PART I: AN INTRODUCTION TO BLOGS AND BLOGGING
The New Media
In September of 2004, the CBS News program “60 Minutes II” ran a special on
President George Bush’s service in the Texas National Guard during the Vietnam War.
One of the pieces of data they displayed was a memo allegedly written by the late
Lieutenant Colonel Jerry B. Killian. As soon as the memo flashed across the screen,
the New Media began an investigation that would lead to in the firing of three CBS
News executives and the retirement of longtime anchor Dan Rather.
At issue was a simple question: was the memo authentic? CBS News assured the
public it was, citing handwriting and document experts. Within 24 hours, the New Media
had shown that such was not the case, that the memos could not have been produced
on any machine in the hands of the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam era.
The New Media quickly demonstrated that the proportional spacing of the memo and
the superscripting of dates were nearly impossible to create on 1970s technology and
that the layout of the memo was unlike anything produced at the time. In short, they
showed that the memo was not created on a Texas National Guard typewriter as CBS
News had alleged, but was instead produced on a modern computer using Microsoft
Word on its default settings and faxed or copied repeatedly to make it look old. They
showed, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the memo was a fake.
As word of the fraud spread across the internet, additional data came to the fore,
questioning the use of CBS news’ acquisition and handling of the documents. Within a
week, other major news organizations began reporting on the controversy, within two
weeks, CBS itself reported that they had been misled by their source concerning the
origin of the memo. Soon after, CBS brought in a former attorney general and a former
president of the Associated Press to get to the bottom of the issue. The result was a
shakeup of the entire CBS news structure.
Who was this “New Media” that was knowledgeable enough about such arcane topics
as superscripting and National Guard memo layouts to shake up one of the biggest
news outfits in the world in a matter of weeks? It was a network of independent
bloggers who posted their findings in real time, shared information, and tested ideas.
And their posts were followed closely by millions of readers, many of whom posted the
findings on their own blogs for their own readers. As those readers shared the
information with friends and colleagues, interest in the New Media, and the habit of
readers looking for their news from independent sources, accelerated a climb that
began when Matt Drudge reported rumors of what became the Monica Lewinski scandal
several months before the Old Media whispered a word publicly about it.
What a Blog is (and is Not)
A good working definition of a blog is simply a journal or newsletter that is frequently
updated and intended for the timely reading. It often provides opportunities for unfiltered
and immediate feedback, sports an informal or even partisan attitude, and is written in a
more personal style than traditional press outlets.
Blogs come in all shapes and subjects, from the maunderings of troubled teen souls to
displays of classical photography to breaking news and commentary. They can be
online journals, locked with a password shared by a few trusted friends, or they can be
page after page of source code, sharing useful and free computer programs with the
world. A blog may be an online journal tangential to a company’s main business,
where users of a company’s products give feedback and ask for help. Blogs can be
hosted by single individuals, shared by teams, or produced by entire companies. They
may be hosted on a dedicated blog server using fancy templates or lovingly handcrafted
in HTML on a page that resembles a bulletin board.
But a blog is not simply a syndicated column or a newspaper that is online. Many news
outlets feature their content online and even allow readers to respond to stories.
However, the newspaper’s business does not change just because it has a new
medium. Editors and writers still do the same jobs they did before the advent of online
distribution; the newspaper does not view itself as any different from what it always was.
And perhaps therein lies the difference: attitude. The newspaper sees itself as
presenting all the news that’s fit to print, written by objective professionals, while the
blogger sees himself as presenting a piece of his own world and his own expertise from
his own perspective. As blogs become more popular, more columnists are becoming
bloggers and more bloggers are becoming professional in what they write. Perhaps in a
few years, the distinction between the Old Media and the New will be irrelevant in the
mind of writers; for many readers today, it already is.
The number of individual blogs has topped 20 million and readership is exploding. In
fact, the trade magazine Ad Age reports that during 2005 alone, American workers will
spend the equivalent of 551,000 years reading blogs, rumor sheets, and online diaries.
Hundreds of millions of readers worldwide get their news and entertainment from these
independent sources, supporting their favorite bloggers through donations, link usage,
and purchase of blog-related memorabilia.
The Blog as a Business
Most blogs are small potatoes. The vast majority are online journals where teenagers
talk about their lives to a readership made up of their closest friends. A growing
minority, however, are businesses in and of themselves. They balance costs and
income; they purposely seek out content providers, advertisers, and paying customers.
They make a profit. They are, in fact, Blog Empires, ruling over a reader-defined section
of the blogosphere as the go-to site for millions who come to get the news, buy
promotional merchandise, and donate money to keep their favorite bloggers fed and
happy.
That’s where you come in. You can draw millions of readers, because what you have to
say is important. You can accumulate advertisers, because they will pay to reach your
readers. In short, you can build your own Blog Empire, and it’s easier than you think.
This book will walk you through the steps necessary to see your name in lights and your
blog climb to the top of blog listings everywhere, and to fatten your bank account with
the profits from your own blog business.
It will take a lot of work (what worthwhile thing doesn’t?) but you may find that being a
blogger, building a Blog Empire of your own, is the most fulfilling job you’ve ever had.
The Components of a Blog Empire
A Blog Empire, like any other business, is made up of three major components: a
supplier, buyers, and the products for sale. But a blog in many cases differs from the
average business because you are bringing together two sets of customers and
delivering two sets of products. And you’re not even selling the main item you produce.
Sound confusing? It’s really not. Let’s take a look at the component parts and illustrate
just how simple it is.
The first component is a supplier. That’s you. It is your words, your opinion, your
research, and your art which can bring thousands or even millions of readers to your
blog. You will be the attraction, the broker, and the Emperor of your Blog Empire. If it
weren’t for you, the blog wouldn’t exist. Because of who you are, what you know, and
what you do, it can thrive.
The second component is a buyer, a customer. While the vast majority of your
customers will be your readers, other customers will include companies that pay you to
feature their links and advertisements on your blog. “Traffic” (those millions of readers
out there who care about what you say) is the lifeline of your site: you’ve got to find
them and bring them in. Once they are there, your advertising customers will pay for
access to your reading customers, and your reading customers will pay for your
information and merchandise.
The final component is a product. Like all businesses, yours can’t exist without a
product to sell. But what do you sell when you’re giving your opinion away for free on a
blog?
The first product you sell is yourself: your opinions and your expertise. Without selling
yourself to your readers, you will have no customers. They may not always pay you
directly (though we’ll see that in many cases, they will) but if they don’t buy what you’re
saying, they will not buy anything else.
The second product you sell is your space. You lease it to advertisers who will pay you
to put information in front of your millions and millions of readers. Whether text links or
flashing popup banner ads, your advertisers will pay you for a small part of your
readers’ attention.
The final product you sell is your merchandise. With a properly-branded name and a
reputation for excellence, your readers will purchase coffee mugs, t-shirts, bumper
stickers…anything you can imagine.
In your Blog Empire, your reader is a customer and a product, and the more customers
you have, the more products you can sell and the more profit you can pocket. You can
turn your labor of love into a digital cash cow by building a Blog Empire that brings
customers and buyers together. This book will show you how to do just that.
PART II: BUILDING YOUR BLOG EMPIRE
Deciding What Type of Empire You’ll Build
So you want to build an empire. Unlike historical empires that relied on unique military
tactics, advanced technology, and slave labor, your empire will rely on a single person:
you. You’ll design it, you’ll build it, and you’ll people it with readers who return to it day
after day, becoming in a small sense virtual citizens of your Blog Empire and eventually
your happy customers. You’ll use the same tactics as others, but you’ll use them more
efficiently. You’ll use the same infrastructure as others, but you’ll use it more effectively.
You’ll compete with other empires for your readers’ time, and you’ll do so successfully.
A Blog Empire is an empire of customer service and you will not only be its ruler, you
will be the servant of all who enter it. Sound like fun? It can be, if you design your
empire with one person in mind: you.
It seems a dichotomy to say that a Blog Empire should be built around the provider
rather than the customer, but there’s a simple reason for it: it will be you who updates it
day after day. You will be the editor, the designer, and the main focus of the site. Your
expertise, your hobby, or your insight will provide the service that the citizens of your
Blog Empire want. You can’t sell from an empty cart and you’ve got to be in it for the
long haul. That means you’ve got to provide content that features what you know and
what you love. You will be the key, and every part of your Blog Empire will be designed
with that in mind.
However, before you can lay the foundations, we need to review a few options. Let’s
take a look at a few successful blogs and generate some ideas. Then we’ll come back
for a good look at the one who can make it all work: you.
The Makings of Empire: Choosing Content That Provides Value
Unless you are a successful newspaper columnist or a famous actress who is able to
draw hordes of readers by your reputation alone, your blog is going to need a theme. It
may be a narrow one, like “Libertarian politics in the Massachusetts Governor’s race.” It
may be a broad one, like, “art focusing on life and love.” But whatever your theme, your
blog is going to keep readers by presenting them with the valuable content they expect.
Not coincidentally, it’s also going to be a theme you love and will not be tempted to stray
far from.
Because there are literally millions of blogs available, successful blogs reach one kind
of reader, and they do it well. The reason is obvious: a reader who might share your
interest in model trains may not share your love of fine wines. He may not care about
your vacation in Paris. Unless he’s a personal friend, he may not care about your new
car. That means you’re going to have to pick a subject and stick with it. A good starting
place is the following list of popular blog categories: political, spiritual, society/culture,
rant, business, hobby, technology, art, news, reference.
Of the most popular blogs, measured by Technorati.com, a popular blog search engine,
a significant percentage are political blogs. This should not be surprising: with the
exception of religious opinions, opinions on politics are some of the most fiercely held
and vociferously debated. Political opinions make great blog fodder. But there’s a
catch: everyone has an opinion, but not everyone has one that millions of readers will
take time to read. Successful political blogs, whether the liberal Daily Kos, the
conservative Red State, or the law-oriented Volokh Conspiracy, all have one thing in
common: they have important and timely information (not just opinions) that can be
relied upon by serious political junkies. They have high-level political connections,
access to rumors, or expertise to share. If you are connected in politics or law and have
serious light to shed on the issues of the day, a political blog may be your Blog Empire.
The same case holds for spiritual blogs, hobby blogs, and technology blogs: the
successful blogs are those run by experts (that is, of course, why we’re going to build
your empire on your own expertise) who can tell readers what they don’t know and want
to know.
There are, however, successful blogs that are not run by experts; they are run, in fact,
by someone who had a brilliant idea. As of this writing, the third most popular blog on
Technorati, linked by more than 25,000 other blogs, is Post Secret. On Post Secret, the
readers do all the work, creating a picture that represents a secret the contributor wants
to anonymously reveal to the world. The secrets may be “I once made a student repeat
a grade so I could flirt with his father for another year,” or it may be “I find it amusing
when my blind dog crashes into furniture.” In every case, the entries chosen are
In association with http://www.guidetoblogging.info/
skillfully presented (the blogger IS an expert in picking interesting content) and readers
laugh, they cry, and they relate. But most importantly, they return again and again.
Post Secret illustrates that all you need is a well-presented good idea to build a blog
empire.
News, link, and reference blogs require an abiding interest in one subject and the
tenacity to find relevant, timely information. Successful ones cover their subject so well
that they are considered valuable references by serious news hounds. A good example
of this type of blog is Zero Intelligence. Zero Intelligence gathers every relevant story
about “zero tolerance” drug and weapons policies in public and private schools and
presents them with commentary. It follows stories through the press cycle to resolution
or disappearance and serves as a trusted clearing house for relevant information.
Another reference blog is “Literally, a Weblog,” which documents the popular press’
misuse of the word “literally.” If a writer needs an example to make a point about the
use or misuse of “literally” in the arts or media, “Literally, a Weblog” can provide a fitting
example for any story.
No idea is too small, too silly, or too pretentious so long as you present your content in a
manner that makes your blog a valuable reference. If you have an abiding interest in a
specific subject more than any other, then a news, link, or reference blog may be may
be the place to start.
The final category is, alas, the largest category of blogs and the one that makes up the
smallest percentage of professional blogs: the rant blog. Rant blogs are generally
“brain dump” blogs, where the blogger simply writes what’s on her mind, tells about her
day, or whines about her boss. It is a cathartic project, designed for the blogger’s
mental health, and while it may be interesting – at least to the author - it will seldom
draw much of a crowd. Unless your life is interesting enough to write a book about, the
rant blog is to be avoided. If your life IS interesting enough to write a book about, it’s
probably best to write the book.
Construction: No one Need Blog Alone
If the idea of sifting the news 20 hours a day for blog material gives you the willies, don’t
panic: get a partner. One of the most popular blog formats (or rather, the format of
many popular blogs) is the multi-contributor blog. I mentioned the Volokh Conspiracy
earlier; it’s written by several legal experts who contribute in their areas of expertise to
the blog’s main theme. National Review’s “Corner” follows a similar format: NR’s
columnists answer reader mail and contribute quips and opinions, making the page a
lively read. Creating a multi-contributor blog means that you’ll be sharing your Blog
Empire with co-regents, and as history illustrates, this has challenges of its own. But if
you share a love of your subject with other experts, you’ll be doing your readers a favor
by sharing divergent opinions with them.
A second possibility is to join a site that has multiple blogs on it, drawing traffic that may
come to read others and stay to read you. A number of newspapers like the Lawrence
Journal World feature a stable of bloggers on their site and may even feature some of
their bloggers in print or on their paper’s front page online. For the blogger who wants
to build an audience quickly, this may be an option. Be aware, however, that writing
under someone else’s banner means you will be giving up significant creative control: it
may be a good starting place for you to build a name, but you’ll soon want to strike out
on your own.
Well, What Do You Know?
Now that you know what you can build, let’s take a look at what you want to build. The
first step in that process is looking at who you are, what and who you know, and what
you love. What do you have to offer the millions of potential readers who will join your
Blog Empire while they sip their morning coffee?
Figure 1 - Establishing a firm foundation is essential
To find out we’re going to answer the most important question for your future success:
where you’re going to build your capitol, the headquarters of your own Blog Empire.
Basically, we’re going to brainstorm and free associate. There are no right answers, no
wrong answers, and nothing is too crazy to write down at this point. Remember, if you
love it, someone else probably loves it, too.
Take out a blank sheet of paper and get a nice, tall drink. Then answer the following
questions as best as you can. Some, like your age, may seem silly or irrelevant. Some
you may simply not have an answer to. That’s perfectly all right. Just be as thorough as
you can.
Question 1: Who are you? What is your age? What is your gender? What is your
race? Are you religious? Are you a dazzling urbanite, a laid-back rural, or something in
between? Do you think about these issues every day? Do they matter to you or to your
friends? HOW do they matter? What languages do you speak? If you could change one
thing about yourself, what would it be? Try that last one again, honestly this time.
Question 2: What do you know? What and who do you know? Where have you gone
to school? Where do you work and what do you do? In what areas are you an expert?
Who else shares your love, your passion, your expertise? What work, education, or
hobby-related areas could you be said to have a reputation? What do you have a
reputation for?
Question 3: What do you want to know? When you log onto the internet, where is
the first place you go? What are you looking for? What do you expect to find? How long
does it take you to find it? Is everything in one place? How many sites do you visit
before you’re satisfied? What do you WANT a reputation for?
Question 4: What are you passionate about? What makes your blood boil? What
makes you jump up and click your heels? Have you ever written a letter to the editor?
What was the subject? Did you check the paper every day for responses? What
politicians or issues do you love enough to walk door-to-door for? Why? If you were
king, what would be the first thing you’d do? If you won the lottery, what would be the
first thing you’d buy?
Assess your skills and knowledge:
Next, we’re going to examine some skills that are necessary in order to create certain
types of blogs. Be as honest (even as harsh) as you can in your self-appraisal.
Remember, if you really can’t write well, your readers are going to know. If you can
create first-rate artwork, now is not the time to sell yourself short.
I can write: very well / pretty well / are you kidding?
My writing has been published by others: Y / N
My sense of humor can be described as: dry / sarcastic / ironic / witty / are you kidding?
I can write well in the following languages: _________________________________
I can program computers using the following languages: ______________________
I have written computer programs that are in use by others Y / N
I can create professional quality artwork: Y / N
I have used the following graphics packages: ______________________________
I have taken the following arts or graphics classes: __________________________
My artwork is currently being used by others Y / N
Extra Credit:
I’m consistently surprised that people ask my opinion about: __________________
I have a million stories about: ___________________________________________
I know more than anyone else about: _____________________________________
People would pay for my knowledge about: ________________________________
Now, look over all your answers and pick the category where most of them fit best:
__Artistic __Business __Hobby __News __Political __Rant __Reference
__Society/Culture __Spiritual __Other:______________
For example, if you are passionate about technology and know more than anyone else
about RS-232 serial interfaces, then a technology blog may be the beginning of your
Blog Empire. If you are fanatical about gun rights or racism or personal privacy, but
can’t write, then a news or reference blog may be right up your alley.
If your skills overlap multiple categories, that’s ok as well. You may be able to create a
category that no one else has tried! But pick your category carefully: the success of
your blog empire is going to depend on whether you can consistently offer your readers
the content that they will return again and again for. Your mental health will depend
upon whether you love it enough to stay the course.
Develop a Blog Theme
Every successful blog has a theme - the idea or subject your blog is about more than
anything else - that makes it a go-to site in the minds of readers. In order to make your
blog a success you must be able to contribute something unique, and that something is
going to make up the theme of your blog. It might be a comical take on the news. It
might be in-depth tutorials for a certain software package. It might even be rumors you
hear in your daily job as a top-level political analyst. It may be short stories or
fascinating photographs. But you have to find that certain something that only you can
contribute and that people want to read or see.
Your blog’s theme can be summed up by what you want you blog to be famous for, the
one unique thing your blog presents or contributes. Pick three or four key words that
describe your content and your presentation of it, based on your skills, abilities, and
knowledge (e.g. “satirical partisan political commentary” or “sentimental love poetry”).
Then complete your theme:
Blog Theme: My blog is known and respected as the best place on the internet to
find: ______________ ___________________ ________________ ____________
Figure 2 - A Blog Empire has many subjects but only one theme
Branding – Developing a Name and Image That Will Stick With People
Every empire has a name. It may be regal enough that “Rome” says everything there is
to say. It may try to ride off the success of others, as the “Holy Roman Empire”
attempted in the Ninth Century. Whatever name you choose, however, will establish
your brand. It will be the name that people remember, and it will be with you forever.
Think it’s not important? Just imagine what would happen to Coca-Cola if its name was
changed tomorrow to Sparkie’s Soda. Would you still buy it even if it tasted the same?
Would they still be the most popular cola in the world? Their name, built carefully for
more than a century, is the most valuable asset they own. Your brand will do the same
for your Blog Empire.
Need Brand Be Relevant to Content?
The question immediately arises whether your name needs to be descriptive of your
content, and the answer is, unfortunately, “maybe.” Sometimes it helps, as no one
going to Red State would expect anything other than GOP-friendly commentary. The
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler is descriptive of both commentary and style. Post Secret says
everything there is to say about the blog.
On the other hand, many successful blogs have names that are simply memorable.
Little Green Footballs, with more than 100,000 visitors a day, is a political blog
concerned with the War on Terror. BoingBoing describes itself as “a directory of
wonderful things.” Both have memorable names; neither has a meaningful one.
Branding Idea Generator
In order to come up with a few brand ideas to choose from, we’re going to perform a
little brainstorming session. It will involve picking words that relate to you and your
content or your interests, and matching them with other words. As an idea generator it
will be worthwhile even if you have a name and image picked out. After all, almost any
idea can be improved, but if yours is already the best, this little exercise should prove
that, too.
Repeat your theme here:
Blog Theme: My blog is known and respected as the best place on the internet to
find: ____________ ___________________ _______________ _______________
Now, take a look at your key, content-related words and write them here:
1)
2)
3)
4)
Write your personal nicknames (if applicable) or a couple words that describe you here:
1)
2)
3)
Write five words or the names of particular objects or subjects you enjoy writing,
researching, or talking about here (they need not be related to your theme):
1)
2)
3)
4)
5)
Now, go online to dictionary.com and look each up in the thesaurus, picking out unique
synonyms or words you like the sound of. Write them on a separate sheet of paper
(you should end up with at least 30 words).
For each of those words, write two words that are related, like “captain – ship, quarters”
or “car – hot rod, spinning wheels.” Try not to be too obvious.
That’s a lot of words, some of which will be related to your content, and some not. Now,
just play with them and combine them however you like, noting those combinations
which sound powerful or – even better – interesting. Change a few words to interesting
but similar words (e.g. “pillar” to “pillage”). Write down a few phrases (even clichés) that
the words appear in. Just have fun with them!
Then grab a half dozen of your favorites and just let them stew in your mind. By the
time you’re through with this book, you’ll know which one you like best or whether you
need to start the exercise over, and you may even have dreamed up matching artwork
for a few of them.
Earning and Protecting Your Reputation
Whether or not your brand is relevant to your content, it will quickly develop one
relevant attribute: a reputation. Everyone who reads your blog will come away with an
impression, either good or bad. They will like it or not. Surprisingly, that’s not the most
important issue for your Blog Empire, because no reader, not even your most loyal, is
going to like or agree with everything you say. The important issue is whether that
reader believes your blog to be important. If a reader does not find a blog important,
she will probably not return even if she liked a story or two: there are simply too many
other blogs to see. If a reader finds your blog insightful, entertaining, and relevant, she
will return even though she disagrees with your commentary or doesn’t like your layout.
In order to be a serious empire, your blog must exude seriousness. That doesn’t mean
your subject must be serious, but you must be serious about your subject.
For political and technology blogs, that means accuracy and timeliness. Rumors must
be noted as such. Opinions must be noted as such. You can be a partisan – in fact,
your theme may be a very partisan view of something - but you’ve got to be fair to your
readers, who will form an opinion about your subject based on what you say. If your
blog is an art blog, you’ve got to focus on quality. If your blog features model trains,
entries about your daughter’s dance recital will lose readers. If your blog is a reference
or news blog, you’ve got to be thorough. Once your reputation is established, readers
will come to your blog to see what you have to say because they will expect you to
know more than them. If you miss the big story or are shown by later events to be
completely off-the-wall when you said you were certain, they may not return.
Reputation is everything, so as you build your Blog Empire, remember what you want a
reputation for and consistently strive to earn it.
Figure 3 - Reputation is Everything
Designing a Page That Complements Your Content
Many of us dream of going boldly where no man has gone before. In the blog world,
that’s done with content – creating a unique contribution to the blogosphere that readers
will return to again and again.
In some areas, however, it’s safer to follow the well-worn path, sort of like following the
Oregon Trail across the Old American West. Someone found the best way to cross the
plains and many others succeeded only because they followed in those muddy ruts.
The hard work was done, and the important stuff lay on the other side of the mountains.
It would have been foolish for a greenhorn to try to seek a new pass through the
mountains simply because others had already established one. So it is with developing
the look of your blog, at least when you are getting started. Of course, once you are a
seasoned explorer, you’ll want to seek out the newer and better paths that others
overlook.
Earlier you chose the kind of Blog Empire you were going to establish, so now it’s time
to take a look at a few other blogs that have successfully made the trek you’re setting
out on. We’re only going to look at the best (i.e. most successful) blogs to start with,
though you’ll eventually want to follow a few blog rings to snatch up ideas that can help
you build your site into all it can be.
If you haven’t already done so, do a web search using you favorite search engine,
looking for the Top 100 blogs. It doesn’t really matter how you search, just that you find
blogs that have proven themselves in the eyes of readers and other bloggers, because
there are many ways to measure the top: by traffic, by number of other blogs that link,
even by awards. You’ll eventually want to search them all.
Now take a look at their layouts, their colors, their images. Focus especially on blogs
that resemble yours in content. How do they deal with long posts? How do they link
documents? Do they have a list of previous entries? What does their masthead look
like? How many columns do they have across the page, including links? These
questions are important, not because you’ll be copying (you won’t), but because there
are certain layout standards your readers will expect to see, just like you expect that all
daily newspapers will share a similar format.
Artwork
As much as your blog resembles others, there are ways in which your blog will be –
must be – unique. The first is, obviously, your title. The second is going to be artwork
that complements it. On a blog titled, “The Privateer,” a ship would be a complementary
masthead. A German shepherd dog would not. But whether your title is relevant to
your content, your artwork should be relevant to your title if possible. The image and
title are part of your brand, the image you want your readers to remember and come
back for more of. They should send a single message to your reader at first glance.
That means professional quality artwork. It does not have to be professionally created,
but it must be of high quality. Create it yourself only if you’re good enough at it that
people would pay you to do theirs.
A couple of examples from political sites will illustrate:
Power Line has its name, literally in lights, with lightning striking from each end. Could it
be any more powerful?
Red State shows a map of the United States with red from sea to shining sea. It’s not
only their masthead, but their goal.
Daily Kos goes for a more artistic look, with an orange-and-black picture background
and the name in bold white. The picture need not relate directly to the title because the
title is a personal name, but it must (and does) look professional.
What they have in common is professionalism and uniqueness. Your Blog Empire
should exude the same professional seriousness as the best blogs. After all, you’ll be
joining them!
Figure 4 - A blog's header art illustrates the theme
fonts and Colors
Blogs come in all fonts and colors, and there is no right way to handle them except that
they ought to say something about your site whenever possible. Red State, for obvious
reasons, goes heavy on the red and light on the blue. Gizmodo, a blog dedicated to
gadgets, uses a more “techno” color scheme, with soft blues and oranges. Daring
Fireball does the opposite of what you’d expect: there’s not an orange letter on the
page; just unadventurous shades of gray. Each of them has a consistent scheme that
makes it stand out from others, even while respecting the layout standards readers
expect.
Less can be said on fonts, as most blogs use the popular fonts that come with blog
software. The only warnings are to be sure your font is of a readable size for most
screens (from 800x600 to 1024x768), and to avoid using comical or whimsical fonts on
serious material. It’s also a good idea to stick with fonts that most people will have on
their machines, because most browsers will default to a popular font anyway if they
don’t have yours installed. Unless there’s a good reason not to, you should stick with a
font that will not detract attention from your message. That normally means Arial, Times
New Roman, Georgia, or the like.
Using Your Links Wisely
The vast majority of blogs feature a section or two that contains nothing but links. They
may be links to the bloggers’ other blogs or to related sites; they may even be links to
every syndicated columnist online - such a scheme makes up a good portion of the
Drudge Report, Matt Drudge’s headline news portal. If you feature links, you’ll be
following the grand tradition of successful bloggers and doing your readers a service.
We’ll talk later about using your links as an assets to increase traffic, but for now we’ll
just talk about how they are laid out, and in layout, there are two rules to follow: use
your links purposely and organize them effectively.
Everything on your page should contribute to your page, and your links are no
exception. They should be organized in a manner that helps your readers navigate
them, whether alphabetically or by subject. They should also each contribute
something to your blog’s content. Aunt Mabel’s cat blog may be really nice – and you
may really love your aunt - but the readers of your open-source software blog will not be
terribly interested in it. Your links are an asset: distribute them in a way that maximizes
your blog’s value, and organize them in a way that ensures your readers can find what
they want.
Layout
Fonts, colors, links and artwork are all produced on the page in a layout, a format which
ought to resemble the newly-cleaned bedroom of a small child. There will be a place for
everything and everything will be in its place. There will be no toys shoved under the
bed where a curious grandmother will find them and tut-tut. The closets will be neat and
well-organized. The floor will be swept. In other words, you’ll need to combine all the
elements of your blog into a format that makes people feel relaxed and impressed
rather than distracted by clutter. But how do you accomplish that if you have no artistic
ability? It’s not as hard as you would expect.
Most blog software comes with a series of templates, preformatted layouts that will put
things where your readers expect them to be. These templates will allow you to set
fonts and colors, decide if you want one gutter or several, and place your own artwork
on the page. They will allow you to set up an archive, start a mailing list so your
subscribers can be notified every time you post, and provide a standardized structure
into which you can add the codes and features that will make your blog unique. Just
remember that every blog host and package offers different features (some are simple
but don’t allow imported art, some require HTML knowledge but offer great latitude in
design). If you don’t want to design the page yourself, professional blog designers, like
Hoyt Station, can create an inexpensive layout to your specifications.
Objects
Objects are small pieces of code that will be added to your site to make it unique and to
provide useful content for your readers outside of your own writing. They can be as
simple as a page counter or as complicated as an online poll or a RSS feed, but all will
be laid out on your page with two ideas in mind: visual harmony and usefulness.
Your page, when viewed for the first time, should speak most loudly to your theme.
Whether your theme is artistic or political or technological, every object on the page
should do its best to illustrate and reinforce that theme in the mind of the reader.
Some objects, however, will not relate directly to your theme as much as they will to the
operation of your site. A traffic counter is a perfect example. While bloggers are
excited when their traffic grows and want to tell the world about it in capital letters and
bold fonts, most readers are not terribly interested. Therefore it’s good practice to
feature objects that directly relate to your theme and content close to the top of your
page where the reader will see it first. Operational or structural objects, like a list of
blogs that have sent you recent traffic, belong closer to the bottom of the page.
Remember, your objective is to catch the first time reader’s attention and to illustrate, in
as little time as possible, the theme of your site. Every object on your page should be
placed with that in mind.
Blog Entries
What stories are to a city newspaper, blog entries are to your Blog Empire. And while
your layout is important, readers will not return again and again to admire your layout or
ruminate over your clever title. They’ll return again and again to read your writing or
view your artwork or check the links that you provide. In other words, while they may
read because of your layout, they will return because of your entries.
An entry is simply a published piece of material, and your readers will have definite
expectations for your entries that you will need to meet, again and again, in order to
woo them into coming back tomorrow. Luckily, most of those expectations are set by
you in prior entries. Those expectations are insight, relevance, timeliness, accuracy,
and consistency.
Insightful and Unique Content
Whether your blog provides photographs of the rain forest, reviews of Pacific Northwest
restaurants, or the largest collection of ethnic jokes on the planet, your readers expect
that every time they come there, they’ll find something new, unique, and worthwhile.
They’ll expect to find something they can’t find anywhere else or find by themselves
without searching all over. In short, they’ll expect you to provide insightful and unique
content on a certain consistent subject or issue. Your insight and your dedication to
providing quality are what will draw them back.
Links and Commentary
On a news blog, for example, your readers expect that your commentary will provide
interesting and relevant news, probably with a link to an original story or a source site.
They will also expect you to provide expertise that they do not possess, information they
have not found elsewhere, and an up-to–the-minute take on relevant trends and rumors.
They want to read the entry and come away feeling they now know more than they did,
that they learned something interesting, and that they leave with a reason to return.
A blog that reviews restaurants will meet those same expectations in a different manner.
Timeliness is less a factor – restaurants don’t change as quickly as the daily news – but
relevance and thoroughness become more important. Your readers are not going to
return for your reviews of Portland’s collection of Subway restaurants, nor for your fifth
review of Kell’s Irish Pub, even if you think it the best place in the world to eat. They
demand an expanding collection of useful content, and they want each entry to tell them
everything they need to know to make an enjoyable dining decision. They want you to
be clear, honest, and thorough.
Perhaps your blog is a reference blog, collecting and publishing links by subject. While
readers may not have expectations for your commentary, they will expect the links to be
accurate and present a thorough overview of the subject from all angles – or at least
from the angle your readers have come to expect from prior commentary. Consistency
and thoroughness are again the watchwords.
Whatever the theme of your blog, your readers will expect every entry to be timely,
relevant, and accurate.
Consistency
Because your blog shares many attributes of your local newspaper, think for a moment
about what the newspaper look like. It has a masthead, headings, and stories. It has a
certain number of columns, fonts of a certain size and type, and stories categorized
within sections. It looks that way every day. It is consistent.
On the other hand, imagine what you’d think of a newspaper that placed random
obituaries in the sports section, put the top story of the day in the classifieds section, or
used random fonts and character sizes across an ever-changing number of columns.
You wouldn’t have a lot of respect for that newspaper, would you? It would not be taken
seriously by most readers. They would ignore it, even though it may be incredibly
informative and insightful once they get past the layout. They will ignore your blog, too,
unless you learn a lesson from the papers: consistency makes a good first impression.
That means your entries have to look smart and interesting, even before the reader
scans a single headline. And your entries must be readable, especially if you are
quoting a source and explaining or arguing with that source. This can be done through
the use of bolds, indentations, color (either font or background) or as many ways as you
can imagine. The only limitations are your imagination and a respect for consistency.
What works for one entry should be made to work for all. If a specific layout does not
work for most entries, keep experimenting until you find one that does. Your readers
will appreciate it.
Your blog entries, laying one after the other on a page, will present the same visual
opportunity to make a first impression as the consistent fonts and columns of a
newspaper. That means your entries should all look similar. They should have the
same font in the same size. The headlines and links should be treated the same way all
down the page. If you use images, they should appear in the same place in each entry.
The entries, at least on the front page, should be the same size, with no entry so large
that it takes up the whole front page unless that’s the only story you’re doing for the day
– and you do it every day.
But how do you do that, since you’ll not have the same amount to say about every
subject or the same number of images to present? Extra commentary should be
handled, like newspapers do it, “behind the fold.”
Take a look at a few of the favorite blogs you chose earlier and notice a linked line at
the bottom of many stories. It may say, “More behind the fold” or simply, “Read more.”
Notice how each of the entries looks the same, with no long entries taking up the entire
page. Notice how if a story does not interest you (and not every one will) you can see
the next story without paging down. That blog realizes that if a long story does not
interest a reader, she will most likely not skip to the next one unless she can see it; she
will likely surf away instead. If it does interest the reader, the rest of the story is only a
click away.
Whatever blog software you choose (and we’ll review a few types later) should allow
you to put data behind the fold, saving your front page for multiple stories, just like a
newspaper does. Remember, the New Media will take the best from the Old Media,
and a consistent and serious presentation is one of the best lessons you can learn from
them.
Copyright
You’ll take a lot more from the Old Media than just lessons on consistency, however. If
you have a news blog, you’ll take parts of stories that will set up your own commentary.
A technology blog may quote articles and experts speaking in interviews you did not
give. In other words, unless you’ll be presenting completely original work on your blog,
you’ll have to deal with basic issues of copyright. This book is not a legal guide, and we
recommend you familiarize yourself with the basic issues of copyright before you copy
another’s material - there are some very good blogs which cover the issue – but there
are a few principles that can help you lay the foundations of a safe and legal Blog
Empire.
The first issue is attribution. The blog owner must always attribute the work of others to
them and not to himself, even by default. That means interviews, passages, and
photographs found online are the property of others and their rights should be
respected. If you quote a passage of text, make sure you tell whence it originated
(either through a link or a description) and be sure not to claim it for your own.
The second issue is “fair use.” Americans may copy and distribute the work of others
under the doctrine of “fair use” under certain legally-defined terms. This generally
includes short passages, and certainly includes passages that the user is commenting
on. For news and technology blogs, copyright is not as much of an issue as for other
blogs.
However, if your blog is an art blog, these issues become complex enough that seeking
competent legal counsel is a must. Copyright law does not allow you to distribute, for
example, .MP3 files from your favorite bands or the photography of your favorite artist
just because you have the technical know-how to copy and upload them.
Also remember that copyright laws and issue differ from nation to nation. Many people
believe that they can get away with infringing the intellectual and artistic rights of others
because the web is international. However, as your blog is meant to been viewed by
millions, you should respect copyright and work within your nation’s applicable laws if
for no other reason than that your reputation as an honest business will depend upon it.
Are Images Necessary?
When designing a blog or blog entry, one of the immediate questions that will arise is
whether it will demand a picture or image to give it “life” or “zest.” If your blog is an art
blog that will feature visual presentations, the answer is obviously in the affirmative. But
what if your blog is a political or technology blog? If your blog’s content is mostly
information rather than visual art, an image can occasionally help get your message
across, especially if it helps to illustrate your content.
In that case, an image, which will necessarily be small in order to fit on your page, can
be hyperlinked to a larger version in order to give your readers access to more
information or detail should they desire it. In this case, it’s helpful to have the image
open a separate browser so the original story remains in the main browser.
Images, like your entries themselves, should be consistently sized. They do not have to
be exactly the same, however, because not every image will be the same shape and
should not be forced into an arbitrary mold, especially at the expense of proportion. A
skewed image is generally worse than none. However, it is important to avoid
haphazard sizing, especially when you feature multiple images close together. Images
of vastly differing sizes will scream ‘unprofessional’ at your readers.
Successful bloggers will occasionally use humorous or “cute” pictures to illustrate
content or to make a point. This is acceptable so long as it is used only occasionally
and does not detract from the image you’re trying to create for your blog. It also
provides a nice break for your readers if your content has been heavy, repetitive, or
intense. They deserve a break just like you do.
A look at the successful political blogs, for example, will illustrate the acceptable use of
images in blogs that seek to be taken seriously. When introducing someone (e.g. a new
musician or an obscure, state-level politician) to your readers, a small photograph is
helpful, as it is in the newspaper, to give them a visual reference point. When
discussing documents, it’s helpful to present a copy of the document, either hyperlinked
(.PDF files are best for this) or as a small .JPG or .GIF image. Making your own
illustrative notations on the images where appropriate (so long as they are done in a
professional manner) will help to make your content even more original.
However, unless your blog is a humor blog, overuse of humorous or ‘cute’ pictures can
damage your blog’s reputation. Because you seek to be serious and taken seriously by
your readers, it’s important to design every entry in a way that supports and furthers
your reputation.
Of course, if your blog is dedicated to holidays or cheerleaders, then by all means, load
it up with as many pictures as will fit on the page!
Hosting Images
When a small-time blogger or diarist finds an image that looks like it might fit his post,
he’s likely as not to simply link the picture where it exists, leaving it on someone else’s
server, but displaying it on his page like it’s his own. For those who are not taking credit
for the work, or whose blogs are not “professional,” it’s generally a non-issue. However,
occasionally an image will appear on their site which is not the image they displayed,
but which instead informs all their readers of what they are doing. It will say, in
obnoxiously large letters that can’t be missed by the reader, “This person is stealing
bandwidth.” It’s not a reputation you want your blog to have, and many sites are
creating technological locks that that display such warnings or keep people from doing it
altogether.
Stealing bandwidth is, in short, linking directly to another’s site in a way that causes the
reader’s browser to download others’ content as part of your page. When a browser
asks a server for a web page, the page points to the locations of other components of
that page so that the browser can assemble it for viewing. If every word and image your
page displays is stored on your server, then the bandwidth used for that page load is
charged against your account. That’s fine; it’s your traffic and you should pay for it.
However, if some of those components are hosted on the servers of others, your
bandwidth is charged against their account. Once your traffic starts to grow, they will
notice your theft and will be rightly upset with your practices. The solution is to take
responsibility for your own bandwidth by hosting your own images.
In addition to being honest business, hosting your own images allows you to re-size or
reformat those images to fit your page. While many blog programs allow you to do that
when setting up the entry, unless you have physically re-sized the photo or image, the
browser will be forced to download it in its original size and then fit it to the page. This
can cause slow loading times, which are to be avoided at all costs.
The final advantage of hosting your own images is that you know they’ll always be
there. As your blog grows in popularity and your archives spider their way into search
engines, people will visit your prior entries as an entry point into your blog. Those
entries will also be linked to and commented on by others (remember, what you’re
saying is important). Ensuring that the images in your entries are under your control will
eliminate the possibility that others will move or delete the images, rendering your
entries less useful. Of course, be sure to respect all copyright laws when copying or
modifying the work of others.
The easiest way to host your own images is to simply lease space from an internet
service provider, uploading the images as you place them in entries. Check with your
current provider first: you may receive a significant amount of server space assigned
with your regular internet account. If you decide to lease space (and you’ll probably
need to as your blog grows) be sure that the amount you have will fit the growth you
plan for your business.
Archives
Your blog will feature at most a dozen articles on your front page, and when users pay
you a visit, that’s all they’ll see. But once you’ve been blogging for a few days, you’ll
have written posts that begin to scroll off the page to be lost to your readers and history.
Or are they? They’re not lost if you have an easily-accessible archive.
Figure 5 - Archives can be organized via a calendar object
An archive is simply a collection of posts that are no longer displayed on your main
page. When someone comes to your blog, they are generally greeted by a page with
the name “index.html” or something similar. The index page displays the content of
some of your recent posts, but each of those posts also has an individual name. When
those posts are archived, they are available through search engines – either on your
site or across the web – so readers can find what you’ve written or presented in the
past. As your collection of posts grows, you’ll need to ensure that your readers have a
way to easily find those prior posts, either through a search box on your site or through
an object that allows the reader to browse either by subject or by date.
With your information and pictures archived, your site will be well on its way to being the
kind of reference that people will read, not only to find out what you’re saying today, but
to search out information you’ve shared since the first day you began your Blog Empire.
In association with http://www.guidetoblogging.info/
Distributed by
http://www.anewshop.co.uk/
46
Figure 6 - A Sample Blog Entry
Becoming a Relevant Portal
It bears repeating that a primary strategy of your blog is to generate traffic. It’s to
provide information and services for your readers and to provide readers for your
advertisers. That is accomplished, not by fancy tricks to draw new readers, but by
creating a reputation as a portal, a clearing house if you will, for a certain kind of
content. Every potential entry must be checked against your blog’s theme to ensure
that it advances that theme. When it does, your blog will become a portal for those
looking for the kind of information you provide.
A portal is a site that leads to other sites and to other relevant information. In the
blogosphere, a portal is a blog that can be counted on – and is counted on by millions of
faithful readers – to have all the news that’s fit to read about a certain subject. When
that subject is hot, your readers know where to go to find information. When a reader is
researching that subject or looking for relevant quotes and data, she knows that your
site has it archived.
With your site as a portal, your readers – and the other bloggers that link to you – will
know that they can find what they need by visiting you again and again. That’s what
traffic is, and traffic is the reason for every entry you make.
Blog Hosts
Every blog ‘exists’ somewhere. It may be on a server dedicated to nothing but blogs or
it may be on privately-leased space a half a world away from the blogger. But in either
case, the blogger needs to create his Blog Empire somewhere, and that somewhere will
have implications for your blog as it grows into a household name.
Free vs. Subscription
With the popularity of blogs exploding, a large number of blog-specific servers and
companies have arisen to meet the demand for fast and easy blog creation. Many of
them provide software that allows the blogger to quickly and easily set up a blog,
sometimes in mere minutes. They allow certain modification (colors, columns, etc.) and
provide tools that can have your blog looking sharp, even if you’ve never typed an entry
in your life.
But they have drawbacks as well, especially for blogs that want to more than just an
online diary. They may not provide statistics. They may not allow you to host your own
ads. They may even drop your entries once those entries roll off the front page. The
solution, in many cases, is to pay a subscription fee which will free up features you need
to make your blog profitable, unique, and professional.
Here’s a list of some of the more popular blog-specific sites:
Blog-City: One of the easier blog-specific sites to use, Blog-City offers a wide number of
pre-made layouts that do not require HTML knowledge to use. Functionality is limited,
however, and some features are only available to those who pay an annual subscription
fee.
Blog Drive: Blogdrive offers free blogging with objects such as tagboards, RSS feeds,
and ready-made header graphics.
Blogspot: Blogspot features free blogging and image hosting, and provides a very userfriendly
interface. Those who understand HTML will be able to create nearly any layout
they desire.
TBlog: offers free “basic” service which must be upgraded to add features like comment
management and image support.
Xanga: is dedicated toward the “online diary” end of the blogosphere. It offers free but
limited image hosting and WYSIWYG editing, but downloadable archives are only
available by purchasing a premium subscription.
Each host – and there are many others - has many unique attributes and prices, and
before you decide to use one of them, it’s wise to become familiar with what each offers.
By the time you’ve finished this book, you’re going to know precisely what features you
need to build your Blog Empire. So review each host carefully; if it turns out they don’t
offer what you need, it’s often difficult to take your traffic with you when you move.
If you choose a free host, one of the first issues you’ll deal with is the blog’s URL. If you
choose Blogspot, for example, your URL will look something like “elborak.blogspot.com”
with “elborak” being your blog’s name. That name must be unique across the host, and
with millions of blogs out there, that’s not an easy task. And if your blog is named,
“Spackle News,” it’s going to be harder for readers to find your blog at
In association with http://www.guidetoblogging.info/
Distributed by
http://www.anewshop.co.uk/
50
“spacklenews.blogspot.com” than if the name is “SpackleNews.com.” Fortunately, there
are a few solutions to that problem.
The first solution is to use a forwarding service, like My Domain. You buy a fitting
domain name for a few dollars a year, and My Domain will forward your traffic from
SpackleNews.com (or whatever your blog name is) to your blog. You can even decide
to view your blog within a frame, so the URL appears as SpackleNews.com, while the
browser is pulling data from another server. Frames do have the problem, however, of
“holding” any document you link to within that same frame unless you do some fancy
coding. That makes it harder for the user to escape or find specific data on your blog, a
situation which neither of you will appreciate.
A second solution is to choose a host that will allow you to directly assign a URL to your
blog even as it remains on their server. Be sure to check the features of any blog host
you examine to see if they offer the ability to assign your own URL.
A final solution is to simply rent normal web space and install a software package that
will manage your blog. Depending upon the features you want, it may cost you a few
dollars, but the features you get will usually exceed those of free or dedicated blog
services by a long shot.
Here are a few of the popular packages and what they can provide:
Greymatter: Open-source and full-featured, Greymatter is a good choice for those who
have some familiarity with CGI files and layouts. Free.
MacJournal: MacJournal is the leading journaling software for MacIntosh users who
blog. It includes a full suite of Mac-specific features and offers the ability to manage
multiple journals. Free.
Pico: While not as full-featured as some other packages, Pico is small and fast. Written
entirely in Perl, it weighs in at a svelte 14k of disk space. It’s easy to install and it’s free.
Rocketpost: Published by Anconia Software, RocketPost is a full-featured package
designed for business users and serious bloggers. It comes with a 30-day free trial and
a $37 total cost.
All of these packages are available in either demo or full version at CNET’s
Download.com.
Generating Traffic
The life of a blog is traffic, the visitors who visit your blog day after day, sometimes even
multiple times throughout the day. With millions of blogs online, the greatest challenge
in generating traffic is, well, generating traffic: getting those blog visitors to find your
valuable and insightful content in the first place. There are a number of ways to quickly
and easily generate a lot of traffic to your blog, but all traffic is not created equal – some
traffic is worth less and some is just worthless. A thorough traffic-generating campaign
will ensure the first visitors see your blog and spend some time there. But remember,
it’s your content that will keep them coming back day after day. Let’s take a look at
some of the more popular ways you can generate first time traffic:
Traffic Exchanges
How would you like to have hundreds, even thousands, of visitors to your site, each of
whom is guaranteed to spend 20 or 30 seconds looking over your content? Would you
like them to review your blog? Rate your blog? How about if they voted for your blog in
a head-to-head competition with the blogs of others? If it sounds great, that’s because
it is.
Blog traffic exchanges are sites that guarantee visitors will visit your blog and spend a
pre-determined amount of time there. But there’s a price: for each visitor that views
your blog, you have to view the blog of another in the same manner.
Here’s how it works. When you register your blog on a traffic exchange, you create an
account specific to your blog. You earn credits to your account by visiting the sites of
others, which are displayed inside a frame with a timer that measures how long you
must remain at that site. After an amount of time determined by the site, you enter a
code into the frame (this ensures that individuals are actually at their computers) and
move to the next site. For each site you visit, you receive credit which is “spent” by your
blog being viewed by others. The more blogs you visit, the more visitors you will
receive in return.
Most traffic exchanges do not give 1-for-1 credits, meaning you’ll have to visit more than
10 blogs to receive 10 visitors. In fact, the ratio is usually only a half-credit per visit,
meaning you’ll visit 20 sites to receive those visitors, but free, bonus, or mystery credits
may be awarded randomly to keep your ratio a little better than one visitor for two visits.
The excess credits are generally sold by the traffic exchanges to advertisers who pay
for visitors and save themselves the time of waiting at the various sites.
You’ll get traffic in proportion to how much time you spend surfing (and don’t tell
anyone, but you can often have separate browsers open to separate traffic exchanges
for simultaneous surfing), but it’s important to realize what kind of traffic you’re
receiving. To learn the thoughts of your visitors, take a look inside your own head:
you’re visiting, not to read the blogs, but to get visitors in return…and so it everyone
else. Does that mean the traffic is worthless? Not at all. When you look at hundreds of
blogs, you’ll find a lot of them with features worth emulating and content worth a link or
two. You’ll also receive visitors who are looking for the kind of content you present.
Like-minded and even opposite-minded readers will leave comments, link to you, and
may eventually become regular readers. However, it’s important to understand that the
vast majority are only visiting to get visitors in return and are probably filing their nails
while they wait for the allotted time to expire. Then they move on to the next blog.
If you lack the time to sit at your PC manually generating traffic, many traffic exchanges
will sell you their surplus visitors for as little as a penny apiece. Five bucks will earn you
500 visitors, a fair price since those visitors are in no way targeted to your content; they
are bloggers who are trying to earn your visit in return. You can also purchase banners
on many traffic exchanges, which will give you fewer visitors (they are sold by
impressions, not clicks) but they will be more interested visitors.
Many traffic exchanges, like the blog directories and blog rings discussed below, will
require you to place a small banner on your site, which may limit the number of traffic
exchanges you join unless you have room on your page for 15 or 20 tiny banners all in
a pile.
One final note: before you join a traffic exchange, try to get a feel for how established it
is, i.e. how many blogs it features. A brand new traffic exchange may only have a few
dozen blogs. That means not only will you to look at the same 20 blogs over and over,
you’ll have the same 20 bloggers visiting you. Unique traffic is valuable traffic, so stick
with those traffic exchanges that can deliver hundreds of unique hits to your blog.
Here are a few of the more popular traffic exchanges:
Blog-a-Zoo
BlogXchange
Blog Clicker
Blog Explosion
Blog Soldiers
Blog Directories
With the popularity of blogs increasing every day, it’s nearly impossible for a reader to
know what blogs exist and where to find them all. That’s the beauty of the blog
directory: it organizes and categorizes the thousands of blogs listed its database so
readers can find your blog more easily. Blog directories are generally free to the
blogger, though they will often require you to feature a small, approved banner on your
site.
To get listed in a blog catalog, visit them and submit your site, accurately describing
your blog (an inaccurate description will result in less targeted traffic). Check their
requirements for banners and be sure to use the link they generate for you – this will
ensure you get credit if another blogger joins from your page. Most blog directories will
require you to host their images on your own server space, so be sure to follow their
directions. Stealing their bandwidth is a sure way to get de-listed in a hurry.
Here are a few of the more popular blog directories, in alphabetical order:
Blogarama
Blogwise
Blog Catalog
GetBlogs
Globe of Blogs
LS Blogs
Blog Rings
The concept behind the blog ring is a simple one: similar blogs join in a ring, each
placing a link on their page to the next blog in the ring. Visitors interested in the subject
those blogs feature, be it model trains or Green politics, are encouraged to click on the
link that leads to the next blog. It’s usually a bad idea to send your visitors away, but in
this case you’re receiving a price for the service: other blogs in the same ring are
sending their traffic to you.
The number and type of blog rings is limited only by the types of blogs online, which is
to say that unless your blog is absolutely unique in the blogosphere, there is probably a
ring or three that will meet your needs. But be careful joining a ring simply because it
exists – remember, you’re sending some of your traffic away, and it’s not often wise to
send traffic to your competitors. That’s why it’s important, before you join a ring, to surf
it around once or twice. You’ll not only get to see the competition, you may learn a way
to one-up it, making your blog stand out in a sea of similar information.
There are specialized blog rings for Australian blogs, romance writers, even those who
blog about knitting. With a little searching, you can find a blog ring that fits your content
perfectly.
Link Exchanges
A number of programs, known as “link exchanges,” will allow your link to be listed on the
blogs of others, so long as you carry on your blog a small ad that lists the blogs of
others who are members of the same program. A link exchange works the same way
as a blog ring, tying all the featured blogs into a big circle, with the exception that the
blogs you link to may not be similarly grouped as they are for most blog rings. When
you sign up for the link exchange, you’ll receive credits every time your page displays
the links of others, and your credits are used up as your blog is displayed on the blogs
of other members of the link exchange.
While link exchanges are a convenient way for you to have your blog prominently
displayed on the blogs of others, there are several possible side effects that you need to
examine before signing up for any link swap program.
The first caveat is that, because link swaps are generally not grouped by subject or
content, you may find that your blogs is linking to content that you may find
objectionable, like adult content, opposing political blogs, or competitors in your
industry. Since it’s important to keep tight control on where you send your customers,
it’s a good idea to watch the blog swap closely to ensure that you are displaying the
content you want and that you’re not going to alienate your customers and readers by
displaying offensive content.
The second issue you may have to deal with is the speed at which some applications
operate, especially if they download a java application to your page. Many load more
slowly than the average page, forcing your customers to wait or ‘jerking’ the page they
are reading back to the top once the application is fully loaded. If the link exchange
application is causing your loading speed to suffer, it’s probably going to cause you
more trouble than it’s worth. Remember, your readers want to jump right in and read
what you have to say. Jerking the page around as soon as they dig in to your content is
not going to make many friends.
A final issue is one of cosmetics. Because some link exchange applets are one-sizefits-
all, the layout size or colors may clash with your blog. Be sure that you can modify
the application to make it unobtrusive before you put something on your page that will
prove a distraction to your readers. You want them to notice the links, but like
everything else on your page, they should add to it rather than detracting from it.
Here are a few popular link exchange programs:
Gotlinks
Gotop
LinksPal
Link2Blogs
Be sure to look farther than this list, however, as there are certain to be link exchanges
that cater specifically to your content or your geographic location. If you can’t find one,
you can always establish your own link exchange at Link Market.
Visiting Other Blogs – Meet the Competition
Once you have staked out your little corner of the blogosphere, it’s time to really size up
the competition. You may have met a few of them through blog rings and traffic
exchanges, but now it’s time to really read their sites and – gasp – get to know them.
Just because a blog is a competitor does not mean the blogger is an adversary, and an
excellent way to build your reputation and increase your traffic is to introduce yourself to
your fellow bloggers and their readers through the comments section of their blogs.
Bloggers love comments because readers who are engaged in a discussion in the
comments section will return to a page again and again. Some popular blogs have
hundreds of comments on some entries, and for every commenter you can be sure
there are dozens who are following along but who do not care for whatever reason to
get involved in the discussion. Comment areas will usually allow you to enter your
email address and blog address in addition to your name, so for every comment you
make, you’re insuring that another link to your blog is placed in front of people who
might be interested in what you have to say.
However, avoid “comment spam,” the practice of dropping comments just for the link or
blatantly advertising your site without adding anything useful to the discussion. It’s not
only a good way to alienate potential readers; it’s a good way to get you banned from a
site. A good commenter will often earn a link from the host, and if the host has more
traffic than you (and it’s a good idea to comment only on those blogs that are more
established than yours) you’ll often pick up readers who see your site linked from that
blog. Be sure to reciprocate quickly and thank the other blogger for linking. You’ve
made a friend who will consistently send targeted traffic your way. If a site has an
established link policy, be sure to follow it to the letter. You want to give other blogs
every reason to link you and no reason to cut you off.
Traded Links – a Valuable Asset
Here’s a little lesson in supply and demand: your demand for links will be insatiable but
your supply will be limited. The best possible world for you as a blogger would be to
have every blog in the world sending traffic to you, but your blog will have only room to
send traffic to a small percentage of them in return. As a result, your links are valuable,
and you should treat them as a treasured commodity: hoarded until needed and then
spent with the attitude that you must squeeze the most value out of each one.
As you begin building your Blog Empire from a small duchy on the outer edge of the
blogosphere to an empire covering much of its virtual continent, you will, to be honest,
not have a lot to offer other bloggers. Your traffic will be small. Your brand will be
unknown. The big blogs will ignore you and the little ones will do you no good.
However, that’s no excuse not to start trading your links for whatever you can get for
them.
Do an occasional internet search for pages that link to you. Many times, your control
panel will pick up any page that links to one of your entries, but much of the time it will
mean using Google, Technorati, or MSN searches to see who is linking you. Then
check out their blog to see what it might have to offer. If it’s a teenage girl’s rant blog
that seems to have 3 visitors a day or if it’s a blog that is updated monthly, it may not be
worth a reciprocal link. However, if you discover that it’s a popular destination for
people who might be interested in what you have to say, then it’s probably worthwhile to
drop in, thank the blogger for the link, and join in the discussion. Those readers who
are interested in your entry will probably pay you a visit.
Just remember, your links are valuable! Check them constantly to ensure that each one
points to a blog that is earning its keep on your front page. Those blogs that have gone
into hibernation or that have dropped you should be eliminated. Cull your links
repeatedly and mercilessly and always be on the lookout for opportunities to upgrade.
Search Engines and News Engines
There are a million sites out there that promise to submit your site to hundreds, even
thousands of search engines. Before you choose one - giving them your money or
email address - think for a moment about how many search engines you use. You
probably have a favorite or two, as do most people. And in many cases, they are the
same ones. That means that so long as your site is listed in the major engines (Yahoo!
and Google and MSN, to name a few) there’s really no need to pay for someone to
submit it to a search engine no one uses or to give them your email address (which will
coincidentally be deluged by spam from that day forward). It’s worthwhile to manually
submit your site – ONCE – to the bigger engines, but once you have a few blogs linking
to you, search spider programs find you anyway by following from another site.
A second way to avoid paying for others to submit your site to search engines is to pick
a blog host or software that features a blog ping, an automatic submission engine that
tells blog search sites that you have updated. Many of them allow you to choose which
sites you’d like to submit your blog to (choose them all, of course) though there may be
a restriction on the number of times you may ping the engines per day (e.g. Blogspot
has a once-per-12-hours limit) because over-pinging, like multiple submissions to
search engines, can result in your blog being blacklisted. It’s far better to err on the side
of caution and let the search engines do their own work.
News engines are a different story. If you do a search of Google News for any specific
subject, you’ll find a number of blogs listed right along with the major media outlets.
Some of these independent outfits, like the Blogger News Network may even beat the
major news outlets to a story. If what you write is original and newsworthy, submitting
your site as a news source will ensure that someone looks over your content for
inclusion along with CBS and the New York Times as a source of news. In this case you
have little control – other than to ensure you entries are newsworthy – over whether
blog is included as a news source. However, a successful listing is worth its weight in
gold and is definitely worth pursuing.
Some of the more popular news search engines are:
All the Web News
Alta Vista
Google
Yahoo!
A site’s FAQ will often tell you how to suggest a news site. Suggesting your own site
can result in hordes of traffic reading your blog for the latest.
Steppin’ Out: Blogging on Multiple Sites
Several of the more popular multi-contributor blogs are run by people who have
personal, perhaps non-related, blogs on the side, and when you blog successfully you’ll
soon attract other bloggers who are so interested in what you have to say that they’ll
want you to say it on their blogs. They may be blogs that provide multiple sides of your
issue or that agree with your outlook but don’t specialize precisely where you do. These
are blogs where your commentary, even if you’re already linked, would fit well on the
front page. A successful blogger is always looking for chances to expand into new
areas, and there are no rules that say you have to limit yourself to a single blog.
Blogging on multiple sites provides several advantages over simply assuring that you
have reciprocal links with valuable sites because of a simple truth: since most blogs
have dozens of links, no person can follow them all. Getting your expertise in front of
those readers is a good way to show them why they ought to pay you a visit. It’s like a
free sample of what you offer, and many readers who would never follow a random link
will check you out if they like (or even hate) what you have to say. And while you’ll want
to save your best stuff for your own blog (or at least cross-post it there) it’s a good idea
to always be on the lookout for sites that could use your expertise and give you the
opportunity to put your work in front of a whole new group of readers.
Developing Content for Other Sites
Even if your blog is not a “writing” blog, there are ways to get your fellow bloggers to
feature your work and send visitors to your site. The easiest of these – if you have
some programming ability and a little creativity – is to create content they can feature on
their own blogs (which of course, has a link to yours). You see the concept everywhere,
though you may not have thought about their possibilities even as you clicked their
links. It might be a “test” that allows the person to decide what historical mass murderer
they are, displaying a picture and a description. It might be an insult generator, where
they input a name and you give them a creative putdown for their readers to enjoy. It
might display the ticker symbols and prices of their favorite stock. Whatever it is to the
other blogger and his readers, to you it is an excellent way to get readers to visit your
blog, enjoy some interaction with it, and take away a bit of code which will in turn send
you more readers, more traffic, and more customers.
If you have the ability to create amusing pictures – especially if your blog is dedicated to
them – offering your readers the chance to use your stuff for the price of a link back to
your site can garner you readers from all over who are looking for interesting and
amusing content for their own blogs or web pages. It’s a good idea to make your
webpage name an unobtrusive part of every picture, so that even if the users of your
content forget to link you back, your name will be out there, associated with creative and
important content across the blogosphere.
The possibilities are limited only by your technical skill and creativity, and can mean
hordes of people coming to your blog not just out of curiosity, but to page through your
blog for a chance to put your work in front of their readers.
Letting Others Put Your Name Out There
A final way to generate interested traffic is to send your entries to blogs that talk about
blogs. Slate Magazine features a column dedicated to blog entries about hot topics,
and the Wall Street Journal’s “Best of the Web” daily column provides a daily look at
newsworthy and amusing online content. Sites like these can introduce your content to
readers that might never find you otherwise. As you travel the blogosphere, be on the
lookout for anyone who might need your content. Then provide it to them. Don’t get
discouraged if they don’t feature you every time. Remember, all your fellow bloggers
(the serious ones anyway) are competing for the same attention.
Keeping Readers With Expertise
You’ll draw your readers, for the most part, by promotion - by letting them know you
exist. But you’ll keep them, if you keep them, by giving them value for their time.
Remember, your readers are ‘paying’ you a visit. They are ‘spending’ time on your site,
and they expect to get something in return. If your site is an opinion or news site, that
something is your valuable opinion on a posted subject. If your site is an art site, that
something is quality content and commentary.
You’re the expert here, or ought to be. You will be expected to know more about what
you post than anyone else. Being the expert means that you’ll have to work harder and
longer than any of your readers. It means you’ll have to dig and cull and study. It
means you’ll throw away 10 stories or articles for every one you post. It means you’ll
know what your readers expect and you’ll give it to them every time. That’s the price
you pay for readers who value your opinion enough to come back day after day and
week after week.
Writing Unique and Valuable Content
Your readers expect you to write what no one else is writing – that’s why they’re on your
site and not another. This should not be difficult if you decided wisely when you
designed your blog originally. You’ve got to make every entry a masterpiece:
something worth reading and something worth linking to. Just posting part of a story
with small commentary works in small doses, but everyone can read the news
themselves. Unless you have something worthwhile to say about a story, some
valuable insight to present or relevant commentary that ties this story to other stories, it
may not be worth posting. Your readers return because they value what you have to
say. Don’t disappoint them by giving them too much unexpected fluff, and don’t simply
rehash the opinions of others without giving your readers the satisfaction of your own.
Writing Timely Content
Valuable content is content that’s both relevant and timely. If you comment on the
news, re-hashing an article from 2 years ago is not going to cut it. If you present the
sports, talking about a game from last fall – unless you tie it into the next game – is
going to leave your readers uninterested. Whatever you write, you need to tie it to
today, right now, this minute.
That means, unless your blog is a reference site, at least daily updates. It usually
means several updates a day. Remember, you are a member of the new media, and
the new media is on top of the news. When your readers return, they expect that you’ll
be ahead of them: that’s why they are coming in the first place. You’ll have to set an
update schedule that will keep you ahead of your readers.
Comments and Input
In order for your readers to return again and again, it’s important to make them feel like
your site is their site. You need to make them feel at home in your Blog Empire. One
way to do that is by allowing them to make comments, ask questions, and provide
information through timely feedback. This can be done either through the blog-supplied
comments, through special free add-ons such as Haloscan or by adding an attached
forum through a free service such as ForumUp. Be aware, however, that on the internet
as in life, there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Free service providers are actually
providing the same service to advertisers that you are by putting ads in front of your
readers. If you send your readers to a forum on someone else’s server, you will
generally not receive the advertising revenue that traffic creates. That’s their payment
for providing the service to you without cost.
The comments sections of popular blogs are “where the action is.” Arguments can last
for days, even weeks, and provide consistent fodder for updated or pointed entries. If
you’ve stated something controversial on the front page, your readers will certainly let
you know what they think, providing the perfect opportunity to clarify, modify, or expand
your argument. If you’ve listed ways that a certain software package can be modified,
knowledgeable readers can provide additional information, making your blog that much
more valuable to your other readers. Comments can also provide valuable feedback to
you, and what is sometimes more important, encouragement to let you know that your
efforts are appreciated and worthwhile.
If you decide to allow comments and feedback, it’s important to decide how much time
you want to spend monitoring the traffic it generates. If discussions get “off track,” you
may need to publish (and enforce) forum rules, which may be as simple as editing
content for bad language or as complicated as ensuring – if your blog is related to the
stock market, for example - that information presented is not in violation of a myriad of
SEC regulations. Remember, your readers, like the author they read, always come with
their own agendas. If your comments section gets wild and crazy, that’s great for your
traffic. If it becomes a haven for spammers or stock manipulators, you may have to
spend more time reading and editing than that traffic is worth.
Banning Readers
Once your comments section takes on a life of its own, you’ll certainly meet a lot of wellinformed
and interesting people who will make your job easier and your content more
valuable. You will see relationships develop and blossom and you’ll get to know your
most faithful readers as far more than just words on a screen. Getting to know your
readers will provide encouragement as you see how the content you provide them helps
them in real life. It’s one of the finest pleasures of the job.
But you’ll also attract those readers whom you would rather not deal with. They may be
spammers who use your forums to promote their own sites. They may be ne’er-dowells
who simply show up to gainsay everything and abuse their fellow readers. And
that means that you may have to ban readers, making it impossible for them to post on
your site.
Banning readers is not something that ought to be done lightly. However, for your
forums and comment sections to succeed, they must conform to the goals you have set
for your overall site. If after several warnings, a reader insists that the rules do not
apply to him, it may be best for the rest of your readers to remove that reader from the
discussion.
What About Free Speech?
If and when you ban someone – or even credibly threaten to do so – you’ll certainly be
attacked with the Free Speech argument. Doesn’t everyone have the right to say what
they want?
Sure they do, but not in your home, and your blog is your home. It’s your property. You
provide the service, you set the rules, and just as no one has the right to come into your
home and abuse your family, no one has an absolute right to enter into your forums,
push fraudulent medicine or imitation watches, and abuse your guests.
That’s why periodically publishing the forum rules is a must. While it might become
necessary to remove someone from the discussion, it is only fair that you set
expectations and enforce them fairly and consistently. The value of the forum is not in
the cathartic (or financial) benefits it provides your readers, but in the information and
conversation they share. Allowing your forums to become an abusive free-for-all will
alienate the very readers that you want to keep. Putting out a few obnoxious and
abusive guests is a small price to pay to allow the vast majority of your readers, who will
have valuable input and discussions, to enjoy their visits to your virtual home.
XML and RSS Feeds
As a blogger, you want everyone to have access to your content. One of the more
popular ways to “step out” of the blogosphere is to provide your readers an opportunity
to get your headlines without even having to visit your blog. This is important for one
reason: you may not post something that interests them, and after a few days, they may
forget you exist. It can’t be helped: everything you write is going to interest someone,
but few will be interested in everything you write. An RSS feed gives these casual or
occasional readers a chance to see your headlines and visit only when they are
interested in a particular subject.
If you’ve visited many blogs, you’ve probably seen a small banner like this:
If you click on the banner (and if you have a My Yahoo! page of your own) you’ll find
that the blogger’s headlines will appear on your “My Yahoo!” page, allowing you to
quickly scan their news without having to go to the blog. You’ve discovered a blog that
provides an RSS feed. It’s written by a blogger who wants to keep his blog in front of
readers.
If you want to really dig into the technology behind RSS/XML, a good place to start is
XML.com, but the important information is not how RSS and XML work, but rather the
work they do. An RSS feed allows you to syndicate your content, like a syndicated
columnist provides content to many newspapers, allowing other bloggers to provide
real-time links to your information. The ability to syndicate your content, moving it out of
your blog and onto the blogs of others, is one of the most important features of
whatever blog software you use.
There are many sites which will publish your RSS feeds. Here are a few easy ones to
get you started:
Blog Digger
Feedster
News is Free
Syndic8
PART III: PROFITING FROM YOUR BLOG EMPIRE
Generating Profits
Your Blog Empire, in order to be profitable, must generate sufficient income to cover not
only your actual costs, but to pay you for your time and expertise. The costs you can
keep under control by intelligently managing the money you spend on promotion and
bandwidth. Potential customers you manage by attracting and keeping interested
readers. But to make a profit, you’ve got to make a sale, and there are two ways to
accomplish that: selling clicks or coffee cups.
The first method, selling clicks, means placing ads, like banners, on your site. When
your customers click the ads (or occasionally when they simply view them) you collect a
payment from the advertiser. In this case, your customers are companies to whom you
sell access to your readers.
The second method, selling coffee cups, is not limited to ceramic drinking devices, but
to anything you sell directly to your readers. In this case, your readers are your
customers, purchasing from you products that advertise your site or information only
you can provide.
Selling clicks is the easiest and most popular of the two methods, so let’s take a look at
it first. But first, let’s take a look at your readers.
Readers don’t love ads. They don’t love banners. They don’t love intrusive, flashing
distractions and you’re not going to please them by placing ads on your page. Thus you
must take the advice Machiavelli offered his prince six centuries ago: “While it may not
always be possible to be loved, it’s critical to avoid being hated.” That advice, delivered
in a political context, holds true in an advertising one. It’s critical that if your ads do not
attract readers to your site (and it’s a guarantee that readers are not coming to admire
your banners), you should at least make an effort not to drive them away.
That’s a problem, because those ads which are most hated by readers are those which
are most profitable to you: popups and java applets.
Popups we all know and hate. They are ads that open a new browser, usually
displaying the advertiser’s own site or an ad with a link to it. They cause your page to
load more slowly (especially if your reader is on a dialup connection) and they
aggravate a reader who is not interested in the object advertised. Multiple popups on a
single page should be avoided at all costs – if you open 6 browser windows on your
reader’s desktop, it’s virtually guaranteed that reader is not one you’ll see again. Of
course, most modern browsers and several specialty software products are available to
banish popups altogether, and if your readers have them, your popup campaign will
probably be strangled in its cradle.
The second hated ad-type is a java application that floats across the screen,
necessitating that the reader close it before he can read your page. It’s an aggravation
(most of them scurry around the screen, making them difficult to close) and an
aggravated reader is not one receptive to your content. He may even decide your page
is not worth reading before you have an opportunity to make a good impression.
Avoid the temptation of featuring these kinds of ads. The reason these ads are more
profitable than unobtrusive pay-per-click ads is that they are more effective – your
reader must interact with the ad in order to get to your content. But the reader’s
reaction may be to avoid your content altogether. In that case, you have lost both a
reader and a potential customer.
Google AdSense and Pay-Per-Click Programs
You’ve seen the towers on hundreds of sites: ever-changing boxes of
text ads that reflect the content in front of the reader’s face. If you
are reading about an election, the ads may be related to political
parties. If you’re reading about automobiles, the ads may be
hawking car parts. Whatever the ads are selling, they are somehow
related to the content and therefore of interest to the reader.
The most popular ad program of this nature on the internet is
Google’s AdSense program. Google ads can be found on thousands
of blogs and retail sites, and there’s a reason for it: with AdSense you don’t need to
choose which ads you’ll display and you don’t have to find your own advertisers. You
simply sign up for the program and Google will scan your page, assigning
advertisements based on your content and displaying them in a box (or tower) on your
page through a small piece of code you integrate into your design. When a reader
clicks on the ad, you receive a commission for delivering that reader to the advertiser’s
website. Because the ad content is related to your page, the odds of a reader clicking
are much higher than random ads you might otherwise feature.
But Google’s AdSense is not the only choice available; the number of blog-ready ad
programs has multiplied with the popularity of the blog business. Other choices include
programs dedicated more toward blogs, give you control over the advertisers on your
site, and pay your commissions online, even in small amounts.
A few smaller programs worth exploring are:
Blog Ads
Crisp Ads
Grokads
Tagword
New ad programs arise every day, but it’s important to decide, before you commit, if a
programs will give you the best return on your limited ad space. Check a few of your
favorite blogs to see what they are using. Compare the content of the page to the
content of the ads. Decide if you feel motivated to click on an ad. If you feel the
temptation to follow an ad to another site, chances are your readers will feel it as well.
The second pay-per-click type is less direct but perhaps more profitable in the long run:
associate or affiliate-based programs. A one-time option (called one-time because
you’ll get paid once for every sale) is available through online retailers like Amazon.
Have you ever seen a book review that featured a clickable link allowing you to buy a
book right at the time you’re thinking about it? Chances are that the site you’re reading
has a deal with the retailer for a cut of the purchase price. Amazon’s Associates
program will provide you with a user id and code for any item they sell, giving you a
kickback from any sale made via your site. There are literally hundreds of retailers that
offer similar programs, so if you routinely talk about any item sold online, be on the
lookout for ways you can profit from the interest you are creating in your readers. If
someone is going to profit from your writing, shouldn’t it be you?
But other associate and affiliate programs are available that may continue to pay you
even after the first click. For example, if you’re talking about junk email and review a
site like Spam Arrest, joining their affiliate program ahead of time can result in a lifetime
of profits from a single post and banner. In the case of Spam Arrest, readers can sign
up for a free mail box guaranteed to reduce the spam they receive. If they purchase the
ability to download spam-free mail to their desktop, you receive a percentage of the sale
price. If those customers become affiliates, you receive a small percentage of their
sales. It’s multi-level marketing – not a Ponzi scheme, which is to be avoided at all
costs – and can result in a growing number of referrals. When you mention the product
on your site, be sure to feature an unobtrusive banner or text ad. It will remain on your
site, continually building your customer base, even as those customers seek customers
of their own.
It is important, however, not to post simply for the purpose of selling, because your
customers come to read your content, not your ads. It’s doubly important to check the
reputation of any company you advertise. The internet is full of scams, and your
customers will not appreciate you taking part in any scheme that bilks them out of
money. Your reputation is paramount: protect it even at the cost of missing out on a few
dollars of short-term revenue.
Selling Banners by the Impression
A final type of banner ad is sold by “impressions.” Less popular than pay-per-click ads
because the advertiser is simply paying for his ad to be seen and not acted upon, they
can still be a profitable way to sell ad space once your readership grows. Let’s say, for
example, that your blog is dedicated to investments in the natural resources sector.
Your readers are also potential investors in the companies that inhabit the market you
talk about, but there is no way to know if a reader buys (or sells) stocks or investigates
companies based on your writing.
In this case, selling ad space directly to a company that will pay you to simply feature
their banner can be worthwhile. You promise the company that a certain number of
people will view their banner or that it will remain on your site for a certain amount of
time, and they pay for the link. You’ll know how much revenue to expect every month
and you won’t have to share it with an agency that takes a cut for bringing advertisers to
you.
While potentially more profitable than pay-per-click programs, selling banners by the
impression has several drawbacks, the most difficult of which is convincing advertisers
that you are worth their money. That’s why your expertise and contacts are so
important in choosing your blog topic. Once you become a clearinghouse for
information, you can be sure that companies – especially small ones in small industries
– will know you. If you have a million readers a month and are an acknowledged expert
in their industry, they may be happy to pay to have their name in front of their readers,
especially if they can measure the number of people of visit their site as a result of your
ads.
But watch out for conflict of interest, real or perceived. When you feature a company’s
ad, you may feel (and will be perceived by your readers to feel) pressure to treat your
advertisers with kid gloves. It’s a part of the deal: your advertisers are not paying you to
have you bad-mouth their company on your pages. So it’s essential that you be upfront
with your readers when mentioning companies, informing them if you are a shareholder
or that the company is an advertiser. It’s often best for your reputation to never mention
a customer company or its main competitors directly, and while this can reduce your
ability to sell these profitable ads, it can also help you avoid the reputation of being a
shill and can help keep your commentary (or at least readers’ perceptions of your
commentary) independent.
Swag, or Getting Your Customers to Advertise for You
On to coffee cups. In addition to selling access to advertisers, it’s profitable to sell items
directly to your readers. Have you written a book, an ebook, or a research report??
Why not feature it prominently on your page? Is your brand becoming famous? Why
not have a case of coffee mugs or t-shirts printed up and sell them on the site? If your
readers identify with you and with your brand, selling swag is an excellent way to build
upon that customer loyalty.
If you want to manage it all online, companies like Those Shirts will handle your sales
and may even help design your swag. They can even sell your shirts to customers
coming from other sites.
A more profitable way to sell swag is to either install your own store software (not
recommended for the amateur) or to set up a store through Yahoo!, Ebay, or a similar
online merchant. You promote your swag, passing your customers to your customized
online store. When they purchase your swag, your store manager processes the
payment, giving you the money minus commission, and you ship the item out. Your
local printer can certainly create all the shirts and mugs you can sell this way, and he’ll
surely appreciate the business.
Swag, for a popular Blog Empire, can be the most profitable of all financial endeavors.
It builds customer loyalty; it gets your customers to promote your site; it tells you that
your brand is valuable enough that readers want to become your allies. But like any
profitable business, the costs involved must be managed carefully. It may be cheaper
to bulk order T-shirts, but it will cost you more if they don’t sell. The best way to profit
from swag is to start small and establish a clientele, even if your profit at first is less
than it might otherwise be. Remember, think big but start smart.
Donations – “Ask and ye shall receive”
Have you ever visited a blog that displays your name in a banner ad? Maybe your eyes
have snapped across the page when you caught the sight of your own name, preceded
by “Hello,” and followed by, “please make a donation.” You’ve found a site that that is
practicing the easiest way to raise money from satisfied readers: simply asking them.
One popular system for soliciting contributions from readers is the Amazon Honor
System. The Amazon Honor System provides a secure process wherein your readers
can make a discreet contribution by credit card to you for as little as one dollar or for as
many as fifty dollars.
Once you sign up with the Amazon Honor System, you’ll receive HTML code to add to
your blog. This code displays one of several non-intrusive banners with a button that
allows the reader to get more information or make a donation (if your customers are
Amazon customers, they’ll even display the customer’s name in the ad). If that
customer makes a donation, Amazon will collect the money, deduct their commission,
and pass the rest on to you with a note telling you who made the donation. You may
want to make very occasional “thank you” posts (be very careful, however, about
identifying givers and never reveal the amounts they donate). This is a nice way to
thank those readers who donate while reminding others that bloggers have to eat, too.
A second popular site for collecting donations is Paypal. A Paypal button allows anyone
who has a Paypal account to make a direct donation to your site. Like Amazon, Paypal
allows the reader to make a donation by credit card. Paypal, however, can also be
integrated into another donation-type project you may also want to consider, that of
special reports for your readers and a subscription or pay-per-view basis.
Subscriptions and Special “Insider” Reports
Most people are willing to pay for information they find valuable. They buy newspapers,
magazines, and books, so why wouldn’t they pay for your information? The first reason
is that you are giving it away for free. While some readers will voluntarily make a
donation to keep you warmed and fed, the vast majority will not.
But if the information you provide is valuable, especially if it is of a financial nature, you
may consider holding some back, offering special “insider” or “in-depth” coverage for
those who wish to learn more.
One way to do so is to set up a special, secure website to archive your individual
special reports. When readers send you a subscription payment, you email them a
password that will expire after a certain period of time. A good example of this is
George Ure’s Urban Survival, a blog dedicated to unusual and unorthodox economic
trends. Ure publishes a special weekly report, known as Peoplenomics, which lays out
a weekly examination of one or more issues discussed in Urban Survival during the
week. Back issues are cataloged on the site, so any subscriber has the right to go back
into prior years, even when such reports are outside the bounds of their subscription
period. When readers’ passwords expire, they are simply removed from the master
database. Setting up and maintaining a separate list of passwords will not take a lot of
time until you have dozens of subscribers. By that time, your revenue will certainly
cover one of the many commercial database management tools on the market.
The second way is to provide the reports through an autoresponder or via email. With
email, you simply create a list of email addresses and send your reports to them as they
are written. While this is easier at first than establishing a completely separate site,
eventually your readers are going to request back issues or are going to lose emails,
necessitating you spend a lot of time re-sending information This manual process, if
established, ought to be quickly transferred over to a dedicated site. It’s a good
beginning, however, if you’re just testing the market to see how your readers respond to
the offer.
There are two caveats to consider, however, before offering special reports and
information. The first is that the commitment you are making must be kept, even if you
have only one subscriber (and you will, at some point, only have one). You must decide
if the extra time and effort to make a special weekly report is worthwhile. That
subscriber is entrusting you with his money and expects that you will keep your end of
the bargain by fulfilling your promises. There’s no easier way to alienate your most
faithful readers than by not giving them what they pay for.
Other than the time you spend providing the information, the most important
consideration is whether the content is really valuable enough to demand a
subscription. If you have proven and useful insight that’s worth paying for, giving your
readers access to it can be a paying proposition. If you give the same information away
on your blog two weeks later, or if your “insider” information is readily available
elsewhere, your reader will rightly conclude that you have tricked them.
Remember, the long-term success of your Blog Empire relies on your integrity. Keeping
your promises, especially when they are directly tied to a financial contribution on the
part of your readers, can make or break your reputation and your bank account.
The First Entry – and Where it Leads
Now it’s time to write the first entry. It’s time to take the first step real step to building a
Blog Empire for profit.
You’ve decided what unique contribution you can make to the blogosphere, found the
place where you will carve your niche and establish your capitol.
You’ve pored over blog designs, scribbled up logos, picked and discarded a hundred
names, finally settling on one that will tell your readers who you are and what they can
expect in your Blog Empire.
You’ve picked advertisers, designed coffee cups and sweatshirts with your logo on
them, maybe even ordered a few for yourself and close friends.
But now it’s time to give your readers all you can. Your first entry is the cornerstone of
your Blog Empire, and it’s time to lay it.
Figure 9 - It's good to be the king
Once you write it, you’ll probably find that the second flows from it, and then the third
from the second. In fact, all those ideas you have that you want to share with the world
will inspire other ideas and reveal more genius and more creativity than you ever
dreamed you had.
The first entry doesn’t need to be the best you’ll ever write. In fact, as you write
hundreds, even thousands of entries, you’ll hone your skill, improve your delivery, and
sharpen your message.
The first entry doesn’t need to grab the world by the throat. In fact, it may be the leastviewed
entry you’ll ever write, as each entry brings more readers who become voluntary
citizens of your Blog Empire.
But the first entry will be the most important entry you ever write, because with it, you
dedicate yourself to building a Blog Empire that will bring you enjoyment and profit until
the day you decide to go on to bigger and better things. It will be the most important
entry, because if you never write it, your Blog Empire will remain only a dream, and the
Blogosphere will be denied all the enjoyment and information that you can uniquely
bring it.
And you’ll find that when you pass the thousandth reader, the millionth page view, the
first month after you decide that being a blogger is something you want to do and can
do full time, you’ll look back on that first entry and realize it was the cornerstone of a
Blog Empire of which you are immensely proud.
Theodore Roosevelt once said, "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points
out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better.
The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by
dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and
again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great
enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the
best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he
fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those
cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
Blog your way to victory, you can do it.
Empire awaits you.
GLOSSARY
BANDWIDTH: A measurement of the carrying capacity of a network. The more data
you send, the more bandwidth you are using. Most online hosts will assign a set
monthly amount of bandwidth with your account. Bandwidth which exceeds this amount
will often result in an excess bandwidth charge. Images require far more bandwidth to
transmit than does text.
BANNING: The process of removing posting privileges from a reader. This is done
either through individual blog software or a blog host by preventing a computer at a
certain IP address from commenting.
BLOG: A frequently updated online journal or publication. Blogs can be encompass any
subject, however, they not simply the online portion of a print or broadcast outlet, but
are generally online-only and may rely on other media outlets for content.
BLOGOSPHERE: The virtual world in which blogs exist and relate to one another.
COMMENT SPAM: The practice of commenting simply to leave a link or promote
another site. Comment spam can be reported to most blog hosts and can cause the
spammer, if he hosts his own blog, to be banned from the host.
GIF (Graphics Interchange Format): A popular image format.
GUTTER: The side area of a blog layout that may feature links, ads, or interactive
content.
HYPERLINK: A piece of HTML code that sends the user to another place. Also, “link.”
HTML (Hypertext Markup Language): The language in which many web pages are
assembled and displayed. Pages written in HTML often feature the suffix .HTM or
.HTML.
IP ADDRESS: The address at which a computer is connected to the internet. Blog
software tracks the IP addresses of those who interact with the blog, giving the blogger
the power to limit access from remote locations and to make detailed reports of traffic.
JPG or JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group): A popular image format.
OBJECT (or COMPONENT): A piece of code that performs a specific task. Objects
may include web counters, online quizzes, or linked banner ads. Objects are often
organized in the GUTTER of a BLOG.
PDF (Portable Document Format): A document format used for large documents or
newsletters on the web. .PDF documents may be scanned from paper documents or
may be created digitally. Those created from scanned documents will usually require
more BANDWIDTH than those created from word processing documents.
RSS (Really Simple Syndication): a format for syndicating news, popular with bloggers.
SWAG: Promotional merchandise related to a website or organization.
TAGBOARD: A small box on a blog’s main page in which messages can be left.
Tagboards are usually unregulated and can accumulate COMMENT SPAM by those
who misuse your blog to promote their own.
TEMPLATE: A preformatted layout that can be used as the basis for a BLOG.
Templates allow the user to import images, and change colors and fonts while retaining
the original look of the page.
TRAFFIC: readers or viewers who visit your blog.
URL (Uniform Resource Locator): The address of a website or document on the
internet.
WEBLOG: See “BLOG”
WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) INTERFACE: An interface type that allows
the blogger to see what a post will look like while creating it, as opposed to an HTML
interface where a blogger may manually enter HYPERLINKS or HTML code.
XML (Extensible Markup Language): a markup language which describes data. It is
often used in conjunction with RSS news feeds.
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Recommended Reading
"Learn how to make a life-changing
income of $100,000 to $250,000 with your
Internet business... even if you're a
computer dummy!"
Review: "The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business
on the Internet" by Corey Rudl
I've just finished reading the brand-new 2005 version of Corey Rudl's top-selling
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The Internet," and frankly, I'm overwhelmed by the huge amount of critical wealthbuilding
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CDs!
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• 100s of FREE and cheap online tools, resources, and software
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If you're unsure who Corey is, you should know that he's been a recognized expert
in online marketing for a decade now. Not only has he generated $40,000,000 in
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What's really great about Corey is that he can show ANYONE how to have a
wildly profitable Internet business (that takes just a few hours each day to run)...
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sections of his system show you how you can increase your sales by 400%...
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I give Corey's system the highest rating
possible! Its 1,300+ pages of step-by-step lessons contain the exact SAME tested
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