Written on August 19th, 2005 at 12:08 pm by Darren Rowse
Four Australian Bloggers make the Top 500 in the world
Here’s a news release that some Aussie bloggers (including myself) are putting around today in the hope of raising the profile of blogging here in Australia:
Four Australian bloggers have been named amongst the Top 500 blogs in the world according to a new list published by leading US blog search firm Feedster (www.microsoft.com)
The new list comes after a recent debate amongst United States based bloggers as to the best ways in which to measure influence amongst blogs.
The four Australian bloggers and their blogs making the list in order:
#123 Cameron Reilly, Melbourne & Mick Stanic, Sydney - The Podcast Network Blog
#140 Arthur Chrenkoff, Brisbane - Chrenkoff
#157 Duncan Riley, Bunbury (WA) - The Blog Herald
#203 Darren Rowse, Melbourne - enternetusers
Duncan Riley, Editor of the Blog Herald, said that being placed amongst the Top 500 bloggers in the world was a great honour, and proved that the Australian blogosphere can and is being counted internationally.
“Despite the Australian blogosphere still being a relatively small player in the world scene, Australian bloggers are being heard and are making a difference” said Mr Riley.
“Although we may not always be recognised within Australia, this recognition at an International level may help in spreading the word that blogging in Australia is growing, and Australians do have the potential of making a name for themselves amongst the 70 million odd blogs currently in existence”.
Melbourne blogger Darren Rowse, who was featured recently in The Age Newspaper and who blogs full time for a living, stated that Australian bloggers had a wonderful opportunity to make a difference on the internet.
“Geography is no longer a constraint to success. Readers in the United States or the United Kingdom don’t worry about where your from, they are interested in what you write and how you write it” said Rowse.
“People want and need spaces to interact with others with similar interests, passions, problems and ideas, and Australian’s have a natural ability to create such spaces.”
Cameron Reilly satirically added that he wanted more Australians on the list.
“w00t! This is the best news I’ve received since I found out about the “Hot Coffee” crack for GTA. There should be more Aussies in this list though. Do we want the Yanks to dominate this thing? Let’s lift our game, people. Let’s take it to the streets.”
Contacts:
Cameron Reilly cameronreilly@gmail.com, 0400455334
Duncan Riley editor@blogherald.com 0412844237
Darren Rowse: darren@livingroom.org.au 0419370972
About:
Cameron Reilly: Co-founder of The Podcast Network, a world leading publisher of high quality podcasts to an international audience.
Duncan Riley: Editor of the Blog Herald, the internet’s leading source of blog and blogging related news and views
Darren Rowse: Darren started his first blog in 2002 and quickly grew a network of entrepreneurial blogs which today forms the basis for his business and provide him with a full time income. He blogs about professional blogging at enternetusers.net where he helps thousands of bloggers around the world to think about how they can earn money from their blogging.
Written on August 19th, 2005 at 09:08 am by Darren Rowse
When is it time to ‘Go Pro’ as a Blogger?
Instant Messaging Conversation with Reader (used with permission - name changed to protect the innocent)
Rex - ‘Darren Darren Darren….I’ve decided to become a Professional Blogger!!!!’
Darren - ‘Wow that’s exciting Rex!’
Rex - ‘yeah I’m writing my letter of resignation as we speak….’
Rex - ‘I can’t wait to see my boss’s face when he sees it! :-)’
Darren - ‘that’s great…. but before you resign can I ask you a couple of questions?’
Rex - ’sure’
Darren - ‘how long have you been blogging?’
Rex - ‘3 months’
Darren - ‘how many blogs do you have?’
Rex - ‘just one’
Darren - ‘and if you don’t mind me asking how much does it earn each day?’
Rex - ‘…around $1.50′
Darren - ‘do you have any savings to live off for the next year?’
Rex - ‘………..’
This is a real conversation and one that I seem to have about once per month - bloggers who are excited by the potential that blogging has to pay them an income - who are so eager to ‘Go Pro’ that all sensibility goes out the window.
Most people would make sure they have another job to go to before resigning from a current one (or at least they’d make sure they had a way to survive in the short term) - why wouldn’t they do the same with blogging?
I’ve written about this before at Monkey Bar Blogging (a public service announcement that I wrote for bloggers a few months back) - it’s a post that I’d highly recommend anyone considering ‘Going Pro’ has a read. What I write below is similar I guess and my latest thinking on the topic.
So when should a blogger ‘Go Pro’?
Let me start answering this question by saying there is no one way to enter into blogging on a professional level. I know quite a few bloggers who have gone full time into blogging and with virtually every one there is a different variation on the story of how they did it.
Below is some of the advice I give to bloggers with aspirations to full time blogging:
Don’t view going Pro as an event, instead see it as a process
You don’t just decided to turn professional in any area of life without there being some sort of process that leads up to it. Tiger Woods didn’t just decide to turn pro one day - he had practiced for yeas, he’d put a lot of time into his golf, he’d had coaching, he’d played tournaments as an amateur, he’d developed skills and had made sacrifices. There must have come a time in his development when he (and those around him) realized that he was ready and he officially became a Professional athlete - however in reality he’d been becoming professional for many years proceeding that date. I think bloggers need to take a similar approach. It takes practice, ground work, experience, sacrifice and planning to go pro in most cases - it’s not just a decision.
One step at a time
The temptation when embarking upon this journey is to behave like you’ve already arrived and to forget the reality of life that you’re currently in. Don’t just quit your job without having some way of surviving in the mean time. This is irresponsible. The way I did it was to recognize I was in a transition and to slowly back off the work that I was doing in my ‘real job/s’ and as my blogging earnings increased to increase the time I allocated to blogging.
In the beginning for me blogging was a pure hobby that I did after work. 9 months in it was something I was able to cut my ‘real job’ back to 4 days per week, 18 months in I was 2-3 days per week blogging….and the process continued. Even today - almost three years after I started blogging I have another part time job (this ends in a month). I have this partly because when I took it I still wasn’t sure whether blogging would sustain me full time and also because I didn’t want to spend all day everyday alone in front of a computer).
It takes Significant time
I always say that ProBlogging takes time on two levels. Firstly on a long term level - getting to a full time level with your blogging can take years. Some do it quicker but the reality is that for most that have achieved this goal it has been a long journey. In the IM conversation above, this was one of the key things that Rex didn’t understand - he thought it was like starting a job - you start work and you get paid. This is not the case. The work you do now many not really pay off for 12, 24 or even 36 months. In fact the reality is that it may never pay off (sorry to be the prophet of doom).
Secondly blogging takes time on a daily basis - significant time. You need to be able to find spare hours in your day for blogging if you want to build a career out of it. It’s not easy money. My tip to new bloggers exploring income from blogging is to put an hour or two each day into it. Get up an hour early, go to bed an hour later, sacrifice some time in front of the TV, do it in your lunch break - I don’t care where the hour or two comes from but if you don’t invest significant time into it in the early days it is very difficult to develop a blog (or blogs) big enough to sustain a large enough income to begin to cut back on your ‘real job’. Any small business owner will tell you that the set up phase calls for a lot of time and sacrifice - a blog business is no different.
Diversify
‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket’ is the advice I was brought up hearing from my parents. This is a good lesson for enternetuserss. While I know of one or two bloggers that make a full time living off the single blog, most have a number of projects underway. In fact I was chatting to one full time blogger recently and he told me how he’d been full time on a single blog - but that Google had reindexed it in the last update to the point where it was virtually gone from that search engine - his income was also virtually gone.
So diversify - You can do this in a number of ways - start multiple blogs on multiple domains on a variety of topics. Take on some blogging work on someone else’s blogs. Do some consulting work. Have a non blogging part time job. Experiment with some websites that aren’t blogs. Partner with other bloggers to work on combined projects. Hire yourself to a business who wants a corporate blog. Write a book, start a podcast - just mix it up. You’ll find this also helps your sanity as you’re not just thinking about one topic and medium all day.
Adapt
Blogging is a fluid medium (in fact online work in all its forms are fluid). One of the biggest lessons I’ve learnt over the past few years is to expect the unexpected in my work and that the key to moving forward is to be flexible enough to maneuver into the right position at the right time as opportunities present themselves. Don’t hold so tightly to ideas that you can’t let them go if they don’t work out. Some of my best ideas for blogs flopped and some of my accidents are my biggest successes.
Experiment heaps, be willing to work with new people and see where collaborations lead and whilst you work your butt off be willing to let go of the flops and move onto the next thing.
Blogger for Hire
One thing that I do recommend for bloggers on this journey to full time blogging is to consider working for someone else - at least in part. I constantly get emails from readers wanting to start their own network of blogs (I got three yesterday alone). While starting your own network is a great way to earn an income from blogging its a very long term strategy and with the emergence of new networks every week or so it’s getting to be a crowded and difficult thing. Perhaps another way forward is to work for an existing network on one of their blogs. In doing this you generate an income (some networks give a guaranteed minimum each month), you gain experience, you build profile, you gather skills and make contacts.
Of course you need to realize that this approach means you’re building someone else’s empire, the reality is that most networks own the content that you write - this is seeing blogging as more of a job than a business. I think this is a totally valid way forward however and a great way to get into the industry. Perhaps as you write for someone else you can also be working on your own projects with the hope of one day being able to transition with more and more time spent on them.
Have your Say
These are some of the things I’d recommend bloggers keep in mind as they consider going pro. I am sure there is a lot more wisdom in our community though and so I’m interested in the experiences and stories of others who are both at the start of this journey or those who have made the transition and are now full time bloggers. Share your stories of going pro in comments below or write your own ProBlogging story up on your own blog and let me know the URL and I’ll include it in my next daily summary (I’d love to read the way it happened for others and am sure I’m not alone).
Written on August 19th, 2005 at 05:08 am by Darren Rowse
enternetusers T-Shirt Competition in Final Days
Don’t forget that the enternetusers T-Shirt Competition is four days away from being finalized with a winner being chosen by you the readers of enternetusers. To vote head over to the enternetusers shop and make a purchase (there are T-Shirts, Mugs, Mouse Pads, BBQ Aprons and more available - see below for a few examples).
The design that sells the most wins the designer $100 at Amazon, some blog consulting from me, a free T-Shirt etc.
So far there is one design that is edging ahead of the others - but really any one of the five is within a few sales of being crowned the winner.
Here’s a selection of what’s on offer…
Written on August 19th, 2005 at 04:08 am by Darren Rowse
Payday for bloggers
Trevor has been kind enough to feature me in his monthly column that he writes for the Walkley Magazine. The article is posted in full on one of his blogs at Payday for bloggers.
Written on August 19th, 2005 at 01:08 am by Darren Rowse
Writing Blog Content - Make it Scannable
Only 16% of people read web sites word for word. Source
The average person only comprehends 60% of what they read. Source
Knowing this - how should bloggers who want to communicate effectively write?
Is your Blog Scannable ?
Most people read online by scanning the page for individual words or phrases, headings and other visual cues. Studies have shown that reading from a screen is more tiring and therefore about 25% slower than reading from paper - hence scanning becomes a technique that most employ.
Is your Blog Scannable? It’s a pretty simple thing to test. Ask a friend who is not familiar with your site to take a quick look at a few of your recent posts. Give them 15 to 30 seconds on each post, at the end of which you ask them what the post was about. You’ll quickly get a sense of how they’ve interacted with your blog.
Techniques to Make your Blog Scannable
Good bloggers keep this in mind as they write and will employ a variety of techniques to make their posts easier to read. Some of these techniques include:
- Lists - Anecdotal evidence here at enternetusers suggests that its my posts with bullet point lists in them that get linked to ALOT more than similar length posts written in of an essay style.
- Formatting - Use bold, CAPITALS, italics, underlining, teletext and to emphasize points. Don’t go overboard as you run the risk of frustrating your reader. Also consider changing font size, color and style to draw your readers eyes to your main points.
- Headings and Sub Headings - Large, Bold words that act as visual cues of what is happening in the content are effective ways of drawing readers further into articles.
- Pictures - Research shows that readers eyes are drawn down the page by pictures. Place them cleverly by your key points (especially when they closely relate to the content) and you have more of a chance of getting readers to read full articles.
- Borders/Blockquotes - boxes around quotes and key points can similarly get the attention of readers.
- Space - don’t feel you have to fill up every inch of your screen - rather create spaces because they help readers not to feel overwhelmed and again tend to draw readers eyes to what is inside such space.
- Get to the Point - try to be succinct with your points.
- Don’t Bury your Points - one trap many of us fall into is to bury our main points deep within content where it’s unlikely to be noticed. If you have a key point make sure you say it up front. You can expand upon it later but get your message across in the first few sentences if possible.
- Find creative ways to reinforce your main point throughout your post.
- Don’t Introduce too many New Ideas in one post - once again this helps to avoid overwhelming readers with information all at once. If you want to cover many ideas that relate to one another consider a series of posts that link to each other.
If your site and its posts are not easily scannable you run the risk of losing your reader to another blog that is.
Written on August 18th, 2005 at 11:08 pm by Darren Rowse
AdSense - Fewer Ads, More Money?
Interesting post over at Inside AdSense (the official Adsense blog from Google) that explains what has been going on with them having less ads per ad unit than previously. They explain the move as follows:
‘”When we have a set of highly relevant and useful ads, we give them more of a presence in the ad unit by eliminating other ads. In some cases, if we determine a particular ad performs extremely well on a page, we’ll remove all other ads from the unit and show just this single ad….”
“When we tested this feature, we saw that the increased user attention to these relevant ads resulted in a higher CTR. This means more revenue for publishers.”
They then show one of these ads in action (below).
Whilst I don’t want to disagree with Adsense on this one I’ve been considering a post on it all day with a slightly less positive spin. Here are a few thoughts that have been growing in my mind as I’ve noticed more and more of these ads this week:
1. I’ve had a significant decrease in CTR since the announcement of these changes - While I know there are many factors at play that could explain it, I’ve not made any changes this week to my ads but CTR is noticeably lower. Perhaps its something else but it’s a strange coincidence. I should say that I could be in the minority with this - I’ve seen a couple of discussion forum threads today full of people bragging about CTR increases - maybe it’s just me.
2. These Ads impact the Balance of Sites - I’ve posted on this before but some of the ads I’ve seen are quite large and really dominate the pages that they appear on. The example below isn’t too much bigger (font size wise) than the ads otherwise shown on an ad in it’s old format - but some of the other formats - especially rectangle ad blocks - have some quite large ads showing on them. Whilst this might well increase the chances of readers seeing the ads and clicking through it might also increase the chances of readers getting annoyed by the ads and leaving the site - never to return. I have designed my blogs to be balanced and reasonably clean - the ads I’ve always had on them have as a result been quite blended and subtle - I just worry that these ads are more blatant and less subtle.
I don’t want to argue against the ads - I’m sure they’ve done significant testing before going live with this - but I am interested in others experience and hope that the Adsense team are considering the full impact of such an advertising strategy. What do you think?
Written on August 18th, 2005 at 10:08 pm by Darren Rowse
31 Days to Building a Better Blog - Day 18
There have been some interesting patterns in the 31 Days to Building a Better Blog Project so far with some big days and small days. Also of interest to me are the themes that have emerged that a number of times have meant similar posts being submitted by different bloggers totally independently of one another.
Today is a smaller day but one on which both submissions pick up legal theme - something that many bloggers avoid talking about but something which will increasingly become important for us to address. As a result I’m really pleased to present these two useful posts for your perusal.
- Syntagma bounces off my emails newsletter posts and submits a post on Emails, Newsletters and the Law
- Christine submitted Stay out of the Copyright Jail
Submit your Blog Tips on ANY topic by writing them up on your own post and letting me know the URL so I can link up tomorrow.
Written on August 18th, 2005 at 01:08 pm by Darren Rowse
Engadget - 5 Adsense Adblocks Per page
Adrants observes that Engadget is running more than the normally allowed 3 ad blocks per page (I see four plus an ad unit on most individual pages and five on their main page) and wonders if it violates the Adsense TOS. Jason Calacanis answers in comments:
‘I can assure you we are not violating any terms with them.
I can not discuss the issue beyond on that.’
This either means they can do it because they are a premium publisher (because of their size these publishers can negotiate their own deals directly with Adsense on placement, ad sizes, design etc) OR that they are testing something new for Adsense (ie more than 3 adblocks per page). Of course either way they will have signed a NDA.
update - more on this at Dave’s where it gets quite heated and Jason’s where he gives the official line again.
Written on August 18th, 2005 at 12:08 pm by Darren Rowse
Six Figure Blogging - Affiliate Program
A number of people have asked if the Six Figure Blogging course that Andy and I are running has an affiliate program. The answer is yes. You can earn 25% of the fees that people pay to participate in the course when you refer them to it if you sign up for the affiliate program at Andy’s Blog. It requires PayPal as that’s how you get paid.
So sign up two others and you pay for your own participation in the course.
Written on August 18th, 2005 at 03:08 am by Darren Rowse
Inside AdSense Blog Launched
We’ve been predicting an official Adsense blog for a few months now (ever since the URL had a password put on it) and today it’s gone live at Inside AdSense. So far there is nothing much to see - but hopefully the coming months will give us the true inside word on Adsense. It’s RSS Feed is here.
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