Benefits of Adding Category Menu to Blog Header

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

Yesterday, a campaign I had running with crazyegg.com came to an end.

Crazyegg is a tool that allows you to make your blog navigation better by telling you what people are clicking. It has a superb heatmap generation feature. Let me show you a cropped heatmap of just the header section of my blog.

The heatmap shows all the clicks made on the header.

Early readers may remember that 3 weeks back, this blog header just had the title in it. The categories menu was added later on.

Like most blogs, I had my Blog Category menu on the sidebar too. But I decided to move it to the header. And I’m glad I did that. Because:

11.47% of *All* Clicks Made on this Blog were Made on the Header!

Adding the blog category menu to the header has been a stroke of genius. As it helped me increase the “unique visitors : page views” ratio from “1 : 1.72″ to “1 : 2.1″. (Each unique visitor on average reads more than 2 pages on this blog.)

In normal language, readers now visit 15% more pages and spend more time on my blog because the category menu is in the header!

Action Summary:

• Signup for crazyegg.com to evaluate what your blog readers are clicking on.
• If you can, move your blog category menu to your header.

Do Blogs Need Tag Lines?

Question: Should Blogs Have Tag Lines?

When CocaCola was a young softdrink company, they were faced with a problem. People would hear about “CocaCola” or read its sign on the roads - but they wouldn’t know what it meant. They had no idea what CocaCola was and what they should do with it.

So some smart marketing executive at CocaCola came up with a solution. Tag one single word to all the billboards and other advertisements. The tag word was very simple. And it told people exactly what CocaCola is and what they should do with it. The tag word?

“Drink”

CocaCola started adding “Drink CocaCola” to all their ads.

Over the years, CocaCola dropped its tag word from their ads. But without it in their initial days, they would have had a much harder time making people realize what they were about.

Unfortunately, not many products - especially blogs - can convey their message with just one word. A whole line is usually required. The Tag Line is the answer.

Purpose of a Blog Tag Line

Just like CocaCola’s tag word, the purpose of your blog tag line is simple:

Your tag line helps people know what your blog is about.

The benefits of having a tag line for your blog:

• A tag line will increase your blog page views
• It’ll help people know what your blog is about and why they should read more of it than a 1001 other blogs
• It’ll keep them on your blog for longer durations
• A tag line is a re-inforcer. It’ll help build a stronger association in their brains - leading to them remembering your blog better

Three Steps to Create a Powerful Tag Line:

1. Mention what your blog offers

2. Mention how you take care of the downside (optional)

3. Don’t mention anything else.

These rules were conceived by de-constructing the best tag line of all time:

“Fresh Hot Pizza in 30 Minutes or Its Free!”

Important: Don’t try to be witty or creative with your tag lines. It just doesn’t work unless you’re willing to spend a few million dollars in promoting that tag line.

Tag Line Evaluation Test

How do you know that the tag line you’ve come up with is good or not? There is a simple trick that helps you evaluate tag lines. And that is:

Would you buy a book with that tag line as the title?

If the answer is No - go back to the dashboard. And come up with another tag line.

Action Summary:

• Come up with a short concise tag line for your own blog too.

(Disclosure: I’ve substituted my tag line as the name of this blog. The blog name was going to be “BlogClout”. And the tag line was going to be “How To Grow Your Blog Traffic.” But I changed it at the last moment because I’ll be using the name BlogClout with some other applications too. And didn’t want to over-extend that name and confuse readers. So thats why my tag line ended up being the blog title.)

Blog & Ping Traffic

Question: Does pinging more websites increase your blog traffic?

Not really.A  All pinging does is get other websites, search engines and directories to crawl your blog and add your content to their databases faster.A  But pinging them won’t really put you in the top of their search or directory listings.

Unless ofcourse, you are the first one to break a story.A  If you blog about current affairs, many of these websites and search engines that you ping will show your post at the top when people search for the hot news.

Here is the list of all the websites I ping (posted alphabetically):

A http://1470.net/api/ping
http://api.feedster.com/ping
http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
http://api.moreover.com/ping
http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2
http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping
http://bblog.com/ping.php
http://bitacoras.net/ping
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC
http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc
http://blogmatcher.com/u.php
http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2
http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
http://coreblog.org/ping/
http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt
http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/
http://ping.amagle.com/
http://ping.bitacoras.com
http://ping.blo.gs/
http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/
http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc
http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/
http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc
http://ping.feedburner.com
http://ping.myblog.jp
http://ping.rootblog.com/rpc.php
http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
http://ping.weblogs.se/
http://pingoat.com/goat/RPC2
http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/
http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2
http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/
http://rpc.newsgator.com/
http://rpc.pingomatic.com
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
http://topicexchange.com/RPC2
http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php
http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b
http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php
http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
http://www.blogoole.com/ping/
http://www.blogoon.net/ping/
http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates
http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1
http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php
http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud
http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php
http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2
http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/
http://xmlrpc.blogg.de
http://xping.pubsub.com/ping/

If you use WordPress to blog, simply go to Options > Writing under your admin panel and update your ping list with the links above. It doesn’t hurt.A  And if you are amongst the first few blogs that publishes a post about a new or unique phrase, you’ll generate a lot of traffic.

Goal: Make 100% of All Web Surfers Use FireFox

I was checking my blog statistics in detail and came upon something that shocked me!

More than 13% of my blog visitors didn’t use the most amazing of all browsers:

FireFox!

So I asked my man Sherief to create a down-and-dirty script that would change that. He came up with a cool javascript code.

1. Just upload the .js file to your server,
2. place a code on your blog pages,
3. and anyone who visits your blog using a non-FireFox browser will see a float ad on the top-right corner of the page that asks them to download FireFox!

And yes, I’m using the Google Adsense FireFox code. So… for every person who clicks on the ad and downloads FireFox, I will earn $1!

I’ll actually get paid in my quest to make 100% of web surfers use FireFox! How cool is that?

I’ve been testing the javascript code since the past week. And have finally decided to make it available for free to everyone. No catch. But because of lack of time, no support will be provided for this script. Don’t worry, its fairly easy to install.

Live Demonstration:

Visit this blog through a non-FireFox browser and you will see the FireFox float ad in action at the top right corner of this page.

Action Summary:

• Download the ff100.zip file and install the script on your blog / website.
• Pass this script to your other blogging friends.

Oh and… This script is beer-ware. If you use it, please consider buying me a beer.

Disguising Ads & Full Disclosure

Do you remember those Kevin Trudeau infomercials on TV? Where some one interviews him and he sells his books?

Do you think that there is anyone in the world who saw those ads and thought that it was a real interview? That Kevin didn’t pay for it himself? I doubt it. Yet - did it affect Kevin’s sales? Not one bit.

Ads that look like interviews
work better than
ads that look like ads.

Even if it doesn’t fool people.

The Disguised Ads started gaining traction in the direct response marketing world. When master copywriters like Eugene Schwartz and Ben Suarez and Gary Halbert started writing sales letters and ads that read like newspaper articles. You couldn’t make out the difference between their articles and the real articles in a newspaper. Except that their articles had a call-to-action that asked people to buy something.

These disguised ads worked like gangbusters. But many readers complained. The newspapers shouldn’t deceive their readers by letting them believe that one of their ads is actually an article.

The newspapers listened to their readers. And most of them now add “Advertisement” or some such heading to any disguised sales letter that they run.

But do these “Advertisement” Headings decrease sales?
Not one bit!

The Blog Disclosure Debate

Many bloggers have embraced this disguise-ads-increase-response idea. They publish entire blog posts because some one pays them to do so.

And because of this, there is a huge uproar in the blogosphere.

1. Should bloggers publish disguisded blog posts?
2. If they do publish such paid posts, should they add a disclaimer letting people know that they’ve been paid for that post?

Quite a few bloggers and blog readers are against commercializing their blogs. And disguised-blog-posts is a BIG No-No in their books.

On the other hand, bloggers who already publish disguised blog posts don’t want to add any kind of disclaimer. Because they believe that will reduce their readership and sales.

My opinion?

• It is ok to disguise your ads as posts. But don’t sell your soul to make a quick buck. Make sure the ad is relevant for your readers.
• And remember this rule of thumb: you should have 4 good original posts for every 1 disguised ad. (80% authentic content for every 20% ad-content.)
• And always add a disclaimer to paid posts. They will not harm your sales. But will keep a few readers happy. And prevent a back-lash.

Creating a Custom Google Toolbar Button for Your Blog

Live Demonstration:

Click to add a custom BlogClout.com/blog button to your Google Toolbar

Would You Like Such a Custom Button for Your Own Blog?

Just follow the simple 5 steps below to get your own custom google toolbar button.

1. Create a file in Notepad and save it as “google-btn.xml”

2. Copy-and-paste the following code to that file.

<custombuttons xmlns=”http://toolbar.google.com/custombuttons/”>
<button>
<site>http://www.blogclout.com/blog/</site>
<title>How To Grow Your Blog Traffic</title>
<description>Tricks to Increase Your Blog Traffic</description>
<feed refresh-interval=”3600″>http://www.blogclout.com/blog/feed/</feed>
<search>http://www.blogclout.com/blog?s={query}</search>
<update>http://www.blogclout.com/blog/google-btn.xml</update>
<icon>
AAABAAIAEBAAAAAAAABoBQAAJgAAACAgAAAAAAAAqAgAAI4
AEABAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP///wAAtucAc4Ae
v/ADnH7wCUqnsAWnUhAADT/wB7y9YA3vP/AFrT7wDGz7UAhJpjA
QAa4I5ABDH9wClroQAIcf3AO/7/wAAw/cAELrnAIzf9wBjeTpev/AP
9wD39+8AztfGAIyiawBSy+cAQmEIAL3LrQBSbRgAGL7vAgCt5/cAv
O/9wC15/cAhN/3AJSmcwAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
</icon>
</button>
</custombuttons>

3. Replace the text in red with your Site Details

a. <Site> = Your Blog URI. Eg: http://www.yourdomain.com/blog
b. <Title> = Title of your blog
c. <Description> = Description of your blog
d. <Feed> = Your Blog Feed URI. Eg: http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/feed.rss
e. <Search> = Your Search Domain (If you don’t have a search box on your blog, please remove the entire Search tag from the file)
f. <Update> = Your source where you will save the google-btn.xml file.
g. <icon> = The 16*16 picture that will show up on the Google Toolbar. You will need the ASCII format of the picture.

To get the ASCII format, go to:
http://www.motobit.com/util/base64-decoder-encoder.asp
Upload your icon picture. Select “encode” and click “Convert the Source Data.” Copy-paste the code they give out in your file.

4. Save the file after editing it. And then upload it to your servers.

5. Ask people to click on the following link to add your site button to their Google Toolbars.

http://toolbar.google.com/buttons/add?url=http://www.yourdomain.com/blog/google-btn.xml

The Genius of Amateurs

Here is a fun little quiz to evaluate how well you know English…

Could you count how many times the letter f appears in the following sentence?

These functional fuses have been developed after years of scientific investigation of electric phenomena, combined with the fruit of long experience on the part of the two investigators who have come forward with them for our meetings today.

People who have been speaking English since years underestimate the number of times a_?fa_? appears in the sentence. They do worse on this test than people who have just started learning English.

Ia_Tve never met a person who speaks fluent English to count more than 8 a_?fa_? in the sentence. The most common answer is 6 or 7.

The correct answer however is 11!

These functional fuses have been developed after years of scientific investigation of electric phenomena, combined with the fruit of long experience on the part of the two investigators who have come forward with them for our meetings today.

Embarrassing disclosure: I myself just got 7 the first time!

Why do experienced English speakers do worse than beginner English speakers on a simple English quiz?

Experienced speakers pronounce the word of with a “v” sound, and because of their habit of reading like they speak, they have more difficulty detecting the occurrences of the letter f than do inexperienced speakers.

As a result:

past experience
actually lowers performance!

Missing Insights

It’s the same with all other fields of endeavours - including blogging: you will miss a lot of “obvious” insights because of your long experience and hard-to-forget habits. So can anything be done about it?

The Genius of Amateurs

The solution is simple. Gather feedback from amateurs. Ask your new blog readers what can be done to improve your blog. Ask your neighbour who yet doesn’t know what blogs are to visit your website. Ask them:

• How to improve your blog layout
• What features should you remove from your blog
• What other topics would they like to read

You’ll be surprised by the insights you receive!

Saying No To Digg

The statistics are back. From May 2 to May 9. This blog saw 511 unique visitors. Out of 511 people - can you guess how many came from digg.com? A grand total of

“4″

Which leads me to remove the “Add to Digg” buttons from this blog. It just took a lot of space. And added to distraction.

Why Digg.com is Not a Good Idea

Digg.com is a great site for making your blog posts wildly famous… if your blog is already slightly famous. If you can get a 100 diggs from your own website traffic, then adding digg.com buttons makes sense. And they can help you go from 100 to 1000 diggs. But if you don’t have the ability or the pull to get those initial 100 diggs for your blog posts - digg is useless. Your blog posts will remain buried on their website.

Alternative Real Estate Usage

So what else can you show on your blogs instead of wasting the valuable real estate on digg buttons? The answer is…

Add Stumble Upon Buttons!

The Might of StumbleUpon.com

As I write this post - 2,315,617 people have installed stumbleupon.com toolbars on their computers. Whenever these people have free time, they click on the “stumble” button on their browser toolbars - and stumbleupon.com will take them to a random website based on what they like. These people can vote on whether they liked that website or not. And based on those ratings, stumbleupon.com shows them similar websites.

The twist is: the more people that give a positive vote to a particular website, the more stumbleupon users will get to see it.

By adding a “Stumble This” stumbleupon button to your blog posts - you allow your blog visitors to give your post a positive vote.

StumbleUpon Statistics

In the last one week - I voted positive for 3 of my blog posts through the stumbleupon.com browser. And a few people voted positive using the “share this” button on this blog - which already has a stumble this button on it. That seems to have created a stumbleupon.com whirlwindy roll over effect.

Out of the total 511 visitors - a whole 362 people came from stumbleupon.com!

(Statistics provided by Google Analytics.)

(This week, I’m going to test having stumbleupon button on this website along with the “share this” button.)

Action Summary:

• Add a stumbleupon.com button to your blog posts. Click for instructions.

Blogger Vs Wordpress

Before starting this blog, one of the first decisions I had to make was deciding which blogging platform to use. Even though there are several blogging tools and scripts and 3rd party websites online, I had only 2 really good options - Blogger.com and Wordpress.org script. Why? Firstly, Because they both are

Free!

And secondly, they both are widely used by a lot of people and so documentation and help is easier to come by. Here is my breakdown for both of them:

Blogger.com

Wordpress.org script

In the end, I decided to go with Wordpress because my webhost (dreamhost) makes it very easy to install it, and I have complete control over it. Soon you’ll read a post about the different kinds of essential wordpress plugins that this blog will have.

Verdict:

• If you are new to blogging or just want a
  personal journal, blogger.com is the best option for you because its
  easy to setup and it won’t cost you a single penny.
• But if you are serious about blogging, you need to go with wordpress because it gives you more power and flexibility (but you will have to pay for hosting and the theme designing)!