Written on December 17th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 06:12 pm by Darren Rowse
TIME Wins Linkbaiter of the Year Award
Time Magazine have pulled off the Link Bait of the year with their Person of the Year Award. They’ve named ‘You’ (and me) as the winner of the award.
By ‘You’ they give the award to anyone involved in user generated content - that’s social media, blogging, video sharing etc etc etc.
“And for seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, TIME’s Person of the Year for surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.is you.”
While I think it’s a great award (you/we) have been a part of a massive shift) I think it’s also a brilliant Linkbait strategy (planned or unplanned). Can you imagine the inbound links this is going to create for Time?!? Every user generated content maker is going to be linking to this one! :-)
PS: thanks to everyone who emailed this story through - Kris was first off the mark.
Update: Check out the links already coming in via Technorati for person of the year. I bet this graph goes crazy later today:
Written on December 17th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 10:12 am by Darren Rowse
Snap Preview - Tell me What You Think
There are a number of tools that I’ve been meaning to test on my blogs over the past few months and so this weekend I’ve decided to get a few of them up and running.
The first one that you’ll notice I’m testing at enternetusers is Snap. I’ve added it to my blogging tools page.
Put your cursor over any external links on any of my pages (except AdSense ads as far as I can see) and Snap will give you a preview of what you’ll see on that site before you actually go there (see below for an example).
I’m in two minds about this - while I can see some readers as enjoying it I suspect it’ll annoy others. So consider this a test and your opportunity to tell me how you find the user experience of the tool.
PS: Snap comes with a ’search’ tool which you can switch on or off. I’ve left it switched off at this point as I already have a search tool on my blog using Google’s AdSense tool.
The search uses Snap’s search engine tool which I suspect what they’ve developed this tool to promote.
Update: I think it’s fairly safe to assume that I’ll be removing these in the coming day or so. I won’t do it immediately to give other readers a chance to see them in action - but the overwhelming feedback to this point is that they are not working for a majority of readers (although as expected the reaction is divided).
I would consider leaving them Active in the comments section though as I do like the idea of one of our comments below that they can be useful there (having said that I probably won’t). Feel free to keep having your say though!
Update 2: I’ve disabled this. Thanks all for the feedback.
Written on December 16th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 10:12 am by Darren Rowse
Partners Network CPA Ads Go Live
Performancing have officially started running their CPA Network Ads on publishers blogs. Nick writes:
“Right now they are very broad in topic, as this is simply a test (but a test with the aim of making you money..), but presuming all goes to plan, we’ll roll out more creatives and more specific targeting in coming days.
The ads are geo targeted, so if you’re outside of the US, you may not see too much, but visitors in the US will see ads targeted to them. Again this is something we hope to work on if the beta test goes good. ”
While I understand the geo targeting I have to say it is a bit unnerving for a publisher who isn’t in the US to have ads running on your blog that you cannot see - particularly if the ads are ‘broad’. I think I’ll opt out of it here at enternetusers until they bring in more targeted ads. For the time being though I’ll leave them on my less targeted blogs.
Written on December 16th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 05:12 am by Darren Rowse
Finding a Conversational Voice in Your Blogging
This is my final post in the ‘adding a personal touch to your blog‘ series:
This one is more of a personal preference than anything so take it or leave it - but I attempt to make my writing style as conversational as possible. I try to write in a similar way to the way I speak.
I know that this frustrates some readers for would like a more formal or text book approach - but in the majority of cases the response is positive and readers become drawn into my posts and respond in a similar voice.
The result is real conversation between blogger and reader and not ’spin’ or ‘corporate talk’.
Once again - this doesn’t work for everyone - find your own voice and stick with it.
Written on December 16th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 01:12 am by Darren Rowse
Make Your Readers Famous
Go out of your way to publicly (and privately) celebrate and acknowledge your readers and you’ll find the impact is twofold:
- The readers that you acknowledge will become more loyal to you. It’s pretty simple really - we like it when people value us.
- Other readers respond well to your acknowledgment of other readers like them and you create a culture where everyone feels valued even when they are not specifically highlighted. I find that readers respond really well when you take a break from writing on the news in your industry or generic tips and focus in on people.
Make your readers famous by linking to their blogs, highlighting their work, publishing their thoughts, sending your readers to comment on their work and praising them wherever you can and you’ll find the impact both upon others and your own blog to be significant.
Written on December 15th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 09:12 pm by Darren Rowse
When Failings, Mistakes and Half Finished Thoughts can Help Grow Your Blog
Another way to make yourself more relatable to readers is to highlight your humanity by showing when you’re less than perfect.
One of the problems of blogging is that it can create (intentionally or unintentionally) ’spin’ around a person that gives readers the impression of ’super hero’ status.
Ask yourself - when was the last time you wrote about a mistake you made?
I find it very easy to write about my successes and strengths - but quite naturally avoid sharing my short fallings. The problem is - that I regularly mess up and make mistakes. If I never mention these and only highlight the good stuff the image that I portray to others becomes quite one dimensional and eventually un-relatable.
Share your some of your (relevant) short comings and the lessons that you’ve learned from your mistakes and you not only present readers with a great case study - but you show them that you’re actually similar to them also.
You might want to have some balance with this strategy of course - posting everyday about a mistake you’ve made might not be the best way of showing your expertise on a topic or build credibility but the occasional story of a lesson learnt through falling on your face can be well worth posting. The key is to not just highlight the mistake but to show what you’ve learned and how others might avoid it too.
Written on December 15th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 01:12 pm by Darren Rowse
Use of Images and Video - Adding Personal Touches to Your Blog
Earlier today I wrote about how adding a Byline to a blog helped increase the personal interactions between blogger and reader.
At around the same time we added a photo the blogger I was working with to the top of his sidebar and wrote a one sentence line introducing who he was and what his blog was about. We also added a second ‘about page’ (so he ended up with an about page for his blog and a personal about page - similar to the way I’ve done it here at enternetusers). His personal about page had more pictures of him.
Once again - the feedback from readers was immediate. Not only did they have a name to connect posts to but a face.
I noticed a similar thing on the few times that I’ve experimenting with video blogging here at enternetusers. I was amazed by the number of comments left on video blogs and the way that people responded in very positive ways. I really need to find more time for more video.
Written on December 15th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 12:12 pm by Darren Rowse
Speedlinking - 15 December 2006
- Chris has finished his excellent series of video casts on 7 Essential WordPress Hacks at Tubetorial.
- Today’s your last chance to vote for enternetusers in the Weblog Awards - we’re 150 votes behind the leader of the pack and battling for 2nd place so far.
- Pimp Your Work has a competition running at present (it’s been extended a week) with some great prizes for people who submit their best ‘work tip’ (it could be software tips, work life tips, meeting tips etc).
- Yesterday Brian had a great post with 21 Traffic Triggers for Social Marketing which has plenty of food for thought if you’re starting to think about what type of web apps/blogs/sites to build in 2007.
- Yaro has interviewed Brian from Copyblogger in a podcast today. Nice to put a voice to the posts that Brian does.
- The Blog Studio has a new free WP theme available for download
- Shawn Collins has an interview with Lilly Shen from ebay’s affiliate program
- Garter predicts that blogging will peak in 2007. What do you think?
Written on December 15th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 09:12 am by Darren Rowse
Using Bylines on Blogs
A few months ago I was consulting with a blogger who was getting a reasonable number of visitors to his blog each day but who was getting very low levels of commenting and reader interaction.
Over time we made a number of changes to his blog with some success but one thing I suggested was to move his byline (his name) from the bottom of each post (where it was very small and buried among other details) to the top, just under the post title where it was more prominent.
The result was almost immediate and the blogger concerned reported to me a week later that he started getting much more personal feedback from readers in the form of comments and emails. His overall comment levels jumped by around 50% and they often included his name. It seemed that previously no one really knew who wrote his blog and that just by highlighting his name readers became more sticky and willing to participate.
I wouldn’t guarantee a 50% increase in comments on every blog that did this - but I suspect that it might help.
Written on December 15th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia392 zone.at 04:12 am by Darren Rowse
AdSense Earnings for November 2006
Last week I surveyed readers on their AdSense earnings for the month of November. I was hoping to run the poll for a full week but due to some problems with the plugin I was using only got around two days of data (732 respondents).
The results were quite similar to last years version of this same poll. Here’s a visual breakdown of numbers of respondents in each of the categories:
As with previous years, the largest group of bloggers using with AdSense earn under $10 a month (28% of of all who use AdSense).
Interestingly - the second largest category wasn’t the $10 - $29 category - but the $100-$499 one (21%).
The top category of over $10,000 in a month was reached by 23 bloggers (4%). 16% are earning over the magical $1000 per month mark.
Here’s a pie chart with all the percentages (note, I’ve taken out the ‘don’t use AdSense’ category).
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