Written on March 21st, 2007 at 04:03 am by Darren Rowse
AdSense Referrals Beta Test Launched - CPA Ads
Technospot has a post with details of a new beta test that AdSense are doing in their referrals program (official site).
I’m writing this on the run as I’m in the middle of a session - however it looks like an interesting development based on publishers being in control of what ads will be shown on their blogs through choosing keywords and making them look like other AdSense ads on your site. You can choose the same ad unit sizes and designs.
The payment is CPA (ie you don’t get paid until your readers do something - specified by the advertiser). Below is a pic of how they’re promoting it (click to enlarge).
Here’s how AdSense are talking about this:
“In just a few minutes you can hand-pick and display ads that will appeal directly to your users’ tastes and interests. After choosing relevant ads or keywords, you will be able to customize referrals units that complement the look and feel of your site. Then you can start directing visitors to the products or services you’ve selected.
With referrals, you’ll be paid when your visitors click through to an advertiser’s site and complete an action defined by your advertisers, such as a sale or sign up. Because these actions are often more involved than a simple click or impression, advertisers pay more for these referrals, which can translate into higher earnings for your site. Further, you’ll see the expected earnings and advertiser performance ahead of time, so you can make the best decisions about what to refer. You can also choose to target the keywords that will ensure you get the highest-paying referrals for your ad space.”
I’ve applied to be on the beta program and it’ll be something to watch. It’s an interesting move and one that is definately moving towards the Commission Junction model.
How do you set up ads (if accepted into the program)?
Step 1: Select the keywords, products or services you want to refer
Choose from our extensive list of advertisers in a variety of different categories.
Step 2: Customize your ad unit
Select the size and color scheme that best matches the look and feel of your site.
Step 3: Copy and paste the code to your pages
Paste the code into your webpages using your HTML editor and publish them to the web.
So you can use this via choosing specific products or on a keyword basis.
Thanks to JohnTP for the alert on this.
Written on March 21st, 2007 at 01:03 am by Darren Rowse
Do Outbound Links Matter for SEO (and more)
Craig Harper asks - Thanks to the tips provided by yourself, Yaro, and Aaron Wall I’ve just managed to finally crack into the top ten on Google for my keywords ‘motivational speaker’. I read over on Yaro’s site here about the importance of outbound links being targeted at your niche. In terms of SEO I know there is a lot of emphasis placed on the importance of inbound links but I would like your thoughts on the importance of outbound links and the websites that you outwardly linked to.
Interesting question Craig. Let me answer this question about outbound links but taking us in three directions
1. SEO - You’re right, one of the common pieces of advice that SEO types give is that relevant outbound links to quality sites can actually help your own performance in the search engines.
I’m no SEO expert but all I can really say on this is that some SEOs that I know and respect argue good cases for this and that when I’ve launched blogs it is something that I’ve always done. I don’t know how much of an impact that it has had on those sites - but they do tend to do well in search engines.
My suspicion is that SE’s like Google and Yahoo! have hundreds of factors that they rank a site by and that outbound links is probably one of them - although not one of the ones that they give most weight to (ie it’s not as important as your title tags or the inbound links pointing at your blog).
The only guidelines that I’d recommend in outbound links from a purely SEO perspective (and there are others to consider below) are:
a. not too many links (apparently too many outbound links can be frowned upon by SE’s)
b. keep them relevant (link to other sites/pages that are on a similar topic to you)
c. use appropriate keywords as anchor text (the words you use as the link can help both you and the site you’re linking to with SEs)
d. high ranking sites (some SEOs argue that if you link to highly ranking sites for the keywords that you’re after that it will have more impact).
Note: these tips are purely speaking from an SEO perspective. My own approach with SEO is to know the principles but not let them dominate my blogging. As a result, the only two principles from these four that I do regularly are b and c because I can do them without impacting the ultimate goals for my blog.
So for me - the SEO benefits of outbound links are something I believe in but they are also something I don’t get to worked up about.
2. Reader Satisfaction - the impact that links have upon readers is more important to me than SEO.
Here at enternetusers I link to a lot of other sites. In fact SEO experts tell me I link out too much (from a purely SEO perspective).
The main reason that I link out so much is purely that I want to give my readership as much quality information on my topic as I can. If I see something that someone’s written on my topic that says something useful then the chances are that I’ll link to it (either as a simple link in one of my speedlinking posts or as a longer post with some of my own thoughts attached).
Some argue that linking out to other sites isn’t worth doing because you drive people away from your blog - my theory is that if I send them to useful content often enough that they’ll keep coming back for more.
Keep in mind also that too many links can actually decrease reader satisfaction - if they are not relevant or useful links.
3. Other Reasons to Link - there are other reasons that it can be useful to link out from your blog including these two:
- building relationships with other bloggers/webmasters - linking out and sending traffic to other sites is one way to get on the radar of their owners
- perceived expertise - showing your readers that you have your finger on the pulse of a niche by showing what other sites are doing can increase their perception of you as someone who knows what they’re talking about.
I’m sure readers will come up with a lot more reasons to link out - so over to the enternetusers Community for their response…
Written on March 20th, 2007 at 09:03 am by Darren Rowse
Elite Retreat Update
Well I finally arrived in San Francisco yesterday afternoon and have been bunkered down in the Elite Retreat bunker all day with some pretty cool people. For recaps on what’s going on you can check out a couple of bloggers who are blogging the sessions at Wendy’s blog here and here and Kris’s blog here and here.
I won’t replicate everything they’ve written (after all I’m on a blog break) but thought readers might enjoy keeping in touch with what’s going on.
Written on March 20th, 2007 at 01:03 am by Darren Rowse
What have I learned from Kevin and his Blog?
Today’s guest post is from Chris Garrett from chrisg.com.
When Darren asked if I would like to guest post on enternetusers I had an attack of the nerves. You see, it was Darrens blog that was the inspiration (blame?) for me to become a pro-blogger myself. I still find inspiration from this blog now.
Then it hit me; that is what I could write about. Sometimes you can learn as much from observing what successful people do in a field as listening to what their advice.
What have I learned from Darren and his blog?
- Be first - There was a time it was easy to have first-mover-advantage was easy. Of course that was when hardly anyone had the foresight to start anything other than a personal diary blog. There are thousands of blogs now on every subject, how can you be first? Be different. Find a gap and fill it. Demonstrate the benefit of your unique take.
- Staying power - It is tempting to hear of six-figure incomes and become despondent at your own meagre Google cheque. Darren didn’t get there overnight either. One of my biggest mistakes in blogging has been quitting, chopping and changing. Don’t make my mistake, learn from Darren. Stick with it!
- Show Off Your Best Stuff - Put your popular stuff right up front where people can see it. When you visit this blog you are not lost for things to read. After people read your post, do your readers know where they can go next?
- Community Counts - Great content is important, but combined with a vibrant community, that is when your blog will really take off
- Test and Research - Blogging is a moving target. Working out what works and what doesn’t takes research, experimentation, testing and discussion. Over the years you will have seen Darren experiment with new developments from MyBlogLog to Chikita. Make sure you keep up with the times.
- Privacy - Don’t reveal too much personal information, decide what you are going to keep private and make it stay that way.
- Stay Positive - I don’t think I have ever seen Darren go off on a rant. This builds up a tremendous amount of goodwill. You will never hear a bad word said about him. Blogging success is as much about networking as it is good writing, what are people thinking and saying about you?
Look at the blogs you read every day, what can you learn from them? (Both good and bad). What have you learned from reading enternetusers? Add your thoughts in the comments …
Read more from Chris Garret at his blog chrisg.com.
Written on March 19th, 2007 at 01:03 pm by Lorelle VanFossen
Blog Translations: The Next Web Frontier
Weblog Tools Collection is doing it. So is the Blog Herald. Are you doing it?
These and other blogs are hiring translators to translate their blog into different languages. Blog Herald began with Japanese, based upon a study released by Technorati stating that Japanese is the most used language on the blogosphere. Weblog Tools Collection offers Español and Deutsch versions of their blog, expanding into Europe.
Those of us with little or no money to spend on human translation services resort to translation WordPress Plugins or turn to Google’s Translate Language Tools or Altavista’s Babelfish. Machine translations aren’t perfect, but they typically do a fair job getting much of the concept across.
Having lived overseas among non-English speaking folks much of my life, the early days of the web was filled with anticipation that free instant translation would be available through our browsers. Click any link on a web page, and your browser would detect the language, magically translating it into your desired tongue. Websites in Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Hungarian, Hebrew, German, French, Arabic, Norwegian, Swahili, and everywhere would be immediately accessible for my reading pleasure.
I dreamed of learning about all these diverse cultures, getting an inside look at how they live and what their thoughts are on their lives, government, work, friends, and family. I wanted to ask them questions and seek their opinions, translated through the magic of web browsers. I wanted to learn from and about them, and I hoped they might want to know a little about me, too.
It never happened.
I don’t know why web browsers didn’t follow through on the promise of instant international language communication. The whole idea of HTML was to create a code format that any browser on any machine anywhere in the world could read, developing a standard format for web page design and development. By removing the pretty designs from the structure of the page with CSS, browser technology took another leap by allowing the user to customize how they wanted to see and read web pages, which also increased accessibility standards. The web opened up to the blind and visually impaired as well as disabled. But it never opened up to different languages.
Imagine what our world would look like if Microsoft developed language translation within Internet Explorer? Or if Firefox ran with it now? What would our blogging world look like if web technology had put their energy into crossing language borders as much as operating system borders?
As much as everyone wants to brag about Web 2.0 moving into the social networking and interaction generation, most of us are still living behind a great iron curtain, unable to easily cross the language border with our blogs.
Even with today’s amazing technologies, the process of reading a web page in another language is tedious and frustrating. Yes, I can fairly quickly get a machine translation through WordPress Plugins, Google and Altavista. However, it’s one sided.
Crossing the Border of International Blog Conversations
Blogs are about interaction, a dialog between the blogger and the reader and other readers. When reading a translated blog, how do I reply to what I’ve just translated in the blog’s original language?
Through another machine translation?
I have two choices in responding to a blog not in my language. I can post a comment in my language, putting the burden on the blogger to translate what I’ve written. Or I can use a machine translation of my response converted into their language.
The best method of replying would be to write it in your language and leave the burden of translation to the blogger. If they read English, then they can read it and provide a translation to their readers. This is best as it limits the risk of a convoluted translation. If they can’t, hopefully they will use a friend or a machine translation to convert it into their language. Either way, how would you know if they got it right?
If I put the burden of translation upon myself, I can use Google’s Translate or and Babelfish to type in my response in my language and have it translated into over a dozen different languages. It’s a machine translation so while not perfect, it may get the point across.
To use this, I have to go back and forth from the translated page to the translating page to copy and paste the translation of my comment into the post. This is a lot of work. It also comes with some trust issues.
I don’t know if the post I just read translated by machine or otherwise is really an accurate translation. I have to assume that it’s close. The translation of my reply is also based upon an assumption, since I don’t know if I used the appropriate words which will easily translate to get my point across, so how do I know if the machine got that right? I’ve tried translating translations - messy business. Translating translations loses even more in the translation. Without another recourse, I have to trust that the machine got it “close”.
Here’s an example of the confusion translations and translations of translations can cause. In a recent announcement on the Blog Herald, one of the articles I wrote called “It’s Catching: Blog Disease” was determined to be the most popularly read article in the Blog Herald’s Japanese section.
While there is much English to giggle over in Google’s translation of the Japanese version, let’s look at the bio at the end of the article and compare them.
The first is the Google Translation of the Japanese human translation of the English version:
Laurel [huanhuotsusen] Lorelle ON WordPress (laurel on [wadopuresu]) with has written [burogu] and [burogu] regarding word press. In addition long time word press is supported self-sacrifice. The laurel has appeared in traveling frequently, “you will go out with the camera”, with it has reported concerning itself trailer life. Furthermore with “history of my family” you contribute the history of your own family and the article regarding the lineage figure. You have contributed to also many [burogu] and the member sight and the magazine and the like to in addition to.
Why my name is spelled “Laurel” is odd, but a closer look reveals that Google translated it phonetically, not literally, from the Japanese. It’s spelled right in the “Lorelle ON WordPress” because that is a link and the Japanese translators left it in English. It didn’t require translation by Google’s machine.
Google translated WordPress into “word press”, which also might be a phonetic translation rather than accurate one. While I’m sure for Matt Mullenweg, WordPress is a self-sacrifice, but is it for me? I love “you will go out with camera” for “Taking Your Camera on the Road”. I’d like to read a magazine called “Traveling Frequently”, wouldn’t you? I’d love to be “The Laurel published in Traveling Frequently”. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it. Inaccurate, but wonderful. As for the “lineage figure” in my family, I’ll have to think about that one. What’s “member sight”? The translation of the translation sounds like I’ve contributed an eyeball to a private eye bank.
If you read “above and beyond” the words, they make sense. It just takes some work to get the point, though maybe not about the “member sight” thing. Here is the English original:
Lorelle VanFossen blogs about blogging and WordPress on Lorelle on WordPress, and is a long time support volunteer for WordPress. Lorelle travels too much and reports about life on the road in Taking Your Camera on the Road and covers family history and genealogy on Lorelle’s Family History, and writes for too many blogs, ezines, and magazines.
Okay, so maybe the translation of the human translation missed by a few leaps and bounds. You see my point. Instant web translation isn’t yet ready for prime time.
It’s been over 15 years and I’m still dreaming of a world with no borders on the web. I’m ready to take blogging across the language barrier. Aren’t you?
“I see the world
Without any borders,
Without any fighting,
Without any fear.So captain give the order,
We’re going to cross
the next frontier.”Moon Rider
From Up With People, in collaboration with Eugene Cernan
Lorelle VanFossen blogs about blogging and WordPress on Lorelle on WordPress.
Written on March 19th, 2007 at 06:03 am by Darren Rowse
How Many Categories Does Your Blog Have?
Time for a little discussion question that emerged out of a conversation that I had with a new blogger recently.
How many categories does your blog have?
I’d also be interested to hear how people determined what categories to use and whether you can have too many categories (I was reading a blog the other day that had 60 and wondered whether there comes a time when there are too many).
Written on March 19th, 2007 at 01:03 am by Darren Rowse
How a Trackback after a Comment Can Start a Relationship
The following post has been contributed by Liz Strauss from Successful Blog.
I was working today, answering comments and writing a post, when in came a trackback from a blog I didn’t know.
It immediately got my attention.
I went over to see who was talking. Of course, I knew the name of the blogger. He had just been on my post and written two comments. I could remember what they said, but I really didn’t know him. I had been planning to visit his blog later, but you know that later sometimes just doesn’t make it.
With a trackback - something about answering Liz’s compelling question — that blogger made sure I went to see him. His trackback had captured my full attention. What question? What was his answer? I had to find out. I wanted to solve the puzzle. I was at the point in my day when I needed some fun.
That’s the power of a well done trackback. It’s an intriguing invitation to visit, and I knew the place I was visiting was a blog where they knew me because the trackback called me Liz. Trackbacks are a great to begin a relationship, especially if you’ve left a comment first. Here’s why:
- Leaving a comment or two makes your name familiar and lets the blogger know that you read his or blog. You become a person, a person who is interested and interesting. Leaving a trackback before you ever comment can look like you are standoffish or too busy to comment.
- Leaving a trackback on the same post where you’ve left a comment can work really well, if you are truly interested in the dialogue and the topic. Think of it as a real conversation, that you might have had with a fairly new friend. If you were truly engaged and thought of a new point on your way home, you might shoot him an email or IM to pass it along.
- The track post that you write shows that you took the conversation at the original blog one step further. Almost everyone would think that’s a compliment, sending a trackback is a lot like saying “You’ve got me thinking, and I’m telling others good things about you.” Who wouldn’t like to hear that?
It’s not the link that makes the trackback enticing. It’s the mystery of the excerpt. It’s the fact that someone took my conversation further. It’s the conversation with a new person. I follow the trackbacks home and I find myself wanting to leave a comment. The comments always come naturally out of the experience. I never have to stop to think one up.
Somehow I feel like I know the blogger from this interaction around that one trackback. A relationship has naturally happened. I go back to my blog aware of a person, not just a guy who comments on my blog. Maybe its because the trackback brought me into his natural habitat and I went for a reason, not just to explore. I know I’ll be looking for opportunities to link back to his blog now that I’ve had a chance to get to know some of his content.
Try a comment and trackback to introduce yourself to a blogger in your neighborhood. When they follow comments these short interactions can be more meaningful than you might ever have suspected.
Read more from Liz at Successful Blog.
Written on March 18th, 2007 at 01:03 am by Darren Rowse
Posting Blog Posts in Multiple Places - Good or Bad?
Anon Guy asks - ‘Probably a stupid question, but I was wondering about how cross-posting can affect the original site. I have a small political blog and was recently asked to cross-post some story I did on Myspace and politics. I went ahead and cut-and-pasted the story over at a wikia.com site and, much to my surprise, a day later it was picked up by The Wonkette (from the wikia site).
But then I was reading about how having the same story on different sites is looked down upon by Google. Will occasionally posting the same story elsewhere ended up hurting the rankings of the original site?’
Not a stupid question AG - it is one I’ve been asked numerous times. It’s also one that there are a number of perspectives on. Let me share mine.
Why You Should Cross Post?
I think you’ve already discovered the main positive of cross posting (or posting the same thing on two sites) - that it exposes your post/article to more potential readers which can have the flow on effects of others then linking up to it. If getting your message out and building your own reputation as a writer is your main priority then allowing your posts to be republished in this way is something you will want to consider.
This is why some authors publish books online for free and some artists allow their music or art to be freely downloaded by web users - because it’s great for their profile and puts their message in the hands of as many as possible. This has numerous flow on effects for their future work.
Why Shouldn’t You Cross Post?
You’ve also identified one of the main arguments against cross posting - the risks associated with duplicate content in search engines.
In general, search engines don’t like it when exactly the same content appears in multiple locations.
I don’t pretend to know the inner workings of how they treat such duplicated content - but would suggest that for the occasional post it doesn’t seem matter too much. However it you are going to do cross posting on a regular basis then you might want to consider the possibility of some sort of repercussions of doing so from an SEO perspective.
Google has clarified their perspective on duplicate content lately and from what I can see if your post is the original one you should be OK - however speaking from personal experience of allowing a few of my posts to get republished on other sites - one of the risks of doing so is that that site may end up outranking you for your own post.
A question to ask:
One question you might like to ask yourself when making this decisions is whether you’re trying to build up your blog’s SEO ranking or whether you are attempting to build up your own reputation and just get your content out there?
If you’re not so concerned about SEO and just want people to read your work - then some cross posting probably won’t worry you.
If you’re more interested in SEO and preserving the content that you write for the benefit of building up your own blog - then cross posting might not be for you (especially if it’s something you’re going to do on a regular basis).
A Story for illustrative purposes:
Long term enternetusers readers will remember that this very topic was something that I grappled with when approached by WebProNews with the request that I allow them to republish some of my posts.
In the end I decided to allow them to republish some of my content because it was in the early days of my blog and I felt that it was a good branding exercise. WPN gave links back to my posts an promoted me on each one with my picture and blog names. As they had a larger audience than me and an audience on related topics to mine I felt it was a good opportunity to leverage some of their traffic.
I allowed them to republish my posts for numerous months - but after a while ended the arrangement for one main reason - they were outranking me in Google for my own work. WPN were republishing numerous posts from enternetusers each week (with my permission) and were selecting my best pieces.
The problem was that as they were a bigger and more highly ranked site than mine (and one that Google must have been indexing more regularly than mine) they were being treated by Google as the original post and my own posts here at enternetusers were being treated as duplicate content (and were either not appearing in the index or were being outranked by WPN).
I decided that it wasn’t in my best interests to keep going with the arrangement (I’d also grown my readership and profile by this point - partly as a result of WPN - not that they sent lots of traffic over) and though I could stand on my own two feet by then.
Written on March 17th, 2007 at 06:03 pm by Darren Rowse
WordPress Plugins Directory
WordPress have added a Plugins Directory which will be a welcome relief to many WP users.
This is a great development from WP - one of the reasons it is so powerful as a blog platform is the large number of developers adding features to it via plugins - now we can find them!
Written on March 17th, 2007 at 07:03 am by Darren Rowse
How Many Blogs do You Blog On?
A quick reader question:
how many blogs do you Actively blog on?
I’m not asking about how many inActive blogs you own - but how many do you contribute to with a post of your own at least once a week?
PS: I’ve previously asked a similar question - how many blogs do you ‘own’? which found most owned one, but 13% owned more than 10. Of course, these days writing on a blog doesn’t mean you ‘own’ it as such with many group blogs and blog networks.
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