Written on July 27th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 11:07 am by Darren Rowse

Possible Wordpress Security Problem

Blogging Tools and Services 18 comments

Dr Dave has written a warning for WordPress users regarding a possible security problem.

He doesn’t go into details (probably a good thing) but warns people to turn off the ‘Anyone can Register’ option on your WP blog and delete any guests that you’re unsure of. He writes:

“Leaving it open and letting people sign-up for guest accounts on your Wordpress blog could lead to incredibly nasty stuff happening if anybody so desired. And trust me I am not exaggerating this. So don’t wait a second to disable this option and please relay the message.”

I’m not sure how valid his concerns are and haven’t heard any official word from WordPress to this point but it’s probably worth considering.

I’ve contacted Matt from WP for a comment and will update with what he has to say.

Read more at Dr Dave -thanks to Patrick for the email heads up

update: Just spoke with Matt. He’s not aware of the issue and can’t tell by the post if it’s something worth being worried about or not - but he’s going to contact Dr Dave to see. He also mentioned that 2.0.4 will be out shortly and it could be something that is resolved in that upgrade. All seems to be in hand.

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Written on July 27th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 03:07 am by Darren Rowse

Why Your Blog’s Readers Should be Able to Contact You

Miscellaneous Blog Tips 23 comments

Do you have a way for your blog readers to contact you?

I’ve just spent a frustrating 15 minutes looking for a way to contact a write on CNET’s Alpha Blog and am left quite frustrated by the distance that they seem to have put between their bloggers and readers.

Perhaps there is a way to contact their authors that I’m yet to find (it’s probably staring me in the face) but it’s actually an example of a problem that is increasingly common in the blogosphere - inaccessible bloggers.

Why would you want to be contacted by readers? Isn’t having comments enough?

I find that having a way to be contacted is beneficial on a number of fronts.

• Firstly it gives your readers a way to privately contact you - having comments is a very public way of communicating with a blogger and there are some things that are just not appropriate for public comment. Having an email address or contact form allows you to keep unnecessary communications out of comments.
• It gives readers a sense of power - having a direct line to a blogger might not seem like a lot but I’ve found it does mean quite a lot to some readers. For them to be able to quickly and easily let you know their thoughts, pitch you an idea, vent a little or just say hi is an empowering and personal thing that many readers enjoy. It helps create a sense of ownership and interactivity.
• It’s about accountability - giving readers a way to get in touch shows that you’re willing to be held accountable for your blog and that you’re not hiding from criticism. The most common type of blog that doesn’t have contact details is the spam blog who hides the identity of the blogger for obvious reasons. While I’m not accusing bloggers without contact details of being spam bloggers it does send a message to readers if you’re inaccessible.
• It identifies problems - while I don’t enjoy getting emails telling me what’s wrong with my blog it’s important to know it. Whether it is when features are not working, I have server issues that mean loading is slow, an image isn’t loading or when I have a spelling mistake (often) - it’s the emails from readers that help me improve my blog.
• It opens opportunities - everyday my inbox has opportunities in it from my contact form here at enternetusers. It’s like a treasure trove some days with questions that lead to post, potential partnerships, pitches for stories, anonymous scoops etc. While it does take a little time to filter them all it’s well worth the effort.

I do understand why some bloggers feel the need to put some distance between themselves and readers (issues of privacy, the distraction of loads of emails from readers etc) but I think that giving readers an avenue to give you feedback that goes beyond public comments is essential for a blog and that there are ways to implement it that mean privacy can be ensured and that the blogger is not swamped.

If you’re worried about your email getting out into the public domain then I’d recommend using a contact form for users to contact you with (like the one I have here). There are plenty of scripts around the web that will help you make one and if you’re a WordPress user you can even get a plugin to do it for you.

If you’re worried about being swamped by emails then you might want to put a disclaimer on the contact for along the lines of ‘I read all email but due to numbers can’t respond individually to everything’. At least this way you give your readers a chance to privately contact you. I know that the bloggers behind highly trafficked blogs would worry about the numbers of emails that they’d get but as someone who has a number of blogs with decent traffic I can say that it’s not really out of control.

Also - before people say that it’s just an example of how big media companies blog and that all are like this - take a look at the way Yahoo’s tech blogs are set up. Each one has a bio page with information about the blogger but also a contact form. In fact I’ve contacted each of their bloggers over the past few months and have enjoyed the interactions I’ve had with their bloggers who have been the recipients of the news that I’d wanted to send to CNET’s bloggers (Yahoo’s gain and CNET’s loss in my opinion).

This post is not one designed to criticize CNET or their bloggers - but instead is written in the hope that bloggers will consider making themselves accessible to their readers. After-all - that’s one of the things that blogging was built on wasn’t it?

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Written on July 27th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse

If I had to Start My Blog Again - Reader Submissions Part 2

Pro Blogging News 6 comments

It’s day two of our ‘if I had to start my blog again group writing project’ and here’s the submissions from the last day which will also be added to the central submissions page.

• Look more forward than back, two million in the distance by TDavid
• An Even Bigger Chorizo by Matthew
• If I could turn back time, if I could find a way by Vincent
• If I had to Strt My Blog Again - I will be frustrated… not anymore by Anthony
• Hindsight is 20/20 by Ian
• If I had to Start My Blog Again by Hanneng
• Things I would do different if I started my blog again by Darren
• Eight Mistakes a Blog Newbie made: Did you make the same Mistakes? by Razib
• Throw Away my blog. I’m Starting Over by Aaron
• Five Blogging Tips I could have Done Better by Hendry
• Been There Done That by Chris
• Wanted: DeLorean - If I had to start my blog again by Leon
• More bloggers blogging on my Blog! by Trisha
• Three months of Getting Rich Slowly by J.D. Roth
• Rip it up and Start Again by Ian
• Lessons I’ve learned while blogging by Bill
• Turn Back your ‘bloggy’ clock by Paul
• If I could Turn Back Time… on Blueprint for Financial Prosperity by Jim
• What I would do if I had to start Free Money Finance Again by John
• Biggest Mistake: Pressing the “Sign-Up” Button on Blogger by Jon
• Is it a Blog… Or is it a Column? by Caryn
• Would I Want Today to be Different? by Tricia
• Memories of the Way It Was by Robert
• The vision thang by OmegaMom
• Which earlier nuts should have been added to my bolts? by Catherine
• Bake it, Taste it and Savor it by Renee
• Now that I’ve put up over 500 posts…. by John

I’ll be taking submissions for this project until the end of Thursday (as long as it’s Thursday where you are it’s not too late) so get your post in soon!

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Written on July 26th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 08:07 pm by Darren Rowse

Apple Bluetooth Wireless Mighty Mouse

Blogging Tools and Services 7 comments

Ooh - looks like Apple have just announced a new Bluetooth Wireless Mighty Mouse.

I’ve been waiting for this one for a while to add to my blogging head quarters.

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Written on July 26th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 11:07 am by Darren Rowse

Tax Time

enternetusers Site News 15 comments

I hate tax time (in Australia we operate on a July to June financial year) - not just because I have to give my government almost half of what I earn (I see this as a responsibility to give something back to the land I live in) but because of the paperwork and because it exposes my lack of bookkeeping skills.

As a result - I’ll be scarce today.

Off to see the accountant.

Note to self - learn how to file! :-)

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Written on July 26th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 02:07 am by Darren Rowse

How I’d Optimize PerezHilton for Advertising - Case Study

Case Studies 15 comments

A few days back the Blogging Times reported that celebrity blog PerezHilton reached 1 million readers in a day this month.

That’s some serious traffic and would be a pretty amazing blog to monetize.

Mario Lavandeira is the blogger behind PerezHilton and by the looks of things his income streams seem to be:

• AdSense - PerezHilton has AdSense running in multiple positions including in the banner position on most pages, between posts on the front page, between posts and comments on individual pages, under comments on individual pages and in the sidebar (although this one rarely shows). He also has an Adlink unit in the footer of the page. There’s also one AdSense unit and Adlink unit in the ‘Boardroom’ discussion forum.
• Fastclick - rotating in one of the banner positions.
• BlogAds - there are a number of positions you can buy BlogAds in including the Reserve A Premium position (top right hand spot) which costs $5000 per week, a second level position ($2500 per week) and a lower position ($202 per week). These seem to be converting reasonably well. Over the last few days there were ads in all positions (up to 15 in the lower ones).
• Sponsorship - on some impressions I’m seeing a skyscraper in the left hand column for tbs.com

I’m sure PerezHilton is doing reasonably well with their ads - BlogAds seem to be doing particularly well. There are however a few suggestions I’d make if I were consulting with Mario and his team. Some of these would include:

How I’d improve PerezHilton’s Advertising Performance:

• Alternate ads - Perhaps it’s my location in the world but I’m seeing a lot of freebie AdCouncil Public Service Ads. I think these are coming from Fastclick and while PH might be a community minded blog and not mind sending traffic to the girl guides of America they are loosing potential income. Fastclick does allow publishers to set alternate ads and I’d recommend they look into setting this up.
• Blended ads in posts - some of the AdSense ads on PH are nicely blended but others seem to ’stick out’ a little. I’m particularly thinking of the small ads that are on individual pages below posts and below comments (see example to the right). They have a pink background despite being on a white area. I suspect these would perform better with a more blended approach (ie a white backgound in the ads to blend with the white background of the site). This could well be PH trying to be transparent and separate content from ads - but this could be done in a more subtle way in my opinion.
• Adlinks in the footer - I was a little surprised to find the Adlink unit in the footer. While the base of a page can actually convert well (it’s amazing how many people scroll to the bottom of a page) I suspect that this unit would convert better above the fold. Perhaps a better place would be above or just below the header/banner (although there are already a lot of ads up there). Another position it would work would be above the title of posts.
• Seeing a lot of poorly targeted AdSense ads - I’m seeing a lot of poorly targeted AdSense ads. Once again it could be that I’m in Australia but where as I’d expect to see celebrity related ads I’m largely seeing ringtone ads, blogging tools ads, wedding dress ads etc). The problem with poorly targeted ads is that readers are less likely to click them if they don’t relate to your content. There are a number of things I’d suggest PH tweak to help improve ad relevancy including using keywords more in titles of posts, linking posts titles to page title tags (this would also help ALOT with Search engine optimization), tying post titles (or keywords) into meta tags and testing out AdSense’s section targeting feature). I’d also suggest they talk to AdSense about ad relevancy. A site their size should get some personal attention and help in optimizing ads.
• Too many AdSense Ads per page - If you look at the source code of PH’s front page you’ll see that they are actually attempting to run AdSense ads between each post on the page. This would mean that they are trying to run at least 14 AdSense units on the page. AdSense limits publishers to running 3 per page but does make exceptions for some publishers (with permission). I would encourage PH to obtain permission for more ad units per page (they have large pages so more than 3 would work for them) but I’d also encourage them to not put as many as 14 on a single page as this will decrease the value of clicks and mess with smart pricing.
• Premium Publisher - If PH is doing 1million visitors a day I’d also encourage them to talk to AdSense about becoming a premium publisher as they’d be over the minimum requirement. Being a premium publisher allows you to negotiate your own deals including how much you earn but also special ad sizes and designs.
• Affiliate programs - I’d be interested to see how promoting affiliate products would work on PH. Programs they could try might include Amazon books, CDs and DVDs (there’s also quite a few celebrity products like perfumes and jewelry) as well as programs like Allposters.
• Other Ad Programs - I would suspect that PH has a lot of regular readers that have become quite blind to the ads that appear on the site. For this reason I’d encourage them to find some new advertisers to rotate through the ad positions. Perhaps they could put in some Chitika eMiniMalls for instance or could explore some other impression based ad systems.
• Rotate Ad Design - another way of combatting ad blindness would be to rotate the AdSense ad design. AdSense allow you to choose up to four designs per ad unit to rotate automatically through. They could all still be blended but the changes in colors and design could help draw the eye more to ads and increase CTR. Also they could try rotating ads more through different positions on the blog. At present most ads are pretty static in terms of position and this wouldn’t help ad blinkdness.
• Boardroom Forums - At present the forums have very little advertising on them. Forums can be difficult to monetize but I’d encourage them to look at putting ads closer to content (at present they are way down the bottom) and to look at blending ads more. Also impression based ads might do better in the forums (although many CPM ad networks disallow them).

I’m certain that there are other things PerezHilton could do to increase their Advertising revenue - but I’m sure if they started with the above that there’d be a little more cash in the kitty.

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Written on July 26th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse

If I had to Start My Blog Again - Reader Submissions Part 1

Pro Blogging News 11 comments

There’s been a great initial response from readers in the new Group Writing Project on the topic of ‘if I had to start my blog again’. I’ll be accepting submissions until Thursday so follow the process outlined here and be included in the list central list of submissions.

Here are the first 25 submissions (I’ll post a new list each day until Thursday):

• Re-Knitting My Podcast and Blogs by Rhonda
• There is only one thing I’d change by Eric
• Starting Over by Tony
• Regrets, I’ve had a Few by Debra
• My wabisabi Blog by ricemutt
• The vision for this blog… would I do it again? by Thom
• 3 changes I would make and 3 I would not by Joe
• Ready, Fire, Aim that Blog! by Brad
• I should have thought bigger by Danae
• One Step Forward, Two Steps Back by Damien
• Regrets… I have a few… but then again, too few to mention (almost!) by Adrian
• Fix This Blog! by Alan
• RobZazueta.com - Regrets, I’ve had a few…. by Rob
• Why this Blog isn’t perfect by Lisa
• Woulda, Shoulda, Coulda by Christina
• If I had to start my blog Again by Costa
• I’m Not a enternetusers, But… by Andrew
• My Vision Was Too Cloudy by George
• If I could Turn Back Time…. by Retrospector
• If I had to Start My Blog All Over Again by Adam
• Blogging to Infinity and Beyond by Ken
• Discover the Fun of Blogging by Stefan
• B4B Reincarnation by Jack
• blogging takes two…. by dcypl
• Gee, That’s a Funny Domain Name by Ella

There are some great posts in that lot - surf through the list and start linking up to those you resonate with the most.

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Written on July 25th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 04:07 pm by Darren Rowse

Did I mention I’m Back?

enternetusers Site News 21 comments

For those of you who didn’t realize - I’m back from my paternity leave.

I’ve been slowly getting back up to speed over the last three or four days and am getting to the point of catching up on a couple of weeks of unread emails and RSS feeds.

A big thanks to Aaron (who has a great new blog design) and Brian for their posts while I was away (I think Brian might have one more to finish his mini-series) and also to those bloggers who agreed to be featured in the One Question Interview series which I’ve had some great feedback on.

Sorry to those who I’ve not answered emails of in the last couple of weeks. I’m doing my best to get through them all but it is an uphill battle at the moment. If I’ve forgotten to get back to you it might be best if you try resending your email to get it back on my radar.

Thanks to everyone for your emails and comments of well wishes and congratulations after Xavier’s birth. Both he and V are doing really well. We’re finding a rhythm to our day (the nights are a little harder) and are doing really well. It’s probably going to take me a few weeks to get back into the swing of things with work as I find ways to deal with the challenges of sharing my work space with a mother and child (nice distractions - but at times not that conducive to work). For those who have been asking for another picture of Xavier (pronounced like ‘Zavier’ for those unfamiliar with it - more people than we thought) - I’ve posted one above. I’m not going to get in the habit of posting too many pictures of him but seeing is this is my ‘I’m back’ post I thought I should show you what I’ve been doing.

In terms of enternetusers and where it’s headed next - I’ve got a long list of tips and posts that I want to write over the coming weeks and as always am dreaming up ways to take this blog to the next level in terms of how helpful it is to readers.

There will be more group writing projects (don’t forget the current one), lots of tips on how to improve your blog and make money along the way and perhaps even a rant of two (I know - it’s been a while but fatherhood has mellowed me).

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Written on July 25th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 01:07 pm by Darren Rowse

AdSense Updates Forums Help Pages

Adsense 10 comments

AdSense have updated their advice for publishers using their ads on Forums in their Help Center.

Their update is pretty small - the changes in the heat maps from last time to this time are negligable (see below - the old version is on the left and the new one on the right).

Their main advice really isn’t anything particularly new but is a good reminder if you’re into forums. Here’s what they have to say:

Placement: Display your ad units where repeat users will notice them

• Because forum regulars tend to skip the header and go straight to the meat of the thread, placing your ad unit above or below the first post can be more effective than ads next to the logo.

• Place a leaderboard immediately after the last post. This provides users who make it to the end of a thread with a ‘next step’ when the content ends. Try to avoid placing it after the footer, though, as your readers will likely move to the next thread without seeing the ad.

Formats: Adapting your design for multiple ad units and limited space.

• Using multiple ad units, you can use a variety of formats to fill ad space throughout your site. Placing a skyscraper above the fold on the left side of your forum seems to produce slightly better performance than other positioning. However, when using multiple ad units throughout the page our horizontal bias still favors the leaderboard. Our heat map provides more details.

• Use horizontal link units, which are small enough to fit near the top of your forum just below the header. For the regular forum visitor, link units offer a wider range of relevant topics to browse.

In addition to the above they encourage opting into image ads which will bring more CPM ads into your forum (good because you’ll get paid for every view instead of just clicks which are hard to get with regular readers who become blind to the ads). They also encourage blending ads.

The other piece of advice I’d encourage is to mix your ads up. Rotate different color schemes through (AdSense allows you to include 4 per unit) and even consider rotating other ad network’s ads into the mix to really mix things up.

Found via Forumtrends (who add their own advice also).

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Written on July 25th, surf Active Apparel website Sell Homemade Video zone.at 10:07 am by Darren Rowse

What do you think of Technorati’s Upgrade?

Pro Blogging News 15 comments

What do you think of Technorati’s upgrade?

My first impressions were not that great but it’s growing on me. Their challenge is that they are now tracking a lot of information and a lot of blogs and to present it all in a useful and uncluttered way is always going to be difficult - particularly because I suspect that different Technorati users use it differently to each other (ie some use it to find stories, some to track blogs, some to observe trends etc).

Their signed out and signed in versions of the home page are useful if you use Technorati to track blogs but will take us a little while to get used to.

Read Dave’s post on the upgrade here and see a video of the upgrades here and let the rest of us know what you think of is in comments.

PS: Don’t forget to mark enternetusers as a favorite!

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