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A Better Structure for Blog Networks

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I’ve been thinking a bit about blog networks, and the way they’re structured of late. A friend and I have been discussing this for months on an “on/off” basis and one thing strikes me every time I look at a network: There is room for much improvement in structure.

Let me start by saying that I do not run a blog network, so my thoughts on this need to be taken as just that, my thoughts.

The Problem

What kind of visible structure do you think of when you think about a blog network? A loose collection of links down the side menu right? Perhaps under category headings?

At best, some networks seem to have a focus on an audience sector, and their blogs, still all linked down a side menu, are at least vaguely related. But even this approach, which to me is far better than the “no relationship other than owneship” approach, seems to be crying out for some kind of better way to organize and (warning, buzz word coming…) leverage the power of the group.

One Solution

So, as I said earlier, I’ve been giving this some thought, and would appreciate your thoughts on what I think would make a more efficient structure for a blog network.

Example: Auto Network

So, to pick something as “light” as i can, so we dont risk anyone thinking im singling out their network heh.. let’s imagine we’re going to set up a network of blogs on the broad topic of Auto. Those blogs would include:

  • Ford Blog
  • Nissan Blog
  • Sports Car Blog
  • Family Car Blog
  • City Car Blog
  • Truck Blog

Note: It’s only an example, it’s not supposed to be complete 🙂

And a nice pretty picture of the car network…

Now, if you’ll excuse my dreadful artwork, and the fact that i only just realized I know nothing about cars! heh. you’ll see what I think could make a good structure for a network.

Here’s how it works

How It Works

  • Each sattellite blog posts exclusively within it’s very tight niche
  • The Hub Blog reads all of the sattellite blogs, and rewrites the story to be a little more general, as opposed to simply copying it
  • The uber blog credits the sattellite/specialist blog, providing readers with a way to connect from the content (which is arguably the best place for a link) to the specialist blog, and subscribe if that’s their passion.

The idea is to create many small, tightly focused blogs within a broader niche, that feed the uber blog – you sit an editor or 2 on each satellite, and have 2-4 people work on the uber blog – the uber blog would also cover more “industry news” type stories that may not relate to any particular model.

So enthusiast readers get specialized blogs, and general interest readers get the best of those stories (not all!) in the uber blog. Making the network much tighter, and more attractive a buy for advertisers.

Make Sense?

Really just a thought i’d been playing around with. Something to help start a discussion on the topic of blog networks and structures, so do let me know what you think. And feel free to pull it to pieces, i won’t mind…

Make Money Blogging via Paid Subscriptions – No, Seriously

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We’ve talked before about the various ways you can monetize your blog. Carrying advertisements is the most popular (and successful) model. But there are many other monetization methods, too, and every once in a while some nutter even throws out the “how about charging for access?” (We laugh him out of the comments thread, of course.) But it’s official: I’ve found a blog which charges for subscription, and it appears to be doing quite well.
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Sweatin’ The Details

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Last week we had a great discussion on Favicons (funny that a 16×16 pixel graphic would be the hottest discussion on Performancing thus far). But the theories behind the differing opinions were interesting: should you skip the little things, so you can spend all your time writing content, or is it OK to ‘waste’ hours (days?) making sure everything on your blog is perfect?
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Do You Have What it Takes to be a Blog Overlord?

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Blogging isn’t for everyone. Take me: my personal strengths include marketing and management, but do not include writing (at least, writing quickly or consistently).

Are you good at this stuff, but just don’t have the will to write every day for the next year? Then maybe you need to skip the blogging itself — perhaps you’re cut out to be a blog overlord.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Running a blog network is a ton of work: selecting niches, building designs and templates, building links, finding authors, managing authors, etc. And it takes money too (unless you can convince authors to go on rev-share, which hasn’t proven to be very successful in most cases).

The work involved in running a blog network is certainly more time-consuming than just writing would be. But the kicker is that the work is varied. As a blog overlord, I don’t have to do the same thing every day. On Tuesday I might be building links (tedious), but at least I know I’ll be skinning some sites on Wednesday, and reviewing authors on Thursday.

But back to the massive amounts of work.

To be a blog overlord, you’ll need…

* tons of time
* money to get you to break-even point (where the ad revenues coming in are equal to the amount you’re spending on posts)
* money for initial promotion, advertising or link buiding (optional)
* tons more time
* knowledge of all aspects of blog management and monetization, including design, content, legal issues, working with writers, link building, advertising programs (and implementation)
* willingness to do tedious, thankless, annoying tasks like cut and pasting the “subscribe to bloglines” button on all of your templates, or submitting each blog to the major blog directories

Of course, you can partner with people to get those skills, but then you have to share the pie, too. Seriously, though, it’s a huge time and money commitment, so why would you do it? That brings me too…

The advantages of being a blog overlord

* ownership of content – especially the archives (over time these can make a lot of money. Visitors find these archived pages via SEs, and a sizable percentage of them click on the ads. The archives alone from several of my own blogs make me 4 figures a month in ad revenue. I’m talking old posts.)
* diversification of channels and risk – you can own blogs in a lot of different channels, even ones which you personally would not have the knowledge to blog about.
* the glamour and fame – check that
* scale – I could probably write for 5 blogs by myself, but by hiring people I have been able to launch dozens of blogs per year

So who are the blog overlords?

As it turns out, there are quite a few of them, and more pop up every day. The networks range in size from half a dozen blogs to close to a hundred, and there’s a lot of variation in terms of channels, biz models, size, quality, management structure, etc. In my opinion there is money to be made simply by playing to your strengths and ensuring monetization is a priority (for a few of these networks, it doesn’t seem to be).

Anyway, now that I’ve explained how I make gobs of money by being a blog overlord, please do not pay any attention to it, the last thing I want is more competition 😉

Blog Stats Software Reviews – Introduction

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One of the things we try to impress upon bloggers is the need to monitor your stats so you know how well your blog is performing and its overall “health”. With this in mind, let’s take a look at the blog tracking software available.

Types of tracking

There are a few types of stats packages out there

  • Client Side – these use Javascript code in your template to track visitors and page views. Plus point being you do not need access to your server log files and non-human visits are largely ignored. A big plus is the stats tend to be real-time or near enough real-time. Minus point is you often do not get information for when search engines have visited, the stats can be quite lightweight and you need to trust the stats company. One minus often raised might be or may not be an an issue – people with javascript disabled – some packages do get around this with “noscript” code but if not perhaps it is worth having a main package and a backup if you are worried. Most people do use Javascript though.
  • Server Side – server side stats packages are either modules that you install into your blog software or are software that reads and analyses your server log files. Log analysis can either be offline or run as a server process every night or monthly. Most hosting packages have at least some sort of log analysis but the quality varies greatly.
  • RSS – To get a good picture of what is going on with your blog you also need to look at your subscriptions. Tracking RSS is notoriously difficult and log analysis does not work. A log file analyser will see each read of your “rss.xml” file (for example) and give you a hit count, but how do you know if “100 hits” is 100 individuals or one person downloading 100 times? Dedicated RSS tracking services do their best to get around these problems.
  • Advertising – All the advertising systems have their own stats but you need a little more usually to get a complete picture. In this context we are talking from a publisher point of view as of course advertisers also have stats packages. Adsense has the most support from third party systems and they all aim to fill in the gaps the Google control panel does not provide. Most are advertised promising to help you earn more and many people claim they do just that.

Review Criteria

There are very few products aimed just at bloggers. They mostly tend to lump all websites together. Some are way too corporate or industrial strength, few bloggers will need the sort of ecommerce and advertising campaign bias.

Cost is a big issue. Only a small number of bloggers will have a big enough budget to play in the commercial software market so cheap or free is important.

Simplicity is a must. I think bloggers are far more likely to use something that is easy, but more importantly LOOKS easy. Not necessarily pretty, but looks are important too.

Quick view summary pages are a good feature. Something where you can just refresh and show most of the key information.

The registration/install process. You don’t want to spend all day and require a PHD just to get the thing working.

Counting outgoing clicks is an interesting metric that not all manage to provide. There is one package that specialises in only measuring outbound clicks.

So what packages are in the market?

To begin with for the first phase I am going to concentrate on the following client side services with a follow up series for the log analysers and advertising solutions.

  1. Sitemeter
  2. Statcounter
  3. Mint
  4. MyBlogLog
  5. Google Analytics

if someone can get me onto the beta for MeasureMap I will include this also!

Have I missed your favourite?

This is where you come in, is there a service I have missed out? Let me know and I will add it to the list!