So you want to sell products directly from your blog? We have already decided it could be a great idea for creating revenue, let’s take a look at how exactly we add ecommerce capability to your blog.
[Read more…] about BlogCommerce HOW TO: Adding Ecommerce To Your Blog
by nickw
Some of you may have noticed the absense of Performancing author Peter Brady of late. He’s been taking some time of as his wife Sophie brought little Isabella Eve Brady into the world 🙂
Mum is doing ok, but needs a little time to recover, and Peter’s busy making sure that all goes smoothly, and little Isabella is doing great, and has a VERY healthy set of lungs on her by all accounts.
Contratulations Peter and Sophie, and welcome Isabella!
Only a tiny percentage of web users even know what RSS is and even fewer of that group actually use a feed reader. Are you missing out on subscribers by not serving the majority of your readers with an easy way to subscribe?
Probably more than 80% of your readers will not arrive via your RSS feed. Just take a look at your stats, how many visitors do you get in a day. Now look at your feed stats … doesn’t add up does it? You are right now more than likely depending on visitors who like your blog bookmarking or remembering your URL. Of course if your niche is bloggers and blogging then your percentage may well be higher but even here there are a lot of people who do not arrive via RSS, we just have to look at our numbers to see that is the case. If a professional blogging blog is losing subscribers, people who you would expect to be RSS savvy, what about your niche?
There is a solution to this. Everyone that has used the internet for a little while will have an email account. The vast majority will know about email newsletters. Turn your RSS feed into an email list.
Email? This is the age of Web 2.0!
Yes, a bit old-school, but then so are your readers probably. You might well be an early adopter but the mainstream audience by definition is not so you need to pull them along with you.
The good news is it need not cost you any money. First take a look at your favourite blog systems plugin and modules pages. For example there is a pretty neat plugin for wordpress. Be aware though the majority of these plugins will require some setting up with databases and the like.
Most people will not want to be bothering with all that so this is where Feedblitz comes in. There might well be other services like this but I just heard about this one and am really pleased to discover it. Feedblitz is a free service both to publishers and subscribers. If you want premium features like template control and mailouts more than once a day then you can pay a premium of $4.95 per feed per month up to $24.95 per month for the “pro plus” service.
It also integrates with Feedburner, neat.
After signing up you choose to “syndicate a new feed for others to receive by mail” and enter your feed url.
Once you feed is setup you can either tweak your template if you have gone for the premium service or you can simply pick up the signup form HTML and paste it into your blog template. That’s it!
The service gives you basic stats for your email subscriptions and you can export your list for use in another program. Apparently they are working on an API too.
So what are you waiting for? If you want people to return to your blog you are going to need to give them some encouragement and make it easy for them, this might just be the solution! Let us know how you get on.
by nickw
Video ads, or rich media ads have been a bone of contention among conventional web publishers for years, but as broadband penetration continues to improve, and browser/pc capability follows, it was only ever a matter of time before someone tried to jump onto the blog bandwagon with video ads.
As you can see from the pic on the right, they’re kind of attractive looking, or at least I think so, but the real question is, would you show these ads on your blog?
Steve, who pointed me at the press release from Vive Networks about the launch says he doubts bloggers will want to show such obnoxious ads on their websites, and mostly I agree. It does depend on the type of blog though, and for product bloggers, if not with Vive, who look very much like they’re hoping like hell to make a big enough splash to attract some advertisers! then with some ad network video ads may be a good thing.
They apparently pay on a CPM or CPC basis, the choice being yours, but there are a few things that worry me deeply about this announcement.
Their sample ad formats ARE attractive though, and i’ve no wish to see them fail (yet) so whether they’re hopeful vapourware or the next big thing, good luck to them. At the very least it’ll be fun to see how this pans out, assuming of course they even get off the starting block.
When we blog, it is often easy to write and post as soon as the idea comes to us. While you might be more motivated to write when you feel inspired it could be worth your while not posting right away. Any comedian will tell you, it’s not just what you say, you need great timing too.
Visitors will arrive at your blog on their own schedule. This is not like television or radio where you can guarantee the bulk of your audience will see the content you want them to see at the time you want them to see it. With this in mind we need to be conscious about our posting patterns.
First of all we want there to be a good chance of your return visitor seeing fresh content. If they do not see anything new there might be a thought in their mind that your blog is going stale and they should unsubscribe.
Secondly you want your really good stuff to get prominence, if you post fluff after your best post of the day you might be reducing the chances of subscriptions as the first impression will be the fluff rather than the most representative work.
Both of these factors come down to timing. The way you can work out your posting schedule is by looking at your stats.
Readers will come to expect a certain amount of posts in a certain time frame. You set this rhythm. Once expectations have been set it is good to keep this rhythm up. If you are not sure you will be able to keep the pace up it is worth moderating your output at the start, it is worse to break expectations than to exceed them.
If you find you are able on some days to write many great new posts and on others struggle to do just the one it might be worth storing some up. Many blog packages allow you to create posts as draft not publish them live so it is a simple case of publishing when you need to.
Obviously some posts will be time sensitive, such as scoops or news, but others are topics that could work at any time.
Are there times where the bulk of your traffic arrives? We have bloggers here at Performancing in several time zones so our posting tends to be spread over the day. If all your posters are in the same time zone then you might want to look at your time of day stats.
You want to have your best work in place before the bulk of your traffic arrives. It is a bit early to draw conclusions on Performancing (we have only a couple of weeks of data!) but on other blogs I see a “double-hump” where people log on in their lunch hour and again at night building up around 7-8pm. Business or technical blogs might see traffic spike as western europe wakes up, then eastern USA and then western USA, while more leisure oriented topics might see more “spare time” surfing.
While you don’t want to be particularly deadline driven (this isn’t a newsroom!) you don’t ideally want to have great content posted after your audience has been and gone. Yes a proportion of your audience will arrive via RSS so this means they will have it waiting for them, but there is nothing to suggest that everyone reads every message in their feeds, I certainly don’t.
Is there a certain day where you get more comments? You might want to leave more conversational posts to those days. I find Mondays are very busy and people seem to want to get on with work while later in the week and weekends people seem to be happy to hang around and comment. Even on more business type blogs thursday seems to attract a more “sticky” audience.
On some blogs only the real hardcore seem to visit on a weekend while on others the search traffic increases. This change in visitor type affects everything from how many comments you receive, which posts get read and what advertising gets clicked. It might be worth testing different ad rotations if you see this trend with your blog.
One factor I haven’t mentioned yet is other blogs in your niche. Is there a certain day when everyone seems to post? Are there regularly slow news days? Maybe you could get more attention, links and tags on days where it is quiet, or maybe the reason why everyone posts on certain days is because on the quiet days posts go down like a lead balloon. It is worth testing the theory either way.
It is worth taking a look at how timing affects your blog, your audience and your niche. You might find knowing the rhythm of your blog gives you that little more advantage. Content might be king but timing is everything!
by nickw
Have you ever watched, in slow motion horror as a blog you subscribe to gets further and further away from what made you subscribe in the first place? I have, and it’s happening so frequently now that despite touching briefly on it in other posts, I’d now like to look at the probem specifically.
The problem in brief is that some, and by my reckoning, many, bloggers start off very focused on their core topic. But as they run dry of things to say, usually at around the same time that their subscriber base starts to really get into interesting figures, they start to wander wildly off-topic. It’s particularly common among those that blog on tech, media and marketing issues but most likely applies to all of us.
Unfortunately, I know about this problem from experience. Im probably one of the worst offenders. Having said that though, it puts me in kind of a good position to talk about it eh?
I think there are a few major reasons bloggers start going wildly off-topic, to the detriment of their blogs:
I feel it is, but I speak purely as one blog reader, not the many. For me, I’ve been absolutely aghast at what I’ve seen coming out of no less than three of my regular reads the last few months. And, they don’t seem to be getting better. It seems once you start down this slippery slope, it really does begin to build momentum. Right to the point where you become YATB™ (Yet Another Tech Blog).
Everyone and his dog is out there reporting that Google did this, RSS will do that, some A-lister said (insert something stupid here) — but yet despite the commoditization of tech news, specialist, knowledgeable bloggers seem destined to taste the forbidden fruit, and turn a good blog into YATB. It’s distressing.
And worse, like I said earlier, I’ve done this myself.
The inevitable and sad results of this straying from a blogs core topic are these:
Well, I reckon you can see where I’m going with this right? It’s a suggestion to those bloggers that rather than start a personal blog, for when they want to ramble off topic (which is no bad thing in itself!) wish to participate in off-topic conversations on their main blog.
Try 80 / 20 – Make no more than 1 in 5 posts veer off your subject, or take your readers outside of your blogs scope. It’s not a tried and tested recipe for success, just a suggestion. It seems like a sensible way to approach the issue.
I’d like to know if:
So come on, let’s hear it. What’s the deal with wandering off-topic on blogs, and can the 80/20 rule help or not?
News that Vibrantmedia has received $25 million in fresh funding has renewed interest in their form of advertising. Why does IntelliTxt cause so much heated debate?
Bloggers are often keenly interested in another revenue stream. We are especially interested if this revenue stream can play alongside our existing advertising rather than replace it. It seems to me you could quite happily use IntelliTxt along with Adsense and Chitika. The question is, will IntelliTXT be good for bloggers?
If you are new to IntelliTxt the way it works is quite different from what we have grown used to. Rather than the advertising appear in the blog borders and fringes of our content, the way IntelliTxt works is to analyse your copy and replace certain words with JavaScript links. These links are then given rollover tooltip like popup layers which show the advert and a link through to the advertiser. They are kind of like adsense ads that appear in the copy when rolled over. You can see a demo here.
I have to believe this is an opportunity for bloggers so we do need to take a good look at this. There is no doubt in my mind that next year we will see more and more of this appearing on blogs we visit.
Amy Valenzuela is quoted on Threadwatch as saying
Vibrant Media has never proclaimed that IntelliTXT ads are the best fit for blogs, currently blogs represent less than 5% of network.
You could take this to mean that they are not interested in bloggers. Personally, I take this to mean the blog market is an untapped resource that, newly invigorated with $25 mill, they will be going after with gusto. This could be extra cash in your pocket.
So what’s the problem?
If you were to run IntelliTxt on your blog any one of the words or phrases in your post could become an advert providing it wasn’t already a link. This merging of content and advertising is where the debate begins. Where does the content end and where does the advertising begin? Many complained about Forbes using this type of advertising. Opponents say this crosses the line.
I don’t see a problem with it personally. The links are quite obviously visibly NOT normal hyperlinks. I’m not even sure the claims that people are deceived has any weight when the self same people are formatting adsense so it looks like navigation or content.
What do you guys think?
Would you be willing to give it a try with your audience or would you not touch it with a ten foot pole and a bottle of bleach?
When you think you have found a good blog niche it is worth spending some extra time to really look to see if the numbers work and if you could make money from the niche.
You might want to start a blog for the love of the topic of course but Performancing is all about professional blogging. Let’s take it as read that you will want your blog to generate income. While we have touched on the topic of choosing a niche and niche monetization potential a couple of times before, just recently I have been researching niches for my next new blog. I thought you might find my process I have been going through interesting.
My first step after shortlisting lots and lots of potential topics was to take a big step back and look at each of the candidates with fresh eyes. While looking over my shortlist I realised right away that only two topics were really viable to actually write about on a regular basis. Wishful thinking alone would not generate content so I was left with two choices.
Just using gut instinct there is nothing to choose between the two topics. They couldn’t be more different in nature. Both interest me the same amount, both would probably be as difficult to write about, I have people to rope in to help me with either. Both are very competitive markets in terms of getting a fair share of attention and traffic (no point in making it too easy on myself, heh). All what separates them is how well the score on revenue.
One niche is very heavy on specific product details with lots of data sheets and specifications and suchlike. Brand names are in abundance and product names are easily recognised. This alone is a good sign, while the other topic has products and merchants they are more category generic, commodity items.
Digging around the forums confirmed this is surprisingly a hard-nosed topic. Data data data! Product names are used a lot in discussion, with fans of one product having battles with another for whose purchase was best. Even better the niche is very accessorised, after the initial purchase decision the same people are returning for advice on all manner of accessories at all price points.
Looking at my other niche it is a far different picture. The topic is a bit more fluffy and information heavy. Forums are full of information about the topic but any mention of products is quite low key, mostly audio, book and training courses. Author names do come up often and some of the classes are very expensive, there is obviously money to be made, but less tightly focused. There are no clear winners in terms of merchants names mentioned or specific brand names. Seems people recommend local products and suppliers as much ecommerce stores.
Tip: Search for forums, newsgroups and email discussion lists and look over the message archives. Look out for signs that products are discussed and in how much detail. Are features and brands important or do the niche merchants only deal in commodity, generic items?
I am quickly finding that the product-heavy niche is definitely a rich seam on the affiliate side. There is lots of competition in terms of merchants, a reasonable 5% payout, and lots of scope for affiliate links in the topic. A search on Google shows many ads are affiliates hawking merchants products, they obviously convert too.
My fluffy niche had only one or two merchants of any note outside of Amazon. Searches on Google did bring up affiliates, as did eBay. Commission payouts were low though and the merchants sites unsophisticated. A bad sign is prominent numbers for telephone ordering – guaranteed to kill an ecommerce commission!
Tip: Find merchants with affiliate schemes, think to yourself if you would buy from them. Look at prices, commission payouts and look to see if affiliate marketers are selling using adwords. If they are using their own money then there is likely money to be made.
Taking a different approach the fortunes of each reverse somewhat. Rather than looking at what products are available to discuss but looking at products to sell or produce, my warm and fuzzy touchy-feely topic looks a little healthier. Because there are no clear winners in terms of merchants or products, and the products ranging from very cheap to very expensive, perhaps that is an avenue. Some of the products could be digital also, which does make things easier.
Tip: A lack of information products may mean an opportunity or it might mean there is no market for the information. If there are great forums that tell you everything you need to know maybe the information is already there and provided for free? Some good books and expensive courses hints that there might be an opportunity for customised training, ebooks or audio courses.
Product-heavy means lots of reviews and product comparisons. You just know this also means good advertising opportunity and I wasn’t disappointed. Doing a search for [product name] results in many made-for-adsense spam sites. On the downside this is lots of competition for search traffic, on the plus side they would not be filling the search engines with this spam if it didn’t pay out! Chitika search on [product name] brought up exactly the right result (good price too..). Overture bid tool showed keywords at $0.60, even $4.20 for specific products! It might be because nearly Christmas and they will not necessarily translate into Google Adsense payouts but .. wooah.
Searching for the other niche topics did bring up adsense ads, no spam though that I could see other than some spammy directories. Chitika .. well, Chitika got confused. Not good. Overture prices for this topic were around the $1.50 mark for professional courses, products dropping below $1.
Tip: Good topics for advertising are easy to spot, if the current blogs and websites have so many ads they look like racing cars then you know there is some money to be made. Look to see if there are sites selling text link ads, this will let you know the keyword links can drive a lot of profit.
There is no doubt had I just gone with the topic without looking at revenue potential there is a good chance I would have gone with “warm and fuzzy” just because it is less competitive and so up beat and positive. There is nothing to stop me launching a blog on that topic for fun but the product-heavy niche is definitely going to be a better bet as an income generator providing I can break into the market.