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Archives for July 2008

410 Niche Watering Holes Worth Knowing About

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I remember Chris Garret mentioning in the Hive that if you want to add on to your social networks or get with the IN crowd, that it’s best to hang out at the watering holes where your audience is. Traffikd has published a great post which highlights 10 different niche social news sites that you should keep note of. These sites include:

Design Float – For Designers of course
Health Ranker – For health related content
Kritsy – A social site targeted towards women.

Be sure to check out their article for the rest of the list. As Traffikd mentions, don’t submit content to these sites if it’s not related. You are doing that social news site and yourself a dis-service.

Last but not least, I just discovered another gem where Traffikd has a list of 400 different Social Media/Networking sites all categorized for your submitting pleasure. If you happen to gain any measurable success using any of those sites listed, come back and let us know about them!

AdWords vs 125X125 Ad Block

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Late last night, I sent out a random blogging poll to Twitter. The question I proposed was this: As a blogger, have you ever clicked on an AdSense ad or anyone’s 125X125 pixel ads? Thankfully, I received a number of responses on Twitter, most of which surprised me.

Here are the responses as they came in.

  • chris24 @jeffr0: Not AdSense. I’ve clicked on 125x125px ones a few times, but I 9/10 times click on The Deck ads (they’re *too* relevant).
  • arickmann @jeffr0 I have clicked both adwords and 125 ads.
  • hans_engel @jeffr0 Same as @chris24 – never on AdSense, but I usually always click on The Deck ads. Love ’em! 😛

When Joost gave me his answer, it rung a bell in my head. No wonder 125X125 pixel ads were clicked on more than the AdSense block, they were simply more relevant to that particular blogs readers than the AdSense blocks. This is weird, considering that AdSense uses the content on your site as a way to display relevant advertising.

When asked why 125X125 ads were clicked on more than the AdSense blocks, these are the responses I received.

  • jdevalk @jeffr0 because those are usually actually targeted at blog X’s readers, instead of AdSense, where the targeting is crap.
  • JanKarlsbjerg @jeffr0 Because the 125×125 are less descriptive/informative than the AdSense ads and you have to follow the link to see what it’s an ad for
  • JanKarlsbjerg @jeffr0 The 125×125 may be relevant to the blog’s regular readers, but the point of adsense ads is that they’re tailored to each page

Now, I invite you to participate in the discussion. Based on your own experience, how have the 125X125 ads performed for you when compared with AdSense or AdWords? Is it all about relevancy? Maybe the 125X125 ads just look better?

Stay Focused on Your Blogging To Do List With NowDoThis.com

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I recently ran across this simple but effective web program: NowDoThis.com (found via Zen Habits). It’s increased my productivity by helping me stay focused on my to do list tasks.

To use this program, follow these steps:

Click “edit list”.

Enter your to do list with the most important activities on top.

Click “save”.

Your top to do list item will show up.

Start working on it. Once you’ve finished it, click “done” and then the next item will show up.

Once you finish the to do list, you’ll get the reward of seeing the “All done” screen 🙂

Why This Web App Works

The reason I like this web app is it only shows you one thing on your to do list. This helps you stay focused until you complete that task.

NowDoThis goes through your to do list in a certain order. This forces you to figure out which activities are the most important. You can also look at your activities in terms of return on investment, or ROI. (Read here and here for a discussion on ROI of different blogging activities.)

Part of my problem with to do lists is oftentimes I had a lot of things on my list. Glancing at the list would be intimidating. I would think “Wow, I have a lot of stuff to do. How will I finish it all?” But the important thing with productivity is just gettiing started. NowDoThis helps me get started without worrying about the other tasks on the list.

By the way, if you’re like me and you open a lot of tabs while browsing the web, I would keep NowDoThis in a separate window by itself without other tabs. This technique helps me stay focused. When I didn’t keep NowDoThis in a separate window, I would often forget about the task at hand. I would get distracted by all the tabs I had opened.

If you want to increase your productivity when you’re on the computer, give this program a try. Also, please leave a comment and let me know how it works out for you.

Breaking: Jason Calacanis States That AOL Is Asking Bloggers To Blog For Free [Updated]

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[Update: Jason Calacanis has issued a correction. See “Update 2” below.]

Jason Calacanis, co-founder of Weblogs, Inc. and owner of Mahalo.com, has just posted an interesting Twitter message on his account: “sad:Just found out AOL is asking Weblogs,Inc. bloggers to blog 4 free.If that is true it is very unfair http://tinyurl.com/freeblogging“. Weblogs, Inc. is one of the most prominent blogging networks throughout the blogosphere, and if this is true, it could be a sign of rough times ahead for blog networks.

I’m sure this story will be developing with time. This could have serious impacts on various blogging networks, their employees, and questioning how much bloggers are truly worth. I’ll update this article if any additional news is released.

[Update 1: I should add that our sister site BlogHerald reported that Weblogs, Inc. blogers are only paid around $4 per post around 3 years ago. That is already a fairly low rate, and I’m thinking that Jason Calacanis is right.]

[Update 2: Jason Calacanis has made a correction and has informed me that it is the bloggers themselves, not AOL or Weblogs, Inc., who are blogging for free to try and protect their blogs.]

[Update 3: TechCrunch has just posted some in-depth coverage of this story.]

Authority Blog vs. Hub Blog

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In this post, I’m using the terms “authority blog” and “hub blog” in this manner:

Authority blog

  • Filled with conceptually unique content
  • Posts are longer than the average blog post
  • Doesn’t link out very often
  • More likely to link internally than to other blogs
  • Posting frequency is not as important as post quality

Hub blog

  • Multiple, short daily posts
  • Links out liberally
  • Most posts are talking about content on another website
  • Posting quality takes a backseat to posting frequency

Or as SEO Book says:

An authority is a site that is linked to by many sites and pages covering that topic. A hub links to many relevant topical sites. It is said that a good authority has links from many good hubs, and good hubs link to many good authorities. (page 203)

This discussion is not to pit both blogs against each other. Both types of blogs work well. You have authority blogs like Zen Habits, which has over 60,000 RSS subscribers. And then you have hub blogs like Gizmodo, which is in the Alexa top 1,000.

Also, I realize that many blogs are hybrids. They have authority blog elements as well as hub blog elements. Hybrid blogs can definitely have success too. My goal in writing this is to teach you about these type of blogs so that you can structure your blog in the best way possible.

Pros and Cons of Authority Blogs

Pros:

Usually the content on authority blogs is more linkworthy than the content on hub blogs. Because the content is more in-depth, you can build your brand quickly. Check out Chris Pearson’s: How Can 10 Simple Articles Change Your Life? (via)

Cons:

However, it is harder to produce longer pieces of conceptually new content. You really have to know your niche and have a passion for it to continue in the long term. And for many niches, you have to be an expert to gain credibility and trust. Also, you’re writing less posts than hub blogs so you won’t have as much search engine fodder, or indexed pages on the search engines.

Pros and Cons of Hub Blogs

Pros:

Many bloggers start off their blogs as hub blogs because it’s relatively easy to create the content. They love their niche and can easily find stuff to link to and talk about. Because your posts are shorter, you can create more of them, which gives you a lot of pages for the search engines to index.

Because you link out a lot, your blog can be the one-stop destination for people who don’t have time to check out all the authority blogs in your niche. As you build your hub blog’s brand, you may get breaking news first because companies respect your coverage of the niche.

Cons:

However, your content won’t be as linkworthy as authority blogs. Oftentimes, it takes time to build your brand as a hub blogger because your posts are not as in-depth.

Consider the Niche

In many saturated niches, there are many hub blogs. This makes it harder for a hub blog to gain traction because of all the competition. However, in other niches, there are many authority blogs, but not many hub blogs. This often happens because authority blogs and commercial sites don’t like to link to each other.

If you setup a hub blog, you can become a top destination site for your niche because the sites in your space are not linking out. Every niche can definitely use a couple good hub blogs.

Hub blogs work better in niches that experience a lot of change and therefore have a lot of news. For example, the entertainment and tech niche is especially ripe for good hub blogs. To avoid all the competition, you should focus on a sub niche like movies or mobile products.

Authority blogs work in any niche but for some niches, you have to be an expert. A classic example are the make money online bloggers who haven’t made money online. These guys won’t succeed. Gaining expert status can be a huge barrier to entry because it can take some time to become an expert.

Consider Your Strengths

Do you see yourself more as a reporter or writer?

Do you like writing longer pieces of content or short blog posts?

Are you good a finding cool stuff in your niche (including under the radar but quality blogs)?

Are you good at covering the news in your niche in a timely manner?

Are you an expert in anything?

Feedback

How would you categorize your blog? More of an authority blog or a hub blog? Why did you choose that format?

Also, what kind of blogs do you follow?

Google: The “One Ad—the Perfect Ad” Is Worth Reducing AdSense’s Reach

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Google Logo

When you think about Google, you think about Google Search, YouTube, Gmail, and, of course, Google AdSense. Google AdSense is the primary product that has evolved Google into a world-class company, and—what some would argue—one of the greatest companies in the world. So, when the advertising markets slow down, you would expect Google to push harder, right? Try to find ways to innovate amidst pressure. So, why does Google insist on reducing the amount of advertisements displayed on the internet? The answer isn’t that difficult, at least from Google’s perspective.

This story broke around a week ago, and Saul Hansell of The New York Times discussed what Google has in mind for the future. Google’s advertising revenue was not as impressive as it could have been, and Hansell believes that this was primarily “self-inflicted.”

Saul Hansell covered a conference call that was held by Google last week:

Virtually any other company facing slow economic times would be interested in increasing the places in which it could sell ads. It [Google] certainly wouldn’t take steps to reduce them.

But Mr. Rosenberg [Google’s senior VP for product management] said that Google had no plans to increase its coverage because of its efforts to improve what it calls ”ad quality” — the idea that Google should only show ads that users actually like. Mr. Rosenberg said that the company’s co-founder, Larry Page, would like to see even fewer ads.

Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder, questioned if Google has gone too far. He believes that the company has decreased the amount of exposure that AdSense has by too much. While he believes that the company should have more quality and better targeted advertisements, he doesn’t want these actions to contribute to Google Adsense’s potential decline.

[Story Credit: “Google’s Quest For Ad Quality May Be Overdone“—Saul Hansell of The New York Times]

What are your thoughts on this?

Second Tweet-Up Scheduled

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I just received word that the second online Tweet-Up has been scheduled. The event will take place on August 7th, 2008 at 9:00P.M. EST. I attended the first event and it was a big success.

A tweet-up is where users of Twitter gather around and meet each other using our voices, going beyond the 140 character barrier. Not everyone is privileged to live in an area where there are plenty of tech conferences to go around, let alone social gatherings. The next best thing is to have a social meet up online where the home location does not apply.

This gathering of Twitter users is a perfect opportunity for you to get to meet other users of Twitter while at the same time, promoting your brand or blog. I’ll be attending the next event and I hope to see you there.