Written on March 24th, 2007 at 08:03 am by Glen

Use A Startpage to Blog More Efficiently

General 28 comments

This post was written by Glen Stansberry of LifeDev.net (feed). Check out LifeDev if you’re interesting in adding more productivity and creativity to your blogging and life.

There are tons of startpage options to choose from: Google Homepage, Netvibes, Pageflakes and a slew of others. Personally, I’d recommend either Netvibes or Pageflakes, but to each his own.

A startpage can be a very valuable tool if you find yourself doing a lot of blogging. The most immediate benefit of using a startpage is the ability to do many blog-essential tasks from one interface. Tasks like searching, jotting down post ideas, and reading news. These can become pretty cumbersome if you do them frequently. Using a startpage greatly speeds up the process, and in some cases can even automate it.

Here are some of the most immediate pluses to using a startpage as opposed to a traditional feed reader.

1. Customizable feed layouts. You can subscribe to many different feeds like a traditional feed reader, but instead of showing up in a river of news style the feeds show up in boxes. You can visually manipulate the layout to display the feed boxes however you want. You can toggle them open or closed, and you can arrange your most important feeds towards the top, leaving the less Active ones at the bottom. This allows you to quickly scan the page for new items.

2. Tons ‘O Tools. You can have a plethora of resources to aide your blogging. Todo lists to keep track of post ideas, rich media (video, image, podcast) searches, blog search, instant messaging, imported del.icious links, email… the options are virtuously limitless when tricking out your startpage.

3. Multiple pages. Most startpages allow you to create multiple pages. So for example, you could have an entire page dedicated to one blog, with all the relevant feeds, rich media searches.

4. Shareable pages. If you’ve got more than one author on your blog, share your startpage with them. That way you can both use the same resources, as well as easily stay on top of what the other is doing.

So to put an example startpage in action, check out a demo of one I made here for cars at Netvibes. I only added one feed, but you could add many many more. I just wanted to showcase the power and simplicity of being able to search blogs, movies, podcasts and more in one interface.

I’ve been using startpages for a couple of my niche blogs, and I can say with certainty that it has greatly cut down the time used per post. While I do like Google Reader, a startpage just brings more overall blogging functionality to the table.

How about you guys? Do you have any unique setups with startpages that help you blog?

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Written on March 23rd, 2007 at 09:03 am by Darren Rowse

Important Elements of Blog Design & Layout

Blog Design 23 comments

Hello everyone, I’m Matt from NetBusinessBlog.com. I’ve been doing web design and development for the last 7 years but have just recently started blogging. Hope you find my content on par with the rest of the articles here, and don’t be afraid to let me know what you think.

The eruption of popularity for blogs came on the heels of the Web 2.0 “revolution”. With this in mind it’s easy to see how blogging has adopted most of the ideas of design which focus on minimalism, the focus on content, user experience, and compatibility. It is something that has been built into blogging from the beginning whether you realize it or not. It is important that you keep these aspects of the new web in the front of your mind when you’re designing your blog.

Focus on Content

Ever heard the saying “content is king”? Well if you haven’t, keep it in mind. Just about every website relies heavily on its content to attract and retain new visitors, but it is even more vital when dealing with blog design. Blogging is centered almost entirely around the content, and you have to make sure that your design does not take away from that.

Your design may take focus off of your content if your header, for example, takes up the entire area above the fold. One of the first things you want visitors to see when they wander into your blog is your delicious content, not a page full of graphics.

If you look at how Darren has setup his header, you’ll see that one of the first things his readers see is links to some of his most read articles. That is a great way to get users engaging in your blog rather than just browsing the main page and leaving. At my blog I like to have a couple of my best recent articles as well as some introduction text up at the top to entice users to dig more through my site.

User Experience

Many bloggers work so hard getting people to visit their blog that they forget how they’re supposed to treat them when they’re there. Despite the fact that there is usually one author and multiple readers, blogging is not a one-way relationship. You have to engage your readers and get them involved in your blog in order for it to grow. How does this fit into design? Well if your design makes it hard for your readers to interact with you, there is a definite problem. Here are a couple things I’ve found useful:

1) Make your comment link prominent - Many users will know that if they click on a blog post’s header they’ll most likely be taken to a page where they can comment, but believe me when I say not everyone knows this. What people do know, however, is that when they see a big “Comment Here!” box they know where to go and what to do. It also never hurts to include a dialog box icon next to your comments link.

2) Make it easy to contact you - As a blogger, much of your content will be user contributed or at least inspired by your users. You want them to be able to contact you with as little hassle as possible. Not to pick at Darren too much here, but when I tried to contact him for the first time, I admit it took me a good 10 minutes to figure out where his contact page was! I completely glazed over the little link in the sidebar. Luckily for Darren, I’m tenacious.

Overall you want to make it as easy as possible to interact with your users, so always keep user experience in mind when laying out and designing your blog.

Compatibility

There isn’t a whole lot to say about compatibility aside from simply stressing that you need to make sure that your blog is accessible to as many people across as many platforms and browsers as possible. Much of that will fall on the programmer’s end, but the designer can help improve compatibility by using text over graphics as much as possible and laying out the navigation and content so that it is easy to display.

Blogging is part of the Web 2.0 craze, so always be sure to keep the foundations of the new web in mind when designing and laying out your blog!

Read more of Matt’s work at NetBusinessBlog.com

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Written on March 23rd, 2007 at 07:03 am by Darren Rowse

enternetusers.com Sold

enternetusers Site News 105 comments

I’ve been wait to write this post for almost 3 years - I just bought enternetusers.com.

The day I first came up with the idea of starting a blog called enternetusers I started it as an extension on another blog domain. A few months later when I decided it was a topic that needed it’s own purpose built blog I found that enternetusers.com was already taken (it was a holding page for a blogging community from memory) and so I was forced to buy up enternetusers.net.

Since that time I’ve attempted to purchase enternetusers.com. on a number of occasions - but in each instance the owner either was asking for an amount which was too much for my budget or had plans of their own to develop it.

I had numerous watch systems up on the domain in case it ever expired and every year in February I held my breath hoping that it would. However each year on the day it expired it was renewed - until this year….

That was the day that I started getting emails from enternetusers.net readers telling me that the.com version was expired. I must have had at least 15-30 emails a day from readers telling me this (an indication of how much type in traffic my brand had been driving to the domain). In fact the domain has already got an Alexa ranking simply from this (around the 150,000 mark - higher than many developed blogs get after concerted effort).

Auction 1 - As part of the expiration process at GoDaddy (where the domain had been hosted) they then put domains up for auction - two weeks before the current owners can actually renew it for the last time (why they do it before their last chance for renew is a mystery to me).

So the GoDaddy auction took a week and ended a couple of weeks back. The price got too high for my liking (it was over $7000 USD) and someone else got the right to buy it if the renewal didn’t happen.

Luckily for me the previous owners did renew it (this was a real roller coaster for me) and then decided to sell the domain on ebay. My heart sank and leaped all at once - another auction to endure, but also another opportunity to buy the domain I’d been looking to secure for years.

Auction 2 - The ebay auction was nowhere near as Active as the previous one and remained at the starting bid for a week. It was only in the last day or two that bids were placed. It was a reserve price auction and while the auction took place I talked to the representative of the owner.

The last few minutes of the auction were hot but at its end it hadn’t reached the reserve price. I had the highest bid ($4050 - the ebay page is here) and immediately contacted the owner’s rep to see if we could come to a mutually agreeable figure.

Negotiations - Of course this all happened just a few hours before our flight left Melbourne for the USA so it wasn’t an easy negotiation in terms of time zones - but I’m happy to announce that in the last day the final price was negotiated and payments and transfers have been made.

I’m not going to disclose the price - but it was higher than $4050 and lower than the original auction of $7000 USD. It was a little more than my budget and hope for a purchase price but in terms of having the control of the brand and some of my future hopes for enternetusers I’m satisfied with what we negotiated.

At this point enternetusers.com will simply forward to enternetusers.net (and it’ll help increase traffic from type-ins slightly) - however I do have hopes to use the.com site for an additional enternetusers branded online experience/feature.

I guess the whole experience has been a learning one for me. Get the domain you want early - think ahead - if you’re confident of your brand go for it earlier than later etc.

PS: thanks to the many many readers who emailed me to let me know the domain was up for grabs over the last month. I appreciate your support in the process!

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Written on March 23rd, 2007 at 07:03 am by Darren Rowse

AdSense add Checkout to Referral Products

Affiliate Programs, Adsense 6 comments

More AdSense news today - Google are now letting publishers promote their Google Checkout system as a referral product.

Their support page that explains how much publishers can earn from their different products lists ‘Checkout’ as a referral product saying that publishers will earn $1 if the person they refer becomes a buyer and purchases at least $10 (before tax and shipping) within 90 days of sign-up.

Not one of their most lucrative referral products - but I guess on some sites that are shopping based it could convert quite nicely.

Thanks to Dave for the tip off.

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Written on March 23rd, 2007 at 05:03 am by Darren Rowse

Should Low Traffic Blogs Disable Comments?

Miscellaneous Blog Tips 30 comments

LintCollector asks - ‘My question relates to comments on a low-traffic blog. If there are very few comments due to lack of readers (not lack of regular posts), can this emphasize the lack of readers and reflect badly on the blog? If high activity on popular blogs conveys an impression that the blog is valued and has worth, then can a lack of comments give the opposite impression?’

The old ’should a blog have comments?’ debate - an oldie but a goodie.

You’re definitely right on some levels about comments being a pretty quick signal to new readers as to whether your blog is being read widely or not. It’s like walking down a road with a lot of restaurants on it and seeing some bursting with patrons and others with no one inside - I know which one I’d rather be eating in!

There’s no getting around the fact that comments beget comments - however I also think that they can be a valuable part of even a small blog where they are rarely used. In fact on a small blog they can be even more important than on a big one because they put you into a potential conversation with the readers you already do have.

I remember when I first started blogging that I spent a lot of time in my own comments section. Even though I was probably only getting 2-3 comments a day from readers I would intentionally spend time replying to every one, asking follow up questions, emailing thank you messages to those who left comments etc. Every comment left is a reader taking a step towards being a regular reader - without them readers have no simple way to participate.

Of course there are costs to having comments on a blog - spam, trolls, flaming etc - but while I spend more time than I’d like on these things I think that the benefits of comments are worth the time.

One thing that you might like to try though to make it a little less obvious that you don’t have many comments is think about the way that you display the comments link on your front page. Some bloggers have it read ‘0 comments’ (in fact I think I do here at enternetusers) which advertises that you don’t have any loud and clear on the front page of your blog. Alternatively you could change that link to simple read ‘comment on this post’ when there is no comments. Some bloggers try to get people involved by writing ‘be the first to comment’ which at least gives a little incentive to first comment leavers.

If you do move to activating comments on your blog you might like to read my previous post on the topic of getting people to leave comments.

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Written on March 22nd, 2007 at 05:03 am by Darren Rowse

10 Ways to make your Blog more AttrActive to Advertisers

Advertising 65 comments

Today’s guest post comes from Chad Randall, the Director of Sales for internetusers and the author of AdvertiseSpace. Chad has been working in the online advertising industry for over 6 years now, and has personally sold more than $5,000,000 in online ads. I figured he’d be a good person to ask about how to make your blog attrActive to advertisers.

1. Have an “Advertise with Us” Banner on your site

This is the single most important issue. It should click to an Advertising information page and have an easy way to contact you for more information and rates. Key points: Make it a graphical image or a tab. Keep it above the fold.

2. Keep the ads on your site specific to your site

Don’t have smiley ads and wallpaper ads if your site is site is about mobile phones.

3. Show them the banners

If you currently have no paid placements on your site, put up house ads or partner ads in the same spot you would run a paid spot. (A house ad refers to banners for other products or sites that you or your company own)

4. Throw up a free bonus ad.

Buy putting a free advertisement on your site, you may not only encourage similar ads or competitors to that product, but the company you added for free may decide to advertise with you. Ask for full disclosure of the performance of the campaign in return. (Total clicks, total purchases etc. ) Key points. Put the free bonus up with a direct URL without tracking tags or affiliate tags.

5. Show your site stats.

You need to show at least the basics for site statical information: Monthly unique visitors and total number of impressions are the 2 key ones. Other less important can be Google PR & Alexa rank.

6. User demographic information. Know your audience.

The bare minimum is Male/Female % and average age of your readers. Other potentially useful information includes geographic, HHI, single/married, number of kids. etc. How do you get this info? You can do site polls, survey’s, or get more detailed stats from ComScore or Quantcast.com

7. Have an ‘About Us’ section.

Clearly explain who you are and what your site is about. And also why you are an ‘authority’ on what you are writing about, and why anyone should care about what you have to say.

8. Don’t use Google AdSense on your site.

OK, this could be the most painful one for most people especially if you are generating a few hundred bucks a month from it already. But Google ad sense devalues your site and makes it look unprofessional. You have to ask yourself, “Do I want some real revenue from my site or Google’s table scraps.”

9. Keep your blog on topic.

If you are all over the map in regards to topics about which you talk about, advertisers won’t know if they are a good fit for your site.

10. Keep your blog professional.

If you are talking about your cat, (Matt Cutts), ranting about your drive to work, swearing or bashing every product you can think about, it will scare away advertisers.

updated - for spelling. Thanks Eric.

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Written on March 22nd, 2007 at 01:03 am by Darren Rowse

How To Improve Your Blog Using Feedburner

RSS 25 comments

This post has been submitted by Neil Patel. Neil is co-founder and CTO of ACS ) and writes regularly on social media issues through the company’s blog, Pronet Advertising.

The main reason most people use Feedburner is because it shows how many RSS subscribers they have. That might be a valuable metric to keep track of but there are certainly more things that can be done with Feedburner. By spending just 10 minutes a week analyzing certain Feedburner stats, it is possible to get an idea of how people are actually interacting with your blog so you can improve it.

If you look at the following image, you can see the most popular blog post I have written was: “Making your content Del.icio.us”. That post was written late on a Friday night, few people linked to it, and it did not do well on social sites like Del.icio.us. However, my RSS subscribers loved it.

The next image shows the least popular blog posts on Pronet Advertising. Many of these less popular blog posts were called ‘catchup’, which is a roundup of weekly news items. These catchup posts received a decent amount of visitors but it seems that the RSS subscribers weren’t sharing the love. After I noticed the trend I stopped writing them causing (partially) my RSS subscription rate to increase by roughly 16% in 30 days. Granted, there are probably other factors that caused the increase however I am sure that not writing those posts was a contributing factor.

By using Feedburner you can get an idea of which type of content is appealing most to your RSS subscribers. The key is to understand that just because a post receives tons of traffic or gets lots of comments, it doesn’t equate to your core audience loving it. If you want to increase the popularity of your blog, use some sort of RSS analytics to help you write content targeted towards the people who matter to you most; your loyal readers.

Read more from Neil Patel at Pronet Advertising.

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Written on March 21st, 2007 at 09:03 pm by 1cecilia51

How to Leverage the Traffic of an A-List Blog

Blog Promotion 12 comments

This Guest Post was written by Wendy Piersall from eMoms at Home.

When I look back over the last 11 months of how my own blog has grown, it’s safe to say that the person who has had the most influence in my traffic and growth has been Darren. Getting to meet him at Elite Retreat was incredibly cool, and at dinner one night we chatted about his Group Writing Projects. I mentioned that they had made a massive impact on creating long-term readers, links, and was the key to several very strong partnerships I have made along the way (especially when I first started out). The conversation got me thinking about all of the ways I have leveraged the audience of this site to grow my own blog.

Big blogs wouldn’t be big if they didn’t have a big audience – and on enternetusers, Darren has created massive opportunities for you to share his fame, traffic and exposure.

Group Writing Projects are the easiest and best way to tap Darren’s audience. Here are my tips for getting the most out of these week-long traffic festivals:

• Get your entry in the first day
• Spend more time on your headline than you do on your post
• Make a splash by submitting your best work
• Keep your post on the short side, preferably under 600 words
• Make it easily scan-able with subheads and bullets
• Spend 30 minutes or so each day visiting other submissions, and be sure to comment
• networkly link to the posts that are most relevant to your own blog
• Stay Active in the project the entire week

You don’t need to wait for a Group Writing Project to start tapping each others’ resources. Other ways to leverage the enternetusers audience are:

• Visit the bloggers that leave comments here, and consider introducing yourself to them
• Link to each other frequently – Darren’s readers are a goldmine of knowledge!
• Join Darren’s MyBlogLog Community, and use his widget to find others in your niche (I ALWAYS click the mom avatars!!)
• Comment on his readers’ blogs, letting them know you found them through enternetusers
• Answer each others’ questions in the comments on this site
• Praise each other in the comments on this site (I assure you, that will get you noticed!!)
• Subscribe to the blogs Darren links to and leverage their traffic in the same way

Blogging is one of the few marketing mediums on the planet in which it’s not only ok to try and steal readers, it actually helps everyone when you do. Darren has a vested interest in your success – and has created a community on this site that can help you as much as he can directly. Leverage it to your advantage and watch everything grow.

Edit: Sorry everyone - somehow I turned comments off of this post! I’ve turned them back on now. *sheepish grin* -Wendy

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Written on March 21st, 2007 at 04:03 pm by Darren Rowse

Elite Retreat - Day 2

Pro Blogging News 5 comments

Elite Retreat continued today with some more great sessions from Lee Dodd, Kris Jones and Guy Kawasaki (plus one from me which I’ll let others decide the ‘greatness’ of).

Keep up with the sessions again with Wendy and Kris at:

My Session (Wendy and Kris)

Lee’s Session (Wendy and Kris)

Kris’s Session (Wendy)

Guy’s Session (Wendy and Kris)

Some of those links still to come.

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Written on March 21st, 2007 at 06:03 am by Darren Rowse

enternetusers Meetup - New York - The Details

enternetusers Site News 23 comments

Ok - I’ve got the details of the enternetusers Meetup in New York. Sorry for the delay in this but we wanted to get a great location. We’ve also had to change the date to one day later than previously mentioned.

The details are:

THURSDAY, March 29, 6:30pm to 9:30pm at:
Connolly’s Pub and Restaurant
121 West 45th St (between 6th and Broadway)
(212) 597-5126 phone

http://www.connollyspubandrestaurant.com

*please note this bar has three locations in the area so use the address above.

The night is being sponsored by Text Link Ads who are generously providing an open top shelf bar and food for three hours.

So if you’re in the New York area (and for those of you who have said you’re flying in for it) please come along, say g’day and have a drink with me. I’d love to meet you and would appreciate it if you could pass this information along to any other New York Bloggers who you think might be interested in a fun night.

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