New Blog Launch: NonToxin.com

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Launched on 2nd April: NonToxin.com

20th November 2007: Maki at DoshDosh.com made an open challenge to his readers: start 1 flagship blog per month. 1 blog per month can become a logistical nightmare after 3-4 months. But I knew I wanted to open my own blog network.

So I spent the first quarter of 2008 putting systems in place so that I could create 1 blog per month without getting overwhelmed. I created systems and procedures on:

• Creating the blog and its design
• Having a consistent publishing strategy
• Automating marketing and reaching and touching the most number of people
• Monetizing the blogs

I’ll be posting parts of my procedures and systems in the coming weeks. But in this post, I would like to tell you that the first blog was launched exactly 7 days ago!
The name of the blog is: Non Toxin. The purpose of that blog is: to downgrade information and upgrade wisdom. And to never write about things that are hot today but won’t be remembered tomorrow. No Tech. No Gossip. No Politics. If the blog post doesn’t make you smarter, it shouldn’t be published!

Would you like an insiders look at how a blog does in its first week of launch?

1st week statistics for NonToxin.com:

• 2 Posts (1 of them just published 17 minutes back)
• 18 comments
• 839 unique visitors

All in all, its a good start. And I haven’t even started promoting the blog heavily. The only things I’ve done is:

• Announce the blog on 1 forum that I love
• Added a small link to a newsletter of mine

Besides that, one of my friends also submitted the first post to StumbleUpon.com that bought in about 106 visitors.

Whats the next plan of action?

• Cruise the waters till 5-6 posts are published on the blog
• Then jumpstart blog promotion

PS: I would appreciate it if you can hop on to the new blog and post a comment on the top most post if you like its content. As you know, having more comments on a new blog builds social proof and helps a lot in showing that its a busy blog and other people like it. Thanks!

Comments (4)

BarCamp Mumbai

Sorry for the late notice.

I’ll be attending the BarCamp Mumbai tomorrow (29th March).A  BarCamp Mumbai will also have a BlogCamp Mumbai session for which I may give a brand new presentation.

If you’re in or around Mumbai, do plan to visit it.A  Its a free event. A  And these camps and conferences are usually a lot of fun.A  You’ll get to meet some great bloggers and entrepreneurs.

Comments (0)

Steve Jobs Helps BlogClout Find Focus

Steve Jobs on Focus:

“Apple is a $30 billion company, yet we’ve got less than 30 major products. I don’t know if that’s ever been done before. Certainly the great consumer electronics companies of the past had thousands of products. We tend to focus much more. People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully.

“I’m actually as proud of many of the things we haven’t done as the things we have done. The clearest example was when we were pressured for years to do a PDA, and I realized one day that 90% of the people who use a PDA only take information out of it on the road. They don’t put information into it. Pretty soon cellphones are going to do that, so the PDA market’s going to get reduced to a fraction of its current size, and it won’t really be sustainable. So we decided not to get into it. If we had gotten into it, we wouldn’t have had the resources to do the iPod. We probably wouldn’t have seen it coming.”

(This is a long post… but you deserve an explanation on what is up with BlogClout…)A 

Not posting consistently is the biggest mistake a blogger can make.A  Because when you don’t post consistently, most people don’t complain.A  They just leave.A  And to get these people, you have to work harder than before.

So then why am I not posting consistently over here at BlogClout?A  It has to do with Steve Jobs’s advice.A  Let me explain the whole situation to you:

1.

This blog was started to pre-launch a new blog application.A  I was working on an application similar to “BlogRush” where you could exchange links to blog posts by other bloggers.A  But internal tests showed that the click through rate for the application was dismal.

So I and my team started working on how to improve the click through rate.A  We were testing a feature where the links shown on your blog would be “relevant” - our logarithm would match the title of your page with blog post titles.A  And show only those blog posts that matched well with your page title.

We were also testing on making the post links integrate well with each and every blog.A  Instead of coming out with a widget, we intended to replace the “Related Posts” feature that many blogs have.

But while we were working on these features, John Reese went ahead and came out with BlogRush.A  (It was just one of those things… 2 people on 2 different ends of the world working on a similar idea… and he beat me to it.)

Its my opinion that there is no place for a second BlogRush.A  And so the BlogClout application was scrapped.

2.

After the launch of a competing application, we scrapped the launch of our BlogClout application.A  But I kept this blog going on for some time (and the response was pretty good).A  The problem was… all the initial motivation was gone.

And better projects attracted my attention.

I needed to focus on those other projects (especially one other project that shows great potential and I think will help more people than I could ever help with BlogClout).A  And so I gave very little time to BlogClout.

3.

Good news: The project I’ve been working on since the past few months is about to be launched in the next couple of weeks time.

4.

So what will happen to BlogClout?

After the launch of the other project, I should have some more free time.A  And I plan to pick things up with BlogClout.A  And share some very new cool ideas that I’ve tested that I know no one else is talking about.

But this time, I plan to do things well.A  I plan to bring on another blogger to write for BlogClout.A  So that you’ll have a wider base of ideas.A  And you’ll never be left in a lurch if my attention goes to some other project in the future too.

Action Summary:

If you run a blog and always wanted to share your blogging successes and failures, contact me.A  I am looking for one or two co-bloggers for BlogClout.A  (Its a paid position.)

Comments (7)

Blogger Interview: with Jon of FreelanceFolder.com

In December, I had interviewed Jon of FreelanceFolder.com. Jon had successfully setup a “group blog” - something that I had plans for.

But that interview didn’t see the day of light because I’ve been busy with another project of mine and have neglected BlogClout a bit <shame-on-me>.

Better late than never - right? So here is the interview with Jon:

1. Can you give a quick introduction of who you are and what you do?

Hello, I’m Jon from Montreal Canada, my blog is located at SmartWealthyRich.com and I also run a multi-author FreelanceFolder.com with a bunch of really skilled writers

I’m a freelance writer, blogger, designer, and a musician.

2. Why did you start Freelance Folder? Did you have any specific goal in mind before you started blogging?

I wanted to start another blog and a multi-author blog was the way to go. I really enjoy starting conversations and networking with other bloggers, so after seeing pretty good results with my first blog I thought the next logical step was to start a multi-author blog.

I didn’t have any specific goal in mind before I started blogging. In fact I had no idea what WordPress was, I just downloaded it 10 months ago, installed it on my server, and voila. Now I have goals, but back then I honestly had no idea what I was getting myself into - hehe

3. How has blogging changed your life?

Well a lot of things happened since I started my first blog. I quit my day job about 3 years ago leaving behind the security of the paycheck every 2 weeks. I now work my own hours, get to improve my writing skills and meet a bunch of cool people online, some of which became business partners.

4. What is the “one” ingredient or idea that played the biggest role in your blogging success?

‘It’s all about the conversations’

That’s sorta like my motto. I just love to engage in discussions with my readers, that’s the single most important thing for me. I always try to write posts that will make people want to leave a comment and connect with other readers. I love it when my readers share their own tips and tricks and give advices, that rocks. It’s all about the conversations.

5. How do you find and attract writers to write for Freelance Folder?

I first posted about it on my own blog which at the time had around 300 readers, and got a really good response. You could say I used this blog as a launch pad for FreelanceFolder. I simply asked my readers if they’d be interested in partnering up with me on a new blog. Some wanted to write on a regular basis while others were interested in writing just a post or two.

I also sent a couple of e-mails to fellow bloggers, but that didn’t work so well. Now I don’t really go out and look for writers, I just let people know I accept guest posts and I put up a ‘write for us’ page on the blog, and I usually receive 2-5 e-mails per week, which is really nice.

6. How do you generate traffic to your blog?

I’m really active on social sites like StumbleUpon (my fave), Digg, Reddit, Del.Icio.Us, and other smaller niche sites. It takes some time to build a profile, but it’s really worth it. I can spend anywhere between half-an-hour to 3 hours per day on social media sites just reading, bookmarking, subscribing, commenting, networking.

7. Whats your secret of getting so many of your posts on the front page of Digg?

I’m probably the one who knows the least what he’s doing. It never really happened I wrote a post especially for the Digg crowd, I know some people specialize in that, but I don’t. I just write and don’t really care about making sure my posts are ‘Digg-worthy’. Pretty much anything can make the Digg frontpage anyway.

One thing I do though is when I see a post is getting some traction on StumbleUpon, I’ll add the Digg button right away. It’s called the ‘domino effect’

• Stumblers see the Digg button and vote your post
• Diggers come to your site and bookmark your post on Del.icio.us
• Del.icio.us users Stumble and Digg your post
• and so on…

8. How do you monetize your blog?

I use different services like text-link-ads (not on FreelanceFolder though) and Google Adsense, but these two don’t generate much revenue. I prefer doing private ad deals. I regularly send e-mails to potential advertisers and just ask them if they’d be interested in advertising on my blog(s), sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes advertisers contact me first.

I also recommend services and products to fellow bloggers (hosting for example) and use different affiliate programs.

9. What does your average day look like? How do you budget your time?

I usually go to sleep really late and wake up… yes, late. I find my most creative time is between 11pm and 3:30am.

Here’s what a ‘typical day’ looks like:

• wake up
• make coffee
• check e-mails
• start reading blogs
• leave for the recording studio (I’m a guitarist)
• check e-mails again
• write/blog/brainstorm
• work on projects for clients (design, paid writing gigs)
• spend some time on social sites
• go out, take some time off
• sleep

It’s like that pretty much 7 days a week

10. Any product / service of yours that you would like my blog readers to know about?

I’m always looking for more work, whether it’s to design or customize a blog, write blog posts or articles, or if you simply need advices about blogging, I may be able to help.

Editors note: If you need to setup a blog - Jon is the guy to go to!

Comments (6)

The Microsoft Strategy

Its been a long long time since I’ve posted here.A  (I’ll tell you what I’ve been upto very soon.)A  Because its been a long time, I wanted to start out with a super-duper stellar post.A  But thats just delaying things.A  So let me start out with a hypothetical brainstorming post that will likely not help you unless you are one of the top execs at Microsoft.

Microsoft recently made a bid for Yahoo.A  Their reasoning is: to beat Google’s 75% dominance in the search and online advertising market, they have to partner up with Yahoo or they’ll never become numero uno.

I think thats a disastrous move.A  Two stale companies can’t usually beat a nimble company.A  Just like you-and-me can’t team up on LeBron James and defeat him. We have to improve our skills first.

So how can Microsoft improve their skills?A 

To know the answer, you have to ask one more question: how did Google achieve the #1 position online?

1. Google created a search engine that gave out far better results without any clutter

2. Google then created or bought ad space or partnered with others so that their ads can be shown.A  (While you search / while you check emails / while you surf other websites.)

So lets evaluate each of Google’s dominant fields and see how to beat them.

Search Engine DominanceA 

I’m of the opinion that there can be no better system than listing search results on the basis of how many other websites link to yours.A  Links are the votes that determine online popularity.A  The only other option is to chase the idea of human voting to determine popularity.A  And for that, Microsoft will have to buy StumbleUpon.com from eBay or create something similar.

Advertising Dominance

Why is Microsoft lagging in their online ad sales?A  Because they don’t have as big a reach as Google.A  And so most merchants only use Google Adwords.A  What can Microsoft do?A  Use Google API to match up with Google.A  By using Google API, Microsoft can come up with a “one-click-import” feature where merchants and advertisers can import their Google Adwords campaigns to Microsoft instantly!

Microsoft can then work on their “reach” to one-up Google.

Email Dominance

How to beat Gmail?A  There are 2 ways to come up with a better email system.

i. keyword@username.MSN.com email addresses.A  By allowing people unlimited email aliases, they can have better control over spam.A  For eg: if I wanted to register at WSJ.com - I would give my email id to them as: wsj@ankesh.msn.com.

ii. Pay people to email.A  Share the ad revenue that Microsoft earns via email ads with the users.

Browser Dominance

Because FireFox uses Google as the default search engine, Google has bagged a big share of browser searches without their own browser.A A  Microsoft has to open up their browsers so that others can create extensions and add-ons for IE browser too.

And as long as Microsoft is doing that - they might as well allow people to create extensions for MSN messenger too.A  And maybe people can come up with extensions for the desktop too?

Ads on Other Websites

Two things Microsoft can do:

i. Buy WordPress.com to compete with Blogger.com

ii. Give a bigger share of revenue to publishers than what Google gives.A  And lower the minimum payment threshold from $100 to $20.A  And pay on a weekly basis.A  Improve the payment terms and lots of publishers that use Google Adsense will move to Microsoft.

Aquisitions

Instead of Yahoo, there are other better properties to buy.

i. WordPress.com

ii. ebay.A  By buying eBay instead of Yahoo - Microsoft would also get StumbleUpon.com (the only other technology that hold the promise to make their search engines better than Googles), Skype.com (a far better instant messenger) and PayPal.com (an obvious match with their ad program)!

iii. Facebook.A  To extend their advertisers reach.

Comments (10)

The Pause Before the Run

Hello guys!

Just a short note to thank you for your patience.

There hasn’t been a whole lot of new content on BlogClout. A  And I’m going out of town and will be back only by 17th of January.A  So there may not be any more content till then either.A  But you’ll be reading some awsome posts after that.

• I’m starting a new blog and will chronicle its progress over here
• You’ll also be reading a few more interviews of some prolific and famous bloggers

So stay tuned.

Comments (2)

Blogger Interview: with Skellie Wag

Because I’ve been having problems finding time writing interesting blog posts, I thought of an idea: why not interview interesting bloggers instead? And so, without further ado, here is my first interview with a prolific blogger: Skellie Wag. Who started blogging just 4 months ago and grew her blog to 1800+ RSS subscribers in 4 short months.

1. Can you give a quick introduction of who you are and what you do?

I’m Skellie from (currently) sunny Melbourne, Australia. My own blog is Skelliewag.org. I’m also a staff writer at a number of other blogs I’m proud to be a part of: ProBlogger, Daily Blog Tips, Daily Bits and (soon) Freelance Switch. I’m trying to steal Leo Babauta’s crown of ‘Most Prolific Blogger’ ;-).

2. Why did you start blogging? Did you have any specific goal in mind before you started blogging?

I started Skelliewag.org because the process of building popular blogs and websites has always fascinated me, but it’s something nobody I know has an interest in. In a lot of ways, Skelliewag is a social outlet for me to have conversations about something I can’t really talk about with the people I know — conversations in the form of blog posts, comments and in talking to readers.

I work in a pretty boring job and another goal for me has been to find a way to make enough money doing something I love (blogging) that I could transition away from that job. As it’s part-time, I don’t have the challenge of making a full-time income, which makes the goal more attainable. I also wanted to achieve this without using traditional methods. The freelance blogging I’ve been doing has moved me towards that goal, but I’m not quite there yet.

3. How has blogging changed your life?

It’s changed the way I use my time. You discover that being bored is a luxury. Let’s just say, I don’t watch much TV. One thing I’ve made a commitment not to take time from is my family and my social life. I make time by changing the way I use time when I’m doing my own thing.

So far, I’ve been pretty successful in a short period of time. I think that’s made me more confident of my own abilities and myself in general.

It’s also changed my life financially. While I’m not well-off by any means (first and foremost I’m a student), I’m moving towards the point where I can support myself — if I live frugally — doing something I love. It will be a while before I get there, but it’s certainly had a profound effect on me.

4. What is the “one” ingredient or idea that played the biggest role in your blogging success?

Giving without expecting to receive has been something that makes many of my readers feel really positive towards me. I’ve made it my policy never to ignore a request for help/advice, to engage with commenters and to help everyone as much as I can. In return, I have a wonderful network of people who recommend me highly to others. Without them I don’t think the blog would even be worth interviewing me about.

5. What is your secret to writing such terrific posts consistently? Do you have any writing tips?

Thanks for the compliment :-). The great thing about writing for the web is that writing for people who scan actually encourages a really efficient writing style. My strategy is to encapsulate all the points I want to make in one sentence or a few words each, then flesh out each point in any order I choose. I also have a habit of writing the introduction to my articles last. Starting is a lot easier when you start in the middle! I then turn the summary of each point into a sub-heading or bolded text.

It’s not the most beautiful way to write, but it’s clear and quick. I think what you say is always more important than how you say it. You’ll notice that a lot of the world’s top bloggers who are worth emulating got there not because they’re great writers who abide by all the rules, but because they have something profound to say. I’m more interested in striving for profound ideas than writing a neat turn of phrase.

6. How do you attract traffic to your blog?

When the blog was younger the emphasis needs to be in sourcing out your target audience. During that phase, I was trying to write a lot of guest-posts for popular blogs, to bring in new traffic streams.

Once you have traffic to work with, I’m realizing that the focus needs to shift to social media and links other people create, rather than links you make. My traffic building strategy relates mainly to writing the best content I can — posts that my readers will appreciate, firstly, but posts with some level of attraction for social media, too. Over time, it becomes less a question of finding new audiences and more about utilizing the audience you already have.

7. Any product / service of yours that you would like my blog readers to know about?

I’m always happy to take on more writing work, either writing blog posts, sales pages or ‘About’ pages. The latter has been in high demand lately, which I think is fantastic. I think your ‘About’ page is the single most important part of your blog, because it’s the site where a new visitor can be persuaded to become a reader.

If you want to hire an A-grade writer whose posts spread faster than fire online, contact Skellie.

Comments (7)

How I Got a $1,000 Site Made for Free

“Success doesn’t depend on how many resources you have. But how resourceful you can be.” - Tony Robbins.

Let me tell you a personal success story of mine today.

I am a young naive kid still in high school. Its the days of Napster (remember that music sharing software that rocked the internet?) And I have an idea for a website.A  The idea is simple

Can we napsterize advertising?

1. Send an email to members with 12-15 ads in each email. Each member can receive a maximum of 5 emails per day.

2. For every email that a member reads, send her ad to 10 other people.

3. Let members refer their friends to this service. For every email a friend reads, send the referring member’s ad to 1 more person.

4. Have the referral network 3 levels deep.

For eg:

• A Member A signs up and his ad is sent to 10 people for every email he reads.
• A He promotes and gets Member B to signup under him. For every email member B reads, Member A’s ad is sent to 1 more person.
• A Member B promotes and gets Member C to signup. For every email Member C reads, Member A and Member B’s ads are read by one more person.
• A Member C promotes the service and Member D signs up. For every email Member D reads, Member A, B and C’s ads are read by one more person.

The idea seemed brilliant to me. But I’m a kid with no resources. And no credit card. And the idea would require at least $1,000 - $1,500 to bring to life!

I’ve designed a couple of websites before on freelance basis. Which would allow me to pay for my own hosting. But there was no way I could hire a programmer and pay him $1,500 to create the entire site for me!

So What Could I do?

What I did was tried learning programming on my own. That was a big disaster. I soon gave that up. But not before I’d wasted a couple of months. (Mini lesson: Play on your strengths. Outsource everything else.)

I could always borrow money from my parents. But I didn’t want to do that. (In the end, I did end up borrowing $10 from my Dad to pay for the domain name.)

Instead, here is what I did. I logged on to the ICQ chat network and started finding programmers over there. I asked a simple question to all of them:

“What would it take for you to create a site for me for free? What could I do in return?”

The first 7 or 8 programmers let me know that they didn’t work that way. But one project manager working for a big programming company in Ukraine made me an offer:

If I found 2 paying clients for him, he would assign a junior programmer to create my website for free!

I then spent the next few days contacting anyone and everyone I knew and asked them another simple question:

“Do you know someone who knows someone who needs programming work done?”

I did manage to find 2 paying clients for the Ukranian company. And they did keep their word and create the website for me.

And within the first month, that website became moderately successful. Attracting close to 540 members in its first 3 weeks.

Would you like to see a snapshot of the website?

MaxMailer.com - now defunct.

Every time I’ve told this story to others, I’ve always been asked: why is MaxMailer.com no longer functional?

The answer is embarrassing: because I was young and stooopid.

I ran it for a few months. And the site was profitable from week 1 - as I had very little monetary investment in it. But then, I started having hosting problems. The site grew too big too fast. And my servers would go down every other day. At the same time, I moved to USA. So I gave up on it.

If I would have stuck with it, I could have sold it off for a lot of moolah!

Action Summary:

• Think Barter. You can always borrow or barter for resources.
• Ask for help.
• Play on your strengths. Do what you are good with. Or else, you’ll just end up wasting time.
• Just do it. Take action. Keep on moving.

Would you like to share one of your success stories with me?

Comments (10)

The Bill Clinton Secret to Writing

I’ve been a bit busy in wrapping up a few of my projects.A  So I’ll let my friend Daphne take over this post…

The Bill Clinton secret to writing

Last night, my 13-year-old daughter came to me complaining about her social studies homework. “I just can’t make myself do it, Mom,” she said. “It’s soooooo boring.” I squelched the urge to scream, “That’s because the school system has given you the world’s worst textbook.” (Is being dull a requirement for textbook writers? It surely seems so.) Instead, in my best and most patient writing-coach voice, I suggested that she emulate Bill Clinton.

No, it’s not what you might think. It’s just that we had recently watched him in the wonderful DVD Wordplay. If you haven’t seen this charming documentary yet, rush to your local store and rent it immediately. The movie is all about crossword puzzles and it includes interviews with, among others, the former president. He’s certainly not the most interesting or proficient puzzler of the bunch — the real fanatics brag about doing the weekend New York Times crossword in four minutes, in pen! But he does have a strategy worth emulating.

Clinton explains how he looks over the puzzle until he finds one clue he can answer easily. From there, he goes on to look for other openings. I’m paraphrasing here, but he says something like: “I just kind of chip away at it.”

You’ve probably done this with crosswords, too — but did you ever think to adopt the same strategy with writing? Remember the old joke “How do you eat an elephant?” Answer: One bite at a time. Turns out this works for writing, too.

When I produce my newsletter, for example, I never do it all in one go. It takes me about two hours — but I spread it out over six days, mostly in five- to 30-minute increments. Here’s the drill:

Day 1: pick topic
Day 2: do a mindmap
Day 3: start writing
Day 4: write some more
Day 5: revise and copy edit
Day 6: enter into software and proofread

Whether you’re faced with a tricky crossword puzzle or a difficult piece of writing, it’s easy to become overwhelmed. But you can fight that feeling by doing just a little bit at a time, taking a break and then going back to it.

Just as waves gradually wear down granite, so, too, your tiny but repeated efforts will eventually show impressive results.

Daphne Gray-Grant is a writing coach with an international practice. Sign up for her fra_Tee weekly newsletter Power Writing by going to her website www.publicationcoach.comA 

–

Its not necessary to stretch the work out to 6 days.A  But its a good idea to stretch it out to 2 days at least.A  What I usually do is sit down at the beginning of the month and write down ideas for about 15-20 posts.A  And create quick mindmaps or bullet points for each of them (Daphne’s day 1 & Day 2.)

And then I pick up one of those topics and write a blog post on it.A  And publish it either after a couple of hours, or the next day.A  (Daphne’s day 3 to 6.)

I never publish the post as soon as I’ve written it down. What I do is usually timestamp the post to be published after a few hours.A  So that I have time to refine and edit the post further. (Disclosure: I don’t usually proof read these posts though as Daphne suggests you should.)

Comments (5)

My November Report

I finished writing my November report.A  But its not blogging related.A  So won’t be promoting it on BlogClout.A  If you’re interested in it, please follow this link:
Making Money With Domain Names

Comments (3)