My resolution for 2008 is to focus on quality and branding over quantity. One really good post goes much further than 5 run-of-the-mill posts. So I’m going to make more really good content and less run-of-the-mill content. We’ll see how it goes.
So what’s your main Resolution for 2008?
I have been thinking about Australia’s plan to censor internet content for their citizens and my initial reaction was to believe this can only be bad for bloggers. I thought I would ask you guys what you think?
As Duncan states in his post linked above, there is little chance their government will start with pr0n and such and leave it there. They will filter all content they deem “inappropriate”, there will be much disagreement about what that actually covers and special interest groups will pile in.
Anyone who believes a government can efficiently and fairly decide this stuff only has to look at the most banned or challenged books. If memory serves we are talking about such subversive titles as Huckleberry Finn and Harry Potter.
The tin-foil-hat-wearer part of my brain is thinking anyone who disagrees with the government or deals with adult themes in their blogs will also be caught in the trap. Bloggers swear. They talk about sex. There are blogs about drug and hacker culture. I have had clients caught in corporate and school filters, stuff people really needed to access, such as sexual health education material. People will demand a way to add to the blacklist, will evil competitors start blacklisting each other?
I have a daughter and want to protect her from bad stuff. I do this the way I protect her from bad TV shows. The way any responsible parent does. I supervise, if you don’t want kids to see bad stuff don’t leave them alone with it.
That all said, there seems a lot of folks well in favor so I would like to hear your thoughts. Is this a good thing and I have it wrong?
2007 was an amazing ride. Career-wise, it was the best year of my life. In the beginning of that year I resolved to break away from more traditional forms of writing to become a full-time professional blogger and I succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. How can I top that in 2008? By following two important rules:
1. There’s Always Room for Improvement
Just because I’m successful doesn’t mean I should stop learning. In fact, when it comes to blogging I don’t feel I’m very knowledgeable at all. Oh sure, I’m pretty good at building a community and writing for a specific group of people, but I’m technically challenged and need to study up more on blog design plus monetization and traffic-building strategies. I think anyone who wants to succeed as a blogger needs to learn to never stop learning. Fortunately for all of us, there are some terrific resources available.
2. Set One Realistic Goal
While I do have a short list of New Year’s resolutions, I also believe it’s important to set one realistic goal each year. Last year my goal was to earn a full time salary as a professional blogger. This year it’s my goal to learn more about the technical aspects of blogging. I’d like to troubleshoot my own issues without having to call in the Calvary for tweaks and fixes.
I’m not perfect. I know I have a lot to learn. For me, the key is not to do it all. If I focus on one goal, while continuing to learn as much as I can about my chosen path, I can continue to be what I consider a success.
What is your one realistic goal for 2008?
And blogging is a long distance race isn’t it? Just about every day for months or years you are going to get up and go to the keyboard. Look at your stuff. Be happy. Be sad. Be indifferent. So many emotions come into play when the blog runner puts on his or her shoes and hits this pixel packed purgatory in full stride. But the WWW will never become the PPP! Believe me I tried it yesterday and all I got was a blog dedicated to a polar bear in a snowstorm.
But that’s not what we want to discuss today. Here are the charts that will help us (I hope) discover how many folks are with us for the long haul. And is their number growing?
Do you like the graduated tint? I have been playing with Google’s photo editor for so long I can’t stop. Be happy there are not little snowmen sliding down the graph on their sleds.
The first graph gives you a summary of what happened in the month of December. And it shows a constant flow of about fifteen visitors except on the day when it wasn’t working. That would have been the day I added a premium template and forgot to do some other things.
I used to assume that these visitors represented maybe 3 or so regulars and 7 or so one time visitors. Notice that the unique visitor count is about two thirds the number of visits. Whenever I look at visits I calculate a number that is one third less in order to try and calculate the actual number of readers. Did anyone say this is an exact science? And here is the second graph.
Here we see how things may really be happening. During this month we see some of these readers moving down the path to become longterm readers. How many? Well there were about 125 visits so I calculate one third less or about 82 actual people came back ten times or more during December. Does that make sense?
I had been assuming that the 3 regulars every day were the same regulars. But what if some of the regular readers were only coming by once or twice per week? Then there would be more of them in total.
That’s a lot different than 3 regular readers and 7 one time visitors. And the graph indicates that a few more are migrating down this pathway all the time. Does that mean that every 10 weeks there will be 85 more longterm readers? In 10 weeks I have not gathered enough statistics to tell but we can revisit this situation in another month. Grab a RSS handle and find out!
In a year could there be 85 times 5 (52 weeks divided by 10 weeks equals approx. 5) readers? Maybe not. Some will fade away. But I spend ten minutes per day on this blog and the idea that it may attract even one hundred regular visitors is surprising. The idea that it could have a thousand regular readers in just two years is simply astounding!
So young blogging grasshopper remember to look deeper into your statistics and see what may be happening there. Someone once said it takes a year or two to build a productive blog. It is clear from this example that it may be so. And imagine what could happen if you spend more than ten minutes per day on your blog! Isn’t that exciting!
Performancing is all about encouraging bloggers to make good blogs. And this year, we’re going to recognize the best blogs in the business with the first annual Performancing Blog Awards.
Starting today, we’re opening up nominations for the best best blogs or bloggers in each category. You are free to nominate your own blog, but we’d also encourage you to nominate others…blogs and bloggers that you truly believe in.
In addition, why not help spread the word about the Performancing Blog Awards by making a post on your own blog. You are free to hotlink the image and also include the following categories that are up for nomination.
Each category will have a single winner, two runners up, and possibly some honorable mentions. Our goal is to highlight the very best that the blogosphere has to offer, and we appreciate any tips/help that the Performancing community can provide to help us make our decisions:
Official Categories For The 2007 Performancing Blog Awards:
It’s the people’s awards afterall…
The awesome Performancing Blog Awards logos were designed by Randa Clay, the official graphic designer of Performancing Services.
My question is simple:
If someone takes private email correspondence and, without asking permission, posts the other person’s email message to a blog, what is the legal status of that content? Does the person who has not granted permission have a legal case to bring against the person who posted the content of the e-mail message?
I’m always surprised when I’m asked to analyze a blog for someone and find that their blog is missing something fundamental. But I really shouldn’t be surprised. Why not?
Well, for one, some of my blogs fall into the same category (Look at the plank in your own eye before criticizing the speck in your neighbors’). But also, not everyone runs a blog as a full time job. Many bloggers are primarily part-time writers, not full-time blog technicians.
But what if I told you that in order to drastically increase your chances to succeed, you need to make sure that at least 5 fundamental things are in place at your blog?
Well, don’t fret. That’s what we at Performancing are here for, after all…to help bloggers succeed. Just make one improvement at a time, and soon you’ll be on your way to success.
In my opinion here are 5 things that all blogs should have:
Instead of the dynamic URLs with meaningless numbers, you should use static URLS with semantically relevant keywords
Bad URL: http://www.yourblog.com?p=123
Good URL: http://www.yourblog.com/ten-things-blogs-should-have/
Instead of generic, pronoun loaded, bland headlines, why not kill two birds with one stone: 1) grab your reader’s attention 2) make sure the search engines know what your article is about.
Bad Title: He Got Sick
Good Title: Jeopardy Host Alex Trebeck Has Minor Heart Attack
Bad Title: What Was She Thinking?
Good Title Jessica Alba Not-So-Hot in Pink Tutu Dress
Until you get links from other, relevant sites, your blog sits in isolation from not only the great World Wide Web, but also smaller “niche” networks. Your goal from day one should be to network with and engage other topically relevant sites.
How do you network? Well, for starters, you should spend sometime on other blogs leaving high-quality, insightful comments. You might do the same on some forums.
The worst sin of blogging is to speak a monologue. Get out and network. It’ll make your job a whole lot easier in the end.
At some point, to really succeed, your blog is going to have to do better than a cookie-cutter theme template. Now I’m not diminishing the role of free, template themes. Afterall, Performancing releases a free WordPress theme each month.
However, you aren’t going to make it into the “big time” without a sleak, customized theme that screams “we care enough to make ourselves look good” (note to Performancing team – > get that redesign done sooner rather than later!)
Most bloggers are under the illusion that they need to write 10 posts a day to be successful. Not so. Especially at the beginning, you are much better off writing a few EXCELLENT articles, rather than a bunch of medicore, rehashed articles.
The goal here is to set yourself apart as an expert. Spend the time you need up front to create a killer resource base. When you’ve developed five or so EXCELLENT resources, then feature them in your sidebar.
Many of you have probably heard these tips before. If you have…then great. But over 90% of the blogs that I analyze are missing one or more of these features. More often than not, a blog is just a collection of short 200-500 word posts that do absolutely nothing to distinguish the blog from all the others in its niche. More often than not, a blog does not feature its best content for everyone to see. More often than not, new bloggers use terrible URL structure and make-me-cringe headlines. More often than not, a blog has a terrible link portfolio.
So how’s your blog? Do you have these five fundamental things in place? If not, then stop your daily routine for a few weeks and make sure you get the foundation of your blog in proper order.
If you’d like Performancing to not only get your blog’s foundation in place, but to have it built into a mansion, then consider using one of our Blog Management Services.
The intelligent folks over at Pew Internet have the latest data on American reading habits in general and blogs specifically. I think it’s interesting enough to pass along in case you don’t hang out at PewInternet.org.
I first reported in Sling Words on American reading habits in 2005. Here’s what the stats from the American Library Association, National Endowment for the Arts, and the Pew Internet & American Life Project said then:
2005 Stats
I was blown away by these statistics. Why? Because it’s always shocking to see such bad news in black and white, and the decline of literacy in this country is very bad news. Reading skill and reading activity are benchmarks for measuring literacy. It’s scary to see this continue to drop.
Since I’m a heavy Internet and Blog user, I tend to forget that not everyone is. In fact, just two years ago, only 27% of American internet users even read blogs. The number who didn’t even know what a blog was? 62%. That’s amazing.
Things change, or do they?
Now we’re at the end of 2007. Has that situation changed appreciably?
According to A Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users by John Horrigan on May 6, 2007, available at the Pew Internet site, “half of all American adults are only occasional users of modern information gadgetry, while 8% are avid participants in all that digital life has to offer.”
Two years doesn’t seem to have brought about much change. Trust me on this: that 8% who are wired in? Bet most of them are below the age of thirty. Remember, I’m talking general population, not us who make a living doing this.
Bloggers
When it comes to blogging, a July 19, 2006, report by Amanda Lenhart and Susannah Fox pulled data from a national phone survey of bloggers. Their report finds that most people who maintain blogs are focused on describing their personal experiences to a relatively small audience of readers.
Apparently, they didn’t phone any of us because we’d have given them a different perspective. So, again, we’re talking general population here, but I think it’s important to realize what the masses are doing because we’d like some of them to drop by our blogs since many of us have them monetized. Right?
The popular free blogging platforms make it easy for anyone to set up a blog and post to it. This convenience makes blogs appealing to people who would probably never have written something creative in their entire lives without it. Outside of an English composition class. With a voice that can be heard around the world though, this new group of writers is empowered to create and to share.
For better or worse
The survey found that most bloggers are focused entirely on describing their personal experiences with a very small number covering specific niche information areas like politics, the media, government, technology, or other special interest. I always think of it as the “contemplating your navel” style of blogging.
I’ll bottom line it for you: Blogging brings new voices, but is it a voice you really want to hear?
If you’re just getting into blogging, either for yourself or a client, keep that question foremost in your mind. You always want to be able to answer it with a resounding yes!