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Archives for November 2008

Reader Question: My Technique For Generating Comments

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The following question was sent in by a reader of Performancing:

Could you write a blog post about how to get more people to comment on blog posts?

No problem! Numerous people have asked this question as my personal blog as well as Performancing and everywhere else I write seems to generate comments. I’ll share my technique and explain why I use it and then point you to some articles previous authors of Performancing have written in the past that cover this topic exclusively.

The Beginning

Getting people to comment on your blog post starts at the beginning. This means your post title. Generally, forming your post title into a question is enough for some people to go straight to your comment form, completely bypassing the content simply to answer the question.

The Content

While being an authoritative figure is good in some respects, providing the answers to everyones questions within your content is a great way to deter comments. Unless of course, your readership loves to disagree with you. What I like to do is write my content in an open ended way. I leave room for readers to chime in and to share their thoughts.

The Ending

At the end of every post I write, I do my best to ask a few questions near the end. You may be wondering whats up with asking all of these questions? Each question you ask is a reason to comment. This particular tactic has worked very well for me, especially when the question asks for opinions or thoughts on a particular item within the content.

These three tactics have all worked very well for me. It is very hard for anyone to interact with someone else when there are no questions involved. Questions are usually starting points for conversations.

Other Resources

Over the course of three years, Performancing has covered this topic a few times. Here are some classics from the Archive.

Chris Garret – 10 Tips for Attracting More Comments

Chris McLeod – Getting People to Comment on Your New Blog

Do you have any advice you could give this reader to help him get more comments on his blog?

WordPress 2.6.5 Released 2.6.4 Skipped

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News has come around that WordPress 2.6.5 has been released which is a security focused version. The new version fixes one security problem and three bugs.

The security issue is an XSS exploit discovered by Jeremias Reith that fortunately only affects IP-based virtual servers running on Apache 2.x. If you are interested only in the security fix, copy wp-includes/feed.php and wp-includes/version.php from the 2.6.5 release package.

2.6.5 contains three other small fixes in addition to the XSS fix.

Now you may be wondering why they have decided to call this version 2.6.5 instead of 2.6.4. The reason for 2.6.5 is to avoid confusion with a version of WordPress that had been been going around which pointed users to a fake version of WordPress that was labeled as 2.6.4. Going this route, the WordPress team can officially say that 2.6.4 never existed and thus, you should continue to avoid links or notifications that tell you to upgrade to 2.6.4.

The version is already available for download.

Where To Place That Sidebar

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About 24 hours ago, I published a poll on Performancing asking readers which sidebar configuration they used on their blogs. Although the poll has yet to run its course, the majority of you voted for having one sidebar that is presented on the right hand side of the site.

An article written by Addicott Web ending up being the inspiration for the poll as Addicott takes a closer look and the reasons behind why a sidebar should be placed on the left or right side of your blog.

Sidebar On The Left:

  • Emphasize the content, not the navigation
  • People look for, and even expect, navigation there
  • We read left to write

Sidebar On The Right:

  • Blog sidebars go on the right. Period
  • More SEO Friendly
  • We read left to right

On my personal blog, I use one large sidebar that is approximately 300 pixels in width on the right hand side of the blog. I’m a big fan of the one large sidebar as opposed to the two smaller ones placed next to each other. Also, having the sidebar on the right just feels natural to me rather than having it on the left.

Also, thanks to the Slayers Custom Widgets plugin for WordPress that I reviewed here, you can now use your sidebar more effectively by assigning widgets to appear only on specific content pages. I’m using a similar plugin to configure widgets that display post meta data in the sidebar as a means of cleaning up the content area. Usually, things such as tags, related posts, and comments are displayed within the content. Thanks to the plugin, I can place that information within widgets and only have them appear on the single page view of my template in WordPress.

Conclusion:

So tell me, why do you prefer one sidebar configuration over another? It’s obvious that there is a science involved with one or the other but in my instance, I threw science out the window and picked the side that best resonated with me.

Old School Promotion Technique That Worked

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I’ve been asked by a few people lately on how my personal site, Jeffro2pt0.com obtained a decent Alexa Ranking. Considering my rank is just under 100,000 I’m not sure if that is considered low, decent, or a great score but I figured I’d tell you the promotion technique I used which contributed to the score.

My Focus:

When I started the site back in June of 2007, my sole purpose was to review new sites and services that were popping up thanks to the Web2.0 craze. Generally what I would do is watch a few different RSS feeds that showcased brand new sites or services that went online. An example would be KillerStartups.com. Any site or service that launched that seemed remotely interesting I would pick up and review. The big difference between my blog and the big boys was that, I was taking the time writing thorough, well instructed reviews complete with pictures and sometimes, invite codes.

The Tactic

Here in lies the secret. Once I reviewed a new startup, I contacted someone from the site/service and told them I had written a review and would appreciate a mention of it on their blog or, a link to the review. More often than not, they published a link to either my blog or the review. Sometimes, the service would place a permanent link to my review on their About Page. Why did I choose this promotion technique?

The strategy behind what I was doing is simple. Considering Jeffro2pt0 was a fresh blog that didn’t even have a year under its belt, I couldn’t afford to pay for advertising. However, I knew that if the site I reviewed ended up becoming the next best thing on the web, having my link somewhere on their site would benefit me as their pagerank as well as the alexa rank increased. I would end up receiving follow through traffic on top of search engine traffic from people searching the services name.

How It Paid Off:

InviteShare was a brand new service that allowed users to share their invitations to new Web 2.0 services which were sprouting up across the web like weeds. It was the first website of it’s kind. Jeff, the owner of the site was gracious enough to place a banner from Jeffro2pt0 onto the front page of InviteShare as one of the sites which had reviewed the service.

 

This move proved to be the one that put my site on the map as TechCrunch and all of the other major news outlets reported on InviteShare. Because a link to my site was on their front page, all of that follow through traffic appeared on my blog. TechCrunch later purchased InviteShare and the rest is history.

Conclusion:

Will this technique still work? Considering new sites and services are always coming online looking for exposure, getting in touch with the owner and letting them know that you graciously reviewed the service and would appreciate a link of some kind in return probably still works. It’s a win-win situation for both parties unless of course, your review was critical of the site/service. Thanks to some high profile links, my site reached a PageRank of 4 within its first six months of being online. Not bad I’d say!

Starting Out In Social Media

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Chris Brogan who in my mind, is the definition of social media has written an excellent starter piece for those looking to tap into social media. The post takes a look at three different scenarios. Personal, business, and Non profit use. There is one particular piece of information that Chris gives that I don’t agree with in a sense and that is,

Avoid writing “me too” blog posts about the latest news in your vertical. Chances are, someone else is doing it better, and your “me too” is just a throat-clearing proof that you’re not creating original content.

What is so bad about writing content that has inspired an opinion or a thought process and then sharing that on the web through the means of a blog post? Granted, if all the post contains is “me-too”
then I fall in line with Chris Brogans comments. However, if the post is a continuation or a different path of the original conversation, isn’t that one of the beauties of blogging in general?

Back on topic, I believe that it takes a special breed of person to tap into the power of social media. Chris is one of those people and there are many like him in existence out on the web. I’ve tried to tap into this social media craze and I’ve had some success through the use of Twitter but overall, I just can’t seem to put enough time or effort into the various networks to make them worthwhile. I acknowledge the existence of what social media can do but I’m not one of the ones making a living through it’s power.

To anyone who partakes on a social media journey, I wish you luck. For those who have had success riding the social media train, please leave me a comment and tell me about your experience thus far and how social media has helped you in your endeavors.

Ask Performancing: Personal vs. Authoritative Voice

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For our first Ask Performancing feature, we have a few opinions on the Personal vs. Authoritative voice issue, which has been discussed over at the Hive.

The question is whether to use a personal voice or an authoritative voice, and in this particular case, the site in question is a community resource site that caters to higher education: College Crunch.

And so, the following were compared:

I have tried to come up with a wide range of career options that nearly anyone with any interest can take a look at.

vs.

We have selected a wide range of career options that nearly anyone with any interest can take a look at.

and:

What are your thoughts on how the economic shift will effect higher learning? Let me know in the comments below, especially if you’ve seen other reports regarding this issue.

vs.

What are your thoughts on how the economic shift will effect higher learning? Let us know in the comments below, especially if you’ve seen other reports regarding this issue.

You may notice that the first statements come across as more conversational and informal, particularly with the use of “I” and “me,” which pertains to the author of the statement. The latter ones are more of collective, by using “We” and “us.”

While the authoritative voice does not necessarily only entail using “we” instead of “I” this is perhaps the easiest difference to spot–that is, talking as if directly conversing with your reader. This is definitely the best approach when emailing a relative, friend or colleague. When emailing on behalf of your business or company, then perhaps it’s better to write with a more formal tone, as may be required.

Some snippets from the discussion among our Hive experts.

deb_n says it depends whether one is writing web content or a blog post:

If you’re blogging and hoping to establish a community and encourage comments and discussions around your articles, I prefer [the personal] approach.

If you’re planning a more antiseptic and less community driven website, go with the stuffier more authoritative voice.

gerrybot cites the magazine approach, where the collective approach is indicative of a group mentality:

We see a lot of celeb magazines in the UK using this form, which seem a little more authoritative because you’re implying a group mentality, “We think the Sarah Connor Chronicles rocks”, which I thought carried a little more weight. Unfortunately, when occassions called for a personal tone “As a new guitarist, Led Zeppelin were a huge influence on me”, you had to switch.

But then some would prefer having a mix of the “I” and the “we” in one statement, such as hart, who thinks an author can cite the collective statement (such as a site policy or a fact), but also have a personal approach:

“We have tried to come up with a wide range of career options. What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments below.”

In my opinion, it does depend on the purpose and the context. If what you are writing represents fact, a collective thought, or a statement by your company, team or organization, then it’s best to use a more formal voice. If you’re writing a product or service profile, then it’s best to use a formal voice. But if you’re writing an article or blog post where you want to invite reader interaction and discussion (whether through public comment threads or even email feedback forms), then it’s best to use a personal tone. This makes it easier for people to respond, as they would feel just like they’re talking back to you.

You can find more discussions like this at Performancing Hive. If you’d like to post a question, feel free to do so at the comment threads here or email us feedback at support (at) performancing.com. I also dig through the community forums and even the Hive for interesting discussions. Our first question actually came from our former editor Ryan Caldwell, as posted on the Hive.

Blog Studio Promo Takes $1000 Off Design Projects

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The economy is in a downturn, sure. But that’s no reason to shy away from doing an overhaul of your blog design or upgrading from a stock/free theme to a custom one if the price is right. The Blog Studio (who has done design for our friends over at PopCrunch) is offering a $1,000 discount for any design works commissioned within the month of November.

For the remainder of the month of November 2008, all new design projects will receive an automatic $1000 discount. Please note: this only applies to new design projects with contracts signed by November 30 2008.

With only a few days left until November ends, this is a good opportunity to grab. Quality blog design work usually costs an arm and a leg, so with $1,000 off you get to keep an appendage, which can be used for other projects.

You can check out The Blog Studio’s portfolio for a sampling of their past works. Do get in touch with them if you need to know more.