ???

Performancing.com i.e. offers full feeds but in a blog article you have the additional possibility of a divider to only show excerpts on your performancing.com blog homepage.

In general I would recommend to have excerpts in all list pages.

How-To generate excerpts

Speaking about different types of excerpts:

  • Original excerpt – Offered by your blogging software
  • Plug-In generated excerpts – Normally those plug-ins offer more whistle and bells than the core excerpt. This way you can i.e.:
    • Strip off HTML code
    • Cut off your generated excerpt after a certain length
    • Skip content (like the 1st paragraph)
    • Have your own ‘read more…’ anchor text
    • Fill the meta description (Related: 3 SEO plugins: More traffic with custom titles and individual descriptions)
    • This list could become longer and longer. For a reference check the tag attribute part for my preferred Textpattern auto excerpt plug-in: rss_auto_excerpt to see what is possible.
  • External excerpts (i.e. via extra FeedBurner feed)
  • Bookmark excerpt (i.e. via del.icio.us RSS feed)

Many choices…

Excerpt examples

You may want to check my excerpt examples. Link loving self reference is pretty useless because all links lead to my German page and send this article to moderation 🙂

  • Tag:
  • Category: (Diverse)
  • Search: (weather) – Full text excerpts with highlighted search terms.
  • Homepage: sankt-georg.info – Automatic excerpts with stripped HTML (except h4) plus my latest del.icio.us links tagged ‘Hamburg ‘ in the sidebar.

More benefits from excerpts

Absolutely useful for me is the advanced use of parameters to trigger different ad outputs, meta-descriptions and page titles. For me using this structure of different excerpts has a lot of advantages:

  • Transparent archive which is building automatically
  • Content specific ads = high CTR
  • Search engine traffic goes to single articles and not to the homepage
  • My pages are very often listed twice (and high) in SERPs (article + tag page)

If you are writing longer articles use excerpts on your blog!

5 Simple Ways To Avoid The Dreaded “Text Desert”

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With classic tact, Markus introduced new Performancing member David Lind to the concept of the text desert (not “dessert”, like cake…”desert” like sand and camels). David, in an appropriate manner, responded with a “what the hell are you talking about Markus”? (Just as I would have had I not known what a text desert was).

Let me explain. A text desert is an article that consists of long, unbroken patches of textual content. Even if it’s got great content, a text dessert often has negative psychological effects which cause many people to ignore, scoff, or have their eyes glaze over:

Some Negative (Health) Effects of of the Text Desert

  • Text deserts are not easily scannable, making them unhealthy for the video gaming generation
  • Text deserts overwhelm the reader and cannot be easily digested
  • Text deserts don’t have any interesting eye candy like children’s books (or the NY Times)
  • Text deserts make lazy people like me work harder
  • Text deserts can cause the human eye to get watery…and itchy.

Five Tips for Avoiding the Text Desert

  1. Use scannable headlines to describe and break-up sections of your article
  2. Use bullet points (ordered or unordered depending on context) to make your points as quickly as possible
  3. Write shorter paragraphs to make the reader feel less overwhelmed, and more accomplished (woohoo! I’ve finished 3 paragraphs already)
  4. Emphasize important phrases with bold and italicized text
  5. Emphasize your point with a picture

There you have it. Now if Markus tells me that this is a text desert, I’m going to shoot him;-)

Brief history of blog

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Since I seem to be doing so much blogging of late, I thought about an article I wrote a couple of years ago called BLOG: HOT TREND OR TIME WASTER.

In this article, I traced the history of the blog. Today, it’s hard to imagine that some may not know what a blog is, but it’s true. There’s a big part of the world that still isn’t wired in, and doesn’t want to be.

If you know someone like that, and we probably all do whether it’s a grandparent or a coworker who shuns the cyber world, here’s a primer you can give them.

Blog, or Weblog for those who still may be unfamiliar with this online journal, falls under that “Good News-Bad News” heading.

Good News

The good news is that, used well, a weblog can be an effective business tool to promote your brand and foster name recognition and credibility as an expert. It’s a social tool for building online relationships and communities.

Bad News

The bad news is that blogs can be addictive, as highly addictive as Free Cell, Solitaire, or Cubis. But far more entertaining.

Weblogs are defined as a web application which contains periodic posts on a common webpage. They’re usually posted in reverse chronological order with the newest at the top.

History

In the beginning, way back in the early nineties, they were labeled web log to avoid confusing them with a server log. Several internet sources cite Jorn Barger as the creator of the term weblog in December 1997. Dave Winer, who runs the Scripting News weblog, states that Tim Berners-Lee at Cerner Corporation, a particle physics laboratory, created the first weblog. (If you’re interested, the content of this site is archived at the World Wide Web Consortium.)

In February 1996 Dave Winer (link was http://newhome.weblogs.com/historyofweblogs but is no longer active) started his weblog as part of the 24 Hours of Democracy website.

In April, he added a news page for users of Frontier, a software program, and that page became Scripting News a year later. It’s still one of the longest-running weblogs on the Internet. Winer’s and Berners-Lee’s weblogs were like most of the early weblogs–political, business, or software related. The weblog began to mutate when people began using it as a personal vehicle for recording their thoughts, actions, and opinions. Weblogs became Personal Web Publishing Communities.

In 1999, Peter Merholz changed the word weblog and, for all practical purposes, changed society. Merholz, a founding partner of Adaptive Path, a user experience consulting company, has a blog that contains “Links, thoughts, and essays from Peter Merholz.”

In his entry Play With Your Words May 17, 2002, he told how he created the word blog, a phrase meaning “we blog” from weblog. “…it’s weird to experience how my love of words and wordplay has actually made an impact. Sometime in April or May of 1999 (I can’t say for sure when I exactly did it), I posted, in the sidebar of my homepage: ‘I’ve decided to pronounce the word “weblog” as wee’- blog. Or “blog” for short.’ I didn’t think much of it. I was just being silly, shifting the syllabic break one letter to the left. I started using the word in my posts, and some folks, when emailing me, would use it, too. I enjoyed it’s crudeness, it’s dissonance… As I wrote Keith Dawson after he added “blog” to Jargon Scout: ‘I like that it’s roughly onomatopoeic of vomiting. These sites (mine included!) tend to be a kind of information upchucking.’ Blog would have likely died a forgotten death had it not been for one thing: In August of 1999, Pyra Labs released (the software) Blogger. And with that, the use of Blog grew with the tool’s success.”

Present Day

Blogs had been around since then, but around 2004, they seemed to explode. Everyone, and her dog, has a blog. Check out the blog of Jasper, a black Labrador, if you don’t believe me. And that’s just one of thousands of hits Google shows. There are cat, parrot, rabbit, etc. blogs.

If you can think of a subject, there’s probably a blog for it.

Searching For An Idea/ Becoming A Blogger

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Sometimes I will have discussions with people I know about blogging. And they will tell me that they like the idea of having a blog but don’t really know what they would do with it. Finding a subject to blog about on an ongoing basis can be a challenge. I know it was for me. Because I really didn’t have anything that I was passionate about except my wife. And she didn’t want me to blog about her for some strange reason.

And then one day I bought a camera and started taking some photos. That was a step in the right direction. I started an account on Webshots and put the photos there. Soon I had nine or ten albums. But what to do next?

Well along came Jordin Sparks and she solved that problem. I enjoyed watching American Idol a great deal and noticed they had a message board and a simple opportunity to start a blog on the web. That was where I learned to paste a photo into a blog. But not my photos. They were mainly photos of Jordin found on the AI website as she worked her way up through the competition and finally won it all! She was and is the youngest competitor ever to win the AI title. So after awhile I figured out how to put some of my own photos on the AI blog and write about them. That was really the turning point of this whole adventure. Because I enjoyed doing this a great deal and got some very good feedback from other members.

But then the AI season ended and this left me with an issue to resolve. I wanted to continue blogging but had no earthly idea about what to blog. And I had rudimentary blogging skills at best. Reading various posts more or less like this one led me to believe that WordPress.com was a good place to start building a blog. But I was also reading that it was important to have your own domain such as this one, Virginia Breeze, and a WordPress.org blog. But this leaves you in the awkward situation of having to fix things if something breaks. It’s a lot like a renting vs. owning a home kind of situation. I was having trouble making up my mind at that point about what to do. So I decided to do both.

WordPress.com started out well and WordPress.org was pretty shaky for a long time. They were both personal journals and I would write in one and then use the Admin panel to save everything and transfer it all to the other blog. I had duplicate blogs and felt that if one of them sank at least I could find shelter in the other one. And WordPress.org did stop being able to post for several weeks. Nobody could fix it. And so I had WordPress.com to fall back on and directed my readers there. Eventually WP.org healed and has been the focus of my blogging activities ever since.

Do I recommend this approach in hindsight? Not exactly. It’s a lot of work. Plus I found out along the way that Google is highly suspicious of this type of activity. WP.com eventually achieved a Page Rank of 5 from Google. And that was surprising considering that six months ago I didn’t know a weblog from a cranberry bog. But WP.org continues to suffer from Google suspicions and has never achieved a page rank over 3. At least this is my assumption. They don’t call you up or send you a registered letter about your blog(s).

My suggestion would be to start out with a community type blog at WP.com for the first month or two. And then buy a domain and start a WP.org blog. Take what you have learned and just start over. But don’t duplicate material. And if your new blog sinks you can always go back to the security of the WP.com world for awhile until you are ready to try again. Because having your own domain is probably going to be very important some day. And you get to try out all kinds of cool plugins that WP.com does not allow. It’s your home and you get to tear out walls or put a huge garden in the back yard if you feel like it .

But all of this leads back to the original question about the focus of the blog. What is it going to be about? I have wrestled with that thought for awhile now and tried out a lot of different things. Basically it is a question of just discovering what you enjoy doing. And then somehow figuring out how that can be a blog. I don’t believe you can happily blog about something you don’t really enjoy doing. There are too many distractions and misadventures along the way. Why would you even want to try?
In my case I know that I enjoy taking photos and writing. I don’t enjoy researching topics. I like trying to be spontaneous. Lately I have discovered that I enjoy writing poetry. And I enjoy seeing the world through the eyes of other bloggers. So if you take great photos and live somewhere that’s very different from Virginia I want you on my blogroll.

I put all these things together and came up with a blog that attempts to reflect what it’s like living in Virginia and show people the many beautiful things in this state including mountains, the ocean and everything in between. Maybe I can be someone else’s eyes. And I am also trying to write about things that will help others in some way I write about medical stuff that I know about like migraine headaches and restless legs syndrome. I may start writing about depression in the future. And in a more lighthearted vein I try to encourage folks to slow down on the highway or take time to smell the roses. All of this has nothing to do with life in Virginia. But then my wife and I took a trip to Cape Cod last summer to see my dad and I blogged about that. Virginia is the main theme but there are related themes as well. And I am still learning how to integrate them into the main theme like garlands on a Christmas tree.

This would be a good place to start discussing keywords. But that would take us too far afield. Lets just say that there are ways for you to make your blog a coherent whole using your rational and imaginative faculties. Just remember that all the parts that make up the whole should be things that you love to do.

Mine is still an eclectic mix but it becomes more coherent over time. And it’s a wonderful challenge and hobby for someone who is drawn to this type of activity. You meet interesting people. And you never know when you will produce something that will make you almost instantly famous! At that point there may be income opportunities that await. But that’s a whole different topic and not one that interests me now. I remain a lowly blogger who is hoping to crack the top 100,000 blogs at Technorati in the near future and get down into five figures. Making five dollars a month now would remind me too much of my youth and we don’t need to go way back there.

Except that blogging does remind me of one type of youthful activity . I can remember what it was like to sit on the bank of a river and cast a fishing pole into the water. Sometimes hours or days would go by without much happening. But you always knew that there was something out there with a big reputation and when it decided to give your line a tug all the hours spent sitting there were worth it.

And I’m not saying those hours were a waste of time if you didn’t land the big one either. Because they were time spent thinking and dreaming about life. They were an ongoing reverie that kept the “real world” at bay. Somehow blogging has reawakened some of those moments for me. And so I share my experience with you and hope you will look around you and find something that is beautiful in your beautiful state. And then share it with us.

First Rule of Writing: Write What You Know (or WANT to know)

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Chris Garrett wrote Blogging What You Know last week. I’m usually so overwhelmed with writing projects that I’m always too late to Comment and add my two cents. But I like what he had to say so I thought I’d give my take on the subject.

Rules are interesting little critters, aren’t they? I write quite often about rules, and about the breaking of rules, on Sling Words, my main blog.

Many years ago, the first so-called rule about writing that I learned was what all published writers and editors espouse: Write what you know.

I’m pretty sure all writers still hear this because I hear it when I pop into writers’ conferences. I even say it when I teach workshops and classes.

Write what you know. Why? Because it gives authenticity to your words. By the way, this rule applies whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, whether it’s a book project or a blog on the web.

Now, people who don’t write fiction think writing what you know doesn’t apply. After all, you’re just making it up. Right?

Wrong! In fiction, writing what you know means not only getting the facts straight on your information plot but also finding the underlying universal truth that is as real for an American as it is for an Italian or a Japanese. It’s the honesty and recognizable truth that makes fiction come to life. And it’s what will make an editor offer you a book publishing contract. One might even say that writing what you know – the emotions you feel when hurt, scared, angry, or happy – is even more important in fiction because without that truth, your fiction will never succeed.

Over the years, I’ve put my own spin on the “write what you know” rule. If you’ve read some of my writing how-to articles or taken a class or seen me giving a presentation at a conference, you’ve probably heard me say it this way: Write what you know OR WANT TO KNOW.

I truly think if you are interested enough in a subject to do the necessary research AND if you have the ability to articulately express ideas then you can write on a variety of subjects without necessarily being an expert.

I also know that if you want to learn something then teach it. Researching and writing about a subject is a form of self-education.

So don’t be intimidated by not being an expert on a particular subject if it interests you enough to learn about it. Without realizing it, you’ll become an expert. I know I have on any number of subjects that have fascinated me enough to land jobs writing about them.

Should Your Blog Have A Static Home Page?

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I’m planning on starting a blog soon. I’m stuck with whether to have a static home page or have the blog as my home page.

Two of my favorite blogs, SEO Book and Search Engine Land (both are popular blogs), use different formats. This year SEO Book changed to a static home page. Search Engine Land has kept the blog home page.

Which is the better home page? Well, after some thought, I’ve come to these conclusions.

Static Home Page

If your monetization is mostly based on selling a product, you should have a static home page that highlights your product. This will increase your conversions because the focus of your site is your product.

If you want to point to non-blog timeless resources, you should have a static home page. For example, the SEO Book home page links to these resources: tools, glossary, and SEO guide for bloggers.

If you want to highlight older content on your blog, it might make sense to have a static home page. Darren Rowse of Problogger does this on his static home page. He has a link to his weekly video post. Also, there is a widget that links to his best posts of all time, his best posts in the current month, his best posts for new bloggers, and his personal favorite posts.

Blog Home Page

If you have a blog that mostly covers the news in your niche, it makes sense to have a blog home page. Search Engine Land covers SEO news. Most of the top celeb news blogs (as ranked by Eaton Web) have a blog home page.

If your most important content is timely rather than timeless, you should make your blog your home page. For example, Freelance Writing Jobs, run by our own Deb Ng, has posts on the latest freelance writing jobs. BloggerJobs.biz is a blog that covers new blogging jobs and also bloggers looking for blogging gigs.

My Plan

I plan on using my new blog to build a reputation in my niche. After a couple months, I want to create a product. I hope to earn most of my earnings from the product, so I’m going with a static home page that highlights my product.

Feedback

What kind of home page do you have? Have you ever thought of changing your home page?

Planning Your Online Future: How far do you look ahead?

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The best chess players can look ahead and visualize an accurate picture of how the game will play out, assuming a wide selection of moves in the present. Of all the skills that a chess player can have, this ability to look into the future and form accurate models of how things will play out, differentiates the good chess players from the great ones. Quite simply, the best chess players not only look the deepest, but also have a more accurate ability to perceive the consequences.

I think that the same principle applies to the Internet Professional. The most successful Internet professionals are the ones that can see trends emerging before the trends actually go mainstream. They are the ones that stay three steps ahead of the SEO curve. They are the ones who look at the truckload of gold at the peak of the mountain, and not the sparse fairy dust currently at their feet.

So how far do you plan your online future? Are you thinking long-term and running for the mountain peak? Or are you more concerned with collecting every last bit of gold fairy dust where you’re currently standing?