Skip links

Performancing

Main navigation

ryancaldwell

pMetrics Widget Brainstorming

by

I’m in the process of developing a sidebar widget for pMetrics that displays a blog’s “rank” in relation to other pMetrics sites. It should be released at the end of this coming week if all goes as planned.

In the process of building this widget, I’d like to build in other features that might be of interest to the pMetrics user community.

So let me open this thread up for suggestions. Of the data that you see from your pMetrics dashboard, what would you like the option of easily displaying to your blog readers from your blog’s sidebar?

The Benefits of Persistence: Part one

by

Speaking of persistence, just the other day I realized that I had a major social voting niche profile page with Page Rank 6. I honestly didn’t use any trick. I didn’t even try to build up the profile page. It just happened (as do most of the good things that I encounter on the web).

Well, it’s not quite true that “it just happened” – there’s a simple explanation. And it’s an explanation that anyone can duplicate: persistent voting.

Every day, I submit articles and vote at a handful of social voting sites. About half of them are niche sites and the other half are general (reddit, digg, netscape).

I participate in social voting for the sole purpose of building traffic and acquiring links (as you know, eyeballs pay the bills). But as an unintended consequence of persistently submitting to these handful of social voting sites for about 10 months now, almost on a daily basis, I now have several PR 5 and PR 6 profile pages. For those of you not in the know, that translates into leverage and power.

By persisting and doing what works on a daily basis, as an unintended consequence, I’m now able to wield quite a bit of power with each vote (and pass PageRank right back into my sites).

Anyone else have some examples of how the side effects of persistence have paid off?

Is Persistence Key?

by

For a long time now, I’ve championed the idea that the single most important key to success on the web is persistence. I think that a large majority of the “players” who try out the pro blogging scene want to see instant results and when they don’t, they give up.

Take for example my friend who works from home as a spiritual counselor and Yoga instructor. I offered to set him up with a blog, to handle design and promotion, and to split profits 50/50. He was excited.

I told him several times that you should not expect any major results for at least 3 months. I emphasized that perseverance would be needed at the beginning; that he’d need to stare the “great abyss of trickling traffic” directly in the face for a while, and not give up. I told him that the real payoff comes from establishing yourself as an expert over the long term.

One month into posting, he stopped, cold turkey. He didn’t have the motivation to persist.

I still think that persistence and perseverance are the key obstacles to online success. I also think that the need for these qualities provides greater opportunity for those who have them, because not just anyone can succeed at this game. It takes work and it takes long term vision. Success does not come overnight.

So I’m really big on the persistence thing and how the people who are thinking 3 years down the road have an advantage because most people on the web seem to be thinking 3 months down the road. Someone needs cash quickly? Awesome. I can get a great deal on a blog sale.

Yet, I’m now starting to realize that persistence needs to be selective. You also need to know when to give something up. As a friend once said to me “You’re not a quitter if you stop digging a hole to China.” In other words, some things just aren’t worth doing anymore. The trick is figuring out what to stick with and what to give up.

So what do you think? How does the new blogger figure out when its time to give up? What sort of feedback (from visitors, income levels, etc.) should a blogger be looking towards. How long should a blogger wait before doing an honest assessment of the state of his blogs?

The Great Feedburner Debate

by

Rather than write a lengthy post, I’d like to create an open thread for Performancing members to hash out their thoughts on Feedburner. Here are a set of questions to answer:

1. Should every blog have a feedburner feed? Or are there only certain blogs that should?

2. Does having a feedburner feed lessen your control over your own feed?

3. Is it worth keeping a link to your own feed on your site, along with a feedburner feed (see here for example)?

4. Does anyone really make any money off feedburner, and if so, under what conditions (type of site, number of readers, etc.)

Sponsor the June 2007 Performancing Theme

by

Each month Performancing releases a new WordPress theme to the public. Now, each month, we’re giving the highest bidder a unique chance to co-sponsor each theme; giving back to the Performancing community while building links. A win-win situation all around.

Sponsorship will be “blind” in that you’ll need to trust Performancing to release consistently solid themes. One thing you can count on is that our themes will be adopted by dozens or even hundreds of people.

Sponsoring a theme is a great way to give back to the Performancing community while simultaneously building a solid base of links back to your site.

Performancing reserves the right to refuse any sponsorship and will only take bids above $500.

So let’s get things started with an auction for the June 2007 WordPress theme release… Do I hear $500?

Blog Monetization Part One: Using Blogs To Promote Your Business

by

Most Performancing readers read this site to get hints, tips and tools to help their own blog. But one of our goals is to expand the way we think about blogging and how to use blogs

In this piece, I’m going to discuss how you can effectively use your blog as a tool to promote your business. The target audience I have in mind is the online retailer who’s either just started or is struggling to build a customer base. As we all know, it’s no longer sufficient to just build an online retail store, sit back, and expect customers to flood in. You’ve got to bring customers in.

That’s where a blog can come in handy. By setting up a blog on your retail website, you can achieve three main strategic goals:

1. Search Engine Candy

Many retailers that I’ve worked with don’t like the idea of putting paragraphs of descriptive material on product pages. Instead, they like to keep descriptions to one or two sentences. But one or two sentences really isn’t sufficient to pwn the serps. A blog provides the context to be more verbose and to provide a detailed, conversational description of your products (you can even throw in a little salesmanship).

Wondering what to write in your blog? Well, for starters, why not go through your entire inventory of products (maybe one per day) and discuss them on your blog. Aim for 2-5 paragraphs. Make sure to keep keywords and phrases in mind and throw them into each paragraph of your blog entry.

Just remember… when using a blog for your retail shop, the goal is to get products sales. With each blog post you should liberally link into product pages where the customer can quickly make a purchase. By doing this, you can also utilize your blog to naturally build deep links into your site.

2. Establish Your Expertise

A blog allows your business to establish confidence in the eyes of the consumer. Show the consumer that you know what you’re talking about and they’re more likely to trust you and buy product from you. A blog allows you to quickly and easily write authoritative articles in your business niche. Aim to write one authoritative article per week and within six months you’ll find a growing base of dedicated customers.

Writing authoritative articles pays secondary dividends. You might get free exposure from other sites in your niche. You’ll definitely build deep links into your site. Just make sure to submit each of your expert articles to, at minimum, reddit, netscape and digg.

3. Communicate With Your Customers

A blog provides the perfect opportunity to make company announcements, to promote new products, or to make limited time sales offers. While a blog does not replace the effectiveness of direct email marketing, it can certainly supplement and enhance the system. Anyone who has done direct email marketing knows that roughly 5-10% bounced emails is quite normal, not the exception. Chances are that some of those 5-10% will stop by your website and see your company announcements at your blog, when they may have otherwise been oblvious.

Ok. So I’ve given you some basic ideas here. But if you’re like me, reading alone doesn’t do it for you…you like to see things in action. Well, the good news is that for about a month I’ve been employing many of these tactics in a live web promotion campaign. In April, I and a few others started a web promotion campaign for a watch company in England. We’ve been using the methodology that I discuss in this article as the primary method to increase traffic and customers for their new online retail stores. You can see almost all of the things discussed in this article at one of blogs that we setup for their Watch Tool website: http://www.watchtool.co.uk/blog/.

After you take a look at some of the things we’re doing at that site, I’m happy to answer any questions you might have about effectiveness, etc. For starters, I can happily report that within one month we’ve seen more than a 100% increase in site traffic.

Finding Good Writers For Your Blogs

by

When I bought my 5th blog a few years ago, it became clear that I could no longer write and manage all my blogs on my own. Running a single blog well takes a lot of work (writing, promotion, ad management, etc). But running multiple blogs *well*, on your own, is borderline impossible.

The fact is that to run a good network of successful blogs, you’ve really got to work with other people. But finding the right people to work with isn’t nearly as easy as it seems. Below I list the qualities that I look for in online partners:

  1. Timely and Reliable (your blog can’t sit around for weeks, unattended)
  2. Long term commitment (you can’t be in the business of finding new writers every month)
  3. Capable and Productive (lots of people will show interest, but it’s the rare person who can actually make it happen)
  4. Passionate and Invested (find people who know their stuff, love their stuff, and enjoy telling other people about their stuff)

So that’s what I look for. But how do I find people who meet these criteria? Well, there’s really no panacea, but there are a few things you can do to find the best fit for your needs.

If you’re looking to get a blog started, and care more about the first three items on the list (as well as cost-effectiveness) then I’ve found no better solution than WordContent. They are eerily precise with the timing and reliability of their posting (reliability is priceless in the online world). And they are always there, ready to work when you call on them. The only thing you are really missing with WordContent is number 4 on the list. My strategy has been to use WordContent to build about 50 blog posts, and then to turn the blog over to someone with a genuine interest in the topic.

Here I should put in the disclaimer that WordContent is owned by Splashpress Media, the same owners of Performancing. However, I should also note that I was happily using WordContent long before I had any other relationship with Splashpress whatsoever. Right now, WordContent is putting the basic infrastructure in place for my latest Poker Blog.

So based on experience, I find that you are best off going for reliability and consistency at the beginning when you’re just starting up a blog. But pretty soon (3-6 months), you’ll want to find a real expert to take over your blog. How do you find a real expert whose still reliable and consistent? That’s a problem I struggled with for months until I hit up on the ultimate solution.

This is what you do. Post an ad on Craigslist describing the blogging position and the terms, along with a request that applicants email you with a simple cover letter explaining why they should get the position. I usually get about 30-50 applicants per Craigslist posting. You might also consider posting your position in the Performancing Blogger jobs forum.

Once you’ve gotten your 30-50 applicants who actually took the time to write a cover letter, email them back with a link to a 5-10 question application form carefully designed to weed out the half-hearted and the posers (see the link above for an example).

Of the 30-50 initial inquiries, you’ll probably get about 60% of them to fill out the application. But this is good because it filters out the lazy people from your applicant pool. Read through the applications and sort them into three folders: 1) definitely not 2) maybe and 3) definitely.

If you’re lucky, you’ll only have 5 or so applicants in the “definitely” folder. If that’s the case, you can move on to the next step. If not, you need to identify about 5 “finalists.”

This is where things get fun. With the five finalists, you offer them each $25 to participate in a one week competition where they each get to post “live” on the blog. This lets you get to see them actually doing the job, and proves to be invaluable in selecting your blogger. I’ve run this competition about 5 times now, and without fail, each time, there’s one blogger who sticks out from the rest.

I know that it seems like a long, convoluted process, but in the end, I’ve found that it’s the best way to find a blogger who’s dedicated and passionate while bringing a level of expertise and personality to the blog.