Written on September 7th, 2005 at 09:09 pm by David Shawver Stanton
Quotable Seth Godin - From ‘Who’s There?’
Here are a few take home quotes from Seth Godin’s “Who’s There?” Free e-book which I read this afternoon (and ask usual with Seth’s writing - enjoyed):
‘People have a choice (4.5 million choices, in fact) and nobody is going to read your blog, link to your blog or quote your blog unless there’s something in it for them.’
Spot on the money here. The take home question here is ‘what do you readers get out of your blog?’
‘Blogs work best when people read them over time. One frame of a movie isn’t enough to win an Academy Award, and one post on a blog isn’t enough to make a huge difference.’
I love this concept. Too often I see bloggers posting in haphazard ways that seem to have little forethought for the overall strategy and direction of their blog. One of the things I’ve noticed over my years of blogging is just how quickly you can lose readers simply by posting one or two posts that are out of character or which offend your regular readers.
While sometimes its tempting to post in the heat of the moment in response to something that gets you worked up - perhaps a better blogging practice would be to take a deep breath and give such posts a little time to sit with you before posting. This could decrease the chances of alienating your readership with posts that detract from the overall direction of where your blog is going.
Connected to this idea is this last quote:
‘So every post on a “viral blog” should be designed to get you another RSS subscription.
Every blog post should be designed to be important enough to get another blog to eagerly post a link or quote you or reprint the whole thing.’
Now I don’t completely agree with Seth here - there are some posts where you may not be aiming to be quoted or linked to - but the concept is good. Perhaps before hitting ‘publish’ a good question to ask is ‘does this post add to or subtract from the vision and goals that I have for this blog?’
Written on September 7th, 2005 at 03:09 pm by David Shawver Stanton
ReveNews Additions
Revenews has relaunched with a new look and feel. They’ve added a new Premium Member Program as well as a new renowned author - Joel Comm - author of the successful Adsense Secrets e-book (aff link).
Revenews is a daily read for me and with additions like Joel to the team becoming an even more worthwhile feature in my RSS A-list.
Written on September 7th, 2005 at 02:09 pm by David Shawver Stanton
Adsense and YPN on the Same Blog?
Speaking of Creative Weblogging - in writing the last post I decided to take a wander through their network - which has been redesigned in the past few months (boy did it need it). It’s scrubbed up ok - but I can’t help but notice that they are running Google Adsense Ads and Yahoo Publishing Network Ads on the same page on every blog that they own.
This is in direct violation of both Adsense and YPN’s TOS and I’d recommend they make up their mind and just use one system before getting themselves banned from one or both.
I’ve tried to email them to let them know of the violation but for some reason my email bounced - if somoene knows the guys behind it you might want to let them know that they are flirting with danger.
Written on September 7th, 2005 at 02:09 pm by David Shawver Stanton
Creative Weblogging launches Creative Reporter System
Creative Weblogging has just launched the Creative Reporter System where they are inviting people to submit posts to their system and will pay them $10 per 1000 page views of their posts. They explain:
‘Creative Reporter is your online reporter desk that allows you to share and contribute news with the audience of Creative Weblogging. In exchange all contributors will be mentioned when published and rewarded based on their contributions Page Views (actually US$10 for 1,000 Page Views). As a reporter you will get access into our newsroom and see statistics incl. comments on your contribution.
You may submit text, video and audio content - wherever you see a fit. ‘
$10 per 1000 page views - sounds like worthwhile pay. I’ve just taken a look over a few of my blogs and $10 per 1000 page views is about the average earnings via Adsense on some of them. I guess the big question one would want to ask is just how many page views would an average post on the Creative Weblogging Network attract?
I’ve chatted with a couple of their bloggers off and on over the past year and have heard that they don’t do massive traffic - but I guess maybe things have changed.
Written on September 7th, 2005 at 01:09 pm by David Shawver Stanton
Six Figure Blogging - What it is and What its not
Just a reminder to those of you who have signed up for the free preview call of six figure blogging that it’s happening in less than 24 hours time.
Andy just told me that there are over 700 people registered for the call! Wow - I’m starting to get nervous now.
If you can’t make the call when it happens live - you can still listen to it later if you register. In fact I know some of you have fed back that you’ll probably not do the course because of time zone or schedule difficulties - a way around this is to sign up but instead of logging into the live calls simply do it at your own convenience by using the transcripts of the calls as well as the downloads that we’ll release to participants in the 24 hours or so following each of the six calls.
Also people have been emailing me to ask for clarification of what the course is about and what level blogger it is ideal for. Let me write a few points that might help with this:
Six Figure Blogging IS for
- beginner or amateur bloggers who want to learn some techniques for setting up blogs that have the potential to earn money.
- bloggers who currently have blogs and want to learn how to monetize them
- people who want to hear Andy and I talk about the topic rather than just read it in our archives. (ie - a lot of what we talk about I’ve covered from time to time on enternetusers - the beauty of this course is that we’ll be actually unpacking it verbally and cutting straight to the most important parts. A lot of my readers complain about the vast quantities of posts here at enternetusers - this course will help get to the most important bits. It will also be more up to date information than archives can be.
- people wanting a little personal attention - Andy and I would like to interact with participants. The level to which we do this will depend on the numbers who sign up for the actual course (it won’t be the full 700 - so don’t worry about that!). At the very least you’ll be able to submit questions for Andy and I. We can’t guarantee we get to each one of them but we’ll use these questions as a base for teaching in future shows. If the numbers are quite low we might even be able to have live question and answer times.
Six Figure Blogging IS NOT for
- get rich quick junkies (we’ll tell you how to make money over time and with hard work)
- spammers (we are not selling an automated blogging tool)
- people who don’t know what a blog is - we won’t be covering the basics of ‘what is a blog’ or how to set one up. Andy has other courses for this type of thing.
- people who are not willing to work hard at their blog. I know I’ve said this already - but I want to continue to emphasize that whilst we’ll share our experiences and lessons learned as bloggers making money from and through our blogs - we’ll not be giving you a passive income making scheme.
I hope this clarifies some of where this course is headed.
Written on September 7th, 2005 at 08:09 am by David Shawver Stanton
“Who’s There?” Free e-book from Seth Godin
I’m a fan of Seth Godin’s writing and so when he points to a new (and free) e-book on the topic of Blogging - I’m going to download it for a read!
‘Who’s There is not an ebook about how to write better or how to follow the traditional conventions about formatting and building a blog. It’s not designed to sell you one service instead of another, either.
Instead, I divide the blog world into three groups and turn my attention to one. And in particular, I try to sell you hard on how building a blog asset can have a spectacular impact on you, your career, your organization and your ideas.
I promise this ebook is incomplete. I hope, though, that it encourages you to pay attention to some of the underlying forces at work online and off. And it’s small enough to email to your colleagues or to post on your own site. Hey, it’s free and it comes with its own carrying case.’
I’m yet to read it (will do so tonight) but you can get the free e-book here (PDF). Tell us what you think of it once you’ve read it in comments below.
Written on September 6th, 2005 at 12:09 pm by David Shawver Stanton
Blog Reinvention
One of my favorite bloggers, Jennifer Rice from What’s Your Brand Mantra?, is reinventing herself as a blogger after some time away from her blog. She’s decided to take a simpler, more personal approach to her blog and will be breaking some of her rules of blogging:
1. No more blogroll
2. New photos which reveal personality
3. Less rigid posting schedule
4. Posting on a wider array of topics of interest
I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes for Jennifer - hopefully she finds the new approach a refreshing new start.
I think reinvention from time to time can be a great thing. For me its something I’ve done a number of times, often accompanied by a new design, a new blog, a new blogging platform, a new category etc.
Have you ever reinvented your blog? How did it go?
Written on September 6th, 2005 at 09:09 am by David Shawver Stanton
Adsense Earnings Graphs
Two enternetusers readers have decided to graph their Adsense earnings (without actual dollar amounts) over at LiewCF and My other Side of the Stories. Of course there are no numbers indicating earnings levels - but the shapes of the graphs are promising.
Written on September 6th, 2005 at 08:09 am by David Shawver Stanton
Google Backlink (and Page Rank) Update in Progress
I had a hunch that Google would do an update this weekend and this morning I have logged on to find that an backlink update is under way. I had a feeling they’d use the long weekend to do it. Update: It looks like this could be a Page Rank Update also.
You’ll find that this takes a few days to really settle down and if you follow your backlink levels that they could take a day or two to settle down.
You can follow the forum discussions on this update at Webmasterworld and Digital Point.
What’s the significance of backlinks? In short and to completely over simplify it - backlinks are a measure of how many other sites are linking to yours. Each backlinks is like a vote for your blog - the more you have the higher your site should theoretically rank in Google. Of course there are many other factors that impact how high your site ranks - but its largely thought that backlinks are one of the most significant factors. As a result any update in backlinks is something that causes webmasters around the world to collectively hold their breath for a few days.
This update is already showing some strange results for me - I know its too early to tell (I’m ignoring my own advice of ‘wait and see’ here) but enternetusers.net seems to have significantly fallen in its backlinks. This is really odd because the last two months have seen more incoming links pointing at this blog than I think I’ve ever had on any other blog. I guess time will tell.
Update: I’ve also noticed my page rank has changed on a couple of my sites so its a dual update.
Update II: I’ve already had people email to ask how they can check their backlinks. The simplest way is to go to Google and enter ‘link:www.yoursite.com’ in the search field as you’ll see in the following screen cap.
Press enter and you’ll be shown a snapshot of how many other sites Google sees as linking to you. It won’t include every one but is what Google is working with.
If you want to track your backlink count there are a variety of web tools out there for the job. I use a tool at digital point which tracks backlinks and page rank. You have to run it every day to get the best results but I include it as part of my morning routine.
Written on September 5th, 2005 at 11:09 pm by David Shawver Stanton
How to tell your Partner you’re going to be a enternetusers
Chrish has posted an interesting post over at Quertyrash titled ‘How do you tell your better half you’re going to be a pro-blogger?‘ He writes:
‘Was just chatting to a friend and told her:
How do i tell my wife?!! “It’s okay dear, I’m just gunna play on the internet for a couple of years to see if i can make some money”
Somehow, I can’t see my wife going for that…’
I can speak a little from personal experience on this topic. My wonderful partner’s name is ‘V’ and she has been a massive part of my blogging journey in an indirect way. While ‘V’ has never had a blog and rarely reads any that I write - she has been incredibly supportive of me building up this business - particularly in the past 18 months. How did we get to this point? Well to be honest it’s been a bit of a journey and I would give the following advice:
• Take your time - if I’d come out and told ‘V’ two years ago that I was going to quit my job and become a professional blogger she would have thought I was a nutter. Come to think of it I would probably have agreed with her. Our journey towards generating a full time income from blogging has been a slow and gradual process which has evolved over time. I’ve always been up front with her about what I’d hoped my blogging would achieve - but at the same time have not gotten ahead of myself and become delusional about the process. Don’t hype blogging up to be bigger than it is but show its potential.
• Show results and Make Projections - in the early days of my pro-blogging when I was just earning a few dollars per day I tracked my monthly earnings in a spreadsheet and graphed it like the graph on this recent post. The early days were not much to write home about. I’ve written about it previously but instead of just tracking the actual total numbers I made a point of tracking the percentage increases in earnings from month to month. The first 9 or so months increased by these sorts of percentages:
1st to 2nd month - 126%
2nd to 3rd month- 93%
3rd to 4th month - 39%
4th to 5th month- 3.5%
5th to 6th month - 65%
6th to 7th month - 50%
7th to 8th month - 51%
8th to 9th month - 45%
The point is that while the numbers were small at the time I could see that if I could keep these sorts of increases in earnings up that in time the totals could be quite massive. This was the message i kept communicating to ‘V’ - showing the actual results and projections of where it could go.
• ‘Real Job’ - Ever since I started blogging I’ve had a ‘real job’ of some description - at times I’ve had two or three part time jobs. While in time the vision for becoming a full time blogger became more and more of a reality we took the approach that we wanted to be safe and responsible and that we’d gradually scale back my other work as the blogging brought in more income. When it proved itself and reached various milestones I cut back on other work. In fact in the next month I’ll finish up my last other ‘real job’ and go completely full time. I’ve held onto the other job not just for the money (although when I took it on it was good supplementary income) but because it was something I was passionate about and it also gave me something else outside of blogging to focus my time upon (sanity reasons).
• Time Limit/Deadlines - One of the things that ‘V’ and I did that was very helpful was to set some goals and to put deadlines asto when each should be achieved in order for things to progress. I remember at one stage we decided that I had six months to make it work or not. If at that point i wasn’t earning a certain amount from my blogging I would have to go out and get a proper full time job. The goal was sensible (as in it was enough to justify the time I was putting in) but it was also achievable and not impossible to reach.
This was good for us both because it gave us a point in time to work towards. It also meant I had to get very very serious about seeing my vision come into being. I worked harder in those six months than I’ve ever done before. It was good for ‘V’ also because it meant that she knew when this crazy obsession of mine would end if I didn’t make it work.
I also recommend this ‘deadline’ aspect because to be honest there are just times when blogging for money just won’t work and no amount of time and energy will make it do so. Deadlines are good in helping us to put to bed ideas that fit into this category so that we can move on with life and explore other options.
• Involve Your Partner - While ‘V’ does not get involved in the day to day running of my blogs I do seek her advice on a number of different aspects of what I do and have a standing invitation to her to become more involved. I consult with her before spending money, on new blogs that I want to start, on design etc. This is not about getting permission (although I see her as my board of directors in a sense and want to be accountable to her) but also about getting another perspective from someone removed from the day to day of blogging. It also gives a sense of ownership to her which helps a lot.
I won’t pretend that this aspect of my blogging business is always easy sailing - there have been times where ‘V’ has thought I was out of my mind (she was right a few times and I was on others) but the key for us has been to keep the communication channels open (both ways). She has made some significant sacrifices in letting me follow my dreams (as have I) but together we’ve tried to work it out in a way that is both sensible but also gives freedom for some grand dreams to be realized.
I’m interested in others experience and advice. How have you worked through some of these issues? What advice would you give?
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