Written on August 19th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 06:08 am by Darren Rowse
Secrets of eMoms Blogging Success
I just found out that I missed one link in the group writing project that for some reason didn’t make it to my inbox despite it’s blogger sending it to me multiple times. Sorry to Wendy from eMoms at Home for that.
As I looked over the post I realized that it was quite a good one for enternetusers anyway so I thought I’d highlight it in a post of its own as it’s worth a read.
It’s called Unsuspecting Secrets to Fast Blogging Success. Wendy’s tips include thoughts on:
- Search your Soul Before You Start
- Let the Real You Shine Through
- Study the Success Stories
- Add Value in Every Post - Well, Almost Every Post
- Network Like Crazy
- Be Passionate about Your Chosen Topic
- Trust Your Intuition and Your Instincts. Be True to them
- Do your Homework about blog set up, SEO and site design
- Be Disciplined
- Blog with a Higher Purpose in Mind
It’s a great list and she has some good stuff to say in each point.
Written on August 19th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 02:08 am by Darren Rowse
How to Get Eyeballs on Your Archives
Many bloggers are sitting on a treasure trove and don’t even know it (or don’t know how to use it). The treasure is in their archives - hundreds, if not thousands of posts that they’ve slaved over for hundreds of hours that unfortunately are rarely seen by readers.
This post is about how to release the potential of your archives and get your readers digging into them. I share 8 ways I’ve attempted to get more eyeballs on my archives.
The Challenge
enternetusers has been running for just under two years and in that time I’ve published over 2600 posts. As I reflect upon that massive amount of content I can largely classify them into two types of posts (for the purposes of this post at least):
1. News Posts - each day I publish what I consider to be ‘newsy posts’ (yep that’s the technical name for them). These point readers to what is happening around the blogosphere in relation to my topic (building better blogs and making money blogging). These posts tend to date very quickly and most are largely irrelevant (except as a record keeping exercise) within days or weeks of me posting them. They do continue draw readers into the blog via search engines as they are often keyword rich - but I doubt that they are really much use to readers who find them.
2. Evergreen - I try to post at least one of these posts each day (each weekday at least) on enternetusers. They are posts that have a ‘how to’ focus or which have some element of teaching or inspiration to them. They tend to be posts that do not date very quickly. Some might call them ‘evergreen’ posts as they are often as relevant today as they were when I wrote them some time ago.
Of course there are a few other types of posts in my archives but the vast majority of what I’ve written here fit pretty clearly into one of the other category.
The Problem with Evergreen Posts
The ‘problem’ that I’ve been pondering lately is largely related to the evergreen posts and how they work (or don’t work) on a blog.
The issue is that evergreen posts remain relevant for long periods of time - but the nature of blogs is that they are dynamic and quite temporary in how they highlight posts.
In a blog’s natural form evergreen post might only be exposed to readers for just a day or two while it sits on the front page of a blog. As more posts are written it slides quickly into ‘archives’ where it may never be seen again.
Having spent considerable time on such posts (I can spend anything from 30 minutes to numerous hours working up one of these posts) they seemingly disappear from the radar of readers unless they are specifically are searching for terms you use and happen to find you in a search engine search.
The problem is highlighted to me everyday by the emails that I receive from readers asking me to write on topics that I’ve already written on numerous times. In some cases this might be the reader’s laziness but in most cases it’s simply because my archives have become too large and finding what they need is becoming difficult.
I’m interested to hear how other bloggers tackle this problem.
I’ve been pondering it a lot lately and to be honest feel like I’m still not really close to ‘the answer’ (if there is one). Instead I’m coming to the conclusion that a blogger needs to be quite intentional in directing readers to their evergreen posts and should probably do so in a multi-pronged way.
How to Highlight Your Archives
Here are some of the strategies that I’ve used and have seen others putting into place:
1. Search - perhaps one of the most common features on blogs is the ’search’ feature. This enables readers who know what they’re looking for on your blog to Actively search for it.
This is great for some reasons but the problems with it are that readers need to have a felt need and to be Actively searching and that they need to do so using terms that you’ve used in your posts (I find that a lot of beginner bloggers don’t know the terminology and as a result search for the wrong things).
2. Categories and Tags - another common navigational tool that is built into many blogs is the ability to assign posts categories and/or tags. This enables readers to at least narrow down what they’re looking for information on to a smaller topic within the niche you’re writing about.
The downside of categories and tags is that readers again need to know what they’re looking for (to some extent) and that categories and tags can become very large archives in and of themselves also. For example here at enternetusers I have hundreds of entries in my AdSense category - some of them are ‘newsy’ others are ‘evergreen’ posts.
3. Highlight Popular Post in Sidebar/Menus - this is something I’ve been doing with some success here at enternetusers (I’ve written about it here). If you place key posts prominently you can drive significant traffic to your best old post.
The weakness in this approach is that there is only so many posts that you can highlight in this way. At enternetusers I use my top three boxes for this purpose but even if I used each slot I could only highlight 20 key posts or categories (less than 1% of my archives). You can increase this by linking to pages that themselves highlight different keyposts (for example in my menu I link to my Top 20 posts) however there is still a limit to how much you can highlight.
4. Related Posts Plugins - this is another common strategy among many bloggers these days. Those using blog platforms like WordPress can use plugins like Related Entries that will automatically suggest to your readers what else they might like to read that is related to your post.
I’ve not done any studies on how well this works but it makes sense that it does and it’s something I use at the bottom of each post here on enternetusers.
The weakness of this approach is that bloggers have no control over which pages they highlight. While it’s pretty good at suggesting related posts it’s fully automated (great - but not completely in our control as bloggers). Of course you can always manually suggest related posts instead or in addition to such a plugin.
5. Internal Linking - once you’ve been writing a blog for a while you’ll find that you do find yourself writing on topics that you’ve touched on before. One way to take advantage of this is simply to interlink these posts within your posts. This means you’re in complete control of where you send readers and can ensure that the links are contextually relevant and fit within the natural flow of your posts instead of having them at the end of your posts.
If there’s a weakness of this post it’s that you have to go searching for the old posts and have to have a good enough memory about what you’ve written previously on a topic (it gets a little hard once you get over 1000 posts or so). There’s also a danger of overdoing it and frustrating your readers by always referring to previous posts instead of writing posts for now.
6. Alternative Blog Architecture - more and more bloggers have been experimenting with new ways of structuring blogs. For example - recently Aaron launched a new architectural structure to his blog. You can view it in a standard blog format (chronological order), in a ‘conversational’ format (where the order of posts is based upon which posts have had comments most recently) or a ‘Best Of‘ type format (where the blog is arranged not chronologically but in an order that Aaron determines with his ‘best’ posts at the top. The conversational and best formats highlight older posts.
This opens up interesting possibilities and I’m sure Aaron will develop it further. I guess the downside is that in each view there is still a top post and only 10 or so on the front page of that view meaning that only a smaller number of old posts will be highlighted.
7. Update Posts - After a year or two of blogging it goes without saying that some of your old posts will be somewhat dated. I can think of posts in my archives that I don’t really agree with anymore or that are just obsolete. On a number of occasions I’ve actually gone back to these posts to do updates (usually adding paragraphs and occasionally rewriting posts).
On these occasions you can either republish the post with a new date (be aware that this can change the URL of your post if you incorporate dates into your URLS - which is problematic) or write a short post telling readers that you’ve updated the post with a link to it.
This is a good way to keep your archives up to date but it does have some problems also. For example some people have an issue with changing previously published posts.
8. Compilation Posts - another similar strategy that I use from time to time is to write posts that highlight a collection of previous posts. This is what my top 20 posts does.
This is particularly effective if your compilation post brings together posts on the same topic and is almost like you’re putting together a series of previously published posts.
Combinations of Above
Of course none of the above 8 strategies are mutually exclusive. Each one can be used in combination with each other and other strategies.
What do you do to highlight older posts and get people into your archives? Have I missed anything?
Written on August 19th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 12:08 am by Darren Rowse
Washington Post Launches Sponsored Blogroll Ad Network
Steve has picked up on the story that the Washington Post has launched a service to help marketers find blogs to advertise on. It’s called Sponsored Blogroll.
They are building a network of bloggers to participate. Marketers can browse bloggers in the network and WP’s sales team will sell ads for you. WP and the blogger splits the revenue (no mention of what the split is).
The additional attraction to joining the network for bloggers however is that those participating get a rotating link to their blog on the WP’s homepage.
They seem to be looking for blogs in the fields of Technology, Business, Health, Automotive and Travel at this point.
It’s definitely an interesting system that goes a little further than most other blog advertising systems that I’ve seen (in that it not only makes you money but potentially sends you traffic) and one I’ll be keen to check out.
Written on August 18th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 10:08 pm by Darren Rowse
Group Writing Project - The Prize Winners Are….
Having come to the end of this week’s writing project I have a mixture of feelings.
- Excitement - 301 entries (a record), loads of interlinking between blogs, numerous reports of posts hitting it big around the blogosphere
- Tiredness - I’ve got to get a better system for uploading submissions - I’ve done it all manually again and it’s taken way too long
- Inspiration - Some of the submissions this week have been amazing and have introduced me to some great new blogs that I’d not come across before.
I’m also really overwhelmed by everyone’s excitement and willingness to participate. While I’m a little worn out I’m also energized - especially at this moment having just randomly selected those bloggers who are going to receive one of the five gifts on offer.
The way I selected the prize recipients was to use a site called Random.org which has a tool for selecting random numbers. I assigned each submission in the week a number and the five numbers the site spat out to me are the following five winners who win the following five gifts.
- Steve King wins a Premium upgraded account worth $90 from URLTrends. Steve’s list was - 5 Books that made me an optimistic environmentalist. He was the very last submission received (lucky last).
- MaxPower is the second winner for his imaginatively named entry - ‘Move your Bowels’ and other sage travel (writing) tips at MaxPower. MaxPower wins a $100 gift voucher from Amazon which was donated by Blake Schwendiman.
- Caryn is our third winner - she wins the Sinic Eye and Brain Massager which has been kindly donated by the The Umdum.com Web Directory. Caryn’s entry was Just Visiting - Ten Tips for being an unforgettable houseguest.
- Sergey is our forth winner - he wins a new Dell PC and LCD monitor to the value of $500! This prize was donated from the kind people at Earners Forum. Sergey’s entry was 7 new ways to use Google and Gmail.
- Can’t Say That is our final winner for her submission The 10 Best Ways to Win an Arguement. She wins $500 in digital cash from The Gold Pages Directory. It can be withdrawn to a prepaid
So there we have it. Congratulations to the recipients of the gifts. I’ll be in touch with you in the next day to let you know how you collect your prize.
One last special thank you to our sponsors - Blake Schwendiman, The Umdum.com Web Directory, URLTrends, The Gold Pages Directory and Earners Forum. I appreciate your generosity greatly.
Please support these sponsors by visiting their sites.
Written on August 18th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 06:08 pm by Darren Rowse
The Last 63 Lists - Group Writing Project Submissions - Part 4
Thanks to everyone who has particiapted in this week’s Group Writing Project.
It is now officially closed for submissions (I’ve been waiting for parts of the Pacific to get to the end of Thursday). Below are the final 63 submissions which brings the total number of participants this week to 301!
It’s amazing what offering prizes will do (although I think it’s also about this week’s project being a bit more accessible than previous ones in terms of topic).
Speaking of prizes - our wonderful sponsors of this week’s project (The Gold Pages Directory, The Umdum.com Web Directory, URLTrends , Blake Schwendiman and Earners Forum) have each donated a gift (see below for details). Now that the week is complete I’m going to draw the prizes. This will take me an hour to do so look out for a post shortly with this week’s winners.
In the mean time - here are the last round of reader submissions (the full list of all 301 submissions are here):
- The Five Questions You Should Never Ask by Tooz
- 5 Things to do when in Cebu by Marien
- NY Times my arse… Here is where I get my news by Jay
- Q&A: Low vs. High pathogenic Avian Influenza by Grace
- 5 links to calorie-conscious fitness by Fitness Mantra
- 3 Problems Business Bloggers Face by Ahmed
- Sixteen Scintillating Short Story Starters by Trevor
- 7 Usability Wordpress Plugins by Thomas
- Top 10 Reasons To Find an Event Planner for your Next Party by Kia
- List of Hello Kitty Vehicles by Lina
- Four Kinds of Money Making Websites You can Start By Yourself by Peter
- 101 Questions… Consumer, Political, Humorous and Starbucks by Doug
- Buying a Car the Right Way by Matt
- ‘Move your bowels’ and other sage travel (writing) tips by MaxPower
- Using Insect Repellent on Children | 10 Safety Tips by Repellent Review
- She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not? by Kloudiia
- Seven signs that you should move to France - or stay at home by Britt
- 5 Ways of Marketing Salvation by Richard
- Non-Profit Websites by Darren
- Best of Small Biz Survival by Becky
- Top 12 Cameras of All Time: A Photo Enthusiast’s Perspctive [2006] by The Other Martin Taylor
- Seven Things Not to Do on a Plane by Andy
- Wedding songs for the despair Generation by Jill
- 5 Ways to Use MySpace to Reach Your Readers by Dee
- My Top 10 Favorite Firefox Extensions by John
- How to Gain weight without really trying (and the antitheses) by Sally
- 31 Emoticons to woo your online loves by Kelly
- 5 games industry job interview tips by Rick
- The 11 New Fall Shows I can’t Wait to See by Adam
- Four most Influential British Prime Ministers by Paul
- List of Mouse Games by Indrax
- You Must be an Artist If… by Marion
- Post 9/11 Neologies by Andy
- A few handy EPL team facts by Bill
- Best Current Deals, Promotions, and Sign Up Bonuses by Jason
- Top Ten Reasons to Love Digital Gold by Jim
- Five reasons why you should always buy in lots by Danielle
- 5 Ways to Improve your Affiliate Sales by Chris
- You Know That Blogging is Taking Over Your Life When… by Kailani
- Pillar Articles to Write about the Art of Creating a Joyful Life by Linda
- She Lists a Bit off Center by Carol
- Where is my Ovary? by Baggage
- 10 Essential Ways to Improve Your Profile as a Blogger by Susan
- Five Reasons Why Mornings Rock by Health Hacker
- 4 Ways to More Romance by jldude
- 10 Blogs You Should be Reading by SB
- Making a Site Inaccessible - Things I used to Do by Phil
- Graphical Visualization - Making Sense Out of Data by Jim
- 5 Reasons to Put Off Living With Your Girlfriend by Joseph
- Things You Learn from Anime by Alan
- 10 Ways to Have a Horrible Seminar by Sue
- The 10 Things We did to Erase almost $9,000 in Credit Card Debt in Less than 6 Months by Tricia
- Nine of My Favorite WordPress Plugins by Sarah
- 10 Indispensable (and Free) Web Resources for Students by Jamie
- Keeping Sociable on Long Trips by Dana
- 10 Easy Ways to Save Money in Restaurants by Anthony
- The A-Z of RSS by Scott
- What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting It by Molly
- Ten Ways to Spot a Scam by The Wandering Author
- Yazarken Dikkat Ettiğim Kurallar by Utku Tönel
- 7 Personal Finance Tips by Tim
- Top 13 Black Comedies by andi
- 5 Books That Made Me an Optimistic Environmentalist by Steve
https://enternetusers.net/lists-group-writing-project-reader-submissions/
Prizes:
- URLTrends have kindly donated a Premium upgraded account worth $90 that will help them track their search engine ranking over time. Thanks to Joel Strellner for this donation.
- The Umdum.com Web Directory have donated a Sinic Eye and Brain Massager (just what every enternetusers needs). They’ve also kindly offered every participant in this week’s group writing project a free listing in their directory. Thanks to Loren Baker for this donation.
- Blake Schwendiman has donated a $100 gift voucher from Amazon to be used in any way that they see fit. Thanks Blake!
- Earners Forum have kindly donated a new Dell PC and LCD monitor - to the value of $500. Earners Forum is a great place for discussions around all kinds of topics of earning money online. Thanks to Lee Dodd for this donation.
- The Gold Pages Directory has donated $500 in digital cash that can be spent on products and services or withdrawn to a prepaid ATM card and used as cash. The Gold Pages Directoryis the largest online currency/digital gold directory on the web and is now three years old. Thanks to Mark Herpel for this donation.
Written on August 18th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 10:08 am by Darren Rowse
AdSense Add Individual Ad Performance Tracking
I just noticed on the AdSense What is New Page for August that in addition to the new way of setting up search to show on your own domain that they’ve added an extra option for viewing stats in advance reports.
Now instead of just viewing impressions either by ‘ad unit’ or ‘page’ publishers now have the option of viewing their stats by ‘individual ad’.
You see the options in the ‘Show Data by’ drop down menu.
The new option allows you to see your stats (CTR, eCPM etc) for each individual ad shown on your site. So on a skyscraper ad unit where 4 individual ads might be served to your blog this counts as 4 individual ad impressions. Alternatively if you view by ‘ad unit’ it would count as 1 impression and if you were to view by ‘page’ even if you had multiple ad units on the page it would only be counted once.
Confused?
Google explains it elsewhere by explaining each of the three options like this:
• Page reports will show an impression every time a user views a page displaying Google ads. We will only report one page impression no matter how many Google ads are displayed on a page. For example, if a page with one half banner and one vertical banner is viewed once, we will display one page impression.
• Ad unit reports will show an impression every time a user views a Google ad unit on your page. For example, if a page with one half banner and one vertical banner is viewed once, we will display two ad unit impressions.
• Individual ad reports will show an impression for each individual ad that is shown in any ad unit. For example, if a page with one half banner and one vertical banner is viewed once, it will generate three ad impressions.
I generally look at my stats in ‘Page’ mode and rarely switch out of it. I guess it’s personal preference really as I know of other publishers who’ve preferred ‘Ad Unit’ stats.
Written on August 18th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 09:08 am by Darren Rowse
CSS Optimization
David over at Blogging Pro has put together a useful post on CSS Optimization and making your site load faster through smart use of CSS. In the post he tests four CSS optimization tools (CSS Optimizer, Icey’s CSS Compressor, Flumpcakes CSS Optimiser and Clean CSS) on a variety of sites and then publishes his results. It’s probably not a post for the beginner but many of you will find it useful.
Written on August 18th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 12:08 am by Darren Rowse
Top 8 Excuses for Stealing Other People’s Content
I regularly find other people republishing my content without permission (and usually without acknowledgment of the source).
Here’s some of the real excuses I’ve had recently when I’ve confronted bloggers who do it:
- “I was just testing a new template with your posts.” (all 100 of them)
- “I just couldn’t resist - it was too tempting.”
- “We just installed a new plugin that promised to give us new content without lifting a finger, I didn’t realize it was using other people’s content.”
- “Sorry, my Son was playing with my blog and did it without me knowing.”
- “Oh, I didn’t see any Copyright notices.” (he was republishing my RSS feed and in doing so was republishing my copyright notice on every post too).
- “I was just doing it to see how long it would take you to realize I was doing it.”
- “Sorry, but can you tell me whose site you’re scraping your content off?”
- “But I just don’t have enough time to write my own content for all 279 blogs that I run!”
Written on August 17th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 10:08 pm by Darren Rowse
82 More Lists - Group Writing Project Reader Submissions Part III
Today’s the second last round of reader submissions in this week’s ‘Lists’ Group Writing Project. If you want to participate you’ve got until the end of Thursday (wherever you are). I’ll be posting the final submissions and announcing the prizes from our sponsors The Gold Pages Directory, The Umdum.com Web Directory, URLTrends , Blake Schwendiman and Earners Forum (see below to see what the prizes are) in about 24 hours time.
Remember it’s 1 entry per blogger. Full details of how to participate here.
Here are today’s 87 submissions (once again there are some beauties in this lot). The full list of all submissions is at our central submissions page (we’re now up to a total of 238 submissions):
- Top Seven Cuts of Meat You Can’t Screw Up on the Grill by Adam
- 5 Ways to get back in your skinny Jeans by Stephanie
- My Top 4 Mistakes as an Entrepreneur by Ben
- The Top 10 of Top 10’s by Julien
- 5 Tools that get you way more productive by Tim
- Starting a Blog? Here Are 8 Different Blogging Business Models by Hendry
- The Problem with Writing... 25 Things to Know BEFORE You Write for a Living by Liz
- PC Poctor blog stats - how the visitor landscape is changing by Adrian
- 5 Songs That Have Torn at my Heartstrings by Alan
- Cumbaya Management Essentials by Peter
- 6 Steps to becoming a techie bride by BeyondBee
- Asian Beaches to See Before I die by Ruth
- Top 5 Look-a-Likes by Solid
- NO!SPEC Campaign: Rundown and Roundup by Cat
- 11 Ways to Improve Clarity and Start Getting Results by Alexander
- How to be a Movie Star and/or Cult Leader by Eltan
- Sexiest SEO and Marketing Websites by Ignat
- The Ten WordPress Plugins For Super Bloggers by Helder
- Top 7 Reasons to Knit by Rhonda
- 20 Ways to Improve Your Training for Rowers (and other Athletes) by Alan
- 10 minus 3 steps on how to become an Oracle ERP Consultant? by Nilesh
- Ingredients in Chines Five Spice by Joe
- Top 10 Lindsay Lohan Oops Moments by Arieanna
- 10 Everyday Items You Can Buy with E-gold by Mark (sponsor)
- 5 things I wish I knew when I bought my first motorcycle by Jesper
- The Truth About Lampwork by Mandi
- The Budget Travel Wishlist of Moi by Nick
- Aristotle’s Top 3 Tips for Effective Blogging by Brian
- Five Things to Do in Stockholm When it Rains by Jon
- 10 Ways to Improve Your Energy by Scott
- Boot the Blog exchange! 20 Ways to Generate REAL traffic! by Leon
- 8 Articles: Übergeek Methods to Drive Web Traffic by Blake (sponsor)
- Five Happy Dog Movies by Katelyn
- Layoff - The Need by Scot
- Apprehending REaltor 2.0: Seven essential skills of the 21st century real estate agent by Greg
- 5 Upcoming Projects in the Mac World by Glenn
- How to Be Charming by Brian
- Top Five Things I’ve Learned Blogging the Yankees by Jon
- Sculpting Tools for Professionals by Steve
- France vc Allemagne: les 6 points forts de chaque pays/the 6 key points for each country by Cedric
- My Thoughts on Marriage and Reasons to Get Married by Kate
- 8 Reasons Not to Start Birding by John
- Setting Up a Home Office - 5 Things You Need and 5 Things You Want by Home Office Blues
- So You Want to Host My Servers? 8 Requirements for a Data Center by Aaron
- Songs for October by Kenn
- 7 Reasons I Can’t Wait for the surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.Fall TV Season to Start by Jason
- 10 Ways to Improve Your Golf Game by Shawn
- 16 Ways to spot a Bad Restaurant by Ed
- The Top Ten Reasons Marijuana should be Legal and the Top Ten Reasons it won’t be anytime soon by Pink Eyed Jim
- My list of my 5 favourite lists by Matt
- Top Reasons Why I will Never Be a Popular Blogger by Sarah
- Ten Things You Need to Know Before you Hire an Attorney by Nick
- Starting Your Own Business? Keep these things in Mind! by Jennifer
- 5 Benjamin Bratt Movies Worth Your Time; and 9.4 “Law & Order” episodes, too by Brattfan
- The Top 10 coolest Mac freeware programs you’ve never heard of by Mark
- 15 Government programs we don’t need by Michael
- 5 Advertising Programs that Have Earned Me at Least $1000 by Paul
- Ten Essential Tools for Beginning Web Developers by Paul
- 7 Free Software Programs Every Computer Should Have by John
- Five Searches That Have Brought People to Couch Culture by Statier
- How to Loose Traffic on Your Blog in 10 days by Chad
- Stuck? 49 ways to crack writer’s block by TDavid
- Things I learned in Honduras by La Gringa
- 5 Clues that Your Home Office Has Too Much Clutter by Culleann
- Confessions of a Serial Blog Deleter: or, 5 reasons to keep blogging by Johnathon
- Ten Ways to Build Moats to Hold Back the Competition by George
- 5 reasons to have a List on your Blog by Liam
- 4 easy-to-use resources for higher ed learning by Leslie
- enternetusers’s List Meme by Naomi
- 5 Reasons that you Need a New Ringtone by Russ
- 3 Ways to Boost Your Happiness Level by Conn
- Top researchers list 11 reasons behind the blog pandemic by Sarang
- Top 10 Wine Myths by Josh
- 10 Reasons to Baffle Your Friends and Become a Vegetarian by Ross
- C.P.R. for a Balanced Life by Hueina
- Top 3 Reasons YoU’L Love Ordered Lists by Damien
- 10 Ways to Boost Your Productivity by James
- Blogger Beta - 8 New Features and 8 New Issues by Ram
- Love in a Blog by Laurie
- Comments that have Fertilized the Inadvertent Garden by Genie
- My 5 preferred new media tools for online communicators by Philippe
- Getting Better with Age by Ruth
- 14 Accomplishments of a Newbie Blogger by Razib
- Top Ten Takeaways from the Bruce Arena Interview by Josh
- 5 Secrets to Fabulous Financials by Single Ma
- 10 Ways to Feature Crucial Posts by John
- 20 Drought Tolerant Australian Native Plants by Corinne
Each blogger who has submitted a post is in the running for one of five great prizes from (see below for full details of each of the five prizes).
Five of this week’s participants will randomly be selected to win a prize from the following list:
- URLTrends have kindly donated a Premium upgraded account worth $90 that will help them track their search engine ranking over time. Thanks to Joel Strellner for this donation.
- The Umdum.com Web Directory have donated a Sinic Eye and Brain Massager (just what every enternetusers needs). They’ve also kindly offered every participant in this week’s group writing project a free listing in their directory. Thanks to Loren Baker for this donation.
- Blake Schwendiman has donated a $100 gift voucher from Amazon to be used in any way that they see fit. Thanks Blake!
- Earners Forum have kindly donated a new Dell PC and LCD monitor - to the value of $500. Earners Forum is a great place for discussions around all kinds of topics of earning money online. Thanks to Lee Dodd for this donation.
- The Gold Pages Directory has donated $500 in digital cash that can be spent on products and services or withdrawn to a prepaid ATM card and used as cash. The Gold Pages Directoryis the largest online currency/digital gold directory on the web and is now three years old. Thanks to Mark Herpel for this donation.
There’s still time to participate - to do so simply follow the instructions on our ‘Lists’ Group Writing Project
Written on August 17th, surf Active Apparel website 1cecilia28 zone.at 09:08 am by Darren Rowse
Expert Bloggers - Do You Know What You’re Blogging About?
I had an Instant messaging conversation yesterday that highlighted to me that some bloggers have very little idea when it comes to the topic that they’ve chosen to write about.
I won’t go into the details of who it was but the person was writing on a topic that had some overlap with a topic I write about and by the questions that they were asking me it became very evident that they had no real understanding of the topic.
However when I went to their blog they presented themselves as an expert in their chosen topic and even offered their services as a consultant in it.
Their archives were filled with a mixture of ‘free articles’ (written by others) and some bumbling original content.
As I read their blog and talked with them on IM I found myself getting quite frustrated and even angry.
After the conversation I cooled down a little and began to ask myself if I was being unfair and perhaps a little elitist or arrogant (and perhaps I am) - but came to the conclusion that what annoyed me most about this blogger was that in effect he was being deceptive.
Do You Need to Be an Expert to Blog?
I don’t believe people need to be experts in their topic - however if they are not I think some level of transparency is necessary.
I read quite a few quality blogs by people who are not experts in their field - in fact the fact that they are not experts makes their blog more accessible and easy to read.
They write in a style of ‘this is what I’m learning about….’ or ‘this is what I’m trying….’ or ‘does anyone know about….?’ or ‘this is a theory I’ve read - I’m going to try it….’
Fellow Travelers vs Experts
While readers do seek ‘experts’, they also respond well to ‘fellow travelers’. I’ve written about this before using the metaphors of ‘tour guide’ via ‘fellow traveler’:
“While tour guides know their stuff and bring expertise to your trip it’s the fellow traveler who has eaten at the restaurants, slept in the hotel beds, bargained for the souvenirs and who has seen the new culture from an outsider’s perspective (like you) - as a result of their experiences you learn where to go and what to see in a way a tour guide might never be able to share with you.”
If you are an ‘expert’ then there’s no problem in going with that and working from that position - but if you’re not it can be a risky thing to claim to be (blogging has a way of exposing frauds) and if you’re smart you can actually build a good readership by admitting your inexperience and using that as a strength rather than something to hide.
Blogging Helps Makes Experts
PS: The great thing about blogging is that as you blog about your experiences and interact with others on your topic who are also experimenting - you can actually move towards being a true expert in your field over time. Just remember that experts don’t just happen - they mature over time and its usually others who give them the label of expert rather than it being a label one gives themselves.
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