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Archives for June 2008

Defragmenting The Conversation

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During the past couple of weeks, there have been a number of articles discussing the aspect of comment fragmentation. The problem being described is that, instead of commenting on the blog where the blog post resides, people are conversing on their favorite social platforms such as Twitter or FriendFeed. This has lead to an increasing problem which doesn’t appear to be getting better any time soon.

In my own experience, I’ve always left a comment on the actual blog post rather than on a social web service. I have a Twitter account, but 140 characters is usually not enough for me when I leave a comment. However, how many times have to visited the actual blog post, only to go back to Reddit or Digg or some other service and discuss what you just read?

Third Party commenting services such as Disqus or IntenseDebate plan on implementing features which will pull comments made on specific services and place them back on the blog. But until that happens, there is going to be bits and pieces of the overall conversation here, there and everywhere.

When I presented this topic within the Performancing Hive Forums, I received a number of interesting responses. They ranged from, could care less about community building as they have developed their sites around search traffic acquisition to being happy that anyone would leave a comment on their blog at all. Someone also mentioned the fact that they appeared on the front page of Reddit. The article on Reddit received 180+ comments while the blog only received 53. Whats interesting is that, you have to actually click through a link on Reddit and visit the actual page. After doing so, people are going back to Reddit to leave their comment.

I think Steven Hodson of WinExtra.com hit the nail on the head when he proposed that comment fragmentation was not the bloggers fault. As bloggers, we can not control where the conversation takes place. Readers will decide when and where they will participate in the conversation.

I now propose a few questions to the Performancing audience. First, do you believe that conversation fragmentation is an issue? Secondly, are you happy with the fact that your articles are being discussed at all, wherever that might be?

Dual Function Resource Lists

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As you build up your blog, and your readership, consider building resource lists that are relevant to your topic. Here are some examples:

  • The Best Magazines About X (e.g. The Best Video Game Magazines)
  • The Best Books About X (e.g. The Best Books By Video Game Designers)
  • Five Great Software Tools For Video Game Design
  • The 10 Best Games On The Wii So Far
  • 10 Essential Books For A Career In Video Game Design

These kinds of resource lists are not only easy to build, but they can also serve a dual function: 1) They provide useful information to your readers (information your readers are actually looking for) and 2) They can often be associated with affiliate product links, offering a steady stream of income.

Think about it: your readers are coming to you as an authority. They are looking for recommendations. Give them useful recommendations, and you’ve basically created the perfect storm for “purchase action”

Here’s a real world example. I own the site BusinessPundit.com which covers various topics in investing, small business, entrepreneurship, etc. Many of the readers of BusinessPundit are looking to further their business or business career. Many of the readers do this by reading books and magazines to get ideas.

So, it made perfect sense for us to create resources like the following:

The Best Business Magazines
10 Books on Investing Recommended by Warren Buffett

These resources offer useful information that matches the interests of our readers. Warren Buffett is a legend in the business and finance world. There was publicly available information about the specific books that he has recommended over the years. It occurred to me that our readers would like to know the books that have had an influence Warren Buffett. But at the same time, I knew that I could make a profit by linking to the Amazon product.

Taking It A Bit Further

It’s one thing to create a resource. It’s another thing to keep it in front of your readers’ eyes over a long period of time. You may think that you can rely completely on Google or other search engines to send traffic, but trust me: your biggest asset is your targeted readership.

Instead of relying 100% on search, I can think of two ways to keep the resource in front of your readers’ eyes over time.

  1. Create a summary page of all your resources and feature a link to it in your sidebar or top navigation
  2. Place sentence-ads at the top or bottom of your content

If you visit a single post at BusinessPundit, you can see that below each post we have a random, no-follow sentence-ad that is intended to draw attention to one of our resource pages.

I have found that this sort of single-line, call-to-action sentence-ad is one of the most effective means for drawing attention to older content.

What Are You ABOUT

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Since I’ve started to blog on serious level, I’ve come to find out that the most important page on my blog was the About page. I’ve spent quite a bit of time browsing the web and I’ve noticed myself looking for the About page quite often as the sites purpose was not immediately defined. I’ve been thankful to those who have a page set aside to describe what their site is all about. For those that don’t have an about page, you are truly doing yourself and your audience a dis service.

Tips on writing a good about page:

  1. First, make sure the link to your About page is in an expected location. Typically, the majority of sites either place an about link at the top or bottom of the site within the navigation links.
  2. In the first paragraph, be clear, concise and to the point in a paragraph or less as to what your blog is all about.
  3. The about page is a nice place to present an image of yourself to let people know you are a human being.
  4. For personal blogs, you can add profile information such as name, occupation, and miscellaneous information.
  5. Near the bottom of the about page, I suggest providing readers with a descriptive backlog as to why your blog exists. This includes highlighting the topics you write about, the goals you have in mind, and your inspiration for blogging.
  6. At the end of the about page, give your readers links to other places on the web where they can find your work.

So tell me, have you ever visited a web site that you wanted to know more about but yet, you couldn’t find an about page? Does this frustrate you? Have you taken the time recently to give your About page the love it deserves?

The Weekly Buzz: 100th Hive Member, Writer’s Block, and Money Makers

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The Hive, a Performancing project, was created to provide a community for those looking to increase the performance of their blog and network with the pro’s. Well, the professionals are buzzing around, and even I am learning stuff from the other members. The Hive still continues to grow, and there are many great things being discussed within.

Here is a glimpse into what has happened recently:

Hive’s 100th Member

I would like to congratulate “woodpecker34” on being the 100th member to join Performancing Hive. All our members are in good company with the likes of Matt Craven, David Peralty, Hartley Singer, Deborah Ng, Jesse Nachtigal, and other successful bloggers. As the Hive grows, the information and feedback continually improves, and you are missing out on great opportunities if you are not a member.

Dealing with Writer’s Block

Only two days ago I was dealing with writer’s block—thankfully, I rarely have to deal with it. But it was only after seeing the suggestion by Chris Garrett to try the “rubber ducking” technique that led to me being cured. Unfortunately, I opted to talk with my friends instead, but the original concept probably would have worked just as well… I think.

Money Makers

There are many members in the Hive that have been willing to share their money making strategies with the other members. It is nice to know, and if you have trouble making money on your blog, perhaps members of the Hive could help. Performancing’s own Ryan Caldwell recently reached personal records with advertising revenue numbers from Google AdSense. Congrats to Ryan.

There are also plenty of other discussions going on about alternative advertising services. However, if you are all for doing things on your own, you definitely want to be a member to find out how to properly approach advertising the right way.

Join the Hive

For $10 a month, you can become a member with over a hundred others which have already joined. This has only been a small teaser of what is going on. You will have the opportunity to see how bloggers really operate behind the scenes, and you’ll have some of the blogosphere’s best answering your questions. Finally, it is a great way to network with the pro’s, and that is an invaluable situation in its own right.

Update: I forgot to mention that the first Social Media Bootcamp will be occuring on June 11th. This is a great opportunity to listen in and/or actively participate in a discussion about social media. If you want to make it to the top, knowledge about social media is a great way to help you get there. We will be talking about it, and only Hive members can listen in.