Written on June 7th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 07:06 pm by Darren Rowse

Speedlinking - 7 June 2006

Pro Blogging News 2 comments

It’s been a while since I did any speed linking - so here’s a few links I’ve been meaning to blog about from the last 24 hours.

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Written on June 7th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 02:06 pm by Darren Rowse

Adbrite and TLA work on Server Outage Problems

Advertising 5 comments

In an update to the Adbrite loading problems that I mentioned a couple of days back I today had an email from Adbrite apologizing for the problems and giving an update on their server upgrade.

They pointed to a graph showing the outages in the lead up to the upgrade and the lack of problems since.

They say that they are adding more servers and upgrading load balancers still to ensure faster loading times.

As a result I’ve put Adbrite ads back on this blog and am hoping it will not slow things down again. The problem with the way that Adbrite runs their ads is that if they go down it impacts everything else on the page they are on that comes after it on the page’s source code. This is a problem in my eyes because it brings their publisher’s pages to a standstill every time they go down.

Hopefully it’s something they can continue to improve in the coming months.

In similar news - Text Link Ads have also sent an email to publishers in the last week saying that they did have similar problems earlier in the week. As a result they’ve provided publishers with new code that means that if their servers go down again that the page will continue to load. This means TLA publishers need to change the code on their pages (not a fun thing if you have many blogs like we do at b5).

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Written on June 7th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 01:06 pm by Darren Rowse

Blogging Goals - Readers Submissions Part II

enternetusers Site News 6 comments

200606051534

The Blogging Goals Group Writing Project is picking up steam with another 44 entries in the last 24 hours (that’s our new record). Here are the latest submissions:

I’ve also added each of these links to the central submissions page here. Keep your entries coming (one per blogger please) - don’t forget that Thursday is the cut off.

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Written on June 7th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 09:06 am by Darren Rowse

Blog Gender Theories

enternetusers Site News 26 comments

Gender-PollLast week’s blog poll asked enternetusers readers to let us know whether they were male or female.

I said at the time that I was testing a theory that I had and that I’d share that theory after the poll ended. Here’s what I was testing…

The Theory

During my first group writing project I noticed that I had a lot of submissions from bloggers that I was not familiar with. I also had the realization as i saw the submission come in that quite a few of them were from females. The reason that this stood out to me a little was that as I thought about the split of males and females who comment on enternetusers I realized that it was largely guys who seemed to leave comments.

I began to wonder whether guys males felt more comfortable with the whole commenting thing and/or whether females tended to respond better to other forms of blogging activities and invitations (like the group writing project which is a different form of reader interaction). I decided that while the anecdotal evidence seemed to point to this that maybe I should test it.

The Results

So I started by trying to ascertain what the split between mail and females readers were here at enternetusers. The split of those who responded to the poll were 28% Female and 72% Male.

Then I looked at the percentage split between the genders in the group writing project. This was a little more difficult as it’s not completely obvious what gender all bloggers are. My guesstimation is that 35% of those participating in group writing project were female and 65% were Male (not too dissimilar to reader split).

Lastly I took a random sample of 300 enternetusers comments from the last month (it took a little longer than I was expecting) to look again at the gender split there. The results of that were that in that 300 comments 10% of comments were left by Females and 90% by Males.

A Conclusion

I won’t make a sweeping statement about all blogs because my ‘research’ was based solely upon enternetusers readers and I also won’t claim that my ’study’ is conclusive as there is plenty of room for error - but it does seem that here at enternetusers that females are under represented in comments and/or males are over represented.

In contrast to this females participated in the first group writing project at a higher level than males did.

Why this is the case I’m not completely sure as I don’t have expertise in gender studies but I do find it very interesting. Perhaps this is isolated to enternetusers but I’d be interested to hear what others think about it from their own experiences. Perhaps, considering the above ‘findings’ the comment section below is not the best place for such a discussion - but feel free to respond as you feel comfortable with your theories and ideas.

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Written on June 7th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 03:06 am by Darren Rowse

Comparing Blog Poll Tools

Blogging Tools and Services 3 comments

Christian decided to do a follow up post to last week’s Blog Polls series in which I mentioned a number of blog poll tools. He took the tools I mentioned and has done a comparative review of them at Comparison of Services to Create Online Polls.

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Written on June 7th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 12:06 am by Darren Rowse

How to Kill Your Blog Successfully

Miscellaneous Blog Tips 31 comments

When-Blogs-Die
There comes a time in many blogger’s lives when they are faced with the decision of whether to let a blog die or whether to continue with it. This week I want to explore the why and how of letting blogs die. You see there are many great resources around on how to launch a blog successfully (here’s my blogging for beginners resource) but very little is written on successfully ending a blog.

The idea of a successful blog death might seem a little strange but looking at the numbers of blog’s that are inActive around the blogosphere - I suspect this resources will be as relevant as all the blog launching posts.

Today I’ll start this series with a look at some of the common reasons ‘why’ blogs die. The list could be quite long I’m sure but if I had to identify the main 4 reasons that I regularly see for blogs ending this is how I’d sum it up.

1. Quick Death - Often this point comes just a few weeks into a blog’s life as the initial excitement of the new project wears off and as the reality of what it is going to take to maintain it hits home. It also comes when the realisation that only a handful of people (if anyone) is reading the blog and that it could take quite a long time before the fame and fortune that they’d dreamt of is a reality.

2. Life Crowds the Blog Out - Sometimes a blogger lasts longer than the initial few weeks and the decision comes as a result of other life factors crowding out the blog. We all lead busy lives and quite often when the stress or demands of life rise, one of the first things to slip off our radar is the blog. Posting that was daily slips to once or twice a week at first and we tell ourselves we’ll get back to it when we’re a little less busy - but the reality is that before we know it the only posts we write are explanations of why we haven’t been blogging and that we’ll be back to normal soon.

3. Blogger Burn Out - A common scenario for bloggers who’ve been at it for a while is that they simply burn themselves out and/or become disillusioned with their blog (or even blogging in general). This can come as a result of the criticism of readers (or other bloggers), a bout of bloggers block or simply because they’ve over extended themselves with too many projects or by the size of the topic that they’ve been trying to cover.

4. Death of a Niche - Sometimes it’s not the blogger who burns out but the niche itself. We live in a world that travels at a pretty frantic pace and as a result trends come and go - some more quickly than others. Sometimes a niche can come and go so quickly that while it seems like the ideal topic for a blog it’s almost over before you start it. The result is having little to write about that is relevant and having very few people searching for information on the topic.

Of course there are other types of blog deaths - they happen every day for a variety of reasons. I’m sure that most of us have had a blog we’ve written (or read) die on us - feel free to share the ‘why’ of it in comments.

Tomorrow I’ll write a post about some of the factors a blogger might want to consider when deciding whether to let a blog die or not and the following day will give some tips on ‘how’ to let a blog die successfully.

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Written on June 6th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 01:06 pm by Darren Rowse

Blogging Terms

Miscellaneous Blog Tips 3 comments

Quick Online Tips has started a Giant Blogging Terms - head over and let them know what you’d add or subtract.

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Written on June 6th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 11:06 am by Darren Rowse

Blogging Goals - Reader Submissions Part 1

enternetusers Site News 10 comments

200606051534

The submissions for the ‘Blogging Goals’ Group writing project have begun to flow in over night (29 already). Don’t forget that you can submit your posts (following the guidelines) up until Thursday this week. Here’s the first batch of submissions:

Please check them out - there are some great submissions already! I’m posting all reader submissions on the central page here.

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Written on June 6th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 02:06 am by Darren Rowse

Traffic Generation Programs

Miscellaneous Blog Tips 18 comments

I am regularly asked by readers for my opinion on one variety or another of ‘traffic generation’ programs.

These programs come in all shapes and sizes - some are paid services whereby you pay money in return for a certain amount of impressions, others are traffic exchange programs where you agree to surf a certain number of pages in return for a corresponding number of impressions or where you agree to run certain ads in return for traffic (I’m sure there are many other variations also).

I’m always hesitant to make sweeping statements about a whole range of different services and am sure there is a real spectrum of these traffic programs out there but my main advice to readers asking about them is to be very careful - for a number of reasons.

Traffic Generation Programs Put Ad Revenue at Risk
The main reason to avoid (or at least be careful) about signing up for traffic generation programs is if you are wanting to monetize your blog with advertising. Most Ad networks these days have some sort of clause in their terms of service where they talk about excluding certain types of traffic. They quite often put it in terms of ‘paid to surf’ or programs where readers come to your site with some sort of incentive to surf there (either them getting traffic in return, getting paid, getting a voucher etc).

I know of some bloggers who have been banned from being Chitika as a result of these programs and have heard of AdSense banning people also. The reason that they do not allow such traffic is simply that they need to give their advertisers quality traffic and in general these types of traffic programs only send traffic that surfs quickly in and then leaves as soon as they can to go to the next site. When advertisers are paying for ads by the impression this means they are paying for ads that will rarely be converted.

If you do decide to enter into one of these programs and you run ads on your blog you can always ask an Ad network like AdSense for clarification of whether it’s within their guidelines. I heard an interview with an AdSense team worker recently who said that they prefer publishers to email them for such clarification before they sign up and that they can sometimes give guidelines as to whether the source of traffic is OK or not.

Traffic Generation Programs - Empty Traffic?
I guess my other reason for avoiding traffic generation programs is more that they personally leave me feeling empty. Now that might sound a little more dramatic than it should but let me explain.

I write blogs for two main reasons:

1. I enjoy writing about topics that interest me, especially when I’m helping people improve an area of their lives. This fits in with my philosophy of life (that’s a whole other post… or blog even).

2. I blog for money - it’s become my job, some might even call it a business.

Traffic generation programs don’t really make sense to me on either of these two motivations for blogging.

Firstly - my goal in blogging is to draw people to helpful information that will in some way (big or small) enhance their lives (by helping them find information, by teaching them something, by entertaining them etc). As a result I ideally want the people that come to my blogs to have a felt need for one of these things. Traffic generation programs do send traffic - but the motivation of the people surfing by is rarely that they are in search of what I have to offer - as a result it’s not really the kind of traffic I want.

Secondly - it doesn’t really make sense on a business side of things either. For starters it could see me banned from the main sources of income that I have, but secondly while it might make my traffic stats look healthy it’s not really a sustainable kind of traffic and isn’t one that is likely to convert well in terms of income. I guess the other aspect of this is that there is generally some ‘cost’ involved in the traffic whether it be me paying for the impressions or whether it be by me agreeing to some action myself which costs me time (that I could be putting into some other aspect of my blogs).

Of course other bloggers have different motivations for blogging which they’ll need to filter traffic generations through.

A Case for Traffic Generation Programs?
Let me finish by saying that I do know some bloggers who swear by traffic generation programs. One that comes to mind that many bloggers love is ‘Blog Explosion’ that has been very popular.

Bloggers who argue the case for Blog Explosion write that it’s a great way to kick start a blog as it sends a lot of traffic to them and that a certain percentage of those who visit the site will stick around because they find something that is useful.

I do understand this motivation and argument and won’t condemn anyone for going down this route. I also do not know whether Blog Explosion is something that can get you in trouble with Ad Networks - but I would advise caution and a more holistic traffic generation strategy (ie don’t just rely upon any one source of traffic but work on other ways of attracting people to your blog including (to name a few):

  • Search Engine Traffic
  • Traffic from Advertising
  • Organic Traffic
  • Referred Traffic from other blogs
  • World of Mouth Traffic

I’d be interested to hear others experiences of traffic generation programs. I’m more than willing to be corrected if people have found them to be worthwhile or convert well with your goals - tell us your story with them.

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Written on June 5th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 09:06 pm by Darren Rowse

Blog Goals - Group Writing Project

enternetusers Site News 58 comments

200606051534I’ve written on a number of occasions on the topic of developing goals for a blog over the past few months.

I’ve also written on a number of occasions about making some of your blogging goals public as a way of adding accountability and motivation to reach them. I find that when I write something on my blog about what I want to do that I’m much more likely to actually follow through on it.

Each time I’ve written these things I’ve had readers write to tell me their blogging goals and even to suggest that we create a space where people can post them. As a result I thought ‘blogging goals’ might be a good topic for another enternetusers group writing project (the last one was on Habits of Effective Blogging).

So this week I’d like to invite you to write a post on your blogging goals as part of a group writing project.

To participate, here is the process to follow:

1. Write a post on blogging goals

  • Be as creative as you’d like - take it in any direction you want from writing a long list of your own blogging goals, through to sharing just one or two of them.
  • You can write it in any form you like (last time we had poems, rants, humorous posts etc).
  • Consider calling your post something a little different to ‘blogging goals’ as last time we had 80 submissions, most of which had similar titles. Your title is a key to making people come and read your post.
  • Ideally it’d be great if you could write it on your actual blog but if it’s completely inappropriate to do so I’ll post them again on enternetusers on a ‘page’ (not a post) with a link back to your blog.

2. Let me Know about your post

  • Once you’ve posted your post simply let me know about it by sending me an email via my contact form.
  • Make sure you include your name (as you want it to appear in my list), your post title and the URL to your post (not just to your blog’s front page).
  • Submissions must be received by me the the end of Thursday 8 June (as long as it’s still Thursday where you send it from I’ll accept it).

3. I will post 2 links to your post

  • In the day or two after you let me know about your post I’ll post a link to it in two places. Firstly there will be a daily (ish) list of the submissions from the last 24 hours. Secondly there will be a central list of all submissions for the project so we can see everything on one page. From what I could tell last time - people did visit the posts that were submitted - some bloggers seemed to get more traffic than others depending upon what day they submitted and a little on how their title read.
  • I’ll post my final list of submissions on Friday.

4. Surf Surf Surf

  • This is where you take over. Surf the submissions received. Leave comments, make connections with other enternetusers readers and enjoy reading what others have to say.

5. Link Link Link

  • There is no formal ‘judging’ as this is not a competition. Instead - I encourage you to surf through the submissions at the end of the week and announce your own winners on your own blog. Name a top 5 or so and share the link love.
  • Probably the best part of the last group project was the amount of inter-linking I saw happening between participating bloggers as a result of their posts. It was obvious that people found new blogs through it and that the benefits of participating was way beyond getting a link from me but flowed on to a lot of new connections and links between other bloggers.

PS: if you want to use the blog goals graphic above you’re welcome to do so.

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