Written on January 4th, 2007 at 02:01 am by Darren Rowse

6 Tips on Adding a Forum to Your Blog

Miscellaneous Blog Tips 25 comments

Interweb World posts a useful list that reflects upon some of the lessons that they learned in the recent re-launch of a forum that didn’t take off the first time but which did really well the second.

Their lessons include inviting an audience, promotion, creating content, responding and killing trolls.

It’s actually a list that resonates with my own lessons from the very recent launch of forums over at Digital Photography School.

As I mentioned in my case study on DPS yesterday - it’s still very early days for us there but I’m learning so much. I’ve not ‘arrived’ (or even come close to it) yet but here are a few random lessons I’ve been learning:

• Presell it - I’ve been talking about new purpose built forums at in the weekly DPS newsletter for months now. I’ve asked readers for suggestions, I’ve talked about the reasons why we need them and basically have been attempting to create desire in my current readers for the forum. I didn’t hype it up - but gently led readers to a point where they were used to the idea and wanting to participate.
• Start with Passionate Users - two weeks before I publicly launched the forums I called for ‘forum testers’ from my newsletter list. These testers got the benefit of a sneak peak (everyone likes to be first), helped me get some of the bugs out of the system and most importantly started using the forums so that when I launched there were already 40 members, 25 or so Active threads and some interesting discussion going on. Those that volunteered to be testers were generally enthusiast photographers who had passion. In fact all of my moderators have come from this group.
• Find Leverage Points - I’ve seen many forums launch and fall flat on their faces because their owners had no real way of getting people to join. I was fortunate enough to have three leverage points including a blog with 2000 visitors a day, a Flickr Group with a fair number of Active members and a newsletter list. I pre-promoted and launched the new forums in each of these spaces. Other leverage points that I’ve seen work for people include being well networked, being famous in a niche and/or advertising very widely. Basically you need some place to tap into that will bring you a burst of traffic to kick things off.
• Empower Key Users - From day one I started to build relationships with the most prolific and most knowledgeable members of the forum. Private messages, emails and eventually IM conversations have led me to a point where I have a good team of moderators already with others volunteering their time. Giving these key people a job is a great way to keep them involved and passionate (which has the flow on effect of drawing others in). I’ve also started areas of the forums where all users can take initiative and contribute their photos (assignments, critique area and how I took it forum). In a sense it’s a place to show off a little and for people to encourage each other. In this way I’m finding people really getting involved.
• Incentives - Advice that I’ve received from a number of other forum owners is to be willing to offer incentives for people to sign up and become Active members of the forums. As a result I’m offering some great digital photography books to those who sign up and post at least 5 posts on the forums. Quite a few of those who’ve joined have told me that this is what got them in the door and starting to get involved - but now that they’re in they are hooked by the conversations we’re having there.
• Fun/Community - Rather than creating a forum that is all about sharing ideas and knowledge I’m trying to inject a fun vibe into the way it runs. Having assignments, games, introductions etc all seem to be attracting people in a way that is building community where people are starting to enjoy one another’s company. I know we’re in the honeymoon period on this and there’s sure to be some flame wars at some point (can’t wait til the Nikon/Canon wars break out) but I think at least in these early days we’ve managed to create a space that people want to keep coming back to.

As I say - it’s early days and I’m on a steep learning curve. By no means are my forums the biggest or most successful going around on my niche - but the signs are there that there is potential. I’ve recently had some good advice from other more experienced forum owners that I’ll be looking to implement in the coming weeks.

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Written on January 3rd, 2007 at 02:01 pm by Darren Rowse

Speedlinking - 3 January 2007

Pro Blogging News 9 comments

• LifeHack.org posts Six Improvements to Your Blog.
• Digital Inspiration has a useful post with a number of HTML tricks for Bloggers to give your blog posts a little style
• There’s a nice post over at Digital Point from a guy Burta who talks everyone through his journey of growing an online income from $10 to $800 per week (over a year) - via Yaro
• Shoemoney interviews SeoBlackhat on his radio show - while blackhat isn’t my scene it’s an interesting listen. I’ll be appearing on Jeremy’s show on 16th January so start thinking up questions and I’ll point you to a link to submit them to in the next week or so.

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Written on January 3rd, 2007 at 05:01 am by Darren Rowse

Case Study Update - Digital Photography School

Case Studies 18 comments

I’ve been using my Digital Photography School as a case study over the past 9 months since it’s launch.

I’ve previously talked about it (at launch in a vidcast, then giving a progress report and then talking about some of my goals for it) but it’s been almost six months since I gave an update so I thought it was about time for another one.

A few basic stats to start with:

• The site has been running 9 months
• I’ve posted 178 posts to the site in that time
• I’m currently aiming for around 4-5 posts per week (one each week day)
• Numbers of subscribers to the weekly newsletter currently stand at just under 13700
• RSS subscriber numbers are currently at around 3000 (according to Feedburner). This oscillates between 2800 and 4000 depending upon the day
• This week the site is averaging around 8000 daily unique visitors to the actual site viewing around 17300 daily pages (again this varies a lot - and is higher than normal due to being dugg a couple of days back)
• The Flickr discussion group has 2900 members (of course not all are Active) and it’s new forums have Active 650 members.
• Earnings have been slow but steadily growing. Its nowhere near my most profitable blog when I think about the effort that goes into it or the traffic levels that it has. To this point AdSense has been my main focus but I’ve been hesitant to put many ads on the blog at this point - I’m hoping to build it up and then find a small number of sponsors to have premium sponsorship of the site. I’ve also introduced an affiliate program or two to the site which are returning good results.

Traffic has been up and down over the months since launch as a result of a variety of links from big sites and social bookmarking sites. But overall I’m pretty happy with traffic levels considering the length of time that it’s been live.

The last two months have seen a distinct rise in search engine traffic. It’s still not a massive proportion of overall traffic but as the blog gets older it continues to grow (ie we’re out of the ’sandbox’). In my experience it generally takes around 9-12 months to really hit it’s straps in this way so it’s about on schedule.

Current Strategies and Developments:

Newsletter - the weekly newsletter has become a central strategy on the site and sends a lot of traffic to it each Friday (I send it in time for readers to get some new tips to try on the weekend). The newsletter is largely a recap of the week that was but I also include a few exclusive tidbits. A great signal to me is that if I’m an hour or two late with it that I get readers emailing to ask where it is and what’s wrong!

Flickr Discussion Group - I started the Flickr discussion group around 6 months ago as a place for readers to discuss their photography. My reasoning for doing it at Flickr two fold. Firstly I didn’t have time or the expertise to start an actual forum of my own. Secondly Flickr is a hive of activity of my main target market for readers - digital photographers - to get involved in this established photographic community was a smart move upon reflection.

The forums have been good for sending traffic back to the blog (as well as the other way around as well). Interestingly some readers have been members of the Flickr group for some time without knowing about the blog - in fact two distinct groups of readers/communities have emerged.

I use the Flickr Group in a few ways:

• Building Community among readers
• Cross promotion of blog articles
• User generated content - with permission I’ve used some reader submissions on the main blog as standalone blog posts

The Flickr group has definitely added to DPS since it was started - however it’s also been a source of increasing frustration and in the past few weeks I’ve started an actual forum to eventually replace it (see below).

Comments are Back - one of my initial experiments on the blog was to run it without comments. Over the last couple of months I’ve switched them on and readers have responded reasonably well. Comments are not as Active as they are here at enternetusers but much of the discussion also happens at the new forums.

Added Affiliate program - my site is largely focussed upon digital photography tips and not post processing (photoshop etc). More and more readers were asking questions around photoshop so I’ve begun to develop a relationship with a photoshop expert who has a membership site and a variety of products which I promote. This has worked well for readers as they’re getting quality information that they want, it doesn’t compete with my own site’s information and it converts reasonably well. I’d like to deepen this relationship with this partner in the coming months.

Focus upon Content
If I had to identify the single most important lesson that I’ve learned (or relearned) over the past 9 months with DPS it would be that the main source of growth has been simply that my number 1 priority has been to continually be adding useful, original, easy to understand and apply content to the blog each day. While flickr groups, forums, design and other features might help - it’s been the content that has caused other sites to link up, that has drawn readers in and that has kept them coming back. It’s not rocket science is it? Content is King.

I’ve worked hard at writing for a particular audience (beginner to intermediate digital camera owners) and sticking to that focus. My articles are largely ‘how to’ articles with a few ‘inspirational/motivational’pieces thrown in.

I include a lot of images/examples in my posts and work hard at writing in a non technical and easy to understand fashion. The result is that many readers in my target audience seem to be sticking around and getting involved.

I do get a few complaints from experts that I don’t meet their needs - but my approach to them is to invite them in as experts to share their knowledge and to reemphasize the focus of the site to them. Some leave - some catch the vision and have joined in.

New Strategies:

New Design - I’ve been wanting a new design for the site since the day I launched but it’s only been in the last month that I’ve moved forward with it and have engaged the services of the Blog Studio to give the site an overhaul. The new design has only been live for a couple of weeks. It has made the site much more user friendly in terms of navigation, search and aesthetics and since it’s inception I’ve seen page views increase per visit slightly and have had a lot of great feedback from readers.

New Forums - as part of the overhaul I’ve decided to add purpose built forums (using vBulletin) to the site. I’m a little hesitant to do this as the Flickr group has served its purpose well. However I’ve adding forums for two reasons:

1. Reader Feedback - increasingly it was readers who pointed out weaknesses with Flickr’s set up before I noticed them. On an Active and long thread with photos it’s a very slow page load, there is no way of having categories etc. Readers were complaining (and leaving) every few days.
2. Control - one of the reasons I moved my first blog from Blogger.com to Movable Type and then WordPress was that I didn’t like the idea of hosting something I ‘own’ on someone else’s servers on a system that I have little control over. With Flickr groups there is little control for administrator in terms of how the group looks or runs. There is no way to monetize the community directly and ultimately Flickr (or Yahoo) not only hosts the content but owns everything (and can themselves monetise it). I gave all of this feedback to Flickr months ago but never heard anything back from them.

I suspect the discussion group will remain somewhat Active in the short term (I won’t be killing it off) but the coming weeks will be about transitioning from it to the new forums.

Topic Expansion - while I want to keep the site largely focussed upon camera techniques and tips I am looking to broaden the topic in a couple of ways in future. I’ve already done this with a few photoshopping technique posts (something the site will never fully major in (as it’s not my strength) and have plans for a couple of other related topics.

Future Directions:

User Generation Content - with my increased focus upon b5media I’m actually going to have to devote less time to DPS. As a result I’m thinking seriously about ways of involving more people in the blog. This will hopefully include more user generated content. I’ve already had some great tutorials submitted by readers via the forums and through email and IM conversations and am excited that the site is slowly transitioning to a community blog rather than a single author ‘expert’ (I use the term loosely) blog.

I’m excited by the numbers of readers who are putting up their hands to help out with the site and the ideas that they are coming with. The main thing I need to work on at present is harnessing the energy of readers and releasing them make the best ideas happen.

New Authors - I’ve also been toying with the idea of taking on a few regular columnists/authors and have a small group who will take it in turns to write a weekly photoshop column. The challenge is that while the site does reasonably well with traffic at the moment it doesn’t earn massive income at this point and to take on authors will need to be done without sending the site backwards profitability wise.

New Features and Topics - my immediate plans for DPS are for a period of consolidation having only recently launched the forums and new design. There is still some work to be done on tweaking the design and expanding the forums topics. I’m currently recruiting moderators for the forums and want to focus on getting that part of the site humming along before any more expansion.

Having said that - this afternoon I mapped out a six month plan which involved more expansion of the site. For it to fully reach it’s potential there will be a big need for users to participate though as I do not have the time to put many hours into the site in the coming 12 months.

New Monetization Streams - the goals I’ve always had for DPS have not been only about making money. In fact it’s a blog that is more about a hobby that I want to learn about and improve in myself then anything else. Of course I would like it to pay for itself and eventually be profitable also if possible.

At this point I’m probably spending more on it than it’s making - however as it user base, reputation and archives of content grow I see it as having more and more opportunities for income streams both with premium sponsors but also affiliate programs and even e-resources of its own (eventually). I’m taking a long term view of this and am happy to continue to make small losses (or to break even) on the site in the short term in order to build it up.

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Written on January 3rd, 2007 at 04:01 am by Darren Rowse

Resources for creating a Wordpress theme

Blogging Tools and Services, Blog Design 8 comments

Rachel’s put together a list of Useful resources for creating a Wordpress theme which kicks a new series of posts for those wanting to create Wordpress themes.

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Written on January 2nd, 2007 at 07:01 pm by Darren Rowse

enternetusers Comments Competition Winner

enternetusers Site News 11 comments

Mid December I posted that I’d be giving a special Christmas present to one lucky enternetusers reader who left a comment here at enternetusers between then and Christmas.

Today I randomly chose the winner who will win a copy of each of the following 10 books that I rated as having the biggest impact upon my blogging last year.

• The Story Factor - a book that I’m currently reading about being influential and persuasive through the practice of story telling. Really enjoying this one.
• Ogilvy on Advertising - written by renowned copy writer David Ogilvy this book has a lot of great copywriting principles that translate well into blogging.
• Advertising Secrets of the Written Word - another copywriter sharing good common sense strategies for copy writing.
• The E-Myth Revisited - a business book that helps small business earners move from building themselves a job to building themselves a true business.
• Lovemarks: The Future Beyond Brands - I always rave about this book that looks about a paradigm shift in advertising and the rise of emotion, sensuality and more in branding/marketing.
• Unleashing the Idea Virus - the first book that I read by Seth Godin that back in it’s day rocked my world
• Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell’s classic book on ‘How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference’
• Join Me - I don’t think you can get this new any more but a great story of a guy who started accidentally started a movement and what he learned along the way. This is written almost as a novel in a humorous and easy to read style.
• Don’t Make Me Think - Common Sense Web Usability
• 1000 Most Important Words - a guide to unlocking our “passive” vocabularies and developing a keener appreciation of the richness of language

The winner of these 10 books is Rebecca from The Space Between My Peers for her comment on my post ‘What’s the Weirdest Thing You’ve Sold on Amazon?‘

Congratulations to Rebecca (I’ll be in touch shortly) and thanks to everyone for participating.

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Written on January 2nd, 2007 at 02:01 pm by Darren Rowse

Andy Wibbels Offers Half Price Blog Training Season Pass

Pro Blogging News 7 comments

A couple of years ago I came across an enthusiastic blogger by the name of Andy Wibbels who was putting together a 4 week course called Easy Bake Weblogs (aff) - a course for those just starting out in blogging to help them work out how to start a blog.

I took the course (not because I wanted to know how to start a blog - but because I was interested in how he taught it) and was really impressed by both Andy’s enthusiasm but also his ability to communicate in an easy to understand way that people seemed to be responding to.

I was so impressed by him that I got in touch and he interviewed me for a podcast.

That led onto more talks between us and the eventual development of a course that we wrote and produced together called Six Figure Blogging.

Since that time Andy has put together a number of other courses including Business Blog Basics, Podcasting Bootcamp, RSS Essentials and Keyword Essentials (aff).

He’s also written two books, Blogwild!: A Guide for Small Business Blogging (now in it’s second print edition) and Learning Wordpress (an ebook).

Today Andy shot me an email to let me know that he’s decided to bundle all 8 products into the one bundle and offer them all as a Season Pass for 50% of the cost of them each bought individually.

What do you get?

• 3 Live Teleseminars (each 4 weeks long) - Easy Bake Weblogs, Business Blog Basics and Keyword Essentials
• 3 Self Study Courses (another 12 sessions) - Six Figure Blogging, RSS Essentials and Podcasting Bookcamp
• 2 Books - Blog Wild (hard copy) and Learning WordPress (ebook).

You get access to all the course materials forever and can repeat courses as many times as you like.

The price isn’t cheap, even at 50% off it’s $887.50 USD, but Andy’s courses are excellent and he offers a no-questions, no-excuses 60 day money back guarantee that I know he honors. He also offers a payment plan to break down the cost into monthly lots.

I know it won’t be for everyone, but if you’re looking for a great overview of blogging from the basics through more specialized areas including blogging for profit then this might be a package that you want to invest into.

He’s also offering existing users of these courses cheaper season passes to account for what they’ve already paid. Email Andy if you haven’t already heard about that deal.

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Written on December 31st, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 11:12 am by Darren Rowse

Best of enternetusers - 2006

enternetusers Site News 32 comments

2006 was a massive year for me both on a personal level but also on a blogging front.

I became a Dad in July, V and I took a couple of interstate trips, I travelled to Canada, I started a new blog and forum at Digital Photography School, b5media went to a new level after securing investment (and had lots of highs and lows along the way), I met and got t know a lot of great new bloggers… and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Here at enternetusers it has been another busy year of posting with 1242 new posts going up on the blog (including this one), around 1.6 million visitors and 3.7 million page views (estimates - I lost my stats when changing servers), many thousands of comments, surviving being hacked, starting job boards and more.

Today I spent a few hours surfing through the last year’s archives reflecting upon the year that was. I try to do this type of review on each of my blogs both out of interest but also to analyze what did and didn’t work over the year so that I can improve for future years.

I looked at a lot of stats today but also made a list of blog posts that were successful (both on a comments/discussion level and on a traffic level). Here is a summary of the year that was with a short description of the month as well as a list of the most commented upon posts and other posts that did well in terms of traffic (or that I was proud of).

I hope you enjoy this trip back through the year of surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at enternetusers.

Warning - Be warned there are a lot of links to follow (143) and it might just take you a good part of the next year to read them all - however for newer readers it might prove a useful way to catch up on what we’ve been up to.

January

122 Posts - The start of the year was a touch slow last year as I took a week off over the New Year break and left the blog with a few advance posts and some great guest posters but by mid January things were kicking along again with a little controversy to get things going.

Most Commented Upon Posts (# of comments)

• My Technorati Problems (73)
• How Not to Launch a Blog - The Story of an Amateur Blogger (72)
• 7 Ways to Get to the Top of the del.icio.us Popular Page (71)
• Should enternetusers Add Forums (70)

Other Posts

• 9 Ways to Screw Up Your Professional Blog
• Sub-Niche Blogging - Lesson’s from a Baker Named Tom
• Lessons from my Tomato Patch on Pruning ‘Sucker’ Blogs
• Becoming a enternetusers - A Story in Many Parts
• What to Do when Your Blog is Attacked
• Should Bloggers Write for Humans or Computers?
• Why I don’t use Free Articles on my Blogs

February

144 posts - This month was where I ran the Blogging for Beginners series of posts. It was one of the most exciting months of blogging I’ve had as I got back to basics. Traffic went up, reader interaction was great and the posts in the series remain some of the most popular posts on the blog to this day.

Most Commented Upon Posts

• Blogging for Beginners (129)
• What’s Wrong with Blogging? Part 2 (63)
• Designer AdSense Ads (52)
• Blog Stalkers - Personal Safety for Bloggers (59)
• 19 (More) Strategies for Finding Readers (52)
• Choosing a Blog Platform (48)

Other Posts

• Selling Text Links
• How to Measure a Blog’s Success?
• Another Day in the Life of a enternetusers
• Making Money from Your Blog - Direct Methods
• Making Money from Your Blog - Indirect Methods

March

126 Posts - March saw the continuation of the Blogging for Beginners Series which ended up being ALOT longer than I first thought it would. I remember feeling pretty exhausted at the end of the series - it took a great deal of work.

Most Commented Upon Posts

• How to: Placing AdSense Strategically Between Posts (58)
• Which Statistic is Most Crucial to Your Blog? (52)
• How Often Should a Blogger Post? (43)

Other Posts

• Introduction to Advertising Optimization - Traffic, Ad Position, Design, Ad Relevancy, High Paying Ads
• How to Be Lucky
• Why You Should Join a Blog Network
• Why You Shouldn’t Join a Blog Network
• How Often Should a Blogger Post?
• Converting RSS Subscribers to Blog Readers
• 10 Steps to Writing a Successful Series on your Blog

April

86 Posts - In April V and I took our last break before our baby came along and over the two week break I posted a series of 16 case studies which were submitted by readers telling the stories of their blogs. I also had some cool guest bloggers again but the overall posting rate was down slightly. We did have a great break though! I also finished this month off with a series of posts on Building Blogger Credibility.

Most Commented Upon Posts

• Blog Tools (90)
• Blogs are about Being Elite (62)
• enternetusers Vidcast (62)
• 10 Steps to Guarantee You’ll Never Make More than 0.14 cents per month with AdSense (57)
• The Cost of Comment Spam (56)

Other Posts

• Diversify Your Blogging Income with Secondary Money Earners
• Is Your Niche Nichy Enough? A Tale of Two AdSense Blogs
• How to Sell Information Products
• Blogs: Frequently Asked Questions
• The Importance of Landing Pages on Blogs

May

126 Posts - May saw me experiment with a new idea for enternetusers - Group Writing Projects. I’d done similar things previously but it evolved into the group project idea with Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers. I also ran a poll this month asking readers about their overall earnings - results here. Lastly - May was a month where I wrote a series of posts on Maintaining Momentum in Blogging.

Most Commented Upon Posts

• Some enternetusers News (66)
• Link Lust (65)
• Idol Blogger Crashes Server and Teaches us a Lesson about Hosting (59)
• New Poll - Gender (51)
• How Quickly after starting a blog should I put ads on it? (48)
• Hitting Comment Spammers and Plagiarists Where it Hurts (45)

Other Posts

• Lessons from an Umbrella Salesman
• How to Surf Blog Traffic Tsunamis
• 10 Reasons Why Many Blogs Don’t Make Much Money
• 10 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers
• Lessons from Eye Tracking
• How NOT to get Banned from AdSense
• 8 Reasons Why New Media is Growing
• The Benefits of Highlighting Popular Posts on Your Blog

June

116 Posts - June was a quiet-ish month as many of my northern hemisphere readers started to do Summery things and as the time got close for our new baby. I ran another group writing project on Blogging Goals and a couple of mini-series of posts.

Most Commented Upon Posts

• A - Z of Professional Blogging (151)
• How to Increase a Blog’s Page Views (52)
• Exponential Growth in Blogging - Getting Through the Early Days (38)
• My Blogging ‘A List’ (34)
• Business Blogging 101 (27)

Other Posts

• Techniques for Using Polls Effectively on a Blog
• How to Kill Your Blog Successfully (series)
• Title Tags and SEO
• Using Digg to Improve Your Content

July

83 Posts - Our son, Xavier, arrived in July and I took a fair portion of the month off as paternity leave. The theme of the blog for this month was ‘If I had to start my blog again’ which was both the theme of the month’s group writing project but also also a ‘one question interview‘ series that I ran where I asked a number of bloggers what they’d do differently if they had to start their blogs again.

Most Commented Upon Posts

• enternetusers Junior Comes out of Beta (137)
• What has Blogging Bought You? (more on this here) (51)
• PayPerPost - Paying Bloggers to Post - First Impressions (49)
• A Day in the Life of a Blogger - Vidcast (34)
• I get Paid to Sleep (27)

Other Posts

• Launching a Blog - What Kinds of Posts are Best?
• Reflections on Sources of Traffic

August

97 Posts - August saw group writing projects go up a notch with the Lists Project. I also wrote a number of series including one on using interviews on a blog and another on Persuasive Blogging.

Most Commented Upon Posts

• Top 8 Excuses for Stealing Other People’s Content (46)
• Blogger Jobs - enternetusers Job Boards (46)
• enternetusers Quiz (39)
• Introduction to Desktop Blog Editors (37)
• How to Get Eyeballs on Your Archives (37)
• Essential Books for Bloggers (29)

Other Posts

• Marinating Ideas into Blog Posts - My Posting Workflow
• How to Eliminate the Echo Chamber and Add New Dimensions to Your Blog
• The Problem of Default About Pages
• Reinvent Your Blog
• Should Blogs Use the Extended Entry (more) Feature?
• The Eternal Quest for Uniqueness
• Random vs Planned Blogging

September

84 Posts - September saw the most successful group writing project on the topic of ‘How To’. It had great prizes and attracted hundreds of participants. I also ran a bit of a fund raiser in September in my Blogging for Chickens fundraiser (we raised over $1000). Also popular this month was a mini series on Linkbaiting.

Most Commented Upon Posts

• Why Having a Blog is Like Having a Baby (39)
• Blog Security - Tips on Keeping Your Blog from being Hacked (32)

Other Posts

• Lessons from Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter
• CPC Ads vs Affiliate Programs
• Communication Skills for Bloggers
• Fair Fighting Rules
• Do You Write for Individuals or the Masses?
• 11 Lies of Professional Blogging Resources
• 101 Ways to Run Out of Things to Blog about
• How to Make Your Blog More Inclusive

October

72 Posts - In October I took a break from group writing projects and we got down to some basics of blogging again. Ironically the most commented upon post of the year was in this month about - how to get comments on your blog.

Most Commented Upon Posts

• 10 Techniques to Get More Comments on Your Blog (186)
• What is Your Day Job? (82)
• What do You Think About Sponsored Posts? - Have your Say (48)
• Top 100 Blogs Have an Average Age of 33.8 Months (46)
• Which Bloggers Would You Love to Meet? (43)
• Is AdSense Dead? (42)

Other Posts

• Expertise, Knowledge and Intuition in Blogging
• How to Be Curious
• How to Improve Your Blogging Through Practice

November

102 Posts - November was an exciting month for me as it brought along a 10 day trip to Toronto to meet some some of the b5media team. While I was gone I ran a fun series of guest posts from readers with their ‘quick tips‘. This month I also posted a 13 post series on How to Optimize Your Blog for Christmas.

Most Commented Upon Posts

• Blog Hosting Recommendations (72)
• 5 Essential OSX Blogging Tools (56)
• Social Bookmarking Icons - Are they Worth it? (46)
• How to Optimize Your Blog for Search Engines (42)

Other Posts

• How Comments Can Help Your Blog Rank Well in Search Engines
• What should you do if your Google Ranking Falls and You Lose All Your Traffic?
• 18 Lessons in Blogging - Part II
• How to Choose Affiliate Programs for Your Blog

December

80 Posts - After a busy year December was a month of fun and winding up for the year. We did another writing project on the topic of Reviews and Predictions and I wrote my last series for the year on the topic of Adding a Personal Touch to Your Blog.

Most Commented Upon Posts

• Win 10 Great ‘Blogging books’ at enternetusers (92)
• Snap Preview - Tell me What You Think (63)
• Blog Gestation Periods(54)
• Microsoft Under Fire Over Laptops Giveaways (49)
• Five Things You May Not Know about This Little enternetusers (48)

Other Posts

• Why Personal Blogs Rock
• Blogging Wills - What happens to your Blogs When You Die?
• How to Build a ‘Digg Culture’ on your Blog
• How to Cut Through the Clutter of an Overly Blogged Story and Get Noticed
• Use Reader’s Previous Amazon Purchases to Drive Future Sales
• 8 Signs it Might Be Time to Take a Break from Blogging

All in all it was a fairly busy but very satisfying year of blogging here at enternetusers. Thanks to the many thousands of readers who have contributed either with guest posts, comments, emails and tip offs. I’m looking forward to yet another great year in 2007.

Have a great night tonight for those of you who are celebrating the coming of the new year and I’ll see you ‘on the other side’.

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Written on December 31st, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 07:12 am by Darren Rowse

Chitika Send Top Publishers iPods

Chitika eMiniMalls 14 comments

Google sent their top earners digital picture frames, YPN sent sweatshirts and in the last few days Chitika publishers have started getting their gifts - ipod shuffles.

Very cool idea and something practical that I’m sure will get a lot of use.

I’m not sure what the cutoff point was for who got one and one didn’t but have seen a few publishers talking about them.

Thanks Chitika.

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Written on December 31st, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 07:12 am by Darren Rowse

Seeing out the Year as Spiderman

enternetusers Site News 40 comments

What better way to end the year with a bit of fun by working out what super hero describes me best.

Nothing too serious here - but it’d be interesting to see someone aggregate results from a range of bloggers to find out if any super hero dominates!

Anyway - here are my results:

Click here to take the “Which Superhero am I?” quiz…

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Written on December 31st, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 06:12 am by Darren Rowse

Blogsmith Blog Platform to launch in early 2007

Blogging Tools and Services 6 comments

901am has interesting news today about the blog platform (Blogsmith) behind the Weblogs Inc blog network.

David reports that Blogsmith to launch in early 2007 and become available for bloggers to use. I’ve not seen the backend of Blogsmith but it will be interesting to see how it compares to other platforms available.

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