Written on 3/22/2007 at 1:04 am by

How To Improve Your Blog Using Feedburner

Filed Under: RSS

This post has been submitted by Neil Patel. Neil is co-founder and CTO of ACS ) and writes regularly on social media issues through the company’s blog, Pronet Advertising.

The main reason most people use Feedburner is because it shows how many RSS subscribers they have. That might be a valuable metric to keep track of but there are certainly more things that can be done with Feedburner. By spending just 10 minutes a week analyzing certain Feedburner stats, it is possible to get an idea of how people are actually interacting with your blog so you can improve it.

If you look at the following image, you can see the most popular blog post I have written was: “Making your content Del.icio.us”. That post was written late on a Friday night, few people linked to it, and it did not do well on social sites like Del.icio.us. However, my RSS subscribers loved it.

Itemuse

The next image shows the least popular blog posts on Pronet Advertising. Many of these less popular blog posts were called ‘catchup’, which is a roundup of weekly news items. These catchup posts received a decent amount of visitors but it seems that the RSS subscribers weren’t sharing the love. After I noticed the trend I stopped writing them causing (partially) my RSS subscription rate to increase by roughly 16% in 30 days. Granted, there are probably other factors that caused the increase however I am sure that not writing those posts was a contributing factor.

[Read more...]

Written on 3/21/2007 at 9:41 pm by

How to Leverage the Traffic of an A-List Blog

Filed Under: Blog Promotion

This Guest Post was written by Wendy Piersall from eMoms at Home.

When I look back over the last 11 months of how my own blog has grown, it’s safe to say that the person who has had the most influence in my traffic and growth has been Darren. Getting to meet him at Elite Retreat was incredibly cool, and at dinner one night we chatted about his Group Writing Projects. I mentioned that they had made a massive impact on creating long-term readers, links, and was the key to several very strong partnerships I have made along the way (especially when I first started out). The conversation got me thinking about all of the ways I have leveraged the audience of this site to grow my own blog.

Big blogs wouldn’t be big if they didn’t have a big audience – and on ProBlogger, Darren has created massive opportunities for you to share his fame, traffic and exposure.

Group Writing Projects are the easiest and best way to tap Darren’s audience. Here are my tips for getting the most out of these week-long traffic festivals:

  • Get your entry in the first day
  • Spend more time on your headline than you do on your post
  • Make a splash by submitting your best work
  • Keep your post on the short side, preferably under 600 words
  • Make it easily scan-able with subheads and bullets
  • Spend 30 minutes or so each day visiting other submissions, and be sure to comment
  • Actively link to the posts that are most relevant to your own blog
  • Stay active in the project the entire week

You don’t need to wait for a Group Writing Project to start tapping each others’ resources. Other ways to leverage the ProBlogger audience are:

  • Visit the bloggers that leave comments here, and consider introducing yourself to them
  • Link to each other frequently – Darren’s readers are a goldmine of knowledge!
  • Join Darren’s MyBlogLog Community, and use his widget to find others in your niche (I ALWAYS click the mom avatars!!)
  • Comment on his readers’ blogs, letting them know you found them through ProBlogger
  • Answer each others’ questions in the comments on this site
  • Praise each other in the comments on this site (I assure you, that will get you noticed!!)
  • Subscribe to the blogs Darren links to and leverage their traffic in the same way

Blogging is one of the few marketing mediums on the planet in which it’s not only ok to try and steal readers, it actually helps everyone when you do. Darren has a vested interest in your success – and has created a community on this site that can help you as much as he can directly. Leverage it to your advantage and watch everything grow.

Edit: Sorry everyone – somehow I turned comments off of this post! I’ve turned them back on now. *sheepish grin* -Wendy

Written on 3/21/2007 at 4:00 pm by

Elite Retreat – Day 2

Filed Under: Pro Blogging News

Elite Retreat continued today with some more great sessions from Lee Dodd, Kris Jones and Guy Kawasaki (plus one from me which I’ll let others decide the ‘greatness’ of).

Keep up with the sessions again with Wendy and Kris at:

My Session (Wendy and Kris)

Lee’s Session (Wendy and Kris)

Kris’s Session (Wendy)

Guy’s Session (Wendy and Kris)

Some of those links still to come.

Written on 3/21/2007 at 6:51 am by

ProBlogger Meetup – New York – The Details

Filed Under: ProBlogger Site News

Ok – I’ve got the details of the ProBlogger Meetup in New York. Sorry for the delay in this but we wanted to get a great location. We’ve also had to change the date to one day later than previously mentioned.

The details are:

THURSDAY, March 29, 6:30pm to 9:30pm at:
Connolly’s Pub and Restaurant
121 West 45th St (between 6th and Broadway)
(212) 597-5126 phone

http://www.connollyspubandrestaurant.com

*please note this bar has three locations in the area so use the address above.

The night is being sponsored by Text Link Ads who are generously providing an open top shelf bar and food for three hours.

So if you’re in the New York area (and for those of you who have said you’re flying in for it) please come along, say g’day and have a drink with me. I’d love to meet you and would appreciate it if you could pass this information along to any other New York Bloggers who you think might be interested in a fun night.

Written on 3/21/2007 at 4:46 am by

AdSense Referrals Beta Test Launched – CPA Ads

Filed Under: Adsense, Affiliate Programs

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).

Picture 1-2

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 3/21/2007 at 1:06 am by

Do Outbound Links Matter for SEO (and more)

Filed Under: Search Engine Optimization

Reader QuestionsCraig 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.

[Read more...]

Written on 3/20/2007 at 9:47 am by

Elite Retreat Update

Filed Under: ProBlogger Site News

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 3/20/2007 at 1:20 am by

What have I learned from Darren Rowse and his Blog?

Filed Under: Miscellaneous Blog Tips

Today’s guest post is from Chris Garrett from chrisg.com.

When Darren asked if I would like to guest post on ProBlogger 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 ProBlogger? Add your thoughts in the comments …

Read more from Chris Garret at his blog chrisg.com.

Written on 3/19/2007 at 1:54 pm by

Blog Translations: The Next Web Frontier

Filed Under: Blogging Tools and Services, General, Writing Content

By

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. [Read more...]