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What Kind of Blog Do You Read/ Have?

Valleywag has a great heat map defining the four spheres of audience reaction for some top blogs (and some websites). It’s actually more of a Venn diagram, and some of the top blogs are placed within each circle. Only Boing Boing falls into all four circles of reaction. Nothing seems to be in Revenge, and Adult Friend Finder is under Sex.

Here are a few others, although it’s not easy to tell with some blogs/ sites:

Indignation: Daily Kos.
Scandal = Indignation + Titillation: Wonkette, Gawker and what appears to be a photo of Michelle Malkin.
Titillation: YouTube, PerezHilton.
Lust = Titillation + Stimulation: Apple blog
Stimulation: GigaOm, Google, Yahoo
Novelty = Stimulation + Affirmation: Digg, TechCrunch (kinda hard to tell)
Affirmation: Seth Godin, Lifehacker
Outrage: Instapundit

I don’t know if I would have come up with the same breakdown, but it’s definitely an interesting premise. In fact, I never considered that there were these partitions in audience reaction. This leads me to ask, where does your blog fall in this Venn Diagram? I think that most of my blogs fall into the Affirmation and Stimulation sections, with a single one in Outrage and/or Indignation.

Now here’s something to consider. I haven’t done a blog by blog comparison, but I vaguely recall Boing Boing having about 115,000+ subscribers in Feedburner (I don’t see a button anymore). Newsgator shows 53K – I don’t remember what Bloglines has. So does that mean that a blog that’s all things to all people is likely to do better? Any comments?

P.S. Where is Slashdot?

Reboot my blog please

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We will take one a week and spend one week giving you tips and sharing that with the community. It’s a once in a lifetime chance to really launch your site into the next level of authority.

Are You Sure You’re a ProBlogger Wanna-be?

Ah Raj,
We really outght tell them the rest of the story. . . . 🙂

If you’re thinking about being a problogger, folks don’t tell you everything you might want to know about it. You might see what looks exciting. Take a looke a little closer.

Glamour is only glamorous from far away. I sit at my keyboard writing this at 10pm tonight.

Those 940,000 hits I just looked up by my name on Google aren’t fun or interesting when I want play or read instead of write another post that’s due tomorrow.

If you become a problogger you will find

that you have to explain what you do to every person you know over and and over and over and over again. . . . I tell my mother-in-law I write spy novels. It’s easier.
that every job you get will take longer than you thought it would. I don’t know how this happens. . . . It’s a Murphy’s law thing.
that occasionally folks who become your fans will send you email and expect you to stop your work to answer them over and over and over and over again. . . . . Unfortuantely, telling them you’re in the middle of blogging a spy novel won’t work with them.
that you’ll still have the same problems with traffic and stats that you had before, escept they’ll feel bigger because now you think about losing money.
that no one will be as excited as you are that you’re finally a problogger.

So Why Does Anyone Do It?

We do it because we can’t NOT do it. Blogging is something that makes us better. It makes a connection that is more than what people can see on the surface. We do it because

blogging connects us to our thoughts.

it forms an emotional bond between writer and readers.

it gives us a voice with which to become thought leaders.

it is communication in the newest, the fastest, and the broadest way invented.

it makes us part of a change in the history of the world.

it leaves out words indelible for the future, across time and spce to every corner of the world.

On top of it all, a problogger gets paid for that.

Okay, so it’s not so glamorous, but with a payoff like that the work is sweet, when you can get it.

Don’t just sit, there. Help them out. 🙂

Liz Strauss

Site Profile: Daily Blog Tips

Speaking of being a professional blogger and how it’s easier today, this is an informal profile of Daily Blog Tips, which has been running an excellent set of posts. Darren Rowse covered them “tomorrow” in 10+5 requisites for professional bloggers, a review of a post they ran (also covered below).

How to Get .edu and .gov Links

Hoping for some valuable .gov and .edu backlinks for your site? Gather .edu and .gov backlinks gives a fairly easy to follow process for finding suitable sites, how to contact the webmaster, and what you need to have on your end.

5 Tips for Writing Timeless Content

Probably the most important suggestion in 5 tips for writing timeless content is that you should eliminate references to time.

Write Pillar Articles

Pillar articles, aka flagship content, is described as being longer posts of over 750 words, with timeless, original content that attracts links from other bloggers.

Blogging Content Matrix

Wondering if your blog has valuable flagship or viral content? Blogging Content Matrix gives a nice visual on evaluating the general value of your site’s content. This post is my favorite. It doesn’t tell you which niche you should pick but does help you decide whether your content be successful, whether it’s timeless.

10 Requisites for Professional Bloggers

10 requisites for professional bloggers has a more exact template with which to decide whether or not you’re a pro blogger. Recent posts and comments here at Peformancing have covered things like putting in the necessary time and having passion. Other important qualities listed are:

expertise on a topic
writing skills
technical knowledge
blogging knowledge
web design skills
business/ marketing knowledge
creativity and innovative ideas
a network of contacts.

I agree that having all of these skills are good to have (Ahmed echoed that in a comment, stating that pro blogging should be a complete package). However, I’m not so sure that you need to have to have web design skills to be a pro blogger. I think a network of contacts is far more important, and in that group should be a good web designer. Be like Henry Ford, who had a row of buttons on his desk, each of which buzzed an expert in a particular field.

What do you think? Do you need all of the above skills to be a professional blogger? What do you think is the most important requisite, besides writing skills?

What’s A Professional Blogger?

Each of you will have your own definition of “professional blogger.” Mine is someone who earns their living as a blogger, either through advertising revenue on their sites or getting paid to write posts on someone else’s sites (usually ghostwritten). Such a writer might also earn money by other means such as e-book sales, giving lectures, consulting, flipping sites, etc.

Opportunities

This site, if I understand correctly, is aimed at helping those bloggers who want to do this as a living (as well as helping build relationships). It’s as good a time as any to consider your options. Bloggers For Hire recently discussed blogging as a profession, quoting a similar article from the Christian Science Monitor.

The latter concludes that bloggers can make money but most of use are keeping our day jobs. They quote the well-known Mr. ProBlogger himself, Darren Rowse, who says that he put in eight- to sixteen-hour days – something many new bloggers don’t (or don’t want to?) see.

One By One Media, which is affiliated with Bloggers For Hire, expands on the discussion in Like money for nothing. They include an interesting quote from a WSJ (Wall Street Journal) article (subscribers only), in which BlogAds.com’s Henry Copeland says that most self-employed (full-time) bloggers “take in between $2,000 and $10,000 a month from ad sales.” Would that it were so – I certainly don’t take in that much in ads. However, as I think David Krug said here, I’d blog regardless of the money.

Reality

On the other hand, I do ghostblog for some people who do far more than that. The WSJ article also says that political bloggers can make $20-30K/mth around election time. Don’t forget that they also give updates every 30-60 minutes, and follow news sources all day long. It just goes to show you that if you’re good at your niche, you’ll be rewarded.

So ultimately, you have to ask yourself why you are doing this. For fun, for a bit of extra cash, or as a career? For me, it started as “fun”. (I’m a know-it-all windbag, so I have lots to write about.) Then a bit of cash trickled in, and then some more, and so on. Now I’m sort of hovering between part-time and full-time earnings, depending on how much contract work I get done each month. (And as a direct result of what I’ve learned, my own sites are starting to pick up a bit.)

Just remember one thing: it takes effort, but ultimately, it can pay off. Now, what does being a professional blogger mean to you?

How Blogging Can Make Or Break Your Success

I’ve often wondered about the tagline of this website, “Helping Bloggers Succeed”. First off I like to talk about success online and offline a lot. In fact its one of my favorite topics. When some folks talk online all they talk about is revenue. Revenue isn’t success necessarily. And more of it doesn’t always make you happier. All of us who blog have goals and dreams. That’s what this is all about. Providing you with a community that will help coach you along into success. I like to pick on Adsense because a lot of people think success is driving people to your website and getting people to click on your ads. To me this is the last kind of success I need. Although if you can do that you will have some success. I hope I’m not offending the Adsense Driven Model. It’s just that my goals and aspirations are different.

In some ways I’m a relationship blogger. In other ways I’m just a guy who wants to help other people reach their dreams and find a way to be successful. In a lot of ways I find joy in doing this. I like watching other people move on to bigger and better things.

To me not blogging would make me a lot more unsuccessful. I love communicating in this avenue. It helps me think and allows me to be more productive in relationship building. And that’s my bottom line. That’s how I measure success. The quality of relationship I have.

Let’s get to know each other.

I’ve been talking to different people about various projects they are working on or are blogging about. I love this kind of interaction. Getting involved in other people’s projects makes my day.

I want to open the comments up for people to share a project you are passionate about. It will give you an opportunity to share your project with our readers and allow you are readers to share some ideas on how to improve your projects.

First up is mine.

901am ~ New media news every morning
I feel really good about this site. It’s 3 months old and starting to take off the ground. Our traffic is fairly steady and our readership is pretty active. I’m not focusing on revenue to much but it should be fairly profitable once we start monetizing more aggressively. What would you suggest doing differently with this site?

Ok, your turn.

The Simple Mathematics Of Link Sponsor Revenue

Anyone who’s been blogging at least a few months knows that in most cases, contextual ad revenue from networks such as Google AdSense comes in trickles. A better option, provided you have a Google PR (PageRank) of at least 4 and a blog in an appropriate niche, is link ads such as Text Link Ads or Text Link Brokers. (Know of another one? Drop a comment.) You also need backlinks (outside links to your blog), some feed subscriptions, and at least a steady bit of traffic – though not necessary a lot.

Steady Revenue

It’s not passive revenue. At least not at first while you’re building PR and backlinks, etc. But it can tend towards that. A word of caution: not all blogs are suitable. Of the eight blogs I have registered at Text Link Ads, only four have sponsors. Some have never had link sponsors since they were registered maybe eight months ago. One sold out its inventory in less than 2 months. Another sold out today, and another was just accepted but already has four sponsors. I have another 7 that need a bit of TLC before they’re ready, but when they are, they should do okay.

I can’t live off the TLA alone, but it is steady income. And once the newer sites are registered and sell out their inventory, the total TLA earnings will be enough for rent in Toronto, where I’m moving later this year. In other words, it’s comforting, generally steady income with very little fluctuation. And I haven’t even utilized TLA’s Feedvertiser yet (mostly because I’m too busy to upgrade my WordPress installations to 2.0+).

Example

Let’s look at an example of how you might benefit from link sponsors. This is based on my own experience, so your mileage may vary:

Assume: ten weblogs of PR4 – 5 and different niches but related topics. Say sub-niches. Or maybe you have two distinct groups of sub-niches. It doesn’t matter, but blogs in one group link to each other in both navigation and content.
Reasonably steady traffic of at least 40 pageviews per day or more per site.
Offer ten sponsor slots at at least $10 per slot per month per site. (The selling price would be $20 per, since TLA takes 50% commission. I’m not sure about TextLinkBrokers.)
That’s 10 sites x 10 spots/ site x $10/ slot/ month = $1,000/ month. That’s your take.

General Plan

Pretty simple, right? And that’s a very conservative figure. If the conditions are right, you could be making that much per site, or $10,000/m. (I have no proof that anyone is doing this; just speculating.)

Sure, the numbers are simple, but here are a few things to consider before you go sign up:

You need to build up your Google PageRank (PR) to at least 4. If you are patient and think you’ll go to PR5 fairly quickly, register your sites at PR5 not PR4. You’ll very likely earn more.
You need to increase your feed subscriptions. Though, TLA for example only counts Bloglines. Not all subscriptions are necessarily equal.
You need to increase the backlinks to each of your blogs, from relevant sites. Not just PR6+, but also PR3-5. That comes either by buying or by building valuable content that other sites link to.
You need to increase your daily traffic to where it’s steady, even if just from SEs (search engines). This is part and parcel of posting “valuable” content.
You need to maintain all this after you start getting sponsors. They want the traffic, too.
There’s no guarantee you’ll sell out your inventory, even at $12. Some blog niches lend themselves better to text link ads than.

It’s all speculation, but as weblogs become even hotter property, the opportunities for monetizing them will continue to grow. Link sponsors is one way that has been working for me.

New to Blogging? Here are 5 Mistakes to Avoid

If you’re new to blogging, there’s enough advice out there in the blogosphere (and here at Performancing as well) to make your head swim. Information overload leads to analysis paralysis and in minutes you’re back where you started – at the beginning, with no idea what to do.

In an effort to simplify the blogging process, here are 5 key mistakes bloggers (new, old, established, popular and unpopular) make, and how you can avoid them.

1. Procrastination

There are few worse things in life than sitting back and watching life roll by in front of you without taking advantage of the opportunities that keep knocking on your door. Sometimes we have limiting beliefs that hold us back (such as “I don’t know how to write!”), other times we’ve got fears holding us back.

I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened. – Mark Twain

The key is to take action on the ideas you have. You’ll fail in 100% of the plans you never implement, but every plan you implement has a chance of success (and if you follow the next four tips, you can greatly increase that chance).

What are you going to do today?

Stop thinking about it, just start blogging (or working out, or writing that business plan, or calling on your business network; whatever it is you have to do to make your ideas and plans a reality.

2. Lack of Focus

Seth Godin wrote an excellent post today on creating micro hysteria in your audience. As a blogger (new or old), you need to accept a simple truth – big successes where your blog will have a mass appeal are rare and the exception. The real opportunities, as Seth puts it, lie in niche audiences who are passionate about a particular subject.

“Far better to obsess about owning the micro audience, at least for a moment, then to waste your energy trying to be everything to everyone.”

3. Lack of Value

Seems to me that the ‘experts’ have been shouting themselves hoarse talking about the advantages of concentrating on delivering value to your readers, but too often bloggers ignore this advice (or find it too hard to implement).

There is enough material on ‘providing value’ here at Performancing than I can remember, but the best advice is this:

Before you write, evaluate your topic from the perspective of your target audience. Do you think they need this information? Do you think they can use it?
Once you’ve written it, evaluate again. Do you think it is easy to grasp? Usable? Worth sharing?

If your topic and subsequent post gets a ‘Yes’, you’re in business.

If this sounds daunting, think of it this way – whatever topic you want to blog about, you will either have strong opinions (sports, news, politics) or expertise in the area (blogging, SEO, web design). In both cases, you will ‘know’ enough about the industry to figure out what is important and what is not important to your audience (and if not, you can always do some research and find out instead of giving up).

4. No Networking

Are you ‘putting yourself out there’ and talking to other bloggers in your niche? Participating in forums and talking to your audience? Talking to people offline who share the same interests?

Why not?

The only way to build a readership and get traffic to your blog is if other bloggers and the community around that niche knows who you are. Bloggers are more likely to read your blog if they know you, and if they read your blog (AND you’ve done step 3 right) they will be more likely to link to you. Links will bring in traffic and search engine ranking benefits.

No one will link to your blog or talk about it if they don’t know about it. And how are they going to know about it?

If you get up, get out and start talking to other bloggers in your niche.

In fact, all of blogging can be summed up in two words. Value & Networking. Get this right and you’ve got it made.

5. Stuck in a Pattern

Technology changes. Communities shift and evolve. People change, opinions change.

If you apply the four strategies above, you will succeed, but only for a while. Eventually, you’ll be set and comfortable in your pattern and BOOM!, the landscape of your niche will start changing. Imperceptibly at first, but change it will.

Scott Adams talks about how artists can only produce quality material for a period of time before the ‘big hits’ stop coming. It’s the same with bloggers – there’s a life cycle for each subject, and once you’ve exhausted it from start to end all that’s left for you is to rehash the same ‘news’ everyone else is talking about, or start repeating yourself.

Embrace change and learn to reinvent yourself (something that is easier than it sounds). Nick and Chris have done it after moving on from Performancing, and there are many such examples in the blogging and SEO industry.

Learn to anticipate, prepare and act on changes in your niche. Lead the change instead of reacting to it. You’ll be much better placed as a result, and your blog stock will continue to rise.

What’s Next

Nothing – just start blogging!

If you’re NOT so new to blogging, I hope you can use this as a reference for your blogging efforts – we all need reminders and nudges in the right direction from time to time.

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