Archive for July, 2007
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(This is the first post in a series of advertising reviews. I’ll be buying ads on various ad networks and posting my reviews on this blog frequently. So do subscribe to its RSS feed if you haven’t done so already.)
BlogMad.net is a traffic exchange website for blogs. How it works is: if you visit other blogs from your BlogMad admin panel, you will win credits. These credits can be redeemed to generate traffic to your blog.
All the blogs are opened in frames and you have to remain on them for at least 30 seconds. This way. BlogMad can track how many blogs you visited.
Price
Instead of spending time visiting other blogs, I decided to buy credits at BlogMad. I spent $10 with them for 1000 credits. And redeemed these credits for a 1000 unique visitors to this blog. Thats 1 cent per unique visitor… one of the lowest prices I’ve found.
Quality
Was it worth it? I’m not really sure.
The traffic from BlogMad has been slow to come. And because they use frames, I find that their statistics aren’t very reliable. When my BlogMad admin panel said that 101 people had been sent to my blog from them, my Google Analytics account showed only 23 visitors from them. Thats a huge discrepancy.
Email conversation with BlogMad shows that they know of the discrepancy in tracking but are unsure as to how to solve the problem. And they assure that they send exactly as many people as their admin panel shows.
Virality
Till now, I haven’t noticed any viral effect that can be traced to BlogMad. BlogMad was the first website I bought ads at because all its members own blogs. And maybe some of them would end up posting comments over here. Or talking about one of the BlogClout goodies on their blogs.
But my Google Analytics shows that visitors who come from BlogMad don’t stay on this blog for a long time. They visit the site, wait for 30 seconds, and then leave from that same page. Bounce rates is almost 100%. Haven’t seen a noticeable effect.
But the 1000 credits I bought have still not been depleted. So maybe it may still pick up.
Ad Score Sheet
Website: http://www.BlogMad.net
- Price: 5/5
- Quality: 2/5
- Virality: 1/5
- Overall: 2.5/5
Verdict: You may want to test them only because the price per unique visitor is so low. But the low price matches the low quality too. Its ok if you pass on them.
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Posted by Ankesh Kothari under Advertising, Traffic on 13 Jul 2007
Comments (7)
Can Tiny Atoms Symbolically Reveal the Secret to Our Success?
A friend and I started talking about something esoteric he read and its deeper implication:
Take two atoms of hydrogen.
1. Mix them with one atom of oxygen and you have water: the cleanest compound known to us.
2. Mix them with one atom of sulfur and you have hydrogen sulfide: a toxic stinky gas with a rotten egg smell!
Action Summary:
- Who you mix with determines what you become.
- Moral: Keep good company.
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Posted by Ankesh Kothari under Stratagems on 12 Jul 2007
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FAQ: A common question I’m asked is:
“How much time will I have to invest to
become a famous A-list blogger?”
Famous bloggers like Mike Arrington of TechCrunch.com have been known to work 16 hour days without taking a single day off. But do you really have to work that long and hard to become successful at blogging?
Not really.
Four Blog Mastery Factors
You have to focus on 4 things to become a terrific blogger and create a business around your blog:
1. Learn
Keep up to date with your industry
2. Create
Content and products
3. Promote
Your blog and let your blog promote your products
4. Network
With the influentials and you’ll find better opportunities
Thats about it. Only 4 things to take care. To work on those 4 things, you don’t need to spend 16 hours a day. But you will have to spend at least 2 hours a day on your blog in the early days. Or else, you’ll have to be willing to spend money and outsource.
My 3 Hour Blog Working Day
1. Learning - 30 Minutes a Day
Everyday, I spend about 15 minutes going over 13 key RSS feeds. And15 minutes going over my emails and tips I may have received.
Once a week, I go through 62 other RSS feeds and all the rest of my emails.
Note: I divide my RSS feeds into two categories. A-Pile and B-Pile. A-Pile contains the 13 most essential blog feeds. I read them through Google Reader. B-Pile are all the other feeds that are good but not excellent. Or those that update 15 times a day (news feeds). I use BlogLines to read the B-Pile and I don’t read the B-Pile everyday.
This may mean that I’m not always the first one to know of a new widget or website launch. But amazingly - I’ve found - that its not really necessary to be the first one to know the news to succeed <slight sarcasm>!
2. Creation - 30 Minutes a Day
One of the first things I do everyday is write. Because of past experience, I can now churn out a good quality blog post in 30 minutes.
A few days, I also spend time on product creation. (In my opinion, it is essential to create products to become an extremely rich blogger - and not just rely on ad revenue). Writing a 20 page report may take me up to 20 hours. But I write a report at a leisurely pace. I divide it in chapters and write one chapter a day. This way, its easy to write 1 report a week!
3. Promotion - 60 Minutes a Day
This is where I spend the bulk of my time. Blog promotion.
BlogClout Rule of thumb: For every hour you spend on content creation, spend two hours on blog promotion.
But again: I break the promotion down into manage-able steps. I focus on trying out and optimizing just one promotional tactic per week. This way, I don’t have to spend more than an hour or two per day on blog promotion.
4. Networking - 15 Minutes a Day
I’m not too good at networking. Its something that doesn’t come to me naturally and I strive to get better at it. Whenever possible, I try to attend workshops and seminars.
But here is one thing that I do for networking - that anyone can do too - to achieve fantastic results. I write one thank you note a day. Doesn’t take me more than 15 minutes to write a thank you note and send it through postful.com or sendoutcards.com.
Time Sheet:
- Learning: 30 Minutes a Day
- Creation: 30 Minutes a Day
- Promotion: 1 Hour a Day
- Networking: 15 Minutes a Day
Total Time Spent Everyday: 2 hours 15 minutes
In summary, I spend less than 3 hours on most days. And there are a few days that I work 6-7 hours to get a few time consuming things done.
Disclosure: I run more than one blog (I actually, I have more than 15 websites!) So I’m online about 6 hours everyday. But I do outsource a lot of work on my other projects. The above time sheet is my estimate of time spent on this blog - tracked over 7 days. I kept a log file for this blog the whole of last week and the numbers are based on those logs.
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Posted by Ankesh Kothari under Stratagems on 11 Jul 2007
Comments (14)
Many bloggers just allow their blog post summaries to be shown in their blog RSS feeds. Their reason? If they show the entire blog post in their RSS feeds, people won’t come over to their blogs. And they won’t see the ads on the blogs that help them earn extra money.
But - if you don’t show your entire blog posts in your RSS feeds, you will start losing subscribers. Many people will unsubscribe from your RSS feeds!A So what to do? Simple:
Monetize your RSS Feeds.
Show your entire blog posts in the RSS feeds.A But monetize your RSS feeds too.
Google Adsense and ads from most other ad-networks won’t work with RSS feeds because they use javascript to show the ads. And RSS feed readers don’t support javascript. So the only way to monetize your blogs is by showing HTML or text ads.
Step 1: If you use WordPress for blogging, download the Feed Footer plugin.
Step 2: Find an affiliate program that allows you to use your own text and images to promote. Two networks that you can surf to find products to promote:
Step 3: Create your short text or banner ad for the product you want to promote. And add it to the footer field of the plugin. With Feed Footer plugin, 10 different footers that promote your affiliate products can be rotated. Which means: you can promote 10 different affiliate products from the bottom of all your blog posts in the RSS feeds!
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Posted by Ankesh Kothari under Making Money on 10 Jul 2007
Comments (16)
A new donation tool has hit the net. Its called ChipIn and it has some really nifty features:
1. Its Free to use.
2. It works on all blogging platforms - not just WordPress.
3. It has a cool visual interface: a scale that shows how much money has been collected.
How Buy Me a Beer plugin is better:
1. It shows up under all blog posts - even in the RSS feed. Not just in the sidebar.
2. Its free to use too. But only works in WordPress.
3. Buying you a beer is “easy” for people to do. People don’t feel like they are “donating” money when they buy you a beer.
Action Summary:
- Go check ChipIn out - especially if you have fixed donation goals. Like asking for donations to pay for your hosting.
(Picture cropped from a screenshot of ChipIn homepage.)
(It’s funny how a couple of people have sent me taunting emails to let me know about ChipIn.A A new donation tool doesn’t bother me just because I have developed a donation plugin too.A I try to do what is best for you.A If something better comes along, I’ll tell you about it gladly.A Even if its a competing product.)
If you liked this post, buy me a beer. (Suggested: $3 a beer or $7.5 for a pitcher)
Posted by Ankesh Kothari under Making Money on 09 Jul 2007
Comments (5)
Disclosure: Your website will be crawled by search engines if you comment on this blog.
Commenting on blogs was the easiest way to increase the number of backlinks your blog has.A It was so easy that many spammers created bots that would automatically post blah comments on random blogs.
In a bid to discourage comment spam, in January 2005, Google advised all bloggers to add a “NoFollow” tag to all their outgoing comment links.A And almost all the major blogging softwares added the NoFollow tag to their core.
Unfortunately, this didn’t stop spammers from posting spam comments on blogs. The whole NoFollow idea failed to prevent spam.A So since a few months now, some bloggers have started a grass root campaign to remove the NoFollow tags and allow search engines to start crawling links in comments again - so as to give an incentive to their readers to comment frequently.
I think that is a very good idea.A Its one more way of rewarding your top readers who spend their precious time in improving the conversation and posting the comments.A That is why, I’ve removed the NoFollow tag from this blog.
The WordPress plugin I used is “DoFollow”
–
I’ve been a bit slow in posting on this blog this week because of a deadline on another project of mine.A Will resume speed soon.
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Posted by Ankesh Kothari under Blog Setup on 05 Jul 2007
Comments (42)
A lion met a tiger
As they drank beside a pool
Said the tiger, “tell me why…
You’re roaring like a fool.”
“That’s not foolish;” said the lion,
With a twinkle in his eyes,
“They call me king of all the beasts
Because I advertise!”
A rabbit heard them talking,
And ran home like a streak.
He thought he’d try the lion’s plan,
But his roar was just a squeak.
A fox, who happened on the scene,
Had a fine lunch in the woods.
The Moral? When you advertise,
Just be sure you’ve got the goods.
- Anonymous
I haven’t yet started buying ads to promote this blog. Because this blog simply wasn’t ready. But will be doing so from mid-July onwards.
4 Rules for Blog Advertising
1. Don’t spend money on advertising your blog until your blog has decent content on it (both quantity wise and quality wise).
2. Don’t start advertising before you have a steady source of revenue from your blog. A source of revenue other than from ads that you run. A report you have written or a service you provide are good sources of revenue.
3. Don’t spend money before making money. Start off with free promotional tactics. Then parlay your initial profits to buy ads and generate more traffic.
4. Test and track your ads to know which ones are profitable and which ones are not. Re-run the profitable ads only. Don’t expect repetition (of poor ad sources) to lead to profitability.
Visit this blog frequently and you’ll read how to go about buying ads to promote your blog and which ad networks work well.
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Posted by Ankesh Kothari under Advertising, Traffic on 03 Jul 2007
Comments (6)
Question: What is Branding?
Ask this question to 12 people and you’ll get 17 definitions of Branding. And all 17 of these definitions are total hogwash!
So, today, I’m about to give you my definition of branding. This definition might totally change your perspective and the way you think about your products.
Are you ready for it?
Ok, some prep work before you read the new branding definition… what branding is not:
- Branding is NOT designing fancy logos and spending hours coming up with catchy slogans.
- Branding is NOT a term, symbol, name, colour, or sign.
- Branding is NOT the messaging work a company does to encourage consumers to feel a certain way about their product.
- And branding is NOT some process by which you transform a commodity into a customer experience.
Marketers come up with such definitions of branding because they have no idea of what a BRAND is. They don’t know what makes a brand great. Do you know what makes a brand really great?
A great Brand does
all of your consumers
thinking for them!
Branding is not differentiating between your products and your competitors. No. Its making your consumers think that there is only one product in the market worth any money: YOURS!
Branding starts with your consumers brains and not with your product design. Branding is not how your product looks. Nor is it how your consumer feels and perceives your product. Nope. Branding is making your consumers think that there is no other product except yours!
How To Successfully Brand Your Blog
A whole fat book can be written on blog branding. But here are some of the high points:
1. Wireframing Your Blog
What kind of people visit your blog? What do these people really want? What do you actually provide?
Wireframing is the process by which you guide your audiences to want what you provide. You either match their wants with your current product portfolio. Or you create a desire within them to want what you sell. Or - you start providing what they want.
Wireframing is making sure that there are no leaks on your blog that turn people off. Its creating navigational pathways on your blog to guide people to take the action you want them to take.
The best time for wireframing is before you start blogging. But its never too late. Expect a more comprehensive and practical post on wireframing your blogs sometime later on.
2. Strategy of Pre-eminence
Master marketer Jay Abraham made the “theory of pre-eminence” famous. What do you mean by pre-eminence?
Pre-eminence is the perception that a person is the best or one of the best authoritative sources on a specific topic. You dona_Tt necessarily have to be the best, but people need to perceive you as the best.
i. Be the first. Be the first and you’ll automatically be perceived as the authority. If you missed being the first, then narrow your niche. You may not be able to be the first online bookstore. But you can become the first online business bookstore. Another idea is: be the first to coin new terms or showcase new angles. Jay Abraham is always mentioned whenever anyone talks about pre-eminence.
ii. Be everywhere. If you can’t be the first, be everywhere. McDonalds wasn’t the first burger chain. But yet, by being the first to expand with blitzkrieg speed, they created a pre-eminent position for themselves.
iii. Offer the best solution. Best is determined by three factors: your ability, your audiences expectation, and your competition.
3. Building a reputation
Get other leaders in your industry to endorse you. Meet your reader’s expectations every time. Exceed their expectations from time to time. Always do the right thing. Build a worthy reputation and people will flock to you.
Suggested Reading:
1. Better Blog Branding Series by Chris Garrett
2. Positioning: The battle for your mind by Al Ries & Jack Trout
3. Un-lock your Brand: How to build a magnetic Brand on a shoestring budget
If you liked this post, buy me a beer. (Suggested: $3 a beer or $7.5 for a pitcher)
Posted by Ankesh Kothari under Stratagems on 02 Jul 2007
Comments (4)
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