Archive for January, 2008

How Addicted to Blogging Are You? (plus new book)

by Ades on January 18, 2008 in Blogging Tips, General with 13 Comments

JustSayHi.com has a tool called “How addicted to blogging are you?” It is a quiz that consists of 14 questions, which determines the level of your addiction to blogging. I scored 68%, so I am moderately addicted to blogging.

Book About “Blogging”

On another note, Steph from FollowSteph.com is publishing a book about blogging. The book will consists of interviews from well known bloggers like Seth Gothin, Aaron of SEObook, Neil Patel, Steve Rubel, Yaro Starak and many more. I am flattered to be included in the list. You can see the full list of all bloggers who will be included in the book here.

The interview was conducted in written format about two months ago. Steph asked very precise and important questions. I am sure that the readers will find the book very useful. Here is some of the questions he had asked:

About Success

What makes a blog successful according to you? Is it traffic, reach, revenue, etc.?
When did you decide you finally reached success with your blog?
How long does it take to become a successful blogger?
Who do you think are the most successful bloggers on the internet today?

Resources

Which five blogs do you regularly read?
Which websites would you recommend for any new bloggers starting to blog?
Which book(s) would you recommend for new bloggers (these can range from marketing books, blogging books, etc.)?

Content

What is your most successful blog post ever?
What’s your biggest tip on writing a successful blog post?
What’s your best advice in regards to content and writing for bloggers?
How important do you think are the headlines of your blog articles?

Marketing

Do you spend any money and time on marketing?
What are your main methods of marketing your blog?
Which marketing tactic has surprised you the most in terms of its effectiveness?

Tips

What are your quick and short five best tips for blogging?
What is the most common pitfall new bloggers generally fall into?
If you knew what you know now when you first started, what’s the one biggest tip you’d give yourself today?
What repels you the most from a blog (animations, in your face advertising, etc.)?

Monetization

Do you make any direct money from your blog through advertising, product placements, etc.?
What is your best monetization method (Ads, affiliate marketing, etc.)?
Do you find you get more from direct monetization of your blog or from opportunities that come because of the existence of your blog?

So, watch out for this book. Steph informed me that the book will be available in major bookstores worldwide, including Amazon. I am eagerly waiting for the book too, not because I am in the book, but because I want to read other fellow bloggers’ tips and advices. I am sure there will be many new things to learn for me from this book.

WordPress: Increase your SERP using Post Slug feature

by Ades on January 17, 2008 in Blogging Tips, SEO & Promotion with 33 Comments

Do you use post slug feature in WordPress? If yes, then great! If not, then you should really start using it. Post Slug feature is located among one of those boxes at the right side: Categories, Post Status, Discussion… etc.

SEO Advtantage of Using Post Slug

When you use it, you greatly improve your blog’s SEO. In WordPress, if you enable permalinks and if you use Post Title in the URL structure, then you know that the post title becomes part of the URL for each individual post page.

Below is a screenshot of Permalink’s preferences in WordPress:

enabling permalinks

As you can see, I have set Date (Year/Month/Date) followed by Post Title for the URL structure.

Feed Search Engines with Different Important Keywords

As you know Search Engines pay more attention to page’s Title, URL, and Headings (or the content in general). So it’s always better if you input important keywords in page’s Title and URL in particular, and to repeat the keywords in the content of the page. Therefore, using Post Slug gives you this advantage of putting different words in the URL of the page.

As you can see from the screenshot below, words that you enter in the Post Slug becomes part of the URL (instead of the Post Title, that is set by default).

post slug as the page url

So, if I hadn’t used Post Slug, my page URL would be http://www.adesblog.com/2008/01/12/write-pillar-articles-but-dont-overdo-it-please/ instead of http://www.adesblog.com/2008/01/12/what-is-pillar-articles/

So what’s the benefit?

Why did I choose “what is pillar articles” for the URL and not use the post title that was set by default? Because I know that people won’t be searching Google using “Write Pillar Articles but Don’t Overdo It” phrase. I am pretty sure that people will be going for searches like “What is Pillar Articles”, “How to write Pillar Articles”, “Pillar Article Structure” etc. Among these alternatives, I have chosen the first one.

Was it the correct choice? I am quite confident that it was, because if you search Google for “What is Pillar Article“, you will see that my post comes up on No.4 position (at this point in time, it might climb up or go down).

So as you can see, when you use it correctly, the results are very encouraging.

Don’t abuse it

When using this feature you should only use keywords that are directly related and mentioned in your post. Idea here is to let the users find your blog, find the article useful, and become your regular reader. Therefore putting not related keywords in the Post Slug won’t bring you any good. You will just destroy your reputation and credibility.

Do you have to use it for every post? If you can do that, then why not? Personally I do not use it all the time, I only use it on some articles that I think important.

I hope you find this post useful, look forward to read your thoughts.

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Winner of the Contest, Week 4 of 8

by Ades on January 17, 2008 in Contests with Comments Off

Winner of the “Free Hosting and Domain Name” contest for the Week-4 is Indoconsoles. Congratulations!

Contest Continues…

Contest will run for another 4 more weeks. So hopefully whoever didn’t win will have a better luck in the coming weeks. Good luck!

If you are new to this contest, you can still enter for it. All you need to do is to subscribe to my RSS (or via Email) and leave your contact details at the contest page. Once you have done that, you will be automatically in for the upcoming weekly draws.

Thanks to hosting sponsor

Hosting sponsor for this contest is my good friend Arstan Jusupov of Jusupov.com. You may subscribe to his blog here.

P.S This post has been intentionally locked. Please leave all your comments regarding this contest at this page. I do not want new participants to leave their details all over the place.

Consequences of choosing a wrong strategy for your blog

by Ades on January 16, 2008 in Blogging Tips with 15 Comments

If you are serious about blogging, then I am sure you have a vision (objective) for your blog and you have chosen an appropriate marketing strategy. Setting a vision for your blog and setting goals to achieve that vision is a characteristic of a blog that is set for a long term journey.

On top of your vision, having a proper marketing strategy (or shall we call it marketing identity) for your blog will be one thing that sets you apart from the rest of the blogs. And unfortunately this marketing strategy can actually cause your blog to die (i.e close down without achieving your vision).

Choosing sustainable Marketing Strategy

Marketing strategy here refers to a broad term, it includes your blog’s identity, objective and differentiation strategy. Choosing a sustainable marketing strategy directly affects your blog’s growth and success.

sustainable marketing strategy for blogs For example, JohnChow’s “being evil” is a marketing strategy that he has chosen to project himself to the readers. This strategy allows him to justify his actions and behavior, especially when the action he has taken is somewhat illegal or evil. So far, his strategy is working just fine, but not without some reader dissatisfaction. (I wouldn’t recommend using such strategy, even if it is just for fun).

On the other hand, blogs like CashQuests.com of Kumiko, had chosen controversy as her marketing strategy, which proved to be unsuccessful. She had a great success in the beginning but the success didn’t last (it was not sustainable). CashQuests is barely functional at the moment, after it was sold to an unidentified person in November 2007. It was probably herself who purchased her own blog. Right after the blog was sold on sitepoint, she deactivated the comments (you can post comments but they won’t show up). What a sad end for a blog.

Another blog Nice4Rice was one of my favorite blogs at the time. Nick Ramsay the author had chosen a marketing strategy of reviewing other blogs and “giving free backlinks” to keep the blog stay alive, getting traffic from other blogs, and making money at the same time. But it was not a sustainable strategy either. Nick wrote on his last post:

… I decided on the “free backlink rice giving idea” and called the site Nice4Rice. Smart thinking, eh?

Unfortunately not. Barely one month later, the DoFollow Movement took off, and before long, everyone was giving away free links. So, I made a promise to myself that if I wasn’t earning at least a dollar a day by the end of three months, I’d pull the plug on it.

… I would only write something once or twice a week, but it would usually take me hours to make each post, and I’d be thinking about what to write for days. In fact, compared to niche websites, it’s so much harder to monetize a blog – at least in my experience.

I understand Nick’s decision, and most probably I would have done the same thing if I was in his place. However, one thing I would do differently is, I would sell the blog or give it to someone else to continue.

How to choose sustainable competitive (marketing) strategy?

So, how to choose a sustainable marketing strategy or competitive strategy in general? Here are some characteristics of a sustainable competitive strategy for blogs.

It should be socially responsible
Your strategy should not harm others, on the blogosphere it refers to taking advantage of others, cheating them, making money by telling them lies…etc. This type of strategy can be successful in the beginning, but in the long run you will have a lot of dissatisfied readers, who will simply won’t believe anything you say. Your credibility will be lost.
It should benefit the reader
Your strategy should bring value to the reader. It shouldn’t be self-centered only. Eg: Nice4Rice had a value in its strategy, it was giving out free backlinks to other blogs.
It should not be technology specific
You shouldn’t build your strategy around one technology alone, because you never know when that technology will be obsolete or affect you adversely. Many blogs which were built around the PageRank system were badly affected when Google punished them.
It should be durable (i.e long-term)
You should choose a strategy that is long-term or at least that can last for a longer period. This is directly related to the next point, which is originality.
It should be original (i.e difficult to copy)
Your strategy should be difficult for others to replicate. The more unique it is, the better it is for you – the more sustainable will be your strategy. (eg. Apple products, particularly iPod vs the other mp3 players).

Incorporating one or more of the above characteristics into your blogging strategy will make it more sustainable and competitive.

Blogging is a very personal industry, that means your personality, your ideas, your thoughts and your writing style will directly affect your blog’s success. So please take them into consideration. In some cases, you might not be able to do anything or it can be difficult to improve (eg. your personality, thoughts and ideas) but in other cases (eg. your writing style) you can improve them fairly easily.

Also your personality is the only thing that makes you different from others, so don’t be afraid to show it. In fact, try to market your personality (especially if you are implementing differentiation strategy).

Finally, I hope you found this post useful. Please let me know your thoughts on different strategies that have been listed above. Any other important characteristics to add to the list? I would also be glad to read your feedbacks on marketing strategies for blogs in general.

Solution for comment-spam in WP based blogs

by Ades on January 15, 2008 in Blogging Tips, WordPress with 7 Comments

Four days ago I asked if anyone knew of any good WP plugin for spam protection. Users InvestorBlogger, Sergio, and Robert Irizarry suggested Spam Karma 2. Thank you guys!

I tried SK2 out and the SPAM has been reduced from over 300 comments per day to about 20 comments per day, which is a tremendous improvement. I would say 20 comments a day is very manageable.

Spam Karma 2

Good thing about Spam Karma 2 is that it allows you to configure it really rigorously. If you are getting too many spam comments you can set most of the filters to “strict”. I left most of them at “normal” state, and even at “normal” state it could reduce the spam from 300 to 20. Below is the preferences page for SK2, click to enlarge.

With Spam Karma, you don’t have to deactivate your Akismet plugin. It works with Akismet plugin just fine and even sends some comments to Akismet for moderation (especially if you set first time commenter’s comments to go for moderation).

Bad Behavior

Another useful plugin is Bad Behavior. This plugin allows you to block commenters from even trying to comment on your blog if they match the spammer criteria. Prevention is better than cure, right? This saying applies to Bad Behavior. Because it prevents bots from harvesting email addresses from your blog, and from auto filling your comment fields if they match bad behavior criteria.

I was not able to install Bad Behavior immediately, because my blog’s table names in the database are different from the default names that are set in WP. However I am planning to figure out a fix for it to install it on my blog. I recommend you to use this plugin if you are using normal default table names in your blog. Especially if you see a growing sign of spam comments in your blog.

Two layers of protection

So with prevention (BB) and cure (SK2 + Akismet), you should be able to eliminate 95% of the spam that your blog receives. Five percent SPAM that you get might pass these plugins because they might be user generated comments. Comments that have links in their signatures, comments that have few words (eg. Cool, thanks! mylinkdot com), comments that are off-topic etc.

Otherwise, I think these plugins are pretty much the solution for any WordPress based blogs that are suffering from comment-spam.

WP Plugin: Make your blog’s search strings SEO friendly

by Ades on January 13, 2008 in WordPress with 16 Comments

wp plugin nice search Nice Search is a WP plugin that makes your blog search “SEO friendly”.

It’s in quotes because normally search results won’t get indexed by search engines, because they are dynamic. Unless of course you store them as a static page in a specific folder in your blog.

But the plugin is still very useful, it makes your search strings “nicer” as the name of the plugin says. As you can see from the screenshot, it turns the normal wordpress search string into /search/keyword format, which is a lot more readable.

Plugin page: http://txfx.net/code/wordpress/nice-search/

Write Pillar Articles, but don’t overdo it (please)!

by Ades on January 12, 2008 in Articles, Blogging Tips with 21 Comments

sample pillar article Don’t you just hate those posts that have too many unnecessary and not important bullet points inside? Writing pillar articles is one thing, but overdoing it is totally opposite.

Writing pillar articles in its true sense will bring you more traffic (Diggs, Stumbles, Reddits, linkbacks), more readers (your blog will be bookmarked more, RSS count will increase) and more advertisers (you will earn more), but overdoing it will have the totally opposite effect. When you overdo it, it sends a message to your readers that you are incompetent and don’t know what you are talking. But before we proceed…

What is Pillar Article?

Pillar articles are complete articles, that start with proper introduction and end with proper conclusion. Body part of the article will contain points, arguments, or sub topics. Usually they are bulleted, numbered, or simply put under separate sub-headings.

It is this part (body) that gets abused. Some bloggers just want to make their article longer, and thus enter all sorts of bullet points, even if the points are insignificant. It’s not the length of the article that counts, it’s the substance, the ingredients of your article that is important. Therefore, do not bother if your article falls short of its intended or desired length. Your article is complete before you add those additional points.

Characteristics of a Pillar Article

Pillar articles have one ore more of the following characteristics:

They are complete articles – have introduction, body, (recommendation), and conclusion parts.
They are usually longer articles – more than 600 words
They offer value to the reader – reader actually benefits from the article
They are original – shows author’s capability and expertise
They are time resistant – not outdated easily, stays true for a longer period
They take long hours to write – author usually spends long hours to research, analyze, deduce and write the article
And most importantly, they are not overdone! ;)

How do you know if you are overdoing it?

Well, when you write an article you will always list the most important points first. This usually happens very fast. You jot them down quickly, then there will be a long pause… then you think… and then you write additional points. Just consider those additional points if they are really important. If you think they are, then include it, if you doubt their importance then you should most probably discard them.

Another way to know if your pillar article is getting out of order is, when you start to consider putting your posts under titles like “60 ways to do this” or “101 ways to do that”. These kind of articles get dug (digged) a lot but I find them pretty useless most of the time.

And finally, human beings are created with built in common sense judgment. That means you know it when you are doing something wrong (come on you know it), and this applies to overdoing your pillar articles as well.

Your say…

I have purposely avoided giving sample posts from other blogs that have overdone their pillar articles. But I think you got the idea what I wanted to say, right? What’s your thoughts on this? Does the length of the article is any importance to you vs the substance?

Have a great weekend!

Losing weight while blogging

by Ades on January 11, 2008 in e-books, Links with 10 Comments

If you have been gaining weight lately (i have), then you should read The Blogger Proof Workout, Vol. 1 loose weight while blogging that was written by Israel of FatManUnleashed.com. Israel had started his blog as the last attempt to loose weight. At the same time, he will be blogging about his progress.

It’s a seven page free ebook that has some innovative workouts that you can do right at your blogging space.

But some rules like “Received email: 5 pushups” wouldn’t work for me, because I get so much of email everyday, if I were to do 5 pushups for every email received, I would have to make mushups the rest of my life non-stop. But I guess the point is, to use your blogging environment to help you loose weight.

It’s an entertaining and funny ebook, look forward to the second volume.

Do you know of any effective anti-spam plugin?

by Ades on January 11, 2008 in Personal, WordPress with 9 Comments

Do any of you guys know of good anti-spam plugin for WP? As you can see from the screenshot to the right, SPAM are really wasting my time. I used to use Peter’s Custom Anti Spam before, it worked fine but I was still getting about 50-100 SPAM comments a day. After that few days ago, I changed to reCAPTCHA. I thought maybe this will reduce the spam, and at the same time I can help translate some books.

But the result was, even more SPAM comments! Now it gets more than 300 SPAM comments a day (see screenshot).

I know this can differ from blog to blog, but is there any effective anti-spam plugin out there? What can you recommend?

Thanks to Sponsor LogoMaid.com

by Ades on January 10, 2008 in Sponsors with 3 Comments

I would like to thank my long time sponsor LogoMaid.com for staying with AdesBlog for another 6 months.

LogoMaid has an amazing collection of 4200 pre-designed logos to choose from, for as low as $29. If you are looking for a logo, be sure to check their collection out. Also, for bloggers, if you are interested to make money, you can sign up for LogoMaid’s affiliate program and start making money. You will earn 25% of the sales, unique logos cost $199, that means you can earn $49 from each unique logo sale. Visit: LogoMaid.com

P.S If you are interested to advertise on AdesBlog, please see the rates here. If you advertise for longer period, you will get great discounts. You can reach me here.

IzeaRank goes live, can it fight PageRank?

by Ades on January 10, 2008 in Trackers with 11 Comments

izea ranks pagerank IzeaRank went live today, a new service that was created as a result of Google’s punishment on blogs and sites that sold text links without no-follow tags on them (my blog was one of them, went from PR7 to PR5).

It’s to be the alternative ranking system to PageRank, besides Alexa, Technorati and Compete.

How it works? Unlike other ranking systems, the RealRank scoring algorithm is public. The system weights blogs 70% on daily unique visitors, 20% by daily active inbound links and 10% by daily page views as reported by ITK. Participants can choose to expose just their RealRank score or expand reporting to include other data such as pageviews and visits.

How good is IzeaRank’s algorithm?

Do you see any weakness in the algorithm? I personally think the algorithm relies too much (70%) on the daily unique visitors. While daily uniques are the one thing that all advertisers are interested in, it’s also very easy to rig (i.e arrange the outcome of by means of deceit) such a system. I think it’s easier to rig IzeaRank than Alexa. Because it heavily relies on daily uniques, and it cannot determine if the unique visitors are coming from legitimate sites or from bots. Because, there are sites that can send you thousands of unique visitors for a few bucks. Of course, these visitors won’t stick on your blog (i.e won’t become your blog readers, or subscribe to your RSS), but your unique visitor stats will definitely skyrocket. And that’s what matters for IzeaRank to rank your site higher in the list.

On the other hand, Google can detect such activities, especially if you are using their Google Analytics on your site.

The real challenge for IzeaRank

Google has a No.1 search engine to back up its PageRank system, what about Izea? Can it back up its RealRank with anything?

Google has the power to include your site in its search index, or kick you out of it. If your blog shows up on the first page of Google’s search results page for a particular important keyword, I am sure many advertisers will be rushing to advertise on your blog. Also if you have a high PR blog, (major) advertisers will be interested to advertise on your blog.

On the other hand, if your blog has PR0 or is nowhere to be seen in the Google’s SERPs, then I don’t think many advertisers will be interested to advertise on your blog. (There are of course exceptions for this, like JohnChow who does not need Google for making money online).

But what I am driving is, can IzeaRank (or RealRank, whatever the name is) actually compete with or replace PageRank? I don’t think so. I think it will become one more stats tool to get a better overall picture of a site. I don’t think it can be used independently. You will still have to consider PageRank, Alexa, Compete, Technorati, RSS Count + IzeaRank to know if the site is doing any good or worth advertising on. For setting your own ad rates, all of them should be considered too.

RealRank tracks only if you want to

Izea’s RealRank won’t track your blog (or site) unless you place a script inside your blog’s HTML. You need to first register for RealRank, then get your script, and place it inside your < head > tags. After which it will start to track your blog’s stats.

I think that’s a major disadvantage, especially for advertisers. Because at the moment, if the advertiser wants to check out any site’s stats, all he needs to do is to, check its PageRank, Alexa Rank, Technorati Rank, and Compete Rank. All of them do not require site owner to install anything. So in that sense, IzeaRank is special.

What’s your thoughts on this new service?

Winner of the Contest, Week 3 of 8

by Ades on January 9, 2008 in Contests with Comments Off

Winner of the “Free Hosting and Domain Name” contest for the Week-3 is Daniel Sadik. Congratulations!