Written on October 3rd, surf Active Apparel website active apparel zone.at 05:10 am by Darren Rowse
AdSense, YPN and Chitika Preview Tool
Have you ever wondered what ads are showing in your AdSense, Chitika and YPN units around the world in different locations?
These advertising systems are all geographically targeted advertising systems (Chitika less so but they do to some extent). The ads you see in your part of the world can be quite different to those you see in mine.
AdSense does offer a preview tool but it only works in windows versions of IE. Chitika and YPN don’t offer such tools.
Digital Inspiration has a cool tool that might be useful for you.
The sandbox tool shows you what type of ads your site is likely to show in different geographic locations. It will also give you a comparison between the ads that the three different systems will serve to your sites in different color schemes to help you to choose what ad system might serve the most relevant ads to your blog.
I can’t vouch for the accuracy of it but it seems to work and might be useful for some. Let me know what you think.
Written on October 3rd, surf Active Apparel website active apparel zone.at 12:10 am by Darren Rowse
The Curious Blogger
Curiosity might kill cats but it can bring life to a blog.
One of the characteristics that I’ve observed many successful bloggers having is ‘curiosity’.
Wikipedia defines curiosity as:
“any natural inquisitive behaviour, evident by observation in many animal species, and is the emotional aspect of living beings that engenders exploration, investigation, and learning.”
Good bloggers are often curious about one or more of the following things:
- How things work in their field - curious bloggers are the type of people who don’t want to just know the news but want to work out how it applies to their lives (and the lives of their readers). They test new products. They try things in ways they were intended to be used but also in ways that they were not. They don’t just want to know that things work but why and how they work.
- Finding solutions for problems - they are not satisfied to let problems remain unsolved but are always looking for solutions to outstanding issues.
- How others in their niche do things - they are not only interested in things, products or news but are interested in people. They seek people in their niche out, they network, they share information, they observe other and they ask lots of questions about what others know and how they do things.
- Their niche - they keep a finger on the pulse of their niche and watch what other key figures are saying (and not saying). They gather information, analyse trends and take pride in being in the know.
- How to present things differently - curious bloggers are not satisfied with regurgitating news or having a blog that is like every other blog in their niche. They Actively look for ways to present their content in interesting and creative ways. They are often innovative both in the features of their blog but in their writing.
- How principles in other fields might apply to theirs - curious bloggers often have a wide array of interests in different fields and are always looking to learn about how they can learn something from one that applies to another. Bringing together disconnected ideas and learning something new from them is a natural practice for curious bloggers.
- Digging beneath the surface to find the ‘real’ story - curious bloggers won’t accept ’spin’ and are always digging deeper to get the real story or a scoop. They go beyond following RSS feeds and look for the inside word. These are the type of bloggers who dig around on manufacturers websites or forums looking for unannounced products. The result is that occasionally they get lucky and break big stories.
Tomorrow I’m going to take this idea of the ‘curious blogger’ into a ‘how to’ realm and will ask (and attempt to answer) the question of whether curiosity is a personality thing or whether it can be learned in How to be Curious.
Written on October 2nd, surf Active Apparel website active apparel zone.at 09:10 am by Darren Rowse
Expertise, Knowledge and Intuition in Blogging
Do you post out of what you know or do you blog intuitively?
On the recommendation of Brian I’ve started reading Ogilvy on Advertising (aff) over the last couple of weeks. It’s a fairly dated book in some respects but it’s fascinating to see how many of the principles have application for blog writing.
Today I read a small section written for advertisers on ‘pursuit of knowledge’ that I thought might be relevant for bloggers writing on specialized niches.
“I asked an indifferent copywriter what books he had read about advertising. He told me that he had not read any; he preferred to rely on his own intuition. ‘Suppose’, I asked, ‘your gall-bladder has to be removed this evening. Will you choose a surgeon who has read some books on anatomy and knows where to find your gall-bladder, or a surgeon who relies on his intuition? Why should our clients be expected to bet millions of dollars on your intuition?’
This quote got me wondering how many bloggers blog on topics more on intuition than on actual knowledge on the topic they’re blogging on.
Don’t hear me as saying intuition is all bad (one of the beauties of blogging is that you don’t have to be an expert to have a voice) but having a deeper knowledge of your niche is important if you want to communicate with authority and credibility.
Of course reading books is not the only way of gaining knowledge on your topic but I’m interested to hear people reflect on these questions:
How much knowledge do you have on the topics that you write on? Where does your knowledge on your topic come from?
How would I answer the question?
The depth of my own knowledge on the blogs that I’ve written on over the years has varied a fair bit. On some blogs I blogged out of years of experience and quite a bit of knowledge while on others I’ve had a real interest without much actual expertise (and on a few blogs that I’ve let die I’ll admit that I had little interest or knowledge - they were more about trying to make money - the result was that I lost interest very quickly and they died).
In terms of inspiration it again varies from blog to blog but includes:
- other blogs (tracked via RSS largely)
- newspapers (online versions usually although we do have one delivered on the weekends)
- other ’sites’ (when I write a post on a topic I generally will do a search on Google for the keywords I’m writing about to see what others have written outside of the blogosphere)
- books (I’m increasingly reading a lot more books and using them as inspiration for posts - this post for example)
- magazines (I know they’re supposed to be losing ground to online publications but in recent months I’ve been drawn back to them for some reason)
- personal experience (this is a significant factor in most of my blogs - I like to share what I’m learning and discovering)
Of course when I use a source I give credit back to it (although it can sometimes be a challenge to remember where you learnt something when you’re writing on the topic a few weeks or months later).
PS: I”ll say it one more time - I’m not against the idea of blogging intuitively. I think that most good bloggers blog with a blend of expertise and intuition. Sometimes the best posts come from a hunch instead of deep knowledge of your topic. Knowing when to go with a hunch is a real gift and can be what sets great bloggers apart from ‘good’ knowledgeable bloggers.
How much knowledge do you have on your topics? Where does your inspiration and knowledge come from? How much do you rely upon intuition?
Written on September 30th, surf Active Apparel website active apparel zone.at 02:09 pm by Darren Rowse
Email Newsletter Subscribers Click More Ads
Here’s a quick observation that I’ve made (by no means is this what I consider to be conclusive research - but it’s interesting anecdotal observation).
I run a number of newsletters on my blogs. On two of them I’ve noticed that on the day that my newsletters go out that my AdSense CTR (click through rate) goes up significantly.
While I’ve written previously about how regular readers tend to become blind to ads because they see them so regularly - I am finding that with newsletter subscribers (that come to the site each week) that the blindness doesn’t seem to come into play.
I also noticed this trend when another site’s newsletter linked to my site and sent a lot of readers across. When I saw it happen I expected CTR to decrease (as it usually does when another site links to me) but in actual fact CTR (and overall earnings) went up. Once again the link came from a newsletter and not the actual website.
I wonder what it is about the type of people who subscribe to email newsletters that makes them more likely to click advertising?
Any theories?
Written on September 30th, surf Active Apparel website active apparel zone.at 12:09 pm by Darren Rowse
Blogging For Chickens - Last Call
One last post about my Blogging For Chickens Project for the week. The total donated is now up to 80 pairs of chickens donated ($800AU or $600US).
I’ll continue to collect donation for the rest of the weekend but will close it off on Monday morning.
Thanks to all who have made a donation so far - if you’d like to see the chook-o-meter hit triple figures you can do so with a donation either directly to Oxfam or by shooting some money into my PayPal for me to make the donation during the next week (I’ll post a receipt when I do). Full details are in this post.
I’ve also had an email from Oxfam this week saying thank you and saying that this is one of the more interesting fundraisers that they’ve seen. They wanted me to pass on their appreciation to the enternetusers community for your kindness and generosity.
Written on September 30th, surf Active Apparel website active apparel zone.at 04:09 am by Darren Rowse
Speedlinking - 30 September 2006
A couple of links today for workaholic work-at-home entrepreneurs:
- LifeDev writes an insightful post on the Myths About Working From Home
- Solostream has a good post on Strategies to Resolve Work/Life Imbalance
Written on September 30th, surf Active Apparel website active apparel zone.at 12:09 am by Darren Rowse
Google Page Rank Update Underway Again
Thanks to everyone who has sent me email and IM to let me know that Google is updating it’s page rank at the moment. It does seem that there is an update under way from what I can see.
As usual you can check your Future Page Rank here on a post I wrote for a previous update.
If you’re new to the idea of page rank you might like to read my page rank explained post on the topic where I attempt to explain what it is and unpack whether it is actually important or not these days.
Written on September 30th, surf Active Apparel website active apparel zone.at 12:09 am by Darren Rowse
The Challenge for Video Bloggers
I was really excited to hear about the launch of Robert Scoble’s Video Blog in the past week. It certainly caused a stir around the blogosphere as it got lots of mentions on launch and some pretty positive reviews from viewers.
When I saw some of the segments included in the show I was even more excited - some of what he was covering was right up my alley. So I immediately loaded up a couple of segments to watch….
So what did I think of the show?
Ummmm…. well…. as I look at my browser at the moment I still have the two segments loaded up and ready to watch - they’ve been sitting there now for a few days - unwatched. I’ve sat down to watch them on a couple of occasions but each time got distracted.
I’m sure they’re really good but I’m wondering if I’m ever going to get to them. The thing with video is that you really need to set aside time to do it - especially if the videos are more than a minute or two in length (Roberts are mainly between 8 and 35 minutes).
Perhaps I’m just not cut out for being a video blogging viewer - but I wonder whether I’m the only one?
By no means am I saying Robert’s show is no good (I definitely want to watch a couple of them over the weekend…. or next week) or that video blogging will never succeed. I guess I’m just thinking out loud about one of the challenges that video blogging (and probably podcasting and blogging in a written format) has - busyness of readers/viewers.
Video blogging has a distinct advantage in that it’s both a audio and visual medium which means it can go onto ground that blogging or podcasting can’t - however it also means it’s a more intensive process to interact with (at least the way I use it).
Podcasting can be played in the background while you do something else and blogging has the advantage of being able to scan through to find the interesting bits - but video blogging (in the way I’m seeing it used) needs those using it both to listen and look at it for them to fully interact with it.
Of course TV and Movies have big followings, which shows people are willing to give their full attention, but I’m interested to see what type of people will fully interact with video blogging.
Interested in what others think. Do you watch video blogs? Why/Why not? If so how many per week?
PS: I do understand that this week at the Scoble show that they are in launch mode and as a result have launched with quite a few videos all at once - I guess in time the frequency of posting will be lower which will help people digest it - but I guess the challenge remains.
Written on September 29th, surf Active Apparel website active apparel zone.at 12:09 am by Darren Rowse
101 Ways to Run Out of Things to Blog About
The ‘list’ is a popular (and effective) style of blog post that appeals to many bloggers (and their readers). However in chatting to a few bloggers lately using lists can also be something of a trap at times - especially using the ‘mega list’.
nb: by ‘mega list’ I mean those long all encompassing lists - you know the type, they often are titled something like ‘101 ways to…..’.
While mega lists are quite impressive and often get a lot of attention from other blogs and social bookmarking sites - they also have the potential to bring your blogging to a halt quite quickly.
I was chatting to one new blogger last week who told me about a ‘101 ways to….’ post that she’d kicked off her blog with in his first week of a new blog. Here’s are a few snippets from an IM conversation we had:
‘I spent days putting together this great list. I wanted it to be big as a way of bringing new readers in and to show how much I comprehended of the topic…..’
‘the results were amazing. I got on the front page of Digg and high on Reddit and Delicious…..’
‘I had close to 30,000 visitors in 48 hours!….’
‘the next day I sat down to write my next post and realised that every topic I thought of to write about was covered in my mega list…..’
‘Readers are giving me feedback that I’ve lost it. They want more posts like that first one but I’ve got nothing else to say….’
‘I’ve run out of things to say after 2 weeks of blogging because I said it all in that first big post….’
It was a fascinating conversation and actually reminded me a of a few times in my own blogging that I’d had similar feelings of running out of things to say as a result of a list that was so comprehensive that it left little more to be said on a topic.
I recommended a two things to the blogger:
Consider the impact of using lists before you write them
Hindsight is a great thing but a little forethought can save a lot of pain. Before you hit publish on your next ‘list post’ ask yourself what impact it will have both in the short term (potential traffic) but also the long term.
- Is it so comprehensive that your readers will be satisfied and not need more?
- Does it leave you room to write more on your niche later?
- Are you setting your readers up with the expectation that this is the way you write all your posts?
Use the list as a spring board for 101 posts
Of course my first piece of advice came too late for the blogger in question - they’d already posted it and was suffering the consequences already. So what should they do to get things running again? My advice was to use the list as a starting point for future posts.
Obviously people responded to the content in the list. It did cover a lot of ground but as with many lists it didn’t go into a great deal of depth on any one point. As I looked it over the list I reflected that each of the 101 points would have made a great heading for a future post going deeper. The blogger could do this either as a series (and tell people that she was working off the list) or it could just be something that the blogger knows she’s doing.
Written on September 28th, surf Active Apparel website active apparel zone.at 02:09 pm by Darren Rowse
Google Opens AdSense Office In Australia
Yesterday I had an unexpected phone call. It was from Michael from Google.
Now while I do chat to a few Google employees occasionally it’s always at odd hours of the day and usually via email - but this was an afternoon call and via phone. Different….
The accent was American and my immediate thought was that someone was working very late (or had gotten up very early) as it was the early hours of the morning in the US.
Michael introduced himself and quickly told me that he was working in the AdSense department in Sydney (which had just opened) and that my account had just been transferred from my previous account manager (at Google HQ in California) to him.
Ok - so in the scheme of things it’s not massive news but it was nice to get a personal call from someone in my own timezone. It’s also great to know that next time I run into a problem with AdSense that I probably won’t have to wait until the following day when my rep in the US wakes up to get a response.
From what I could tell from our conversation the Aussie AdSense department is pretty small at present but is set to grow in the coming months as they begin to hire (hopefully some locals).
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