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Using the Web2.0 Bandwagon to Jumpstart a Real Business

I was reading this story about a new “web2.0” site called WineLog this morning, and had several thoughts on it that I’d like to share with you. Frankly I was a bit surprised at myself. Pre- seven cups of coffee and shower I’m not generally this thoughtful, but I think there’s food for thought, and fodder for discussion here…

When I saw the headline in my reader, my first thoughts ran a bit like this:

How much did they pay to get that mention?
Is 53k partially targetted web2.0ers enough to kick this off?
Wonder if they built that using Drupal?

In the course of reading the article, and taking a look at the site, I managed to answer those questions and draw some conclusions. It’s those conclusions I want to talk to you about.

Using the Web2.0 Bandwagon to Jumpstart a Real Site

The first question was easy to answer: I simply don’t know, and really don’t care too much, I just wondered why such a mediocre idea had gotten a full write-up on TechCrunch — And the answer to that, is probably as simple as “they put a few web2.0ish things like comments (gasp, horror…) and RSS on the site and made a good pitch to Arrington.” Which led to the second question, and some thoughts on web2.0, Search engines and bandwagons.

There’s no doubt that dumb as we may find some of the web2.0 “oooh, i made a website!” silliness out there, if you pitch it right, and get a kick start from blogs like TC and others where the blog/web2.0 crowd is dense (pun not entirely unintended) you can get an awful lot of link love. And I’m thinking that if you’re smart, and build your site with Search in mind, you may just be able to jump the “tech gap” (the gap between your first 25k users and real users.)

If you’re a bit lost, go check out Om’s summary of the 53k meme that was doing the rounds a couple of weeks back.

Using Search to Reach Real Users

So, you have your idea for a web2.0 site like WineLog — You want to get users submitting wines and commenting on them, and build a community of passionate wine buffs that will add content, buy wine and recruit thier friends. You don’t want much huh? Here’s how you do it:

Build the site, put all the web2.0 crap you can think of on it (whilst not making it entirely useless to real people),
Season with AJAX, but be careful not to overdo it, as you’ll want people to be able to actually link to individual pages
Pay very close attention to the way your urls work, and make it easy for people to share pages by linking to them from their own sites using your preferred link text.
Do everything you can to bill it as “web2.0”, really, these folks will link to anything. and pay particular attention to the A-listers in this category and delicious tags. Do all of the normal things you would to promote a site, but do it “web2.0 style”.
Every couple of weeks, launch a new feature (an AJAX gimmick will usually do) and repeat step 4
Rinse and repeat for 6mts.

If you do a good job on every step, chances are that you’ll be getting some serious Google love by the end of your first six months, and that should be enough to take you to phase 2 – Real Users.

Make it Easy for Real People

By the time you start getting real users in though the front door(s) you’ve created using Search, — every page is your front door — you’ll need to start thinking about them in terms of revenue. Real users don’t want gimicks, they want simple things like:

To find what they want without having to think
To know where they are and what they can do

Im not saying take useful features away, particularly not sharing features, but do go easy on the real gimmicks. At this point it’s all about usability, and ease of transaction. Think about the original web2.0 site: Amazon

Where WineLog have Gone Wrong

Ok, so we’ve been talking thusfar about using the web2.0 bandwagon, and the link frenzy anything with a few AJAXy widgets on it can incite, but you do need to get the Search engine bit right in order to jump the tech gap in this manner.

There are other ways of jumping that gap im sure, but tech folks tend to share with tech folks, and though making it easy to email a friend etc etc are all things you should do, they’re not going ot get you real users (the non web2.0 crowd) half as quickly as using Search, and you dont want to be paying for your users or doing the PR dance with traditional media if you can help it.

If you go look at WineLog, the Search savvy among you may notice a few fundamental mistakes:

1. Page Titles

The biggest, and most obvious, aswell as damaging mistake is this: Individual wines DO NOT have individual titles. Eeek! In Search terms that’s a cardinal sin, and it’ll cost them big time unless they correct it.

The correct title for that page is: 3 Rivers Cabernet Sauvignon 2001 with possibly a ‘| WineLog’ at the end for branding. Titles matter a lot!

2. Coding

Oh boy, as a proponent of clean, standards compliant code, and a recovering SEO™ I was rendered near apoplectic by doing a “view source” on their pages….

Lets do this one by one:

Check out all the code in the of the page. Completely unnecessary, and serves only to push the real content farther down the page. Not a huge sin in Search terms, but it’s not good for sure.
Outdated, bloated code: They’re using a hybrid div/table layout that pushes the real content down even further (again) and makes little or no sense bearing in mind recent browser shares.
What should be both title and headline of this page, actually looks like this: 3 Rivers Cabernet Sauvignon 2001 — it’s a tag that has no place in modern web standards, but worse, it should be an
as close to the top of the page body as possible, not a million miles down. Useless.

3. URLS

Hmm.. well there’s nothing wrong with not having your keywords in your url. The benefit from such things is small, but when you’re making a bid for Search traffic, even small benefits are well, benefits right? urls like http://www.winelog.net/wines/Red are great, but http://www.winelog.net/wines/wine/963 is just a missed opportunity.

Tip: The reason keywords in urls DO make a difference, is not that Search engines think those urls are particularly more important than others, its becuase poeple paste whole urls on message boards and blogs that get turned into live links — those live links are gold, as they link to you with good link text.

I could probably go on, but im getting high blood pressure just looking at it heh…

By looking at where WineLog have gone wrong, you can (and so can they I hope) see what you need to do to get this stuff right. It’s not rocket science, there’s no seo-magic, (no seo is magic, its mostly either common sense or spam), just plain simple things you can do to increase your chances of coming up in the top 5 for 4/5 word key phrases on a community driven site like WineLog — which is, as this whole article has been about, the point.

Im sure the people from WineLog will read this, and I hope they correct these things and take the criticism as constructive and helpful.

Doing it On a Shoe String

The last thing I want to look at, is how you can do all of the above, every bit if ot, with almost no budget whatsover.

Remember my third question? “Wonder if they built that using Drupal?” Well, they didn’t. If they had, they could have avoided a lot of those Search mistakes without having to even think about them.

Having read some of their site, and Mikes review, the only thing they’re doing (planning on..) that may need some investment, is the “send to mobile” functionality. Even for that though there are relatively cheap web services that a drupal module could be built from easily. Everything else they’ve done Drupal can do pretty much out of the box.

Build a new module for the “wine” content type, and away you go, easy.

Nothing New

The funny thing, and it’s something that amuses me on a daily basis whilst reading about web2.0 startups, is that there is absolutely nothing new about this. It is NOT innovative to put comments and RSS on a site where people can submit reviews and send them to their friends — Amazon have been doing it for years.

But, this really is web2.0 — we’re doing a lot of the things we’ve already done, again. And this time, we’re doing it with new buzz words, and better communications (blogs) — it’s simply easier to spread ideas, and those ideas can spread very, very fast if you get the buzz right, and successfully hop on the web2.0 juggernaught as it motors by.

If savvy webmasters, bloggers and developers can weave a little Search mojo into their applications, then they may well be able to jump the web2.0 tech gap and actually make money.

Wouldn’t that be a shocker?

How to Get 53% More Readers for Every Blog Post You Write

You know from the 80/20 Rule of Headlines that the best way to get your writing read is to improve your headline. It can be a bitter pill to swallow when you realize that most people, even among those who subscribe to your blog, are not reading every post, but itâ€™s not just you â€” it happens to us all.

So what was it about the headline of this post that got you to read this far?

Well, itâ€™s not only that the headline makes a promise to deliver unique and useful information to my audience of bloggers. Itâ€™s also the way that it makes that promise.

The headline is very specific.

While certainly not the only method for writing good blog post titles, just about any headline can be made better by being as specific as you possibly can. Specificity increases credibility because specific details are simply more believable than broad assertions. Plus, a specific headline conveys more valuable information to a potential reader, which acts to draw them magnetically into the content.

Here are a few examples of ultra-specific headlines:

How I Made $19,931.42 Last Month With Google AdSense
In This Free 10 Chapter, 123 Page Ebook Youâ€™ll Learnâ€¦
Eleven Secret Techniques That Make Bloggers Money
Lose 36 Pounds in Only 7 Weeks
How to Shave 5 Strokes Off Your Golf Score in 3 Days

Of course, the single most important rule of ultra-specific headlines is that you need to be able to back up your assertions. And as Iâ€™ve done before, I break the rule in order to make the point (which is the true joy of writing a copywriting blog).

While Iâ€™m positive that being more specific in your post titles will increase the number of people who read your post, I have no earthly idea what the actual percentage will be for you. There are way too many variables involved.

So I really should have said:

How to Get More Readers for Every Blog Post Your Write

But thatâ€™s simply not as good a headline 🙂

Recruiting Blogging Partners

Over the last couple of weeks as I looked over my metrics reports for my blog I realised I am going to need to bring in fresh blood if it is going to go any further. Originally launched with four bloggers there is only really me who posts to it in any real quantity with one other regular contributor. While not a failure as such the blog is being starved of content while I am busy with my work. So I just need to invite some people over and problem solved, right? Unfortunately it has not proved to be that easy.

We have established that blogging is actually surprisingly hard and many bloggers will not make it. Having blogging partners share the load is an obvious and possibly very enjoyable, potentially profitable arrangement. I have described the benefits of blog partnerships early in Performancing history (wow that seems like a long time ago). Perhaps my natural positive nature and wide-eyed optimism got the better of me, hah. Fact is just like with the majority of blogs where someone starts a blog and can’t keep the momentum, the same goes for blogging partnerships.

In theory the guilt-factor of letting someone down does keep a partner blogger working longer and harder than they would otherwise. Inevitably though the reasons for keeping going and the reasons for not will compete for attention and many bloggers, no matter how eager initially, will cave into external pressures or sheer laziness. Only a low percentage of bloggers stick at it, part of a team or blogging solo, paid or no.

Finding Help

Aside from financial incentives we have two choices; find bloggers who look like they will go the long haul or embrace the fleeting nature of the beast and allow a revolving door.

I have found the best place to look for long-haul bloggers are blogs. People who have maintained a decent blog for a length of time have proved they have that special something. This brings its own problem of what are you going to offer someone who already has a good blog. You will either need to make good friends with the person or need to incentivise somehow. There are intangible benefits of being in a writing team plus you can offer a cut of the proceeds. Inevitably this will need to be done carefully and sensitively, and best not to make promises you can’t keep. There is probably no point in even approaching someone who already has a lot of blog output, where will they fit you in to their schedule?

For me the choice is clear, I need to accept the people I bring on may not post for long, might turn out poor bloggers or might never contribute. I could put in a lot of effort to bring in others only to find I am still doing the majority of the work. The upside will be there might be some diamonds in the rough, plus if they only fill in on the days I can’t find time to even look at the thing that could still work.

The first place to look is the comments of your own blog. These people know what topics you often cover and do not need any introduction to your niche. I find with my own blogs though the majority of people who comment are already bloggers.

My approach for finding bloggers has been whittled down to observing regular contributors to good forums. People who spend as much time writing a forum comment as it takes to write a good blog post is going to be a good candidate. If they write entertaining and intelligent answers with bags of personality they are just what I am looking for. It sounds like a tall order but you have to remember you only need one or two posters for a blogs output to be transformed. There are stacks of forums with many many posters, not quite a needle in a haystack. The big benefit is these people might like to join you just for the fun of blogging, no promises on either side required. Bonus!

The downside to taking on people new to blogging is they need a modicum of training. Not exactly a three-week induction, but they will need some hand-holding.

Train them up, let them go

Obviously I recommend anyone new to blogging would find it easier to use Performancing Firefox rather than get to grips with an unfamiliar blogging system if between you they can get it configured. Otherwise many blog systems have quick-start tutorials.

You will need to teach them at least how to log in and post text. For the first little while you can probably make up the rest as you go along, editing their posts to your satisfaction along the way. If you make changes make sure you explain why and how. You might upset the blogger otherwise and it helps no-one if you make alterations forever, at some point you want them to be able to do this without supervision.

After you have shown them how to post you will need to get the blogger to post in your blogs house style.

Style guidelines

You might think your blog doesn’t have a style but believe me once you allow others to post on your blog you will discover you need one, or at least the other bloggers don’t post exactly what you expected. Ok, you might be delighted with their output but I think it’s best to start with some basic pointers. Here are some examples you might want to use as ground rules:

Be careful with images. Images are great to include with posts but ensure your bloggers are aware of copyright do not include massive files that throw out the template or slow down page load
Impress on them to only write subjects of interest to the niche. It might seem obvious to you but believe me once some people start blogging they post anything that enters their heads.
Get them to at least briefly check their spelling and grammar
Make sure posts are formatted with good paragraph breaks etc. Readability is vital to maintain an interested audience.
Use HTML, especially for links but also to wrap text around images, provide bold, etc.
Be wary of new bloggers that they are not just out for links to their affiliates. No promotional posts or PR copy and paste
If they reference someone elses post ensure they provide commentary, you don’t want to turn your blog into a proxy for del.icio.us or boingboing!
Choose an appropriate categories – it is amazing how many posts are filed under “misc” or no category at all.
Ensure no edits happen once a post is live. This infuriates RSS users!

If your blog software allows it, set posts unpublished by default so you get to decide what arrives in the subscribers RSS. This gives you chance to coach your bloggers, do some editing and make sure the quality is maintained while increasing volume.

It’s about people

In the end, for all the talk about blogging and style guidelines, the success or failure of any partnership, blog or otherwise, comes down to your ability to work with people. There is no predicting how well you will gel as a team and all you can do is work at it. Agree up front there will be a trial period and you might want to make it plain you retain veto on any changes or decisions.

Finally…

Looking over this post I might have made it look like a lot more work than just posting yourself. It is a lot of effort but you would be glad you brought someone else in if you are ever too sick to post or would like a break, plus there is nothing better than making friends – that has to make it worth it.

Would You Show Video Ads on Your Blog?

Now that Google are allowing Adwrods advertisers to place click to play video on their content network (Adsense), we’ll soon be seeing them no doubt. The question is, would you want to show video ads on your blog?

unlike some intrusive advertising, users will have complete control. When a page loads, only a static image will be visible; the video will not start playing until the user initiates it. He or she will be able to advance the video, pause it, adjust the volume or click through to the advertiser’s site

Personally Im not keen on them, but not for any other reason than I just can’t envision them being successful for me.

HTML for Bloggers

HTML for Bloggers is a course intended for publishers who want to learn just enough code to make better blog posts, and be able tweak their own templates. When we discussed if bloggers should learn HTML and CSS, we talked about this course in terms of a series of “hacks” rather than a full on start to finish resource, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do. Read on for an introduction to the course.

What is XHTML?

XHTML is the eXtensible Hypertext Markup Language, and it’s not nearly as scary or hard as it sounds.

XHTML is what we use to markup text and images so that a web browser or other device can display our pages. It’s how we make lists, images, and links in our posts.

What is CSS?

CSS is what we use to style the text and images within our pages. It’s how we make text wrap around images, and how we make links change background color when you hover over them. CSS, or Cascading Style Sheets are responsible not only for how things look, but how they are positioned..

In this course, we’ll be focusing mostly on simple styles, as that’s in line with the target audience, but we will touch upon CSS positioning, and link to more in-depth resources.

Why Should You Care?

Modern publishing systems make knowing XHTML and CSS unnecessary. They provide handy buttons to format posts and upload images, and even some limited WYSIWYG functionality. So, if you have all of that, why would you want to learn to code yourself?

Many wouldn’t. Those that would, are those that publish professionally, or those that would just like to have more control over how things work on their blogs. Knowing a little about the mechanics of XHTML and CSS will enable you to write better, more professional looking entries.

Unfortunately, it won’t make you a better blogger though, that’s something else entirely 🙂

What Will You Learn?

As hinted at above, this course is being written for publishers, not designers. If you want to become a web designer, there are far, far better resources out there for you. W3Schools make a great starting point.

What you will learn here includes:

How to handle lists, images and links in posts
How to style those elements to fit your post and your blogs look and feel
How to tweak your own templates
Some of the theory and ideals of blog design
Some hacks for working with advertising
Resources for further learning, and tools of the trade

I’ve probably missed some things, as im kind of making this up as I go along but, we’ll add to it as we go, and eventually add a proper index page here.

Contributing to HTML for Bloggers

One reader asked if we’d accept contributions to this book: Absolutely, if you’d like ot contribute then either email me at [email protected] or send me a private message so we can collaborate.

Alternatively, you can post in the design forum or to your Performancing blog, and we’ll include the most useful ones we see.

Coming Soon…

like most of us, Im busy with a whole bunch of stuff all of the time, but I’m still hoping to crank out something on a weekly basis for this course. In the meantime, if you have suggestions, requests or ideas that you’d like to share, please do!

What Keeps You Blogging?

“I’m going to quit my job and become a blogger”. That is what I heard after explaining what being a pro blogger was, again, after first explaining what a blog was of course.

There is no doubt being a professional blogger is a great gig.

Cheap to start and maintain
Required skills are easy to learn
Most people have access to the required equipment
Can be done from anywhere there is a net connection
Not tied to certain times of day
Possible to earn a decent income
.. I could go on

So, what could I possibly see wrong with this picture? Blogging is great! Isn’t it?

Well, yes, blogging is indeed great. I worry though the amount of people who approach blogging like this

Start a Blog
???
Profit!

I have no doubt there are many people out there who have the ability to be a success at blogging just because they have sufficient drive and determination that they will try everything possible to make it happen. Got to admire you if you are one of those people. For me though it’s hard some days to blog even though I love it, how difficult is it going to be for someone who’s only motivation is money, especially when for most of us the rewards come down the line after a good few months of hard slog?

In no way am I saying it is wrong to have money as a motivation, I am simply saying that if it is your only motivation you might be in the wrong game. It seems to me to do well in blogging, unless you are churning out endless splogs, you have to love blogging regardless of financial rewards. If you can bring yourself to put out top quality content every day, even without expectation of profit, then I think you are on the right track.

Bloggers have many motivations and incentives to begin I am guessing. Probably as many reasons as there are bloggers. I first started writing initially because I had developed a personal website as a programming task and needed something to put on it (mid 90’s). After starting I found I would get interesting contacts through the site and it was a good way of keeping family and friends updated. Enjoyment of writing was the main thing that kept me going though. There was no way I was going to earn big from my sites, not enough traffic to show banners from the big networks and adsense didn’t exist. Monetization came much later. Funnily enough once I felt I had figured out the money side I returned to blogging for the joy of it.

The moment I realised that blogs were something very useful outside of personal soapbox purposes was when I started blogging about asp.net programming. I think that blog had more of an impact on my career than all my time spent at college.

My most recent, my digital photography blog, was started because I thought it would be a good way of helping me learn the subject. It has turned out brilliant in that regard, as I learn something new I post it up and in doing so it helps clarify the topic in my own mind. The contacts I have made through the blog have been great too. Lately I have actually reduced the space devoted to ads.

What was your initial reason for getting into blogging? What keeps you going? What do you get out of blogging outside of financial rewards? Please do let me know, I am interested to find out your motivations …

Content First, Links Last

Reading the question posed by Allegra, “Writing a Formal Link Request” and Nicks reply

Concentrate on writing some outstanding posts, or putting together some great resources on your topic

I was inspired to put my thoughts on the topic out here for discussion.

Obviously we all have opinions on these things, ranging from “SEO is dead”, through to the other extreme of “you will never get anywhere unless you optimise for search engines”.

First of all I very much agree with Nick. A bloggers job and primary focus should be on creating the very best blog possible for their niche. That means tons of quality content and as a bonus any other tools or resources the blogger can create. Without knowing the first thing about SEO it is very possible for a blogger to be a success. You don’t necessarily even need the traffic from search engines to succeed but great content, once noticed, attracts links which fuels search engine rankings as a side effect.

The hard part is creating that great content. OK, you will note I said your great content needs to get noticed, and it is tricky at first, but that aspect gets easier over time. You get better at it through practice plus there is a snowball effect, you don’t need to try so hard once people have heard of you once or twice.

Getting noticed can be part of your ongoing blogging strategy and I am not talking about pimping yourself, just make sure you are a visible part of your niche. Rather than writing “about” your niche, make yourself a member of it. Write content that grabs attention. We have talked about linkbaiting and networking your niche before so I won’t dwell on it here.

This is promotion, not SEO. You might call me on this and argue semantics but I believe it. The end result might be links, granted, but the focus is on people, not search engines. I would much rather have people follow my links than a search engine any day. Attracting the attention of bloggers and readers should be the aim, computer bots are a secondary fringe benefit audience.

Do I believe SEO is dead? For other types of website I guess SEO is still necessary to get that “cheap” traffic, for blogs though other than making sure your blog is not unfriendly to search engines I reckon your efforts are better focussed on content. If you see traffic as a reward for great content rather than a prize for the best SEO trickery I think you will create a better product and see far more success long term.

So those are my thoughts, what do you think? Do you send out link requests, perform SEO, or do you focus on the content? What do you do to get noticed?

RSS & CB Radio

Imagine if ATT had decided to send all of its telephone subscribers a free CB radio back in the 1970s, just to make sure the company was at the forefront of an exciting new communications technology that was sweeping the nation. Mass adoption of trucker tech by the general population would have been a silly thing for a monopoly to gamble on, right?

Seth Godin today looks back at the CB radio craze of the 70s, and specifically how people at the time mistook a niche fascination for a larger trend. The post concludes with Seth asking whether RSS feeds are akin to a true killer-app like email, or destined to join GeoCities in the discarded technology dustbin.

With any new technology, you can waste money and your all-too-important time chasing a fad while thinking itâ€™s an enduring trend.

At first blush, it might seem like Seth isnâ€™t sure what he thinks about the future of RSS. But if you follow the link he places in his closing question, youâ€™ll see heâ€™s invested quite a bit of his own valuable time in an â€œUnderstanding RSSâ€ lens on Squidoo.

As the Godfather of Permission Email MarketingÂ®, Seth knows RSS is not a passing fad or a niche obsession. Anyone who has spent time in the email publishing arena knows that people love to get content that matters to them delivered by email.

What they donâ€™t like is spam, viruses, phishing and filters that nuke desired content. Email has become too important to personal communication for that junk, which means many people no longer want to give out an email address to content publishers.

You know, content publishers like you, who realize how important subscribers are.

The fact is, RSS and CB radio are at completely different points along the technology adoption spectrum, because the concept of sending and receiving opt-in Internet content has already been hugely embraced thanks to email. Since RSS fixes the unintended nasty consequences of email publishing, it too will be hugely embraced.

Which brings us back to silly things that monopolies donâ€™t do.

The way Microsoft has invested in RSS speaks volumes. Feed reading capabilities are integrated throughout Internet Explorer 7, the new version of Outlook, and the Windows Vista operating system itself. Microsoft knows RSS is the future of content delivery, and theyâ€™ve made the appropriate big investment.

So… Can I get a big 10-4 on the importance of RSS to your businesses, good buddies?

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