Thoughts

I’ve been on a bit of a anti-commenting binge recently, mainly with the amount of spam coming through - Akismet deals with a good percentage, but I really reached the point where I had to have a commenting policy for all the “Keyword Links” being set by people on variety of my blogs.

These people add their comment invariably just to get a one-way link to their site for SEO purposes - what they forget is that quite often it’s permanent as Maki quite rightly reminds them.

The behaviors this has introduced to get these links are not always healthy for your long term brand management (yes, you yourself are a brand!):

• Only commenting on doFollow blogs (not necessarily a bad thing - it is a form of community!)
• Being the first to comment, but commenting with something completely irrelevant.

Maki explains that it’s not just about getting a link to your site, it’s about opening a dialogue with the author and their readers. People with short term goals tend to cut and paste the same response, or say something irrelevant let me give you an example:

One comment I had this week complained about having to read my blog - quite simply, don’t bother if you’re not interested. Clearly they weren’t interested because their name was something irrelevant like “Bahama Holidays”. Needless to say I deleted it!

I’ll leave you with Maki’s final comment on this:

Think long-term, think relationships and think about getting repeat benefits.

I’ve got to be honest, I’ve not been particularly involved with blogging recently…

Why?

I’ve recently moved house… DIY is not my favourite passion, but when someone has painted AROUND the wardrobes you really (I mean really) don’t have much of a choice!!

So… What’s this post about?

I only really want to post when I’ve found something really, really interesting (if you want to find out what I find interesting, why not subscribe?) and plus I’ve got to the point recently where I’ve avoided all the “WebGuru’s” and “Interent Marketer’s” in my feed reader.

Alright, I know these guru’s are (allegedly) making a fortune from blogging, but most of them are regurgitating the same things:

• Twitter
  I still fail to see how twitter is going to allow me to give up working for a living (I mean who wants to know everytime I scratch myself? - for the minority that do, simply let me know and I’ll give you a call as and when?!?).
• Web 2.0 / Social Networking
  I’ve got a Wordpress Theme (I’ve just bought another one from Chris Pearson that I’ll probably migrate onto this blog soon once i’ve customised it). I will be upgrading to Wordpress 2.5 once I’ve had more of a play with it on one of my niche blogs (and no, I still don’t like it that much - I’ll get used to it I’m sure!).
• The Something for Nothing Brigade
  I also completely agree with Alan Johnson, who made a guest post recently, Instant Riches? Pah! - Not going to happen! You have to put some work in, and so many people don’t want to. A millionnaire overnight for just three clicks of the mouse??

Now the first good thing I came across….

After all that negativity I did find something quite refreshing my Google Reader, a Q&A from Shoemoney . He doesn’t read books, he tells people to write good quality content, doesn’t build email lists, and admits it took him 7 years to make his first $1,000 in a month (he also comes clean on the rumour surrounding his incredibly large penis) - but he is honest and he does make money out of blogging, check him out!

I’ll be back soon as I plough through my Google Reader trying to pull out some of the good stuff from the rubbish!

Knowing your Readers, is so, so important…. As I said in my last post you should consider all of your website readers/subscribers to be clients of yours. If clients don’t get what they want they go elsewhere!

I recently made a guest post for Easy Wordpress along similar lines where I said:

Of course you know who reads your blog - it’s:

• 22 people in Google Reader,
• 32 people using Firefox Live Bookmarks,
• 90 people on Technorati,
• and another 30 get it delivered on Feedburner email…

I’ll ask the question again… Do you know WHO reads your blog?
The answer is probably no, unless they comment regularly.

I genuinely believe this, most people won’t know who is reading their site - they’ll just be a bunch of statistics - but are they the right statistics?

Do you know if they keep coming back because they enjoy what you write, or because they’ve accidently set your blog as their homepage?

But getting them to talk and interact is a whole different ball game, as I said in my post - you need to make it easy for them to comment and make it worthwhile as well!

Misti @ Pureblogging recognises this as well, and gives some excellent methods for getting to know your readers. Starting with just asking them!!

A worthwhile read about getting to know your readers!

I’ve been out of the blogging loop for while, with moving house, decorating and the like. The only blogging I’ve really done in recent weeks is for one of my niche blogs that has a seasonal feel to it for most of the year.

So I’m back and I thought I’d have a dig through my Google Reader, I have 640 starred items (and 1000+ unread items) in there, dating back as far as May 2007! I’m currently debating whether I should just share an RSS feed of things that I star or share - whether I should just unstar the lot, or whether I should start to have some themed posts around some of them.

What would you do? Unless anyone gives me a better idea expect to see some really “linky” posts in the near future across all of my blogs!!!

Why you should think about Affiliate Marketing!

I personally have always believed in affiliate marketing and one of the market leaders Yaro was the reason I started this blog. It’s been a quiet launch - soft if you like, and you’ll have noticed down the side (at the moment at least - if you’re reading this in a couple of months time the theme may have changed!), we’ve got a bit of Adsense. However a post by Sugarrae (The Lazy SEO Vs. The Lazy Monetizer) made me think about this some more…….

Sugarrae classifies some sites as being on “website welfare” where:

Google will give you a handout for sitting on your ass and not working to monetize the site yourself.

Photo: luismi1985

I run several types of site, I’ve tried to classify them here:

1. Company
   One site is a fully fledged company in its own right. I wouldn’t let Adsense near it - which probably tells you that I agree with a lot of what Sugarrae says!
2. Affiliate Sites
   I’ve got one or two of these - one of them is particularly “seasonal” it’s quiet at the minute, but when in season it’s ridiculously busy. These are the properly monetized sites that Sugarrae is talking about!
3. Newsy Niche Adsense
   A couple of the others are “newsy”, I’m not sure what I could promote in the way of affiliate marketing on those - so they’re kind of Adsense based for a reason, what’s on them changes on a daily basis and they don’t have particularly associated products - the odd DVD or book maybe? They’re not in my opinion “website welfare”, because I have to work on them to get the context sensitive ads in.
4. “Made for Adsense” / “Website Welfare”
   In the early days I built a couple of “made for Adsense” sites, some of them are really atrocious and I just renew the domain names. But I do get Sugarrae’s point - I will change them in the near future, they’re just not a priority at the moment - these are definite “Webmaster Welfare”.

Can “Made for Adsense” / “Website Welfare” Site Make Money?

Of course they can!

The scary part of the above is that one of the “Made for Adsense” sites is bad - really, really bad. You want to know how bad? I didn’t even bother to change the logo - so instead of a logo at the top it still says “Upload your logo here” - now that is really bad! What’s scary about it? It makes money - and regularly makes this money!!

But they don’t make a lot, and they require regular traffic, and lots of it!

You’ll often find that a client (any visitor to your site should really be considered a client!), clicks an Adsense link, goes away to the site they really want (which is being advertised) and never returns to your site - hence you require a continuous stream of new clients. Compare this to the Newsy Adsense sites, they have regular readers who login every day to see if there’s more news, or even subscribe to the feed so they always know what’s been added to the site! Keep the content good and hold their interest they’ll become clients for life, add to you clients daily and soon you’ll have a large group of clients, get them to interact and suddenly you’ve got yourself a little community around your chosen subject!

So why don’t I make more “Made for Adsense” sites, if they make money?

This is a tough call, I could have an army of 300 sites like this, all bringing in 20 pence per day in Adsense, or a monetized site like my seasonal one which can comfortably make a couple of hundred pounds per month “in-season”. Wouldn’t that be nice? There’s kind of a moral ethic too, I take a bit of pride in making the net a better place (that probably sounds a bit flimsy here, but what I mean is I want people to enjoy the sites I put up and get something out of it!).

The halfway house is the “Newsy Niche Adsense” sites, they are about areas that are genuinely of interest to me - so I’m reading the news about them, know about the products and can talk confidently about them for hours. Writing for them is easy, however - you can’t have many of them, it can really eat into your time - and you could easily lose your passion!

Is this how everyone feels?

Mark @ MeAndMyDrum has been pondering between a few affiliate networks and the contextual-style ads of Google Adsense recently. Luckily one of the leading Internet Marketers - Garry Conn, dropped him a few notes on the subject in the comments section of the post - these are definitely worth a read! Garry’s sites I believe are much like my newsy sites, I don’t believe he auto-generates them (he may tell me different!) - he says:

By default, Adsense is the easiest way for me to make money online. It doesn’t require me to apply any kind of sales tactics, it doesn’t require me to do anything special. I just write what I write and because Google Adsense is so full of advertisers, 9 out of 10 times, I’ll have ads that match my content perfectly.

With that being said, Adsense doesn’t make a lot. It takes traffic. Traffic is a huge challenge for anyone.

He goes on to discuss a few affiliate networks and what success he’s had with them!

Steve @ PureBlogging has been discussing something similar recently - how some bloggers are in it for the Long Term and others the Short Term, building a site quickly - stuffing it with advertising and then selling it because those ads made lots of money in a single month - this certainly isn’t my idea of growing a site. But he does provide a good example of possible income from collaborative blogging. I’ll be contacting Steve to discuss this.

Do you have any views on this? What sort of sites do you prefer to see on the net, and to write yourself?

This is something I’ve done on occasion, but won’t be doing anymore after reading Michael Martine’s comments on it.. I completely see the point on his change to ban keywords in names for comments - I will be adopting this on all of my blogs and incorporating this into the comment policy in the next few days!

Why?
Mainly after getting a comment from “Teeth Whitener recently and not being sure whether to address them as Teeth, or Mr/Ms Whitener!

Do I need to say any more?

I’ve got a couple of 1,000 unread posts in my Google Reader and I need to wade through at least a few of them - I’ve got Gears so I can read them offline - but most days - it just ain’t happening. So here’s a brief look at what I starred over the last few days!

Should You Try Affiliate Marketing?
I really liked this post (and not just because Chris was motivated by Yaro - where this blog all started). I know for a fact I make more out of my affiliate income during the seasons for my particular niche’s than I do out of Adsense - so why do I keep Adsense up? It’s a daily dribble of cash, but sometimes I really wonder if it’s worth it.
Chris & Yaro - thanks for motivating me to look at this again!

Do You Lead or Follow?
Yep, it’s that Chris Garrett again, I’m just really enjoying some of what Chris has been writing recently! I probably don’t generate a hell of a lot of new and outlandish ideas here, I do that in real life all day! What I try to achieve here is the learning curve I’m on to get to somewhere where my blog is making a whole lot more cash!
If you’re on a similar journey - why not become a guest blogger like Damien Riley

Booking People by the Hour?
Not like that!! We’ve seen and used rentacoder, elance etc. (both with mixed experiences). But this site feels a little bit different, within minutes of browsing peopleperhour.com I was looking at virtual assistants in my area that could pick up some of my workload, and had find a number of projects I wouldn’t mind embarking on myself - this could prove dangerous really with me offloading work one way and taking more on in the other direction! Thanks to Enterprise Nation for pointing this one out!

Becoming a Blogger
The way of dreams a fortunes? Not quite but it can work for you! AdesBlog, pointed me in the direction of a project by our old friend Yaro! Where he takes you through the very basics of setting up a Wordpress blog all for free - the only thing it would appear Yaro gets from it is more traffic, and subscribers to his work!

If you think I’m missing something big, then why not let me know about your feed in the comments - you never know you may make it with these guys soon!?

If you live outside the US or Japan, you can expect not to earn anything more from referrals to Adsense (note that’s just Adsense referrals for the time being).

A few people have reported this, but the official post is here stating that in these regions it just hasn’t performed as expected (maybe we’ve all got Adsense accounts in those regions?).

If you’ve made serious money from referrals and are living in one of the regions it’s been removed from I’d be interested to hear from you!

It’s a moral thing I guess, but to some it could be misconstrued as fraud or deception, I’m talking about Faking your FeedCount, I’ve got to be honest, I rarely check my feedCount for any of my blogs, so I wouldn’t even know if they were doing good or bad!

I can see the logic some people might apply in faking the FeedCount on a new blog, but really is it worth it? You may just end up losing credibility, particularly if you later correct it because either a) somebody spots it, or b) an advertiser wants proof of your subscribers before they pay you!

We’ve talked about installing FeedBurner before, but I simply can’t see the point in faking subscriber counts, simply write good, compelling and unique content and you’ll find that number goes up anyway!!

I write several blogs, and the number has increased several fold this year, looking at my list of projects for next year it could get even bigger!

But is blogging on multiple blogs a good idea? I’m not talking about guest posting on other people’s blogs I hasten to add, I’m talking about actual blogs you administer manage and post more than 75% of the content to.

This is all Damien Riley’s fault that I’m pondering this with a pint in my hand at 5pm on a the last Sunday of the year! He asked the question was having multiple blogs worth the effort? In my opinion yes, although with the ones I may add over the coming year maybe I’ll disagree.

The reason I say this is that I had to split my personal blog to create this one! Posts about Paddington bear being under investigation really didn’t sit too well with discussions about PageRank, and Bumpzee. There’s probably a tonne of content over there that I haven’t ported over (just to prevent duplicate content penalties really!). I still post on my personal blog semi-regularly but full-time-blogger.com has become a focus place for my online activities!

I do regularly post on two other blogs, both news related (one sport, one health) but this is little more than commenting on stories I’ll likely be reading anyway, so I don’t consider it a chore in any way shape or form!

How many do you have, and do you ever feel diluted?