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Quality First - Quantity Distant Second

June 2, 2008 | Author: Rob | Filed under: Blogging

When I first bought this blog in November 2007 I thought I had to post all the time. I wanted to post all the time but sometimes you just have nothing to say.

Next time you’re sitting over a blog post with nothing really on your mind how about you do other things? That’s what I’ve been doing; I’ll tell you what I’ve been up to and how this blog has faired with just 1 update over all of last week.

First let me say the HIGHEST I’ve seen the subscriber count since I purchased the blog at around 180 subscribers was a max of 240. We’re currently at 237 after leaving a post on the front page for 1 solid week now.

What does this tell me? It tells me that it’s better to update less with quality then it is to update frequently with mediocre posts for the sake of posting. So instead of sitting around scratching my head thinking of what to write what have I been up to?

1st) I launched the Bloggeries Blog Affiliate Program which pays $20US for each approved directory submission and pays $5US to the person who referred the webmaster who made the sale. Great way to earn passive money from your blog.

2nd) Worked on Bloggeries core functions; made a blog review post, spent a lot of time in the forum and of course networking with others. Never think you can do everything yourself. Magic happens when you mix like-minded individuals towards joint goals.

3rd) I took time for myself; time to lay back and look at things through a new lens if you will. Where do I want to go? But first; where am I? What are my skills? What are my flaws? (We all have a plethora of each).

I’ll write another post later about the affiliate program but just wanted to say there are many other things you can do online besides posting bloggeries everyday.  Also if you have nothing to say just don’t bother as people will come through like they always do and probably not subscribe if the last post isn’t any good and all you’ll be doing is irritating your current subscribers sending them stuff they don’t need.

Twitter Replacing Traditional RSS Feeds?

May 22, 2008 | Author: Rob | Filed under: Blogging

This may seem kinda crazy but is twitter replacing traditional RSS feeds? Someone who subscribes to your RSS feed just subscribes to posts from a blog. Someone subscribing to your twitter feed is subscribing essentially to YOU. They want to hear what you have to say or at least they want to hear most of it.

With the advent of TwitterFeed you can have it set so that any blog post you make on any blog you own is automatically tweeted into twitter. You may have 50 subscribers on your humor blog, 230 on your business blog and 35 on your health blog. Traditionally you’d send that info to your subscribers and that’s it. Realistically if someone likes the way you handle and write things in one domain they could enjoy your work from others.

Imagine you had 2,000 twitter followers. Each time you make a post it’s sent to them. Sure it’s not in a feed reader but many with feed readers have them jammed with other feeds or don’t necessarily check them each day. Also people on twitter are a different breed to some extent. It’s people that are actively interacting, sharing etc… Also if someone likes your post they will most likely retweet it by sending it off to their followers list. Write something great and it can go viral really fast thanks to social media; twitter in particular.

I will say use twitterfeed cautiously and only if your blogs are somewhat related. If you make 5-10 posts a day on all your blogs it will look like link spamming ESPECIALLY if you aren’t active. If you make 70 tweets a day and 8 are links to your blog who cares. If you make 12 a day and it’s basically just links to your blog I don’t think you’ll retain your new friends very long. How would you like to basically just get a stream of links from someone? I wouldn’t.

If you want to send lot’s of links be smart about it. Send links that aren’t yours but of substantial value to anyone in the online world and of course mix some of yours in there. People aren’t stupid and your twitter friends are just that; people. Send them useful things and engage in conversations. If something you wrote is helpful than by all means send it; if not don’t bother.

Ultimately I see twitter as an …

Spice Up Your RSS Icons Life

May 11, 2008 | Author: Rob | Filed under: Blogging

Whether your blog sells something or not you still always have an objective of turning a first time reader into an interested subscriber. If that’s not even remotely your subconscious goal then you’d might as well just write your thoughts on a pad of paper or in note pad and save the trouble of publishing them.

I found the image in the link below. They have a plethora of RSS Feed Buttons. Arguably the best I’ve seen in one place online.

60 Great RSS Icons for Your Blog

RSS Subscription buttons play a large role in the number of subscribers you have. The easier and more visible the ability to subscribe; the higher the likely hood of any one visitor subscribing.  It should go without saying that you have to write stuff worth reading and be someone others think are worth listening to. Once that’s out of the way make it as easy as possible.

Since this blog is a side project which I basically just do for fun / place to ramble / rant I never really spent much time playing with it. Previously I had a tiny button in the top left. Props to those of you who found it and subscribe; it sure was well hidden. I’m sure many of you noticed I now have a large cup of java with the feed simple in it; hopefully this will make it easier and remind people that if they like it they can always subscribe in their favorite reader.

Spice up your blog today; try another rss feed icon and put it in a prominent place; converting should never be a difficult task for a visitor.

More Twitter Tools to Learn - Love - Live

May 10, 2008 | Author: Rob | Filed under: Blogging

Missed 2 days of bloggeries; where does time go? Oh I have an idea maybe it was spent sending ~60 140 character messages a day to people whom for the most part I had never met before.

First off if you wan to network online I can think of NO WAY better than twitter. Follow someone @ reply to them a connection is made. Also the more mainstream it becomes the less likely you will be able to add lot’s of search marketing, public relations, seo, web development, stay at home business runners etc… Eventually it will be filled with people talking about what club they are going to. That’s a long way away I think but moving faster. The point of saying that is now the pool is good. About 15,000,0000 people or more who are into technology.

The tools I want to share today are… Drum roll please…

TweetStats: This cool tool gives you details on your account; what times, days, hours you send the most messages, to whom etc etc… Definitely worth a look.

TwitterLocal: A program that will show you within 20 miles the latest tweets from any part of the world. Great way to build your local twitter base. In fact I used it and added many people from my area and became aware of a tweetup where people are going to meet up in the city I live. You know I’m going now.

I have a few others but made posts for them because the tool was down when I was trying to access it. I’ll fill you in with more as time goes on but seriously jump on twitter and say hi.