Archive for the ‘Blogging Sense’ Category
by jim on October 19th, 2008
John Chow has written something really helpful to those who are planning to offer their blog/s as an advertising venue for potential clients. When you reach out to an advertising network it would help to have these few simple points nailed. Let me summarize things for you and ad a little “tip” as well.
- Have a domain name – you need an easy recall and easy to type domain name. It should be yours too. While having your ISPs domain name works, having your own domain name makes you a little professional. Domains are easy to acquire, install and use. Go to godaddy.com and get one for less than $10. You can try listening to GeekBrief.tv too, I know Cali Lewis gives GoDaddy.com codes thereby saving you a few extra bucks. Having a domain name and using it as your emails domain address proves ownership or affiliation to the domain too. It’s a little tricky but believe you me, if you say own “mygadgets.com” and plan to sell ad space to bestbuy or circuit city… your email needs to be “jim@mygadgets.com”… professional, shows ownership, and er… cool.
- Have a completed about page – the first page that the ad network jumps to is the About Page. They’d like to know a little more about you. After you hand in your ad proposal, and if they’re at all interested, they’d hit your page right away to find out more about you, your webpage/blog or your company. So you gotta have a completed about page.
One thing I do is to put ad placeholders in the blog. Try to go to a non-profit blog for say the “save the trees campaign” or “unleaded gas campaign” or the “breast cancer campaign”. Get an ad medallion, a banner ad or a widget ad and place it at areas where the ads should appear. You can say, while ads aren’t coming in we’re giving these worthwhile campaigns some visibility. Works good for you in a lot of ways too.
Categories: Blogging Sense, Blogging Tips
by J. Angelo Racoma on August 8th, 2008
AhmedF of Tech Soapbox gives us 10 HTML tips that will help improve speed and efficiency. I say building in the sense that you could either be a theme designer creating a blog template, or you could be tweaking your existing blog for speed.
For instance, Ahmed recommends you put in your content first, then other elements later. Good for SEO. Same with using proper headers and nesting these accordingly (H1, H2, H3). How about loading your javascript at the end of the page rather than the beginning? Great for making sites appear faster.
Then for usability, there’s the use of tabindex, which is great with people who are fond of using the keyboard to navigate rather than the mouse.
And then there’s conforming to web standards and conventions. I know designers these days do their best to conform. However, there are still some who use HTML elements for purposes other than their original intent. Yes, that’s thinking out of the box. But that “box” was created for a purpose. And sometimes structuring things differently makes it difficult to make changes down the road, especially when you change the use of commonly-used tags like LI, SPAN and P.
For non-designers or non-developers, these things might sound a little too technical. But if you look under the hood of your blog (i..e, the underlying code of the theme), or at least even your blog’s source, it pays to clean it up or tweak it to improve on the end-user experience. Even if you shave just a few seconds off loading time, or even if the improvements seem trivial, multiply that a thousand times over, and both your readers and your server will appreciate it.
Categories: Blog Design, Blogging Sense
by J. Angelo Racoma on July 29th, 2008
A recent Wisdump commentary describes how marketing campaigns are asking people to search using keywords rather than type specific URLs.
I am sure you have at least one friend or loved one who has not grasped the concept of URLs and remains highly dependent on Google for finding their way around the web. If you’ll take a closer look at their web browsers, you’ll see why it really isn’t their fault.
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The very nature of URLs seems to be another major stumbling block. Ordinary people don’t understand the use of a “www” and a “.com”, or that the “@” symbol is used only in e-mail addresses. They don’t know how to share websites through URLs either—unless there’s a button with explicit instructions that tell them how.
Add to that the explosion of all the domain suffixes like .me, .travel, and even .xxx. Not to mention all the malicious parties that wish to take advantage of their ignorance—stealing and spoofing personal information through misspelled URLs, search keywords, and deceptive e-mails.
For me, the analogy would be this. Using URLs to go to webpages is like giving an exact, specific street address. Like Number 5 Main Avenue, Gotham City, or the like. Going to a website via a search engine would be like giving landmarks and asking people to look for signages. It’s like telling a friend to go to Main Avenue, look for the big brown building across City Hall, with the green revolving door. At the ground floor of that building would be your shop, which is right next to the florist’s.
Complicated, eh? My point is that I agree with Ia’s commentary that this would involve some search optimization on the part of the website owner. What if the florist closed shop? What if the building administrator painted the revolving door red? Then your friend would have a hard time finding you. Two years from now, the building might even be grey or blue-colored.
Accessing sites via search engines works this way, too. Today you might be number one for the keyword blogging pro on Google. Tomorrow, we may not be.
Another analogy would be the use of telephone numbers. You can call or SMS me on my exact, specific phone number, complete with country code, area code and number. You can also search for me by calling a directory service or 411, but that doesn’t always work the way I would want it to. The phone company might have several people named “Angelo Racoma.” Or I might not be listed at all. And of course, some people would rather be able to contact me directly.
So are URLs here to stay? Of course they are. It’s just perhaps that a lot of people are increasingly finding it convenient to just key in a phrase or keyword onto that ubiquitous search box at the top of the browser window. No more keying in WWW or .COM. Even that causes confusion, with the multitude of top-level domains.
In the future, URLs might just take a backseat, with more and more people doing searches than directly keying in web addresses. I can liken this to AOL and Compuserve. Remember the old times, when companies asked you to key in AOL keywords to access their portals, rather than URLs?
Categories: Blogging Sense, Opinion
Tags: search, seo, url
by jim on July 23rd, 2008
Sitting back, relaxing, sipping a cup of coffee, hopping from one blog site to another. Great way to spend a lazy afternoon. While some would pull out their blackberries to check email, or their iPhone 3Gs to play with them a little more… ah, I’m set with my Asus EEE PC, a wifi nearby, and a Sinatra CD playing.
Admitting there are blogs I hate and blogs I love. Such is my online life. What I hate I still visit for that slim chance of finding a diamond of a post… in the rough. Those I love… ah too many.
I’m in a little retrospect mood today… allow me to rest with all the WordPress news to talk about ME for a while. I’ve been in radio broadcasting for the past 15 years. While my degree says I should be in the IT industry, I somehow have managed to specialize in media, radio and the internet. Now I’m not really sure which path I took that led me to do part-time blogging work, but I like it. I’d agree with posts here at bloggingpro.com that it is HARD to make this your main job. From this post it is near impossible to produce 2,000 posts/month… I guess.
Anyway, let me shift gear here and say that media/radio and blogging do have their similarities. Being from both worlds now, these things just stick out. An important similar thing I’ve learned through my media/radio years is content is king. A well written script is not about the reporter… it’s about the subject… the news item. Media icons like Larry King, Oprah, Anderson Cooper, Barbara Walters etc. would have that uncanny/supernatural way of making themselves invisible in an interview… it’s the subject that is highlighted… it’s them on the spotlight. In the end, the readers/viewers know more about the subject, better informed. A well written blog post is the same.
Whatever it is one blogs about, remember “Content is King”. At the end of the day, your readers must say “Hey, I’ve learned something new from you today” or “Now I see that clearly now, thanks”. It is hard work, and hey there maybe a real chance you wouldn’t hit the quota posts you need… but still, you have better served your readers when you put in more. You’d be a sought-after blogger who made real sense.
I so love this quote right now…
“When something can be read without effort, great effort has gone into its writing.: ~Enrique Jardiel Poncela
Categories: Blogging Sense
by J. Angelo Racoma on July 16th, 2008
Word is out that Google is now able to index Flash content. This is probably good news to web developers out there who are into building sites with Flash. However, should bloggers rejoice at this news?
Probably not. Or at least there’s no compelling reason to be too happy because of this news, unless you run a video blog with a lot of flash-based videos. I would agree with our resident designer Ia that Google’s new Flash-indexing ability might be misused by designers who are fond of designing in Flash without much regard for usability and accessibility.
Google’s efforts to read Flash still seem to be in the premature stages. Typical Google, they always release their products in beta without being wary of the consequences.
By consequences I mean clients who are now running around telling their web designers to create animated intros and the extravagant interfaces for their websites. I can’t really shoot down this little achievement by Google—except that it’s getting scarily smarter everyday and should try to have more features than issues when they launch a product.
More importantly, I can only continue to condemn those who misuse Flash without any regard for accessibility, much less usability, whatsoever.
If you are serious about optimizing your blog for the search engines, then I think the first thing to do would make sure you have good content!
Categories: Blog Design, Blogging News, Blogging Sense
Tags: flash, google, seach, seo
by J. Angelo Racoma on July 16th, 2008
Lorelle VanFossen has started a problogging series on the Blog Herald and one of her recent posts is about whether blogger earnings are enough relative to national standards.
To make the average annual US income of $60,000, you need to make $34 an hour. If you are paid $5 a blog post, you would have to write 12,000 blog posts. At $25 a blog post, you would have to publish 2,400. For $50 per post, that’s 1200 posts. At $100 per blog post, you would have to generate 600 posts.
The overall sense I’m getting here is that blogging for money isn’t quite sustainable, considering that most bloggers (that I know of) are getting way below the ideal rate of $300+ per post–and that is for top-quality, well-researched output.
There are 52 weeks in a year. Most paid bloggers need to produce a minimum of 3 posts a week. That’s 156 posts a year. Divide the annual average income of $60,000 by 156 posts, that’s $385 per post. Anyone getting paid that much to blog? I doubt it. Notch this up to 5 posts a week and you’d need 260 blog posts at $230 per post. That’s better but most bloggers are paid $$25 or less per post.
At $25 a post, you’d need to write 2,400 blog posts to earn $60,000 a year. How long would that take you? Do you have 2,400 original blog posts within you?
Another factor not taken into consideration here, I would say, is those working in the blogging industry who are not in the US. So that means your cost of living (or the income you need in order to be happy, or at least to survive) may differ. It might be higher in some regions, say Western Europe, Tokyo or Singapore. But it would definitely be lower in other places where cost of living is low. So for instance some would be well off with a fraction of the $60,000 annual income that is cited as the target income.
Still, Lorelle comes up with some figures on how long it takes to research and write good-quality posts. She also touches on the per-post or per-hour argument.
So the question here is not about how much you are earning from blogging, which has probably been discussed in many many posts around the blogosphere. It’s how much you should be earning from blogging. Suffice to say that for me $60,000 per year would go a long, long way.
Categories: Blogging Sense
Tags: Add new tag, earning, money, problogging
by J. Angelo Racoma on July 9th, 2008
This was one question posted by James Mowery over at Performancing. He wonders if all blog networks are the real thing, or if some just want to waste your time producing content for them at practically sweatshop pay rates.
Well, some of these sites put on a great first impression. They look like great places to work. Sleek designs, flashy graphics, and text from other members contributing. They are all getting paid for their hard work, right?
Many of these sites state that “you will be paid for your content” and similar. However, there are catches: for one, there is no guarantee they will actually feature your work, and I’ve seen sites that claim the rights to your content even if they don’t feature it (they essentially get your content for free without pay); next, these sites usually determine how much you will be paid on an article by article basis, and this just doesn’t seem right as the writer should set the rate; finally, many of these sites don’t have a chance of making it to the big time and won’t promote your brand in the process.
I would say it’s unfair to characterize blog networks as scams. In general (most) blog networks are legitimate businesses and most likely if they’re still running after a year of operation they are likely doing well, in terms of revenues and even profit. Sure, there may be some fly-by-night outfits out there that might be a waste of time, in terms of earning opportunity.
In this case I would say brand matters. If a network runs great sites and have great readers and writers, who form a good community, then in all likelihood they’re legit, and they can afford great talent. But if it’s not so, then better do more research. I agree with James that you should do research, and you should always read the fine print before committing to something.
I’ve been working with and for blog networks for more than three years now, and I’ve mostly had positive experiences with all of them.
Some resources you might want to check out (mostly our own):
Categories: Blogging Sense
Tags: blog networks, blogging, networks
by jim on July 2nd, 2008
I just met a small town mayor here in South East Asia. He’s the mayor of a small agricultural city, rural as rural can be. I think I stood out of the crowd being naturally city-folk(country folks CAN tell). And it being a really small city, he heard from a friend that I was a computer person. He set up a meeting with me to pick my mind regarding “blogging”. I was a little confused with what he wanted to do (I thought he wanted to know what blogging meant) UNTIL he told me that he wanted municipal events, activities and other municipal news blogged. His primary audience? Former town residents who are now spread all over the globe. This mayor knew what blogging is and he had a specific project for it.
The mayor wanted former town residents to know what’s going on with their old town. He wanted to let them know what’s new… AND what they can do to help their roots develop in this new cyberworld.
I smiled… literally smiled wide! This is the kind of mind that aims at progress. Blogging about their small city is a great progressive step. He’s going to pass this project on to the youth council, who seem to be gungho about the entire thing.
I’ll probably start by dropping a few URLs about blogging and see where their interest brings them. I for one can probably demo what and how setting up a blog site is. Do you know any URLs that can help them?
Funny how blogging is taking its aim at even the rural communities of South East Asia. It’s the grassroots communities that, I think, can benefit from blogging. Tons of things may happen if they keep telling people about their small town. Opportunities, change, development… progress.
Keeping my fingers crossed that this will press on!
Categories: Blogging Sense, Blogging: How To, Interesting
by jim on June 27th, 2008
Today I decided to take a break. I’m out of the office, out of the house. Drove my car to the nearest mall to do the “mall rat” dance. I wanted to hit nature, but terrestrial rains said NO, wanted to brave it with an umbrella… but my sense got the better half of me. I’m in a mall… and “the dance” is no fun at all.
Now I find myself inside an internet access shop, typing away… surfing… then OMG (!) blogging! Today what kept me blogging was BOREDOM, the pure sense of the word. I didn’t want to go back to the office and I didn’t want to call it a day either.
BOREDOM led me to BLOGGING.
There are other reasons why I blog… but I never thought that BOREDOM would do it too. Come to think of it, I am getting all these brain drives and wadayaknow… it’s fueling my blogging drive.
Oh my… am I sick?
All I feel right now is the pure sense of sharing my thoughts… to you. A trusty mochaccino nearby, the YouTube tab on stand-by… and ooohhhh… bloggingpro.com
I’m not sick…. I’m A-L-I-V-E . 
Categories: Blogging Sense
by David Peralty on September 21st, 2007
Make Easy Money With Google And AdSense is one of my favorite sites for reading about AdSense and Google projects in general, and with the Canadian and American dollar hitting parity, I really appreciated their latest post entitled “Google Should Switch To Euros“.
I have posted about the implications in a weak American currency before and so I have to admit, I would enjoy seeing Google switch their AdSense payouts to a currency that converts better to Canadian dollars, and is more stable.
Here is a bit from the article:
If you’re a US publisher then this probably doesn’t mean too much to you, but it definitely affects those of us on the outside, as Google’s US-denominated payments are worth less and less to us once they’re converted over. On the flipside, however, non-US advertisers should see their AdWords costs decrease because the conversion to US dollars for bid prices will be cheaper.
Now if only Google would switch to Euros as its base currency for advertising transactions. The exchange rate is much better…
Has the shift in the value of the American dollar effected you? Let me know in the comments below. I would love to hear some kindred spirits feeling the pressure due to the online economy being so cemented in the US greenback.
Categories: Advertising, Blogging Sense
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