Written on May 2nd, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 09:05 am by Darren Rowse

Technorati Top 100 Through the Eyes of Google

Pro Blogging News 2 comments

Philip Lenssen has put together an alternative Technorati Top 100 list, based upon Google Backlinks. The results are a significantly different for quite a few blogs with Instapundit climbing from 7th to 1st, Talking Points Memo by Joshua Micah Marshall climbing from 35th to 2nd and Daily Kos going up a notch from 4th to 3rd.

The actual Technorati Top 100 is based upon unique links over the last 6 months and therefor measures blog popularity based upon a more recent history whereas Philip’s new list is less time specific.

Doesn’t really mean anything except to illustrate why longevity in blogging pays off when thinking about your blog’s value in the eyes of Google.

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Written on May 2nd, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 12:05 am by Darren Rowse

Optimizing PBS’s AdSense Ads

Case Studies 13 comments

Paid Content had an interesting piece last week on a move by PBS to start running AdSense ads on 2% of the the pages on their site. It caused a bit of a stir in some circles about whether it was within their charter to run ads on their site like this (something I don’t know enough about to comment on).

What DID interest me about the announcement was not an analyisis on WHY they’ve done it or whether it’s right or wrong - but rather an analysis of HOW PBS have positioned their ads.

Here’s an example of a page with the ads in which you’ll see them positioned towards the top right of the page (as below - click to enlarge). Here’s another one.

PBS is obviously wanting to make their ads quite distinct from their content by clearly labeling them ‘Sponsored Links’ and by designing them to have a white background and with colors that don’t really match anything else on their page at all. I completely understand why they have done this but it’s worth saying that the results that they will get from these ad’s performance will almost definitely mean a lower earning capacity.

While I doubt they’ll do anything to make the ads a little more subtle the following are a number of suggestions that I’d make to increase performance of these ads:

Blend - I’d blend the ads more for two reasons - firstly they’ll perform better and get a higher CTR but secondly as they currently appear on the site they stand out like a sore thumb and are pretty ugly. To me using that default color scheme cheapens the look and feel of PBS’s page. Blending the ads could be done to a variety of levels ranging from complete blending (ie making the background the same color as the background behind the white and making the links the same color as other links on the page (black)) to more blending that still makes the ads stand out a little with colors that match the color scheme of the site but that are not exactly the same as content.

Position - The good old AdSense heat map (right) shows that while their positioning isn’t the worst that they could have chosen that it also isn’t the best. Their current position is in a yellow area and to increase performance I’d recommend experimenting with some of the orange ones. Even a simple swap to the other side would probably lead to a higher conversion without compromising content on the page too much.

Second Ad Unit - If I were consulting with PBS on this and the main aim was to increase income from the page I’d recommend a second ad unit towards the bottom of the page - under the two sections ‘for Educators’ and ‘for kids’. These two sections almost look like AdSense ads as they are (see below) and to put a blended ad under there would probably perform well. Of course this probably would take the blending thing too far for PBS who are obviously trying to walk a fine line between raising money and retaining their values.

More Pages - Once again I understand why they only have ads on 2% of pages but this is obviously one way that they could earn more from AdSense. As I’ve surfed through their site I see many page that would be ideal for contextual ads as they are content rich and highly focused on topics that I’m sure there would be relevant ads for.

My overall impression of the AdSense ads that I was able to find on the PBS site was that they did look a little haphazardly positioned and designed. I don’t feel that they ‘fit’ aesthetically with the site and doubt that they’ll perform to their potential in terms of income.

It won’t be an easy job to convince their site’s users that the ads belong and so they do have a difficult task of balancing the income earning potential of the ads and staying within their charter but as an AdSense optimizer I think they could make a few changes that would lead to not only a better fundraising capacity but also a more pleasant looking site.

PS: readers will note that the AdSense ads on PBS have a customized look and feel to them (ie in terms of size and font size/style). I’m not completely sure of why this is but suspect they have some sort of relationship with the AdSense team here. I do know that these are features offered to premium publishers and some other advertisers who meet certain criteria and suspect that these are ads developed in conjunction with the AdSense team.

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Written on May 1st, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 10:05 pm by Darren Rowse

Non English Posts make up over Two Thirds of Total Blog Posting

Blog News 26 comments

What is the most common language used by bloggers?

It might surprise some to know that it’s not English but Japanese according to David Sifry. English comes in second with Chinese third.

The interesting thing is that Japanese is on the rise in the last six or so months. In November 05 it made up 31% of posts, in January 06 it made up 32% and now it’s up to 37%. English makes up under a third of total posts.

Of course this measures total numbers of posts in these languages and not numbers of bloggers - perhaps Japanese write a lot more posts per day than English speaking bloggers but I suspect it says more about the international state of the blogosphere - something that doesn’t get a whole heap of attention.

Anyone want to translate enternetusers into Japanese?

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Written on May 1st, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 01:05 pm by Darren Rowse

Animated AdSense Ads

Adsense 8 comments

I just saw my first animated AdSense ad on one of my blogs.

I can’t get the ad to show again to show you screen caps but it was a rectangle sized ad that was a series of three images that rotated for the first 20 or so seconds that I was on the page. This was the first image in the series.

I’ve heard that animated ads were coming (it’s been months since it was announced) but hadn’t seen any to this point. I’d be interested to know how they convert income wise as they are quite imposing ads on a page.

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Written on May 1st, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 09:05 am by Darren Rowse

More Blog Tools

Blogging Tools and Services 2 comments

Just a quick note to say that I’ve added another 12 tools to the Blog Tools list. We’re up to 67 tools now.

I’ve had to be a little selective with some of the suggestions people have made. Just a note - I’m not listing hosting services and am not listing fairly general ‘organizational’ tools (well not any more) and am trying to keep the list pretty focused. Hope it’s useful.

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Written on May 1st, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 08:05 am by Darren Rowse

How NOT to “Keep Up”

Miscellaneous Blog Tips 7 comments

Do you ever feel overwhelmed by ‘reading’?

Sometimes I get to the end of a day and look at all the unread items in my life (email, RSS feeds, books, magazines, newspapers, articles) and feel quite ill. I have great intentions of reading them all but with only 24 hours in a day and with a family life, social life, work life etc it’s just not possible to ‘keep up’ with it all.

If you feel like this Creating Passionate Users has a good post which you might like to read on The myth of “keeping up”.

While the post is probably more about reading ‘hardcopy’ (ie books, manuals, magazines etc) I think that it’s easily applied to ‘e-copy’ which many bloggers become overwhelmed by in their quest to keep their blog up to date and to keep their head around the niche that they write in. Here are a few of the headings that Kathy writes about that might help us tackle the ‘keeping up’ addiction that many of us face:

• Find the best aggregators
• Get summaries
• Cut the redundancy!
• Unsubscribe to as many things as possible
• Recognize that gossip and celebrity entertainment are black holes
• Pick the categories you want for a balanced perspective, and include some from OUTSIDE your main field of interest
• Be a LOT more realistic about what you’re likely to get to, and throw the rest out

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Written on April 29th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 03:04 pm by Darren Rowse

Law and Ethics for Bloggers

Miscellaneous Blog Tips 12 comments

Shai’s posted a series of posts over at About.com on Law and Ethics for Bloggers that cover some worthwhile topics for bloggers to explore on topics like copyright, creative commons licenses and blog etiquette.

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Written on April 29th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 12:04 pm by Darren Rowse

AdSense Exchange Rate Discrepancies?

Adsense 18 comments

There’s an interesting thread over at Webmaster World on whether the exchange rate that AdSense is using to convert income for it’s publishers is accurate or not when it comes to the Canadian dollar. I’m yet to really look into it as it applies to the Australian dollar but the thread has caused some real debate!

Source: email from Ryan

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Written on April 29th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 12:04 pm by Darren Rowse

What do You Do?

Miscellaneous Blog Tips 37 comments

How do you describe your blogging business to people when they ask ‘what do you do?’

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Written on April 29th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 12:04 am by Darren Rowse

Building Blog Credibility - 11 Tips

Miscellaneous Blog Tips 8 comments

I never did quite finish my Blog Credibility Series. Sorry about that but the week sort of got away from me with the birthday thing, catching up on some projects I’d put on hold, starting a new blog and there being a public holiday here on Tuesday.

So I thought I’d finishing it up by posting a few other random thoughts on ways of building blog credibility and inviting you to fill in the numerous gaps I’ve left in the topic (the more I think about the longer the list of factors that build credibility). Here’s a few more thoughts (I’ve started numbering them at number 5 because I’ve already made four points previously in these posts - 1. longevity, 2. experience, 3. expertise and 4. design):

5. Writing Skills - Can the Blogger convey their message?

Blogging is a written medium and as a result one of the factors that a blogger will be judged by is their ability to convey a message by writing.

There are many voices that you may choose to write in and many types of posts that you might like to experiment with but all of them can be written poorly or well and as with every other aspect of your blogging your writing skills will either add to or take away from the way that people see you.

6. Critical Mass/Readership - While numbers are not everything they do have the ability to tell you something about how a blog is being viewed by others. The Get the latest price on the The Wisdom of Crowds (aff) type thinking argues that crowds tend to be wise and make good decisions and something can be said for this when it come to blogs. Of course as soon as I began to write this post I immediately thought of some highly trafficked blogs that I think display a total lack of credibility (I’ll refrain from names until I write my ‘tell-all biography in my 70’s).

I wouldn’t totally base my opinion of a blog based upon traffic but it’s a factor.

7. Participation Levels - This is another one that I’d never fully base my opinion of a blog on but you can learn a lot about a blog by the number of readers who seem to be engaging with the content on it, especially in comments. Pure numbers of comments are one factor but also the quality of comments and the opinion of those commenting on the blogger’s writing is important. Once again - it’s just a small piece of the ‘credibility pie’.

Participation of the blogger themselves in their own blog is also another factor that can build credibility. Bloggers who just write posts and then ignore the comments of their readers risk being a little one dimensional in their blogging. Responsiveness and personal interaction with readers has a real impact.

8. Others Opinion - Perhaps in a similar way the opinion of other bloggers can be a factor in measuring how credible a blog is. This can be measured to some extent by the number of links a blog gets but probably some more in depth analysis of the type of links might be worth looking into.

Similarly, working with other respected bloggers can build credibility. Aligning yourself with a respected partner who is willing to give testimonial to your worth as a blogger goes a long way to winning new readers.

9. Consistency - As I analyze which bloggers I see as credibly in the fields that I’m interested in one of the factors that I see in all of them is a level of consistency. This doesn’t mean they need to be predictable or boring - but rather that they blog in such a way that shows they know who they are, what they are doing and how they’ll go about it. Their blog’s don’t change focus every second day, they don’t contradict themselves in what they present, they are not swayed by popular opinion of them and they produce quality content regularly over a long period of time.

10. Generosity - Another important factor to me is the generosity of bloggers. I don’t mean that they give presents or prizes etc - but bloggers who go out of their way to give their readers a genuinely useful experience on their blog. This might be in the form of content that would cost them considerably elsewhere to taking the time to respond to reader questions or comments etc. I think that bloggers who go out of their way for others grow in their reputation and stature with others. This doesn’t mean you need to give away everything for free - but it’s amazing what impact you have when you give away more than people expect in your posting.

11. Transparency - This is a big one for me. I don’t mind bloggers getting something for themselves out of blogging but what does bother me is when I see bloggers attempting to pull the wool over the eyes of their readers by not being honest about their true motivations. Credibility comes when people trust that what you are saying is truth and when there is a lack of truth the consequences for a blogger can be significant.

Transparency also comes into play when you make a mistake or need to apologize for something you’ve done or written. The way bloggers admit to mistakes and rectify them says a lot about their character.

Lastly on the transparency front a simple inclusion of features like an ‘About Page’ and a way to contact the blogger can add real credibility to a blog. There’s a certain amount of accountability in putting your name to a blog and giving people a way to get in touch with you.

And? - As i wrote above - the list I’ve come up with here and the four other factors I mentioned earlier in this series (longevity, experience, expertise and design) are by no means a definitive list. What makes a blogger credible to you? What makes them dodgy? Interested in your thoughts.

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