Written on April 8th, 2005 at 08:04 am by Darren Rowse
A day in the life of a enternetusers
This has always been one of the most popular posts on enternetusers so today I thought I’d update it with some new things that I do on an ‘average day’ as a enternetusers (originally written November 2004 which will explain the old comments).
A number of people have asked me recently what a typical day of blogging looks like for me - I thought I’d share the basics. Of course what an actual day looks like differs from day to day depending on other commitments (I have other interests/work outside of blogging), the day of the week (weekends I try to get a life) and my mood (I’m an impulsive type).
7.00am - My wife’s (’V') alarm goes off. I attempt to ignore it. She hits ’snooze’.
7.15am - The alarm goes off again - I shove V out of the bed in the direction of the shower and promptly fall back asleep.
7.45am - V returns to the bedroom and the hair dryer starts - sleep becomes impossible - and so my day begins.
8.30am - Having showered, eaten and seen V off to work I sit down at my powerbook with a fresh cup of coffee and begin my morning blogging routine (note that despite public perception to the contrary - this enternetusers is usually fully dressed (not in pyjamas or boxer shorts) by the time most people are hitting their normal place of work (9am). Of course there are exceptions to every rule).
8.35am - Check blog stats - I use Safari (and sometimes Firefox) as a browser - both enable me to simultaneously open up the statistics page of each one of my blogs in tabbed windows. I run a free SiteMeter stat counter on each of my pages and find the information it gives sufficient for a quick check of overall visitor levels - hot pages and referrals. It take a few minutes on each blog to look for any spikes in traffic and to work out where traffic is or isn’t coming from.
8.50am - Check income streams - I then log into my Adsense and Affiliate reports to see what earnings over night were like.
9.00am - Check RSS feeds - I use Bloglines to track 350 or so blogs and and search feeds on particular keywords. Most mornings I will log on and find that there are anything from 400 to 2000 results since I last checked that I need to wade through. This usually takes at least two or three hours to do because as I check them I enter relevant posts into my blogs using Ecto.
Ecto is a simple blogging tool that lets you post to your blog/s without actually logging into the back end of your blog. It allows the posting of pictures and has a wonderful feature that allows you to highlight text on a webpage and import it into a draft entry on your blog. As most of my blogs are ‘news hubs’ and generally are quotes from and links to other sources with a few of my own comments this features is very useful. I can post something to my blog within minutes.
10.00am - check and respond to emails. I get ALOT of emails. Every comment left on my blogs ends up in my inbox where I monitor their appropriateness. At least a few get deleted every morning due to them being spam comments or using foul language (I try to keep things ‘family friendly’ as I get a lot of kids through my blogs doing project research). I also get a lot of requests for links, advice etc and attempt to respond to as many as possible.
10.30am - Check Google News subscriptions. I subscribe to a number of news services such as Google News. Every morning between around 8.30am and 10am emails start arriving in my inbox with the results of these searches. As I sort through them I upload any relevant links directly onto my blogs. Update: I’m using Google News less and less and relying more and more upon RSS feeds from sites like Topix these days.
11.00am - Coffee time. Most mornings at this point I take a walk up to my local Cafe for a coffee (or three). I generally take either a business book (often on Marketing, Branding, Small Business), a magazine (on gadgets, the internet etc) or a newspaper with me. I always have a notebook handy because this is the time of day I often get my best ideas.
I intentionally clear this space for myself each day as ‘dreaming’ time because it is very easy just to get caught up in the micro level of updating a blog/s and not spend any time looking at the bigger picture. I use this time to set goals, plan new projects, think about ways of improving what i do. If I’m really busy (or really inspired) I’ll take my laptop down to the cafe with me to write or wade through the emails that are piling up but I try to keep this time each day as non online time - partly for my own sanity but partly because it gives me a bit of perspective.
12.00pm - Connect with other bloggers/forums. I chat regularly to a small number of other bloggers who have similar interests and projects. Most days I would touch base with them to bounce ideas around, support one another, work on common projects and catch up on what they are doing. Similarly I participate in a number of forums including Site Point, WebMasterWorld and Digital Point. I find these interactions very helpful and have learnt so much from others doing similar things with their blogs and websites.
12.30pm - Lunch - usually eaten whilst checking stats again. I find its really helpful to keep your finger on the pulse of your blogs by regularly checking your stats. This way you are ready to make changes if you notice sudden changes in visiter levels.
1.00pm - Most afternoons the pattern generally repeats itself somewhat with me heading back to my News Aggregator and checking for relevant articles/posts to update to my blogs. I aim to post at least 25 posts per day - weekends tend to be a little less than the target but week days its usually not a problem and I’ve been known to do up to 70 in a day if there is lots of news about on the topics I’m writing on.
3.00pm - Siesta. I like to take a nap in the afternoons if I can afford the time. Largely because I stay up late working (see below). This is getting to be rarer and rarer however as life gets busier and busier.
4.00pm - it is about this time that my RSS feed really comes alive. I’m based in Australia so I’m not sure what is going on in the world at this time but there is usually a spike in traffic levels and when lots of stories appear on other blogs and via RSS. I work hard at this time of day updating my blogs and in quiet patches coming up with original content (like this very post).
6.00pm - frantically race around the house cleaning up and making it appear that I’ve done some housework before V gets home.
6.15pm - check Adsense figures. This is the time of day that Adsense closes its books on an old day and releases channels figures for the previous day. Its a good time to do a little reviewing of the trends of the past week and see where traffic and income is coming from. Which blogs are performing - which are not? Where do I need to focus my attention in the next few days? What is hot and should I ride the wave of?
6.30pm - V arrives home form work - I welcome her at the door and catch up on the day that she had - tell her about mine - reveal the grand total of earnings for the day. This is usually followed by dinner/TV/friends/being a good husband.
8.00pm - Depending what we have on (we go out a bit in the evenings) I might grab the powerbook (wireless) and sit in the lounge room to do a little more updating from the RSS feed while we watch TV. I tend to use the evenings to review the day’s postings. I go through each entry for the day and ask the question - ‘who could I let know about this post?’ I’ll email other bloggers that I know would be interested in the things I’ve written (I also do this during the day as I think of it) and submit a few of my better posts to some of the bigger blogs and websites out there that I have relationships with in the hope that they might link up and send a deluge of traffic my way. I also use the evenings to think about Search Engine Optimization - often in the heat of the moment during the day time I don’t give as much attention to this as I should and the time in the evenings is a good time to reformat posts so as to get better ranked on Google.
10pm - V is generally off to bed by now and so the evenings see me continuing to post a few stories as they come in. I also chat in the evenings to a few of my colleagues who are in different time zones - again its about building networks, sharing ideas and resources.
12.00am - 1.00am - After one last skim through the relevant stats and RSS feed for any urgent stories that are breaking I hit the sack and promptly fall asleep after a long day of blogging only to be awoken at 7am with that dreaded alarm.
Once again I’ll stress that each day is very different from that proceeding and following it - this seems a lot more organised than it is in practice but it gives you an idea of what I do most days. I do have another job 16 hours a week (a research position) and volunteer for a number of organisations which also factor into the mix.
Written on April 8th, 2005 at 03:04 am by Darren Rowse
Viral Advertising
MarketingSherpa has a great article on Viral Advertising which could be of interest to bloggers both in thinking about promoting their own blogs but also in providing adspace ON their blogs.
‘Viral advertising is the red hot tactic of 2005 … but the lack of practical how-to information on the tactic is astounding.
Viral ads are online promotional campaigns that (hopefully) spread “like a virus.” One minute nobody’s heard of it, next minute, it’s everywhere. The term’s been around for almost a decade now, and it’s been the online ad tactic de jour at least three times…’
Written on April 8th, 2005 at 02:04 am by Darren Rowse
The RSS Ads are Coming!
Dave Morgan over at Clickz has a great piece on RSS Advertising which he says is Coming Fast. He cites the experience of one of the testers (A VC) of the Overture experiment at Feedburner of contextual ads in RSS feeds which is quite positive for those of you wondering if it is a viable option. Dave’s comments were:
‘Wilson has been getting about three times the number of RSS requests for his blog as he gets page views. He’s been running contextually targeted Google AdSense ads on his site; he recently implemented a new service from FeedBurner that inserts contextually targeted Overture ads into his RSS feeds and measures feed “views.” Incredibly, after only three days of testing, he discovered the effective clicks and revenue yield from Overture ads in RSS views were almost equal to his AdSense page views. In other words, using a new technology to insert and measure ads and audience, he can monetize his existing RSS readers at a rate that should double his total online ad revenue.
Over three days, Wilson’s blog had 7,450 page views. For those same days, RSS views on his FeedBurner feed were 7,350. These RSS views account for only 30 percent of his total RSS subscribers because, as with many blogs, his RSS views are three times his Web page views. During those days, he had 36 AdSense click-through from his Web pages. He had 10 Overture clicks from his RSS feeds. If similar ads were inserted in the other 70 percent of his RSS feeds, they would very likely produce total click-through numbers that approximated his Web page yield. Wilson’s AdSense ads are optimized for his pages (they’ve been running for over a year). His Overture ads haven’t yet been optimized for his feeds, since this is the first time they ran.’
It would be interesting to hear others experiences of the Feedburner/Overture experiment. I know a few readers of this site are part of the test and would be interested in your experiences (whether you want to do it anonymously or not). I’d also be interested in hearing from anyone who can get me in on the testing if you have a contact at Feedburner as I’ve got a couple of blogs I’d like to test the system on.
Written on April 7th, 2005 at 11:04 pm by Darren Rowse
How To Get RSS Subscribers for your Blog
T.L. Pakii has a great piece on How To Get Blog RSS Subscribers which is useful for anyone wanting to expand their RSS readership (an ever increasingly important way of finding readers for many bloggers).
One of his main points is that you should work on Educating your Demographic which makes a lot of sense as RSS remains a relatively new and often unknown technology:
‘Your demographic may be a bit behind on the technology curve so you may want to write about the value of RSS with your market. Write a free report for them to download and even offer a video tutorial that shows them how to use RSS after they read about the why of RSS. Making sure that your customers and prospects knows what RSS is and how to use it productively is a next step in increasing subscribers. An important point to realize is that that there is still a learning curve on blogs and more so on RSS. It’s getting easier for more and more people to engage and use these tools but you will do much better to take a lead role in educating those within your reach on the merits using RSS.’
Read more at How To Get Blog RSS Subscribers
Written on April 7th, 2005 at 03:04 pm by Darren Rowse
TypePad and Blogger Compared
CNET has a comparative review of the TypePad and Blogger blog platforms. I think they made the right decision with their ratings.
‘We looked at the two top blogging services. Best known, and free, is Google Blogger. But you get what you pay for: Blogger is a basic blogging service that won’t overpower beginners with too many options or choices. For a small monthly fee, however, Six Apart TypePad provides the services we’d like to see offered within Blogger, such as mixed-media templates, built-in photo uploading, and guest accounts. Ironically, Blogger makes it much easier to host your blogs on your own domain; TypePad allows it but also requires a little extra work between you and your ISP.’
Written on April 7th, 2005 at 02:04 pm by Darren Rowse
Introducing AllPosters and LinkShare
Regular readers will notice I’ve added two small banner ads at the top of this blog - one for AllPosters and the other for LinkShare.
I do this for two reasons which I will share with you:
1. I have used both of these programs to help monetize a number of my blogs. They are affiliate programs that can be quite effective depending upon the topic of your blog.
2. The banner ads above are affiliate links themselves for these programs and will earn me a small commission if you follow them, sign up and start using the programs.
There is no pressure for you to use the programs but if you do I hope they are as successful for you as they have been for me (and more).
Each one is suitable for different topics of sites. They will not be suitable for every blog.
The AllPosters affiliate program is excellent for blogs on people and personalities, its quite good for blogs on sport, music, movies, tv shows etc. I’ve only started using the program this past month but already am seeing that its one of the better performing affiliate programs that I’ve experimented with.
The LinkShare program has a pretty wide range of affiliate programs involved in it which would suit many of the topics that I know readers of this site write about. They have literally hundreds (if not thousands) of partners that offer a range of different products and services for you to link to.
Written on April 7th, 2005 at 12:04 pm by Darren Rowse
Working at Home
Jeremy writes a post on Working @ Home that got me thinking about my own home office set up and some of the advantages and disadvantages of choosing to do so.
An opportunity came up for me to move out of home into an office with three other micro business owners - it was very tempting for a lot of reasons:
- the social interaction it would bring - blogging can be a lonely business
- the potential cross pollination of our businesses and opportunities it might bring
- social stigma attached to working at home - also the ability to bring a client to an office without worrying that they think you’re a two-bit substandard consultant working out of home because you can’t afford anything else
- he ability to have better boundaries between work and home life
- less distractions and the ability to concentrate more upon work without TVs, video games, kids etc
- shared resources/office equipment etc
Of course on the other side of things there are some distinct advantages of working at home like I do
- lower overhead costs
- less risk in working for self rather than having to worry if the other businesses would fall over
- being able to work from bed in boxer shorts til 2pm in the afternoon
- being more present in family life (I’m amazed how many dads now work at home and are present in the lives of their kids these days - this is very attrActive to me - or will be when we try to start a family).
I have a love hate relationship with working from home and was tempted to move out and may still do it one day - however in the short term I think I’d rather put the money of hiring office space into buying a new house and other ventures.
Also read Tris on the same topic.
Written on April 7th, 2005 at 12:04 pm by Darren Rowse
Why Google is Syndication Shy
Steve Rubel has a great post asking why Google is Syndication Shy - something I’ve often wondered. In comparison to Yahoo! and MSN they seem somewhat behind the eight-ball. Steve writes:
‘Google views syndication drastically differently than its competitors. On the Web Google is all about driving people away from their sites. Once they’ve shown them an Adwords ad they had their opportunity to collect a dollar, so why not give the users what they need and send them on their way. However, when it comes to syndicated feeds they use it as a tool to drive users to their services and that’s why they are syndication shy. Remember Autolinking? I rest my case.
Feeds may be Google’s greatest enemy. If Google did offer feeds that connected users with the information they are looking for from the Web they would miss the opportunity to advertise to them. What will remedy this? Google will incorporate contextual Adwords ads into these kinds of feeds, much like Overture has done. What’s taking so long? Beats me.’
I think Steve is correct in saying that contextual ads in RSS feeds will probably be the time that Google starts to be a bit more generous with syndication of services like Google News - but like Steve I’m also a little surprised by the length of time its taking to get such a system in place.
Written on April 7th, 2005 at 11:04 am by Darren Rowse
Interviewing enternetusers
Just a quick reminder that I’m doing an interview with Andy in a couple of hours time that you’re welcome to listen in on live. Details are at Easy Bake Weblogs; Exclusive Interview: Kevin from Pro Blogger. Drop in and say hi - it could be fun.
Update - We just did the interview - it was FUN! Thanks to Andy and his great listeners/readers. If you want to ask more questions after reading through my archives just let me know in comments below or via my contact form.
Andy tells me that the interview will be posted on his website for your download in the next day or two.
Written on April 7th, 2005 at 10:04 am by Darren Rowse
Gawker Launches Sploid
Gawker Media today went live with their latest venture - Sploid - a ‘news site with a tabloid mentality.’
There isn’t much content on Sploid - photos and headlines are pretty much everything - with links to the articles in question. This isn’t the smartest SEO strategy for most bloggers - Search Engines like content and links and pictures are probably not enough to get highly ranked - but when it comes to Gawker they don’t rely upon Search Engines because they have such high loyalty factor of their readers and massive incoming links that push them up in the Search Engines anyway.
As usual they are relying heavily advertising to monetize this site - at the moment most of the ads point to their own sites but in time they’ll attract advertisers who don’t mind exposing their message to an edgy readership.
At the time of writing this they’ve had 50,000 unique readers already - so if nothing else they are pretty good at launching blogs - I suspect they’ll do well with this one longer term too.
Update: Perhaps I should say that I have no financial interest in Gawker after reading the comments on Jeff’s blog after announcing the launch of Sploid.
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