Written on June 27th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 06:06 pm by Darren Rowse
digg’s new AdSense Ads
By now most people have seen the new digg design and expasion of their categories beyond their traditional ‘technology’ one. But what interests me most about the redesign is their integration of AdSense ads into the design.
I noticed earlier today that they were a little different but didn’t think twice of it until Dave emailed me a few minutes ago and asked me about them - pointing out that they change color and have a darker border appear when you roll the cursor over them. They also have borders around each ad in the banner rather than one big one.
The reason Digg will have such different looking ads will be that they are a pretty big publisher and probably have ‘premium publisher’ status which means they have an individual contract with AdSense that means they have to serve a certain number of impressions and in return get certain concessions (including the ability to customize ads and a specially negotiated rate of income). Premium publisher deals are not for the average blogger as you have to have many millions of monthly impressions to get the deal (I think it was 20 million per month last time I heard - but it could have gone up).
The other thing I notice about Digg’s redesign is that they are rotating their own ads as well as some private banner ads into the banner position also. Their own ads are specifically designed to match the Google ones but are for Kevin and Alex’s podcast.
Written on June 27th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 04:06 pm by Darren Rowse
Bloggers and Money Session at BloggerCon
I am currently listening to a podcast of the Bloggers and Money session at BloggerCon. You can read a little about the session at ZDNet.
A few notes from the podcast:
Chris Pirillo made some good points about blogs being a branding tool to brand yourself - which is certainly one way to make money from blogs. Chis did write off CPA (affiliate programs) to some extent. I’m not sure I’d write it off quite as much as he would - it is an art but it’s certainly doable.
Tony Schneider from WordPress spoke about how blogs should be more about writing than making money. The most successful blogs are those that bring in big traffic according to Tony. Recommends not using AdSense but targeting your ads to your audience via sponsorship….
Terry Heaton says that good bloggers that make money don’t necessarily plan it - rather they are open to what happens as a result of what happens when they blog. People get too stuck in top down models. It’s too big to ‘figure out’ - we need to experiment, try things and see what happens.
Someone (I lost track of who was who) said - entry level is so low in blogging you can just try things to see if they work.
Elisa Camahort - having a plan to start with isn’t a bad thing - as easy as they are to start. There’s nothing evil about that.
Rex Hammock - if you want to make blogging a business you need to establish trust and authority - the same that mainstream publishers need to establish.
Susan Mernit - spoke about bloggers recommending products on blogs (example of Manolo the shoeblogger) and how more and more bloggers will go into this. Spoke about the need for transparency. Tony Schneider spoke about affiliate programs and how there is a big silence around making money from blogs - the blogging community is good at helping each other blog better but there is a silence around making money because everyone wants to keep that private (someone needs to send him a link to enternetusers!).
Jake Ludington reemphasized that blogging builds relationship and trust.
The session seemed to degenerate into going into circles for a while here with lots of voices I didn’t recognize…. ahh the joys of un-conferences.
Someone (Dan?) asked why there isn’t a culture in blogging for people to donate to support blogs. Liz Henry answered by saying that so she reads so many blogs. Lance Knobel said that donations work better when they are asking for funding for specific projects.
Jake Ludington says that donations build a different kind of relationship with your readers as they feel they have a right to your content etc. It changes the nature of the interaction.
Tony Schneider - bloggers miss lots of opportunities at the local level. Lisa Williams says you won’t make money from AdSense via local blogs - she needs a way to put up local ads (note: AdSense does do geographical targeting - I’m not sure how local it goes but I do know of some people who do well from local advertising).
Jay Rosen - also talked about local advertisers who are not big enough to buy ads. He said no one is providing them a way to advertise. …
Buzz Buggerman says that those that are successful in the blogging world is that they have the ability to draw people to them.
There’s a bit more at the end that I’ve not had a chance to listen to yet. It was an interesting conversation - I would have enjoyed being there, not so much for the conversation but mainly because the mix of people in the room would have made for some excellent networking. Nice to hear some voices of people I read each day.
Written on June 27th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 11:06 am by Darren Rowse
Best standalone blog application? Poll
Lifehacker is running a poll on which standalone blog application is best - the results are no surprise - very similar to our enternetusers’s poll on blog platforms.
Written on June 27th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 09:06 am by Darren Rowse
enternetusers Demographics - MSN adCenter Style
MSN’s AdCenter predicts that 60% of enternetusers’s readers are male with the biggest readership in the ‘under 18 years of age’ range.
Hmmmm - the gender one might be right (my gender poll found that 72% of readers were male) but the age range has got to be out. I do know of a number of teen readers but from what I know they are in the minority.
Find out what demographics adCenter predicts that your blog has here. Found via Duncan.
Written on June 27th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 07:06 am by Darren Rowse
The Pre-Launch Success Phase of a Blog
Scrivs has a good post on some of the things to consider before you launch a blog.
He talks through issues of:
The Design - “For a blog a great design is good, but isn’t as key as the content that is already present on the site. For more web-based application sites, the design goes a long way into attracting and keeping those first customers.”
I’m with Scrivs on this - design is important but not the be all and end all what I’ve seen. My own blogs have all been launched with pretty basic designs and an emphasis upon content (including enternetusers which didn’t have a custom design for months). Having said this - enternetusers took off in terms of traffic once I got my design worked out!
The Content - “People bookmark sites with great content. People add sites to their RSS feeds with great content. Not too many people can remember a site with one entry welcoming them.”
This to me is the key thing to be working on before you start a blog. Like Scrivs says, there’s nothing much more of a turn off than a a blog without content. At b5media we always try to have a week’s worth of posts (at least) up before we go live with them.
What is It? - “Initially when you launch, I think it is a good idea to have a visible description of what your site is about. It’s probably better to always have description of what your site is about on the homepage, but over time some people choose to discard it and put it on the homepage.”
First impressions are important - especially when you’re attempting to establish yourself in a niche. People make decisions about your new blog and whether they’ll come back to it (via bookmark, RSS etc) within seconds of arriving at it - as a result communicating what it’s about is really important.
The Review - “Before you launch you should ask a couple of people to review the site to help point out anything blatantly wrong or missing that you may have overlooked.”
I always show a new blog to a number of people at different levels of web savvy-ness ranging from other experienced bloggers through to people that have very little knowledge of blogging or blogs. In this way I get a range of opinions but also a test to see what does and doesn’t work.
Of course no matter how much planning you do before you start a blog there comes a time when you just need to launch it. Some new bloggers feel the need to get it perfect to the extent that they take weeks and months to get to launch day. While I like to get things working well I take the attitude that blogging is a journey and that most blogs evolve over time. There’ll always be something to improve and tweak so don’t let your pre-launch stage go on too long - set yourself a launch date and work towards it to ensure you get it live.
Written on June 27th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 12:06 am by Darren Rowse
A - Z of Professional Blogging Tools
Following is my A to Z of Professional blogging including blogging tools, blogging platforms, blogging services and ways of making money from blogging (in fact whether you blog for money or not much of what follows should help you improve your blogging).
I hope you enjoy it and feel free to share your own tools and services in comments (I’m sure I’ll have missed some). update - I’ve been adding your suggestions and we’re now up to over 130 blog tools and platforms.
If this is your first time to enternetusers you might like to subscribe to my free weekly newsletter (see the top of the left hand sidebar) or RSS News Feed.
A
AdSense - contextual ad program by Google
Adbrite - sell text ads
Amazon Associates - popular affiliate program
aStore - add an Amazon Store to your Blog
AdGenta - text ads by Qumana (see ‘Q’)
AdRotator - WP ad rotating plugin
Akismet - Comment Spam Fighting Tool
Adhearus - pay per click advertising
AdWords - the advertisers side of AdSense - many bloggers use it to promote their blogs
AzoogleAds - advertising system
Audio Blogger - adds audio to your blog
B
Build A Niche Store- add an eBay store to your site
Bidvertiser - bid based advertising
Blog Ads - blog advertising network
Blog Jet - blog editing tool
Blog Desk - blog editing tool
Bloglines - Web based RSS feed reader
BlogPulse - blog search tool
BlogPolls - tool for putting polls on your blog
Blog Poll - another blog poll tool
Backpackit - useful organizational tool
Blogger.com - blog platform
Bloggers for Hire - bloggers looking for work and potential employers looking for bloggers
BlogSitter.net - service for find guest bloggers while you take a holiday
BlogBurst - syndicates bloggers content for mainstream medium
BlogFlux - blog services portal
BlogRolling - a blogroll management tool
Blogbeat - blog metrics tool
Blogger Jobs - a blog following the advertising of blog jobs
C
Chitika eMiniMalls - advertising program
CrispAds - blog advertising network
Creative Commons - copyright licenses
Copyscape - tool for checking for content theft/plagiarism
Clicksor - advertising program
Clickbank - library of many affiliate products
Commission Junction - collection of many affiliate programs
Casale Media - advertising solution
D
Del.icio.us - social bookmarking
Digg - social bookmarking
Drupal - blog platform
DomainsBot - a tool for finding domain names
Digital Point - useful forum for webmasters
E
Ecto - blog editing tool
Expression Engine - blog platform
Endo - News aggregator for Mac Users
Ether - lets readers book a consulting call with you from your sidebar
F
Feedburner - RSS feed management tool - also provides Feed Advertising
Feedster - RSS search Tool
FeedDemon - RSS reader from NewsGator
FeedBlitz - email blog and RSS subscription service
Flickr - photo sharing and hosting
Flock - a browser with in built blogging
Furl - social bookmarking
Free Blog Polls
FilmLoop - free photocasting network
Feedpass - RSS management - integrates with AdSense
Favicon Maker - make Favicons from photos
G
Google Analytics - Metrics Tool
Gabbly - add chat to your blog
Google Reader - RSS reader
Gnoos - Australian made blog search tool
Google News - tracking news - many use it as a source of content
Google Blog Search - Google’s…. blog search
Google Sitemaps - get indexed in Google
H
Haloscan - a free commenting system for blogs (a little dated but I was a tad desperate for a ‘H’
I
IntelliTXT - In text advertising
Ice Rocket - blog search engine
J
Jar (as in Tip Jar) - many bloggers ask their readers for donations/tips - but few make much from them
K
Kanoodle - Advertising program
Kontera - In text advertising
Keyword and Backlink Tracker - Search Engine ranking tool
L
LiveJournal - Blog Platform
Linkshare - Affiliate Program
M
Mars Edit - Blog Editing Tool
Memeorandum - Tracking and Aggregating news from blogs
MyBlogLog - Metrics Tool
Mint - Blog Metrics Tool
MovableType - Popular blog platform
MeCommerce - Sidebar shop - in beta
MSN Adcenter - Coming Soon - Contextual ads
N
NewsGator - RSS News Readers
Nichebot - keyword research tool
Nameboy - domain name generator
Nucleus CMS - open source blog platform
Netvibes - RSS News Aggregator
Netscape Beta - Social Bookmarking Tool
O
Only Wire - social bookmarking service
Overture Keyword Tool - keyword research tool
P
Performancing - great blog, firefox blog editor and metrics tools
Pheedo - RSS advertising
Post2Blog - Blog Editing tool - blog using Word, IE or Firefox
Pingoat - Pinging Tool
Pingomatic - Pinging Tool
pMachine - Blog Platform
Paypal - Payment tool - used by many affiliate programs and ad systems to pay publishers
PPCalc - Paypal Fee Calculator
PubSub - service that notifies you of new content
Photobucket - image and video hosting
Q
Qumana - Blog Editing Tool
R
Rojo - RSS feed reader
RocketPost - Blog posting tool
Right Media - advertising
Rmail - subscribe from any RSS feed to email
S
Sitemeter - a free website stats tool used by many bloggers
Six Figure Blogging - learn to make money blogging (one of my blogging resources)
Shoplinc - add a Chitika store to your blog
Scoopt Words - service to sell bloggers content to mainstream media editors
Sitening - Search Engine ranking tracker
Sparklines - sidebar widgets/graphs
Skype - VOIP tool for networking, podcast interviews etc
Spam Karma - WP comment spam tool
Sitepoint - Forums for webmasters
Slide - photo hosting, slideshows etc
SoloSub - RSS feed management tool
Squidoo - good alternative place to put content, make money and promote your blog
Snap - a preview tool to give your readers a preview of external links on your blog
T
Text Link Ads - text link advertising system
Technorati - Blog Search engine
Topix - News service - used by many bloggers to find stories
TagCloud - tool for making tag clouds
TinyURL - make long URLs tiny ones
TypePad - Hosted Blogging Platform
Tribal Fusion - Impression Based Ads
3bubbles - live chat on a blog
U
Unobtrusive Sidenotes - a way of putting sidenotes in your posts
V
ValueClick - Impression Based Ad Program (was FastClick)
Vizu - blog polls tool
Vox - a new blogging/social bookmarking platform from Six Apart (in beta)
W
WordPress - Blog Platform - very popular
w.bloggar - blog editing tool
Webpad - web based text editor
Weblogs.com - recently updated blogs - aggregator
WebmasterWorld - forums for webmasters
X
Xanga - Weblog Community
Y
YPN - Contextual Advertising Service
Yutter - RSS/Blog Subscription Service
YouTube - Video Hosting/Sharing
Yutter - RSS/Blog Subscription Service
Yahoo News - Tracking News from around the Web
Z
Zookoda - RSS to Email and Newsletter tool
Zoudry - blog editor
Written on June 26th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 03:06 pm by Darren Rowse
Blogger, Rafat Ali, Raises VC Dollars
Yet another blogger, Rafat Ali from Paid Content, has raised Venture capital for his blogging business according to his announcement post today.
Rafat explains the investment saying that the investment comes from Alan Patricof and that the amount will not be disclosed.
What will Rafat do with the invested money?
“We’ll be hiring a journalist in NYC, starting our UK vertical, launching a redesign of all our sites, hiring more staff for operations and sales, bringing on interns, planning more industry mixers and developing conferences, starting our research arm, and more.”
Found via the WSJ (subscription required) which reports that the investment is lower than $ 1 million.
Written on June 26th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 10:06 am by Darren Rowse
Blog Network Owner Shares ‘Mistakes I’ve Made’
Mac Slocum at The Independent Publisher is reflecting upon the first year of development of his Fodder Network and has written a post on the five biggest mistakes that he’s made along the road so far.
- Mistake No. 1: Underestimating the Time Commitment - I suspect this is something many bloggers with dreams of developing multiple successful blogs make. Establishing one blog is a massive task but multiply that by several and you’ve got a full time job very quickly.
- Mistake No. 2: Forgetting About the Exponential Nature of Tweaks - Mac talks in this point about the amount of work that just a simple tweak can mean if you’re making the same tweak in multiple blogs. On the flip side of course is the good things that can happen as a result of a simple tweak too. For example I remember the day I discovered that moving my AdSense ads closer into content would increase their earnings - of course I quickly did this on all of my blogs and the impact was significant.
- Mistake No. 3: Building Single Sites instead of Deep Sites - I don’t think there is a right or wrong with this - either strategy can be successful but I also think that especially when you’re a smaller enterprise that it makes sense to build fewer deep blogs than lots of stand alone ones.
- Mistake No. 4: Managing Expectation Levels - This is a hard lesson to learn. When recruiting bloggers it’s important to give them a realistic idea of what they’ll get out of it. Unfortunately when you’re in start up mode what bloggers get out is not massive unless you have some cash behind your venture. I think most blog networks run into this problem at one time or another as it takes months (if not a year or two) for a blog to really hit its stride and many bloggers just won’t hang around that long.
- Mistake No. 5: Naivete About Advertising - I’ve come up against this myself in the last couple of years. Once you build a blog up it’s difficult to know how to find advertisers for it and how much to charge. Managing advertising is difficult and as a result I have contracted someone to do a lot of that work for me which has taken a load off my mind.
Mac’s list is pretty typical of many of the issues that bloggers and blog network owners come up against. None of the mistakes he’s made are insurmountable but all are worth considering before getting into the game.
Written on June 26th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 10:06 am by Darren Rowse
ecto for Windows 2.1 beta Released
Ecto (the blog editor) has released ecto for Windows 2.1 beta. I’d be interested to hear what people think of this new Windows based version.
Written on June 25th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 06:06 pm by Darren Rowse
10 Things Every Reader Wants from a Writer
Liz at Successful Blog has a good list of 10 Things Every Reader Wants from a Writer.
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enternetusers Sponsors
Team Blogs
Blogs from b5media management and staff members.-
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