Written on May 26th, surf zone.at 10:05 am by Darren Rowse
Highly Effective Bloggers Project - More Submissions
The Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers Group Writing Project is coming to an end. Today’s the cut off date so if want to contribute something you’ve only got til the end of the day (I’ll accept entries as long as they were sent on a Friday 26 May - wherever you are).
Today we have 19 more reader submissions (bringing us to a total of 48) and once again there has been a lot of thought put into them. What is exciting me most is the number of blogs that I’ve never seen before that are contributing posts - I’m discovering some quality bloggers through this project and hope others are also. Here’s todays submissions (all of which are being added to the central submissions page also):
- Blogging Habits That Work For Me - by Gloria
- Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers - by Lisa Mikulski
- Habits of a Highly Defective Blogger - by Brem
- Tips for Effective Blogging - by Scott Elliott
- The 1 Requirement of Effective Bloggers - by Graydon
- Robyn’s Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers - by Robyn Tippins
- Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers - by May C
- 6 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers - by Robert Harbols
- Highly Effective ProBlogging Habits - by Dominic Foster
- Habits of Effective Bloggers - Some Lessons from Poker and Juggling - by Patrik
- Seven Habits of Highly Effective Boating Bloggers - by Tillerman
- Habits of Highly Effective Food Bloggers - by Adam Byrd
- Friends Don’t Let Friends Blog Alone - by Karen Jackie and Dana Rockel
- More Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers - by Sacha Fuentes
- The Six Habits of Highly Effective Healthcare Bloggers - by Fard Johnmar
- The 12 P’s of Successful ProBlogging - by Andy Merrett
- My Seven Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers - by James Thoenes
- 7 Habits of Blogging I try to follow to be more effective - by Fitness Mantra
- One Habit that Will Hurt Your Blogging - by Remi
Once again - if you’re written something but are not yet on the list you need to email me with your post’s URL - I’ve noticed that some people have not done this bit but can’t find everyone’s posts without a little help.
Written on May 26th, surf zone.at 02:05 am by Darren Rowse
How to Find Traffic for a New Blog
Yaro’s put together a good post on How To Launch A Brand New Blog that will be of use to PreBloggers wanting to think through their first day or two of blogging. Here’s part of his great advice:
“One of the problems new bloggers of today face is the hype generated by established successful blogs. You read stories about bloggers earning thousands of dollars per day, with hundreds of thousands of visitors, huge exposure and big profits. Bloggers enter the blogosphere chasing big goals. Once their blog is set up and they have made their first few posts they stop and wonder why nothing is happening. The impatient bloggers head out looking for quick fixes - methods that promise huge amounts of traffic in a few days or weeks.
The reality is you have to pay your dues for success online just as much as you do in the real world. Nearly all big time bloggers have a history of hard and consistent work, only as a snapshot in time *after* something great has been built does it look easy.”
Solid Advice from Yaro there.
In my experience the only real way to fast track a launch is to leverage traffic from somewhere else.
Option 1 - This is a little easier if you already have a web presence and the ability to directly influence current readers (especially if your known in the area your new blog is about).
Option 2 - If you don’t already have such an influence your options are more limited and things might be a little slower to grow. One such option is to pay for traffic via some form of Advertising. You might try AdWords, BlogAds or direct ad buys from other relevant bloggers. If you’re smart with your ads you can actually do quite well from this - but of course it costs you - cold hard cash.
Option 3 - If you don’t have direct influence or you are not willing to pay for traffic another option is to leverage the traffic of others via the links they give you. This takes time as you build relationships with other bloggers and as a result of producing quality content gain traction for your blog from them linking to you. While a slower start, it’s this last option that probably has the bigger lasting impact as you not only bring new readers in but also have a little link love that continues to do it’s magic into the future in terms of helping your search engine presence.
Ultimately all three options are unlikely to bring you overnight success and will take sustained work. Each will not work if you don’t have quality content that meets a need of potential readers.
Written on May 26th, surf zone.at 12:05 am by Darren Rowse
Engadget Runs ‘Post-Like’ BMW Ads
I just saw an ad that I haven’t seen before over at Engadget. It’s placed between the end of individual posts and the ‘recent posts’ section.
The ad is labeled twice as ‘Advertisement’ but is also very well blended with the rest of the site with it’s heading in the same color and format as other heading on the blog and the link to the advertiser the same as other links at the bottom of posts. The font of the copy is slightly different as is the background color.
The ad is also largely text with a picture (similar to normal Engadget formats for posts). I’m not quite sure what to call this type of ads except to call them ‘post like’.
See the ad below.
I don’t have any problem with the ad in terms of blending - they’ve labeled it twice - but it’s definitely interesting development for Engadget and a newish type of ad for blogs.
By the way - the ad links to a BMW video ad and an interesting campaign in and of itself.
Written on May 25th, surf zone.at 03:05 pm by Darren Rowse
CSS tips
If you are a blogger who wants to learn how to use CSS (cascading Style Sheets) to modify the look and feel of your blog and you are after some tips you might want to check out the latest post over at Business Logs where Mike gives his 5 CSS tips.
- Organize Your CSS
- Avoid Default Styles
- Use Your Utility Tags
- Use The Right Tool For The Job
- Name According To Where It Is, Not What It Looks Like
I won’t pretend I understand half of what he’s talking about (design is not my forte) but he is someone who knows how to design and so might be worth listening to on the topic.
Looks like Scrivs has some useful things to say on CSS also here.
Written on May 25th, surf zone.at 01:05 pm by Darren Rowse
AdBrite beta testing Mobile, In Video and Banner ads
AdBrite announced that they are accepting beta users for three new formats of ads. It was announced last week but escaped my attention for some reason.
- Mobile Ads - an Ad system for mobile content sites (WAP)
- Banner Ads - fairly standard banner ad options by the looks of things
- In Video Ads - the ability to show embedded ads in videos
I’m sre there will be a few videocasters interested in the last option.
Thanks to Michael for the email tip off
Written on May 25th, surf zone.at 10:05 am by Darren Rowse
Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers - More Reader Submissions
The reader submissions for the Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers Group Writing Project have continued to come in over night - 13 more to add to yesterdays 16. Once again I’ve posted them all to the central page with yesterday’s submissions.
I’m really excited by the quality of some of what’s been submitted so far. Collectively I think people have come up with a wonderful picture of what it is to be an effective blogger.
The other thing I’m excited about with this project is the way that many enternetusers readers are surfing through the list of links and are discovering new blogs and leaving great comments. I’ve had a number of emails from participants thanking me for helping them find new readers and emails from readers thanking me for highlighting blogs they’d not seen before. Hopefully a side benefit of this project will be that this will continue.
Here are today’s submissions:
- 5 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers - by Bald Man
- 7 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers - by Jason Bagley
- Habits of an Effective Blogger: Work Hard - by Chris Howard
- 7 Habits of Hightly Effective Consultant Bloggers - by Andrea Coutu
- Habits of Good Bloggers - by Maureen McCabe
- 20 Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers - by James
- Seven Effective Blogging Habits - by Sharon
- Seven Essential Traits of Highly Effective Business Bloggers - by Easton Ellsworth
- Habits of Effective Bloggers - by Skrocki
- What Makes an Effective Blog or Blogger? - by Richard Smith
- Habits of Effective Bloggers - by Clary Lopez
- Habits of Effective Bloggers - by Adrian Scicluna
- Habits of Effective Bloggers - by Susan Reynolds
Despite the similarities in names there’s a fair bit of variety in there. I hope you enjoy surfing around and giving the authors your encouragement.
Read the full list of submissions so far here.
Written on May 25th, surf zone.at 09:05 am by Darren Rowse
Podcast interviews enternetusers at Practical Blogging
Robyn Tippins has just posted a short podcast interview with me talking about blogging, now I got into it, how I transitioned into doing it for a living, how PR and marketing people should pitch bloggers, things I’d do differently and a few tips on blogging and monetization etc. Listen to it at Robyn’s blog Practical Blogging.
Written on May 25th, surf zone.at 06:05 am by Darren Rowse
Feedburner Updates Free Stats Package
Feedburner has announced a couple of updates to what they are offering in their free stats package including ‘Live Hits’ (the ability to see the last 25 hits via your feed (how long the 25 hits were over and what agent they used to read your feed) and ‘Yesterdays News’ (the ability to track your subscribers on different platforms historically).
Full details on the updates at their blog - FeedBurner Gets a Memory - Quick Stats Update
Written on May 25th, surf zone.at 02:05 am by Darren Rowse
How to Recruit Bloggers
Chris has written a really useful post at Performancing on Recruiting Blogging Partners to write on your blogs. His tips are well thought out and very practical from someone who has some experience. I particularly like this:
“I have found the best place to look for long-haul bloggers are blogs. People who have maintained a decent blog for a length of time have proved they have that special something.”
I’m quite often approached by people looking for bloggers for different projects and my advice is usually twofold:
1. Look at your blog’s readership - if you’re recruiting a blogger for an established blog the person you’re looking for might be right under your nose commenting in your comments section or lurking in your RSS feed. The beauty of taking on someone like this is that they obviously have an interest in your topic and that they have some level of familiarity with your blog and it’s style. I’d write a post asking if anyone is interested and see what response you get.
2. Look at other blogs - if you can’t find a suitable internal applicant it might be worth looking at other blogs and their bloggers. It might be that there are other blogs on similar topics that have bloggers that might like to take on an extra project. The good thing about this type of recruit is that they not only have an interest in the topic but they also have a demonstrated ability to not only write on it but hopefully to stick to the job of blogging over the longer term (check their archives to see how long they’ve blogged and how good they are at it.
Chris goes on in his post to talk further about the process - well worth the read.
Written on May 24th, surf zone.at 11:05 pm by Aaron Brazell
Alternablog: Videocast
This post has been submitted by regular contributor - Aaron Brazell
The past few weeks, I’ve been running a mini-series about different kinds of blogging. The first entry in the series was about moblogging and the use of mobile technology to update and post to a blog. Last week, we talked about a topic that is a bit more known and understood - Podcasting. The last kind of alternablog I’d like to tackle is the videocast.
Darren recently has experimented with the videocast as an alternate form of blogging and I’ve been running weekly videocasts in a “school” of sorts on American NFL football over at Squib Kick. I’ve only been doing the videocasts for a few weeks so I can’t report on the overall net effect on traffic, revenue etc., but I digress.
Videocasting offer some unique benefits in that it gives the viewer the chance to see, and not just hear or read, the blogger. Especially with more complex and in depth topics, this is particularly useful. I’ve found that, in my NFL videos, I have tools at my disposal that are not easily available in other forms of blogging. For instance, I can use the white board to diagram plays, defensive formations and more. In conventional blogging, it’s possible to draw up graphics that diagram things drawn on a white board, but its more difficult and time consuming.
Other bloggers are naturals in front of people. They do well on their text blogs, but come alive in front of the camera. For viewers, these kinds of bloggers really capture their attention and make viewing a pleasure.
In order to videocast, a blogger needs to have a way of hosting videos. Services like YouTube and blip.tv offer free hosting services and YouTube even provides the code to post the content inline in a blog entry. If the blogger has robust server specs (lots of disk space and lots of bandwidth), videocasts can be kept in house.
One thing I should note is that in my casual viewing of videos on the internet, including vidcasts, anything over 5 minutes in length is dangerous in losing a viewers attention. You should try to keep the videos short, concise and pay special focus on enunciation and clarity in speech. I don’t particularly like to hear myself speak publically so I often have to re-record my vidcasts to clean up my act.
Videocasts are fun and entertaining, both to the viewer and to the blogger. They provide a human face to the blog and a means for readers to interact in a more personal way.
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