Written on February 16th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 07:02 am by Darren Rowse
Keeping Visitors on Your Blog - Give them Something else to Read
Yesterday I had an email from Jim Logan that contains a tip that I’m sure some will find helpful. Jim has kindly given me permission to publish it here:
Hi Darren!
I discovered something on my site that your readers may find of interest. Recently I changed the template of my blog, nothing exciting there, but in the change I added a module that put the name and link to my five most recent posts at the top of every page. Here is an example.
What are interesting are that almost overnight my page views per visitor and number of ad impressions increased by nearly 50%. Likewise, my Yahoo! ad revenue doubled. My site supports my consulting work and as such I don’t post for ad revenue, but I can’t deny seeing the Yahoo! ad revenue double - even as small as it is - is exciting.
What I believe I unwittingly did is offer readers something to click to after they read whatever they came to the site to see. The module with the five latest posts has clearly increased my page views and appears to have increased my ad revenue as well.
Jim went on in his next email to me to write:
Looking back, the whole thing makes sense though. I am now giving readers that hit individual posts something to click to next, something specific. Without going to my main page or clicking to an archive, they can now directly click on a post title and read another post. In a world where we can can only hold a person’s interest for a brief moment, it makes sense that having the next post readily available increases the odds of it being read.
My average pages per visitor have increased from 1.6 to 2.4, some days average higher. I’ve seen a similar percentage gain in ad impressions and ad revenue. Right at 50% increase for pages read, ! ad impressions almost doubled. My ad revenue increased the greatest, but the level is low to begin with. I started noticing the increases within 3-4 days of adding the five latest posts to each page.
Jim uses Mambo to run his site but those of you using other blog platforms can do similar things using plugins. I know WordPress has a variety of them.
I use the Related Posts plugin here at enternetusers at the end of each post to suggest to readers other posts within this site that relate to the post that they’ve just read and have a similar feature to Jim’s in my sidebar with my last 5 posts run by a plugin called Fuzzy Related Posts. Both give options for readers to read more and in the process stay on this site a little longer.
I haven’t noticed quite the increases that Jim has had as a result of using these plugins - but have not positioned them quite as prominently as Jim has (his positioning is excellent in my opinion - although there are only so many things you can put in such an optimal position).
Written on February 16th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 03:02 am by Darren Rowse
Choosing the Domain Name for your Blog
Warning: Mini Tangent Ahead
Last night my wife came home with a book and started a conversation on a topic which I’d been dreading a little since the time we first found out that we were expecting a baby later in the year. The book was called something along the line of ‘Names for your Baby’.
The thought of giving another human being a name is a task that can be fun but at the same time a little (or a lot) daunting. There are many factors to consider (what could the name be shortened to, who else has that name, what memories does it evoke, is it easy for a child to say, should you name them after someone, etc etc etc) and so many ways to make the decision. What’s more, it’s a task that has some level of responsibility attached to it as a person’s name is something that has an impact upon them for a lifetime.
<sarcasm>Choosing a name (and domain name) for your blog might not be quite as important a decision as naming your firstborn child </sarcasm> but it is something to consider carefully and is therefore something I’d like to flesh out a little in this post.
For the purposes of this post I’m assuming that you have chosen to go with a stand alone blog (see previous post on blog platforms) and will not be relying upon a URL supplied by a blog hosting company AND that your domain name will be the name of your blog (not always the case but usually the case and usually a recommended practice).
Why would you want your own Domain Name?
Having your own domain name is desirable for many bloggers for numerous reasons. For a start if you’re wanting to build credibility and a sense of professionalism around your blog a domain that reflects this can help. Similarly a carefully selected domain name has the ability to enhance the branding of a product, service, business or even person. Domain purchases give the added bonus of email addresses with the same domain (adding to both professionalism and branding) and can enhance your Search Engine Ranking.
Factors to Consider when Choosing a Domain Name
Just as there are many factors to consider in choosing the name of a person there are many implications of choosing names for a website. What follows is a list of factors to keep in mind as you make the decision. Keep in mind that there are many theories about what is right and wrong in this area and that despite all the rules that people have there are some very successful sites that ignore them all! Also worth remembering is that personal taste comes into decisions like this - what’s a good name will mean different things to different people. With those disclaimers in mind - let’s take a look at a few areas to consider:
Goals and Objectives - I constantly come back to this point in most of my tips posts on a variety of aspects of blogging - but it’s so important to be thinking of the long term vision that you have for a blog when you’re making decisions like those about domain names.
- What is the topic of the blog? - an obvious starting point - most blog names reflect their topic
- What do you hope to achieve with your blog? - is it about having a hobby, is it about building your profile/expertise, is it about earning an income via ads, is it to support an existing business
- What style will it be? - is it a blog with one or many authors? What length of posts will it have?
- What tone and voice will it be written in? - Will it be conversational, newsy, rant-ish, humorous?
- Who is the intended audience? - Are you wanting to appeal to professionals, young people, cool people, geeks?
You get the picture. Just like naming a business you need to consider overall strategy.
Source of Traffic - I’ve seen many articles on how to choose a domain name written but in very few of them (if any) have I see a discussion on the type of traffic that you will be wanting to build your website/blog around. To me this is a crucial question (that emerges out of your overall strategy) and one that will help you answer some of the important questions that we’ll discuss below. Let me flesh this out a little:
Traffic to a blog generally comes from three main sources:
- Loyal Readers
- Search Engines
- Referral Traffic (from other sites)
I’ve talked a little about each of these types of traffic in this previous post - they each have their own distinct advantages and disadvantages and can be the result of different strategies. One of the many things that can impact the source of your traffic is your domain name. I’ll explain this more below but think it’s worth naming what type of blog and traffic you’re after up front. If you want a blog that is high on SE traffic you might well end up selecting a name that is different to a blog with traffic based upon repeat readers. As I say - I’ll expand on this below.
Keywords and Branding - Many discussions on domain name decisions talk about a choice between choosing a domain name with keywords in them to domain names that are more brandable or generic. It’s worth stating up front that it is possible to achieve both (I guess anything is brandable to some extent) - but that this type of choice often comes into play. In my opinion comes at least partly back to the type of traffic you’re hoping to attract to your blog. Let’s look at each in turn:
- Keyword Based Domains - these domains, as the name suggests, incorporate keywords that your blog is about in them. This is good for a number of reasons. Firstly it communicates something to your readers very quickly with regards to what your blog is about. The other positive is that Search Engines take a good look at the words in your domain name when deciding what your blog is about and how to rank it. As a result if you’re after SE traffic then these types of names can be worth looking at. Examples of blogs with keyword based domains are Cellphone9, the Movie Blog, Sims Gamer and Search Engine Watch.
- Brandable Domains - these domains might often have some relation to their topic in terms of their feel or sound but are much more about creating something memorable that can become an identity in and of itself. In terms of traffic strategy - these blogs would be suited ideally to developing a blog that is aiming to build a community of loyal readers. Of course these blogs can also do very well in search engines but this is usually for other reasons (keywords in URLs are just one of many factors). Blogs that have these types of domains include Boing Boing, Gizmodo and Dooce. In fact if you look at Technorati’s Top 100 blogs - you’ll see that most of them have brandable names and not Keyword based ones.
Like I have mentioned above, these two options are no mutually exclusive. One example that comes to mind is Engadget which has become a memorable and well branded name that incorporates ‘gadget’ into it.
There are good arguments for and against both types of domain name which we could talk about for some time and it’s quite common to feel torn when making this type of decision between the two options.
Thinking of the Future - another factor to consider that is related to my first point of goals and objectives is to consider what your blog might look like in the future. I’ve seen a number of bloggers start up blogs with domains that fit with the topic of the blog initially but which outgrow the domain down the track. In one instance the problem was that the blog started on a fairly narrow topic (a sub-niche) and on a domain that reflected this but that in time it expanded it’s topic as the industry changed. In the end the topic and name just didn’t fit.
Another ‘future factor’ to consider is how many blogs you’re thinking of starting on your domain. Take a look at About.com for an example of how it’s possible to have one domain with many blogs running off it. They blog (yes they are blogs - run by MovableType) ‘about’ hundreds of topics and have a domain name that suits this perfectly. I myself have fallen into the trap of not thinking ahead in this way with my livingroom.org.au domain where I currently have a blog on Digital Cameras. I guess this is an example of how ultimately it doesn’t matter what domain you start blogs on as it’s a blog that does pretty well - however I often wonder how much better if could have done if I’d just thought ahead a little more!
Lastly on the ‘future front’ - don’t pick a name that you suspect might date quickly. Picking a name that is time specific in any way might find you searching for a new domain when it is no longer relevant at some future time.
Name Length - there are a range of opinions on what the ideal length of a domain name is. Technically you can have one with up to 67 characters in it but it is generally accepted that short ones are better for a number of reasons including that they are easier to remember, that they leave less room for making mistakes when typing them in, they are good for word of mouth (online or offline) marketing, that they are more visually pleasing (eg on your business card) etc.
The other argument is that if you are looking for SE traffic that you might like to consider a longer domain name with a number of the keywords that you’re looking for traffic on.
My personal preference these days is for shorter domains if possible, but not just for the sake of being short. Plus short names are very popular and hard to find these days so you might be forced to consider something a little longer anyway.
Dot What? - Along with the debates over domain name length comes many different opinions over what is the best to have at the end of your domain after the ‘dot’. These letters (ie.com,.net,.org etc) are technically called the Top Level Domain (TLD) and are divided into two types. Firstly there are country code TLD’s and secondly there are ‘generic’ TLDs which signify different types of organizations (in theory at least).
As I say there are a variety of approaches to selecting which TLD to go for:
- Legalities - The first consideration is the legalities of your choice as different countries and generic TLDs have different requirements but the
- SEO - This is where many of the arguements over TLD’s come in. I’m not going to get into it in much depth except to say that most people believe.com to be most powerful and that.net and.org are also good. Also if you are starting a blog with a localized focus it is well worth considering a country code on your TLD as it will help you get indexed in local search engines (I get a lot of traffic on my.au domains from Google Australia). If you’re going for a more global audience try for.com or.net.
- Memorability - One of the frustrations I have with enternetusers.net is simply that people assume that it can be found at enternetusers.com. Of course when I came to register this domain I tried to get the.com but it was unavailable so I decided that.net would serve my purposes (which it has). The only cost is that.com is so ‘normal’ that many people make the assumption that yourblog’sname.com will always be your address.
Hyphens? - Another eternal debate with domain names is over the value of hyphenated names. For example a hyphenated version of this blog might be Pro-Blogger.net. There are a two main reasons that some people prefer hyphenated names:
- Availability - one of the main reasons for going with hyphens is that ‘all the good names are taken’ (or at least it can seem this way). Adding hyphens to names definitely gives more options.
- SEO - hyphens are said to identify keywords to search engines more clearly (once again there is some debate over this).
Of course for every positive there is a negative and the arguments against keywords include:
- Memorability - adding hyphens can make it tricky for readers to remember your name
- Difficult to Communicate - have you ever tried to tell someone a domain name with a hyphen between each word? It can be quite an annoying process
- Increased Margin for Error - the more characters in your domain the more chance of a mistaken keystroke
- Cheap and Nasty Factor - there is a perception among many web-masters that domains with lots of keywords and hyphens are spammy. I personally don’t mind a domain with one (maybe two) hyphens in them but domains-that-have-lots-of-them-frustrate-me-and-turn-me-off.
Numbers? - Another option to consider when choosing a domain on a topic that is quite crowded is to include a number at the beginning or end of it. Once again this increases your chances of finding a domain with your keyword in it but could ‘cheapen’ the sound of your domain (a matter of personal opinion of course).
‘Easy’ Names - Most ‘experts’ in this area argue that a domain name should be easy to spell, pronounce, remember and type. Web users are notoriously lazy and if your site is not easy to find then they might just quickly give up trying to find it. As a result the easier you can make your domain to remember and access the more chance you have of traffic to it from repeat readers.
Keeping it Legal - it is highly recommendable to think seriously about the legal implications of the words you use in your domain name. Avoid trademarked names especially. I know of a couple of instances where bloggers were forced into making changes months into new blogs because of legal threats. Whether these laws vary from country to country I’m unsure - but it’s worth considering if you’re picking a domain that might clash in this way.
The ‘Blog’ Word - One temptations for many bloggers is to use the word ‘blog’ in the name and URL of their blog. This has the advantage of opening up new options for domain names but can also have some costs. For starters it could see the possibilities for expanding your site down the track limited. If one day you don’t want to run your site in a blog format you might feel a bit trapped. The other reason is that if you are wanting to use AdSense as an income stream for your blog down the track, it has a problem of serving ads about blogging when the word ‘blog’ appears too prominently on a site. This is ok when your blog is about blogging - but isn’t too conducive to high ad relevancy if you’re writing on a different topic.
Secure Multiple Domains - One piece of advice that many experienced web-masters recommend is making sure that you secure other similar domain names to the one you eventually choose. For example, if you choose a.com domain name it might be worth getting the.net and.org ones if you can, or perhaps even getting plurals or other logical similar ones. This is not essential but might help you protect your niche in some circumstances.
Opinions of Others - Before you buy that domain you’ve been eyeing off - it might be worthwhile running it by one or two other trusted friends (who won’t run off and buy it themselves). It’s amazing how focused you can become on finding the right name and how that can cloud your judgement. It’s also interesting to see how a name might sound to a person of a different culture to your own. Words mean different things in different part of the world and it could help you avoid an embarrassing mistake or just a dorky blog name.
Previously used Domain Names - It’s worth checking to see if a domain has been previously registered. Spammers often buy up domain names and then abandon them later once they’ve used them up. This can leave these domains banned by Google which gets you off to a pretty poor start.
Of course the above points are not hard and fast rules. As I’ve mentioned many times before - some of the worse domain names on sites have ended up being quite successful. I have blogs trapped on domains that were not thought through very well (largely because I didn’t know any better and thats the way things evolved) - some of them do poorly and others do very well.
There’s more to a blog’s success or failure than it’s name or URL - all I’m arguing is that a wise choice in this can better your chances in the long term.
Some tools you might like to use in selecting a domain name include:
NameBoy
DomainsBot
Whois Source
Feel free to add your own tips, suggestions and experiences in comments.
For more instruction on registering domains, setting up hosting and setting up WordPress you might also find Jon Symon’s video series on the topic worthwhile.
Written on February 16th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 12:02 am by Darren Rowse
The Most Profitable Lens on Squidoo - Earnings Revealed
Squidoo has been live (still in beta) for over 2 months now so earlier in the week I decided to head back over to check out how it was going. As I surfed around I was drawn to their Top 100 Lens lists (they have a number of them, arranged by a range of different criteria including the most emailed lenses, the most visited and the most blogged lenses.
I was quite surprised when I got to the Top 100 for most profitable lenses to find one of my own lenses (I’d forgotten I’d started any) featured in the list.
Not only was I featured - but I had the most profitable lens in the whole of Squidoo!!!! It’s a lens I made about the Nikon D200 DSLR camera. I literally threw it together just to test how easy it was to make a lens.
I also found quickly that I was the 9th highest rated Squidoo lens master in their Top 100 Lens Masters list.
Ok - I’ll be honest - I was a little excited by this, partly because I had a #1 in front of something I’d made, but also because I remembered that Squidoo share earnings with their Lens Masters.
Of course I immediately logged into my account (took me a little while to remember my password) to find out how many tens of thousands of dollars I should be expecting to be sent to me.
First I stopped by their FAQ pages to find out how much of what ever I’d earned I should expect to be sent and found that the split is 50/50 - but unfortunately as they are still in Beta they are not paying anyone anything. Doh! Having said that, any money left after their overheads goes to charity so I’m not too disappointed.
But how much has the most profitable Lens in Squidoo earned since it was created just over 2 months ago???
I logged into my account - and found my total.
$10.21
Ok. So I was a little shocked by the smallness of that figure. Not because I’d really expect a page to earn thousands - especially a page as simple as that. But because that’s the highest earning lens on Squidoo. I’d have honestly thought there’d be at least a few that would earn more.
Once I got over my initial surprise I began to think about it a little more with a bit more balance. Here are a few random thoughts:
- $10.21 over two months for one page isn’t bad really. Just yesterday I was writing how some people say an average blog post can earn $10 per year! This is better return than that - even if the income is split 50/50 with Squidoo.
- Squidoo is still a new entity. My Nikon D200 lens hasn’t even got a page rank yet (none of Squidoo has). It’s only been 2 months and things should grow.
- 1 lens earning $10.21 over 2 months isn’t much, but what if I’d taken the time to develop 100 lenses? What if I’d made 1000? Of course we can’t just multiply the number of lenses by $10.21 because that lens is obviously more profitable than anyone elses - but the earnings would surely be more (even though I have 5 lenses and this is the only one to make anything so far). I would critique a blog with one post by telling the blogger to add more content - it would be unfair to judge Squidoo based upon my 5 lenses.
I’m still unsure about Squidoo. My initial concerns over it’s poor SEO tactics still remain (although they’ve made a few changes including removing the word ‘Lenses’ from the lens title tags as I suggested) and I do see a bit of spammy stuff going on there, but overall I guess I have to say based on my own experience that the jury is still out somewhat.
What have your experiences been with Squidoo?
Written on February 15th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 07:02 pm by Darren Rowse
Stickam - Multimedia for your Blog
It seems a new service is being launched every day being aimed at bloggers and today’s startup release is Stickam (not quite live yet but scheduled to launch today).
Download Squad describe it as ‘a simple Flash tool for embedding video, pics, and audio in your website.’
They give up to 500MB of storage and there are no bandwidth restrictions - for free.
Written on February 15th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 01:02 pm by Darren Rowse
WordPress Help Tutorials
Speaking of Blog Platforms - Vanessa emailed me with this useful link for a page full of tutorials on using WordPress.
It’s filled with all kinds of good tips and tutorials on many WP topics, from installing WordPress up, to explaining CSS, to thinking about making comments work well, to combatting comment spam (and ALOT more).
Vanessa told me that these WP tutorials have helped her a lot and I can see why. Definately a useful page for beginner and even intermediate WordPress users.
Written on February 15th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 10:02 am by Darren Rowse
20 Ideas for a Great Blog
Carson McComas from FrogBody has an good post titled 20 Ideals for a Great Podcast which I enjoyed reading this morning (found via Life Hacker). But as I did I found myself wondering if the tips might actually help bloggers too. So here’s my comments on each of the points to see if we can apply them as bloggers (be warned - I don’t know how this will turn out…. could get a little freaky!)….
- Podcasts should be short - obviously post length is a matter of personal taste but I like the advice that one reader gave in comments recently (who was it?) - ‘write as much as you need to comprehensively cover your topic - then stop writing’. I’ve nothing against a long post (I’ve done a few of them lately myself) but writing succinctly is a gift that your readers will appreciate.
- Don’t take yourself seriously - I’ve been pondering this one a lot lately. As bloggers it’s easy to get sucked into the mindset that the world revolves around us. The fact is that it doesn’t and the sooner we realize it the better.
- Be whimsical - Carson’s point here - have fun. I think this is great advice for bloggers. Like point two is getting at - we can get way to serious with blogging. The bloggers that I’m drawn back to reading are ones who obviously enjoy what they do and at times inject humor and fun into the process.
- Be Chunky - Here he talks about short, sharp and diverse segments - the same could be said for posts (or sections within posts). One of the keys to a good blog is that it has an overall theme/topic that is tight enough to capture an audience - but that has enough variety in it to keep drawing people back over time.
- Don’t Ramble, Be organized - Thinking ahead with your blogging can set a great blogger apart from a good one. Sitting down to write ’something’ can work - but knowing ahead of time what your posts will be for the next week can help you to build momentum in your posts. Of course many bloggers do well with a more random chaotic approach - but to sustain a blog at a high level of quality takes a certain amount of forethought and planning.
- Cram, cram, cram as much good stuff as you can into the time - Give your readers as much goodness in your posts as possible and they’ll be back for more.
- Be regular, but only if you’ve got quality - Great advice for bloggers. We talked a few days ago about not posting just for the sake of it if you have nothing to say - but this needs to be balanced with regularity in your posting.
- Get decent audio! - Obviously there is no ‘audio’ quality with blogging - but perhaps if get a little loose with our metaphors we could extend this to blog design? While there are some successful blogs out there with pretty plain generic design, these days one way to get attention and create a favorable impression is a ‘wow’ design. It’s amazing what it can do for a blog’s popularity. I know the day I went from a plain, templated design here on enternetusers was the day I started getting taken seriously as a blogger (and my traffic levels improved significantly).
- Get a buddy - I don’t know of many blogs where the two bloggers working side by side works really well. Perhaps this is one which doesn’t apply as much - although I’m a big believer on working with others in different ways.
- Make that buddy a member of the opposite sex - ditto to #10. Although perhaps I should bring ‘V’ into enternetusers occasionally to get her perspective :-)
- Have show notes on your blog - I think this comes down to #5 again. Planning on a macro level can really pay off. I also think micro ‘in post’ planning can be worthwhile also. I quite often write the main points I want to make as single sentences before I write a post and then go back to fill in the gaps. This helps to stop rambling and aimlessness in posts. It doesn’t work for everyone (it’s just my writing style I guess) but helps keep me on track.
- If you’re doing interviews, don’t be Charlie Rose - Carson talks here about letting your guests talk when interviewing them. Once again you could apply this if you do interviews I guess - but I think it can also related to your comments section. Some bloggers write in a voice where they dominate a blog so much that commenters either need to disagree with them to add anything to a conversation. My style of blogging is much more about creating conversations and allow commenters to finish my posts. I’m much more into an open ended style of blogging (again a personal taste).
- Don’t interview Jason Fried - main point here was to find fresh people to interview. Same is true for blogging, not just in who you might interview but what you write about. It’s a challenge, but finding a fresh angle on an old topic is a brilliant way to build a blog.
- Try to be natural - I guess this is about finding your own voice and tone to write in. Some people’s writing style will be more a little more relaxed than others and I don’t have a problem with more formally written blogs - as long as the bloggers is being true to their own personality. I think the main thing is to develop some consistency in the way they write.
- Don’t be scared to throw a show away - Great advice for bloggers. Remember that everything you write will either add to or take away from your blog’s brand and identity. It all reflects upon you in some way. As a result if you’ve written a bad post either delete it before publishing or save it as a draft to work on and improve later. Yesterday I deleted 6 below average posts that I’d had sitting in my draft section for a while because I wasn’t happy with their quality. While many measure the success of blogs by what it publishers - perhaps the flip side is that it can also be measured by what it doesn’t publish.
- Do some editing - Perhaps more relevant for podcasts but also true for blogs. I still remember the day when I submitted a post that I’d written on one of my blogs to a magazine for publishing. The editor asked me if she could work it up a little before publishing and I was amazed to find that they went with an article a bit over half the size of what I’d first written. At first I was disappointed with this - until I read the vastly superior article that it ended up being.
- Use music - Please don’t use music on your blog!!! I’m not a big fan of musical websites - in fact I’m on the verge of curling up in a ball and rocking back and forth just thinking about them. However you can use other elements on your blogs to add new dimensions to it. I’m particularly thinking of pictures! Also some bloggers are now adding mini audio files to their blogs that readers can click on to get introductions or explanations of different elements (if you do this don’t have them play automatically - let your readers choose whether they want to listen to them).
- Verbally identify your podcast at the start of your podcast - Carson here is talking about giving information to readers to put things into context (ie date, topic, guest name etc). This is worth considering on a blog also. Most readers to blogs arrive via an individual post’s page (ie not the home page) and it’s worth considering what the experience of arriving on such a page might be like for a first time reader. Help them out by using headers, taglines and introductory statements to make it obvious what your site is about and you might find they stay longer and even explore the rest of your blog.
- Put an iTunes (at least) and Odeo chicklet with appropriate linkage on your blog - There are some obvious similarities here for bloggers. Give readers a quick and easy way to subscribe via RSS, email etc.
- If you have something important/valuable to say, get something out there. It may not be perfect, but if you’ve got great content, some omissions from the above list are tolerable - a great piece of advice to finish off on. It’s easy to be a little overwhelmed when you first start blogging - you want to get everything ‘just right’ - and end up never launching because it never is. There comes a time where you just have to launch and work on things as you go.
Written on February 15th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 06:02 am by Darren Rowse
Choosing a Blog Platform
- ‘Which Blog Platform Should I use?’
- ‘Should I use a free Blogger.com blog or get my own hosted blog on my own Domain? Which Blog Platform is best?’
- ‘What are the Pros and Cons of going with Typepad instead of WordPress as a blog platform?’
- ‘Should I start out on a free Blogging Platform and Upgrade later?’
These are just some of the typical questions that I get asked each day from bloggers starting out and attempting to make a decision on which blogging platform or tool they should choose.
I’m not going to tell you which blog platform you should use because, as you will see, there are good reasons for choosing most of the available platforms depending upon the goals of your blog.
What follows is my attempt to flesh out some of the factors a new bloggers might like to consider in deciding on a blog platform. It is probably impacted by own experience of blogging over the last three years and the preferences I’ve accumulated in this time. I invite readers to add to this post in comments below with their own ideas and experiences so we can have a more balanced and useful collection of tips for readers considering such a choice.
Some Questions to Ponder Before Deciding on a Blog Platform
As with making any important decision it is worthwhile to take your time with this decision. There are MANY competing blog platforms on the market (check out the results of a poll I did on the platforms enternetusers readers use to see just some of them). While you can change your blog platform at a later time (many of them have ways of importing and exporting your content later) there are usually some costs associated with such transfers (and I’m not just talking money - ie changing from a free hosted blog service to a self hosted one means changing your domain which has implications on Search Engine traffic etc). I guess all I’m saying is that it’s best not to rush into the first option you find - take your time, do your research and you might find a blog platform that will last you for a long time. Start by answering some of the following questions and you’ll have every chance of getting on the right track:
What are Your Goals - Probably the most important thing to do when starting the process of choosing a blog platform is to consider your aspirations for your blog. Of course complete first timers might struggle a little with seeing the future of their blogging, but to the best of your ability attempt to answer some of these questions:
- Is blogging something I see myself doing long term?
- What will the main purpose of my blog be?
- Is my blogging more of a hobby or does it have some professional application?
- Do I foresee putting ads on my blog?
Of course there are many other questions you’ll want to ask (I’ve written a series of posts on thinking through blog strategy here) but the answers to these sorts of questions are worth keeping mind as you research blog platforms as some platforms are much more suited to the hobby blogger and others to more professional blogging applications.
What is Your Budget? - As with most things in life, blog platforms come with a variety of price points ranging from free through to more expensive options. There are three main things that you might pay for:
- The blog platform itself
- Hosting for your blog
- Domain Name
Different blogging platforms offer different levels of service. Some like Blogger.com and WordPress.com offer both the platform, domain name and hosting for free. Others like Wordpress.org (note this is different to WordPress.com) offer the platform for free but you then need to find and pay for your own hosting and domain name. Others still, like MovableType charge for a license for the platform (depending how many blogs you have and whether they will have a commercial, personal, educational or not-for-profit use - they do also have a free version) and then you need to arrange and pay for your own domain name and hosting.
Other costs you might like to factor in at an early stage include:
- design - all platforms come with free templates (some more professional looking than others) but if you want a more individual look you’ll either need to have some design skills, know someone who does or be willing to pay for a design.
- blog tools/metrics - there are any number of tools you can pay for to help you in your blogging. These might include stats packages (again you can get free ones but can also pay for more features), offline blog posting tools etc. If you’re a beginner you might not need any of these - but down the track you might find them useful.
How Technologically able are you? - This is a crucial factor to consider when choosing a blog platform. If you’ve never had any experience in creating a blog or website before and are not a technologically minded person then there are some blog platforms and set ups that will be much more suited to your needs than if you know a few of the basics, or at least are willing to learn them.
The other option of course is to find someone who is a techie to help you out (either paid or as a friend). One of the great things about blogging and most of the platforms out there is that there is a wonderful communal knowledge out there and many forums dedicated to helping people get the most out of their chosen platforms.
What Blog Platforms are Others Using? - While I am always advising bloggers to make their blog their own - when it comes to choosing a platform it might be worth finding out what others are into. Over the last few years different platforms have come and gone and I suspect they will in the years ahead also. My recent poll on the topic might be helpful to get a handle on recent trends - but as this post gets a little older you might like to do some research of your own.
Hosted vs Stand Alone Blogging Platforms
With the above questions in mind it’s time to consider your options and ask yourself one of the key questions that you’ll ask in this process.
Will you go with a Hosted Platform or a Stand Alone Platform?
I’ve already mentioned above when talking about budgets that there are a few options with what platforms offer but there are two main camps of blog platforms (and a few that offer a combination of the two - just to make things confusing).
Hosted Blog Platforms
This is the type of blog that many bloggers start out with, simply because they are easy and usually quite cheap (if not free). Probably the most popular of these systems is Blogger.com - but there are others like WordPress.com and MSN Spaces. TypePad also runs hosted blogs - although have the option to go with a type of standalone option also through remote hosting..
These systems are ‘hosted’ blog platforms because they ‘host’ your blog on their own domain. After what is usually a pretty easy set up process they will give you a web address (URL) that will usually be some combination of their own URL and the name of your blog. For example a popular WordPress.com blog is AtariBoy - who’s web address is www.atariboy.wordpress.com. You can see the structure of that address has two elements, his blog’s name first and then the wordpress.com extension. This means that this blog is being ‘hosted’ by WordPress as opposed to the blogger having to organize and pay for that himself.
Pros and Cons of Hosted Blog Platforms
Pros:
- Cheap or Free to run - most hosted options are free (of the four I mentioned above, only TypePad charges).
- Relatively easy to set up - most of these types of blogs can be set up with a basic default template within minutes. The set up is usually just a matter of filling in a few fields with your options and choosing a template design.They are ideal if you know nothing or very little about the technological side of blogging.
- Simple to Run - Once you’re through the easy set up process hosted blogs are usually pretty simple to run. You will obviously need to learn some basics, but these days most blog platforms come with very user friendly features. Posting is as simple as filling in a few fields and hitting publish.
- Updated Automatically - if the blog platform updates it will automatically do so for you. Instead of having to upload new software onto a server, these updates happen much more seamlessly.
- Indexed in Search Engines Quickly - one of the advantages of many hosted blog platforms is that they are put onto domains that have good page ranks already. While your blog won’t be indexed in search engines when you start, most bloggers notice that their blogs get picked up and ranked pretty quickly. In the long run they probably don’t rank much higher than other blogs on stand alone hosting - but they are a quick way to get into SE’s.
Cons:
- Less Configurable - My first blog was on a Blogger.com blog - the reason I moved from it within months was that it was so limited in terms of features and ability to design a professional running blog. Of course this was 3 years ago and Blogger.com has improved - but one of the biggest frustrations with hosted blog owners are their limited options for customization. This does vary from platform to platform within the hosted options. For example WordPress.com has quite limited design options (it is quite a new platform), Blogger.com doesn’t give the option for categories and TypePad has different options depending upon which level you buy in at.
- Default Design Limitations - While this can be true for standalone blogging systems also I find that many hosted blogs end up looking very similar to one another. This is because the default templates get used over and over again and if you’re a beginner they can be difficult to adapt. For instance with Blogger.com to make changes (and you can make your blog look quite unique) you need to know CSS and HTML to edit your templates (something you need to know with other platforms also it’s worth mentioning).
- Less Control - Another common complaint I hear regularly from hosted blog owners is that they are frustrated by not having ultimate control over their blog. While they do own the content, the URL is not technically their own and they are somewhat at the mercy of their platform in terms of whether their blog is working or not. For example there have been times in the last few months when TypePad bloggers have been frustrated by their blogs being down for periods of time (something Blogger.com struggles with from time to time also). To be fair on TypePad - they did compensate their bloggers for this down time.
- Generic URL - having your own URL can give a sense of professionalism and memorability to a blog that hosted options might well go without. While there are some very successful blogs on hosted platforms some bloggers believe that having your own URL is much more professional if you are using your blog in a professional way.
- Upgrading to Standalone can be Tricky - Probably the question worth asking before you go with a hosted option is what you’ll do if your blog gets big or you get the blogging bug in a way that won’t let you go? One of the issues of starting out with a hosted platform is that if there comes a day when you want to go with a standalone one that you have some work cut out for you in retaining any traffic that you’ve built up. I’m not saying it’s impossible to do (I’ve done it myself) but there are implications of changing domains later in terms of taking regular readers with you, having to climb the search engine rankings all over again and redirecting traffic from one blog to another.
Who would use Hosted Blog Platforms?
If you just want a blog and don’t care much about having your own unique domain, are not too interested in tweaking your blog or getting all the latest and greatest features then hosted options are a completely valid choice. In fact it’s worth keeping in mind that while some may scoff at hosted blog platforms and say that serious bloggers don’t use them - there are some popular bloggers who use them very successfully. For example one of my daily reads is Robert Scoble has a WordPress.com blog, Post Secret is on a Blogspot blog (blogger.com) and Hack MSN Spaces is obviously an MSN spaces blog (all of these and others are highly ranked blogs in the Top 500 at Feedster).
Stand Alone Blog Platforms
The other type of blog platform is that which is hosted under your own steam on your own domain/URL. This is what I do with all of my blogs these days (apart from one or two which I started just to see how the hosted platforms work). So you’ll see that enternetusers is hosted at enternetusers.net and is powered by WordPress.org. I also use MovableType, for a number of my blogs. Other Stand alone blog platforms that many use include PMachine, Greymatter, B2Evolution, TextPattern and Expression Engine (to name just a few).
Pros and Cons of Stand Alone Blog Platforms
Pros:
- Full Control of Design - Depending upon your ability with web design standalone blogs generally are very adaptable. I am not strong in this area personally but am constantly amazed by some of my colleague’s abilities to create incredibly diverse and clever designs. Of course those bloggers with little ability in this area may either need to use default templates (with the same limitations as default templates of hosted blogs) or get others to help with this.
- Adaptability - One of the things I enjoy about WordPress here at enternetusers is the vast array of developers who are coming up with all manner of ‘plugins’ which extend the ability of the basic WP installation. Similarly many of the other standalone platforms have communities of developers producing similar arrays of plugins (check out the plugins that enternetusers readers use here for some examples of what is being developed).
- Free Platforms - while you end up paying for your domain name and hosting systems like these are usually free to run. Some do have license fees if you’re having multiple blogs or using them for commercial purposes - but many are open source.
- URL - Having your own domain name is great for many reasons. For one it’s easier to remember, secondly it’s more professional and hirdly it is more easily brand-able.
Cons:
- Complicated Set Up - once again this depends upon your technical abilities and web savvy but when you move into stand alone platforms the complexity of set up tends to increase. It often involves arranging hosting, setting up databases and then downloading the platform onto you own computer and then uploading it via ftp onto your web hosting server. There are good tutorials around for most of the platforms to help with this process but for many it is a daunting thing. Once again it’s not my strength so I generally get by blogs set up and designed by a professional designer (although recently have been learning to do it a little more myself). NB: one way around this is to find a web host that will install your blog platform for you. This is becoming increasingly popular. Some platforms even recommend hosts that will do it for you (eg see MT’s recommendations and WP’s recommendations).
- Cost - While the blog platform itself might be free you need to factor in the ongoing costs of having your own domain name (a yearly fee plus a one off registration fee) and hosting fees (again yearly). There are many great deals out on these so it need not cost the world - although if your blog gets a lot of traffic the costs do go up and you might want to consider going onto a more professional and expensive plan.
- Updates - Most blog platforms go through different and versions over time. Updating from one to another can be complicated if you don’t know what you’re doing.
- Hosting Issues - I mentioned in the cons of the hosted platforms that you have ‘less control’ over your blog and are at the whims of your platform’s hosting being up or down. Of course this is also true for any hosting as from time to time different hosting solutions can have their own problems. Whether you use a hosted solution or a stand alone solution it’s important to back up and be aware that from time to time things do go down. Choose a reputable host if you go the stand alone route to ensure maximum uptime.
Who would use Stand Alone Blog Platforms?
Stand alone blog platforms are ideal if you want a little more control or flexibility with your blogging. They can be configured to look and run very professionally and to be adapted into configurations that are limited only by your imagination. Of course just because you go with a stand alone blog doesn’t ensure you will have the perfect professionally looking blog. In fact if you don’t have the ability to set these blogs up correctly (or know someone who can) standalone blogs can be messy and non-professional looking blogs.
Examples of these types of blogs are many - The vast majority of the top 50 or so blogs at Feedster are stand alone blogs.
A Word About Remote Hosting Options
Some blog platforms allow a combination of hosted and stand alone blogs via remote hosting. TypePad and Blogger.com are two examples of this. They allow you to run your blog on your own domain and hosting but still using their system to publish your blog. I’m not too familiar with how Blogger.com does it but have seen it used effectively with TypePad. The beauty of doing this with TypePad is that if you are a beginner blogger and are not too confident with running your blog it gives you the ability to set up a blog without too much trouble but on your own domain name from the very beginning. This will make swapping platforms later a lot easier.
Summing it all up
This has been a fairly long post and I hope I haven’t lost or bored you along the way but it’s an important topic for new bloggers to think through.
To sum it all up I generally advise this. If you’re wanting to develop serious blog and have aspirations for it to be used on a professional sort of level (whether as a business or corporate blog, as a blog to build your own profile or a blog to earn income from advertising) I’d recommend you go in the direction of a stand alone blog. Even if you are not highly skilled in this area it’s worth spending a little money to get it set up with a designer or even better still, to learn how to do it yourself.
If you just want a blog for fun and to keep a record of your life for your friends and family and you don’t have the time, money or patience to put into it then a hosted option might work well for you too. They are instant (it’ll take 5-10 minutes to set up) and while they might not have quite the same level of features, in effect they may well suit you every need. Of course many hobbyists also go the stand alone option because tweaking their blog is part of their interest.
Further Reading on Choosing a Blog Platform
If you choose to use WordPress.com as a platform you might find Jon Symon’s video series on how to set it up on a domain and hosting worthwhile.
Macworld - The best Blogging Tools for the Mac - features a useful comparative table
Are you using the right blogging tool - Contains a helpful and reviews of a few of the more popular blogging tools
Blog software Comparison Chart - a companion chart to the above article
Blog Software Reviews at a Glance - a page that links to a variety of in depth reviews of Blog Software packages at the Performancing Blog
Blog software Smackdown: The big 3 Reviewed - review of Movable Type, WordPress.org and Textpattern
Blogger.com vs WordPress.com - a review of these two hosted options
Blogger.com Review - review of blogger.com
By no means is this post the definitive guide to choosing a blog platform or software. I’m sure there are many experiences that the readers of enternetusers could bring to this topic and I encourage you to share your own advice in comments below. I’ll update this page with what you teach me as I can.
Written on February 15th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 02:02 am by Darren Rowse
How to Choose a Niche Topic for your Blog
The approach I’ve taken to build a business around blogging has been to build multiple blogs around niche topics. I describe the reasons for this in my post One Blog Many Categories or Many Blogs? but I regularly am asked about how I choose my niche topics to blog about. In this post I’d like to outline a few questions that I tend to ask myself when considering a new topic. I hope it helps:
Are You Interested in the Topic?
A friend of mine explained it this way recently:
“Probably the best place to start thinking about what your blog should be about is to consider what YOU are about.”
Perhaps that’s a slightly awkward way of saying start by identifying your own interests, passions and energy levels for topics. While it might be tempting to start blogs based on what other people are interested in or what makes commercial sense there is little logic in starting a blog on a topic that you have no interest in. There are two main reasons for this.
Firstly if you want to grow a popular and well respected blog it can take considerable time and you’ll be needing to take a long term approach to building it up. As a result it’s well worth asking yourself ‘can I see myself still writing on this topic in 12 months time?’ If you can’t I’d suggest finding another topic.
The second reason is that you readers will quickly discern if you are passionate about your topic or not. Blogs that are dry and passionless don’t tend to grow - it makes sense really as no one wants to read something that the author doesn’t really believe in.
Is the Topic Popular?
While the blogger’s interest is important it’s not enough on it’s own to build a popular blog. Another crucial ingredient is that people WANT to read information on the topic you’re writing on. The law of Supply and Demand is what most business students are taught in their first semester of of studying economics and it comes into play here also. You might be interested in your topic but unless others are also you’ll always have an uphill battle in building a highly read blog.
Of course keep in mind that you are writing in a medium with a global audience of many millions and as a result you don’t need a topic that everyone is searching, just one that some people are searching for because even it’s something that even a small percentage of people have an Active interest in it can be a lucrative area.
Is the Topic one that is growing or shrinking?
Also keep in mind that popular topics change over time. Obviously it’s great to get on a topic before it becomes big rather than when it’s on the decline. This is not easy to do of course but predict the next big thing that people will be searching for and you could be onto a winner.
Get in the habit of being on the lookout for what people are into. I constantly ask myself ‘what will people be searching the web for in 6 to 12 months?’
Keep an eye on what people are into and what the latest trends are. Do this online but also keep an eye on TV, magazines, the papers and even the conversations you have with friends.
What competition is there?
One of the traps that some bloggers get sucked into when choosing a topic is to go for the most popular topics with no regard for the competition that they might face in those markets. The chances are if you have identified a niche that you think is ‘hot’ at the moment that someone else will have also. It’s demand and supply coming into play again - for any level of demand for information on a topic there will only be a certain number of sources of that information that will be needed on that topic.
The web is becoming a more and more cluttered place and sometimes it feels that there are no niches that are left open to blog about. While this is true in some of the more popular topics - remember that you don’t have to go for the topic that everyone is searching for. In fact sometimes it’s some of the less popular topics that have little or no competition that are the best earners.
I have one friend who after years of attempting to do well writing about gadgets swapped to ‘ride on lawn mowers’ (a topic he’d been researching for a purchase he was making). He was amazed to find that after just a couple of months of writing on his new topic that it was doing significantly more traffic (and making quite a bit more) than his gadget websites ever had.
As I’ve said many times before on this blog - become a big fish in a small pond rather than a small fish in a big pond.
What is the competition neglecting?
This is a great question that is obviously related to the last one on number of competition. It attempts to find ‘gaps’ that are not yet filled. While your competition might have the advantage of an established audience, you have the advantage of flexibility and can position your blog very quickly to fill a gap in the niche that you might observe - in doing so you create a sub-niche within the larger topic.
Will you have enough Content?
One of the key features of successful blogs is that have the ability to continue to come up with fresh content on their topic for long periods of time. Conversely, one of the things that kills many blogs is that their authors run out of things to say.
Answering the question regarding whether there is enough content can be done on two levels:
- 1. Do YOU have enough content within YOU as an author? This really comes back to the question we asked above about your passion, interests and energy for the topic (so I’ll leave it at that).
- 2. Do you have access to enough other sources of content and inspiration? There are many web based tools around these days that can help you in coming up with content. Some places to check out on your topic to see what news is about include Google News, Topix, Yahoo! News, Bloglines, Technorati and Blog Pulse (among others).
Are there Income Streams on the Topic?
Not everyone will need to ask this question if their intention is not to build a blog that has an entrepreneurial edge to it but as this blog is on the topic of making money from blogs I’ll address it.
If you are interested in earning an income from blogging you will need to also factor in some investigation of whether the topic that you’ve chosen has any obvious potential income streams. As I’ve written previously, there are many ways of earning money from blogs - however the problem is that not every topic is going to be suitable for every potential income stream. For example, contextual ad programs like AdSense and YPN work really well for some topics but hardly earn anything from others (you might like to read my post on finding high paying ads on AdSense to explore this topic). Similarly some blogs do fantastically out of affiliate programs (the key is to find affiliate programs that match your topic closely) and others are better suited to impression based ads (those with high traffic levels).
Choose a Niche
At this point it’s time to choose a topic for your blog. It’s probably unlikely that you’ll find the perfect topic on all of the fronts above. While it’d be great to find a topic that you’re passionate about that just happens to have massive demand and no competition - but the reality is that most topics topics that you come up with will have at least one weakness to them. Don’t let this get you down - there comes a time when you just need to make a decision and start blogging. The key is being aware of what the weakness is so that you can work to overcome it.
PS: An Example
enternetusers.net itself is an example of the process I’ve outlined above. While blogging is a topic I had (have) a real interest in and which is quite popular the weakest link of this blog is the fact that so many other blogs write on the topic of how to blog better. The other problem was that there were not too many lucrative income streams on the general topic of blogging. There are lots of AdSense ads for different blog tools, but they pay very little.
As a result of this I narrowed my niche slightly to focus upon making money from blogs (something I didn’t see many others writing about a year ago). This narrowed my potential market slightly but meant I could carve out a niche and potentially make a name for myself in the area. The other side benefit of narrowing the topic was that it also increased the income potential of this blog. Contextual ads on this topic pay a little more and there are other potential income streams (like consulting work) that a more general topic of blogging might bring.
Written on February 15th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 12:02 am by Darren Rowse
AdSense testing third parties involvement in Serving Ads to Publishers
Jen has news of a beta test that AdSense is running with a select number of advertisers where they will be working with a number of third party ad providers to serve ads on their publishers site.
The details are a little unclear at this point with regards to which third parties will be involved but it seems that the ads will be image ads. The email that AdSense are sending publishers starts:
‘As part of our efforts to continually improve the advertising experience for our users, advertisers, and publishers, we wanted to inform you that over the next few months we will be testing new ways to serve ads to your site. Specifically, we will be running a limited number of site-targeted campaigns that will leverage 3rd party ad-serving/tracking technology.
As part of the test, you may see an increase in revenue as a result of advertisers selecting your site for site-targeted campaigns…’
Read the full email and Jen’s comments at AdSense beta testing third party tracking in image ads
Written on February 15th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 12:02 am by Darren Rowse
Clickbank Login Problems
Some Clickbank affiliates (including me) have been having problems logging into their admin area over the past day or two.
On reporting difficulties logging in publishers get the following message from Clickbank:
“Due to an attempted denial-of-service attack that started Sunday, we have been filtering suspect traffic. It is possible that if you are sharing an IP (such as AOL web proxies) with a zombie computer on the same network, you may be temporarily blocked from reaching our site. This will not affect the ability of customers on “clean” IP’s from reaching our site.”
No news on when we’ll be back online at this point.
update: They look like they are back up and running again.
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