Jeffrey Munro

I love learning things from people in other arenas and applying them to blogging so today when I saw SEOrefugee has a post titled 10 Mistakes that Will KILL a Forum I immediately wondered whether the 10 mistakes might also apply to blogging. Lets see:

1. Excessive Ads

I’d completely agree. While different blogs can get away with different levels of advertising (and I’d argue affiliate programs) there comes a point where the number of ads on a site can turn readers away. I would also argue that ads that are aggressively positioned on a blog can turn readers away also. If when a reader arrives on your blog and no content at all is visible you might want to consider the possibility that readers will leave frustrated.

2. Cliques

I think that a cliquey blog can be just an uninviting a place as a cliquey forum and that it can happen on two levels. Firstly the blogger themselves can be very cliquey in only linking out to a certain few other privileged bloggers (something A-list bloggers - whatever they are - are often accused of). Secondly the comments sections of blogs can be a cliquey place also with those commenting using in jokes, jargon and/or being snarky to new readers. While some successful blogs get away with cliquey behavior (and a few actually seem to thrive on it) the average blog trying to find it’s feet can suffer a lot as a result of it.

3. Trolls

This one applies with blogs and it’s something that I’ve seen frustrate a number of bloggers to the point where they’ve actually thrown in the towel and have given up blogging. Likewise trolls can frustrate readers and cause a lot of flaming between a blog’s community to the point where they almost take over.

4. Fights

Once again this can apply on a blog on two levels (both fights between bloggers and fights in comments). While an occasional fight (or vigorous discussion) can actually add life to a blog (if it’s done in a constructive and non personal way) - taken too far they can completely destroy a blogger’s (and blog’s) reputation. I’ve seen a number of bloggers go too far and/or pick the wrong fight - only to find that they become known as the blogger who said or did something stupid.

5. Heavy Handed Moderating

This one does vary a little from blog to blog. Some bloggers obviously moderate comments more heavily than others (for example blogs like Seth Godin’s doesn’t have comments, others like Lifehacker have comments for registered members only, others queue all comments for moderation and some are quite selective on what comments they allow to appear). Each approach

can

work but bloggers get into trouble mainly when they change the rules along the way. If you want to moderate comments heavily I personally believe it’s your right to do so although my own belief and style is that blogs tend to work best when the reading community are able to participate in the conversation unhindered.

6. Lack of Moderation

I’ve seen a few bloggers become almost laughing stocks because of the level of comment spam that they allowed to go up on their blogs. If you’re not going to put the time into moderating comments switch them off.

7. Don’t over post

Once again there is some room to move on this one. Some blogs do tend to get away with a lot of posts each day (some of the tech blogs for example post 20+ times a day) however every blog seems to have a posting frequency that seems to be optimal for it’s topic and readership.

8. Violating Privacy

This isn’t one that I’ve really seen any bloggers do - but if they did (perhaps with comment leavers email addresses?) I can see it would have a negative impact upon that blogger’s reputation.

9. Slow Site

The same thing is true to some extent (perhaps slightly less critical than with forums where users view multiple pages per session). A slow loading blog will often frustrate readers to the point that they’ll surf off to some other site before it fully loads).

10. Actually… there is no #10 - Oh wait! Over promising and under delivering

I totally agree. While I’ve had my fair share of falling short of goals online (it’s the way we learn) I see some bloggers who are repeat offenders in hype/spin and making undelivered promises and all this really achieves in my view is dilute their message and make me more and more wary of anything they claim or promise in future. While you might have grand goals for your blog - setting (and communicating) realistic achievable goals is important. No one will complain if you over achieve - but in the blogosphere people can be ruthless is you under perform.

I’ve written on this topic a few times in different ways. 10 steps to guarantee you’ll never make more than 0.14 cents per month with AdSense contains a few blog killers - but what mistakes would you add that you see bloggers making (or mistakes you’ve made) that could kill a blog?

PS: don’t forget that while mistakes might kill your blog - they can actually be learning experiences that help you improve it!

Bloggers should always have a clearly outlined posting frequency. It does not matter if you post once a week, three times per week or every day as long as your readers are aware of that (in reality I advocate that if you are serious about blogging you should write at least 5 weekly posts, but that is not the central point of this article).

The problem is that most people have other activities that might disturb the normal posting schedule. Your family might need your attention certain times or you day job might require some extra hours of work on specific periods of the year. The best solution for those emergencies is to have some posts already written, just waiting to be published.

1. Promote Your Feed Prominently

One mistake that some blogs make is have their RSS feed link appearing too far down in the footer of the design.

As with anything you want to promote (ads, key posts, contact form, about posts etc) the higher on the page you have it the more attention it will have.

Check out how Copyblogger does it for a great example. He has he two buttons pictured to the left right at the top of his sidebar. As a result his feed counter has steadily grown over the past year.

2. Promote Your Feed with an Image

Similarly promoting your feed with something a little more eye catching than a text link tends to get it more noticed.

The little testing that I’ve done shows that the feedburner counter/button can work well, as can the orange RSS button that many bloggers use. You have just a few seconds when a reader first hits your blog to convince them to come back again - RSS is an ideal way to get them coming back - so you’ll want to do everything you can to get their eyes on a way of subscribing.

There are many buttons that can be used (check out a few at this button maker). While there’s nothing wrong with using more than one (see below) I’d recommend not going too crazy with all the buttons out there as one well placed image link can be just as effective (if not more so) than multiple buttons cluttering your sidebar.

3. Use Multiple Methods to Promote Your Feed

There is no rule on how many times you can link to your feed on a page. If converting readers to RSS readers is a priority for you consider a variety of subscription points.

For example here at ProBlogger I have my Feedburner counter (which has a little animation and draws the eye), I have a bloglines subscriber button (as I know bloglines readers make up the majority of those following this blog) and I also have a subscribe page link which I know many readers use. Different readers will be attracted to different subscription methods - so experiment a little (without overwhelming them).

Another good is TechCrunch (with 178,000 subscribers as of today) who have the three options pictured (above).

4. Educate Your Readers

It is difficult to have a high RSS subscriber count if the majority of your readers don’t understand what RSS is or how to use it.

If your blog is on a non techie topic with a readership who doesn’t have much awareness of RSS write a post that explains what RSS is and how it can help them follow your site. Then add a link to that post under your RSS button to help educate them.

5. Offer RSS to Email Services

Some of your readers won’t get (or will refuse to use) RSS no matter how much you educate them. Don’t ignore them - but offer them a service that will convert your RSS feed into email for them. In this way you effectively still have RSS readers and they will get your content in a way that is familiar to them.

I offer this on my subscribe pages here at ProBlogger and at DPS and get a good response. The number of people using it will vary a lot (for example at DPS it’s a much higher take up in proportion to RSS subscribers than here at ProBlogger where I have a more RSS savvy readership). Feedburner offers this service as does FeedBlitz (and others).

6. Promote Your Feed in Off-Blog Communications

I’m seeing more and more bloggers promote their RSS feeds along side their blog’s homepage URLs in forum and email signatures as well as on other sites. Maybe it’s time we started putting our feeds on business cards also!

For example in a recent guest post here at ProBlogger Glen Stansberry asked for his feed URL to be included in his byline.

Get into the habit of not only giving out your blog’s URL but also include your RSS feed and you might just pick up some new readers. As RSS continues to grow we’ll see more and more of this - so get in early.

7. Make sure Your Feed is discoverable

I learnt this the hard way a few months back when I did a redesign at one of my blogs and didn’t think to check whether the feed was discoverable (it wasn’t). As a consequence I lost at least a couple of months of new subscribers.

More and more people use auto discovery via their browsers - make sure yours can be found and that it’s working to make this a more seamless subscription experience for potential readers.
8. Full Feeds

The debate over full versus partial feeds rages on but my own findings having made the switch to full feeds here at ProBlogger is that my subscriber numbers went up significantly in the weeks after giving my readers my full posts.

While there are a small number of readers who do prefer partial feeds - I find that the majority of readers prefer a full feed and that as a result most who provide them notice an upswing in subscriber numbers. Of course there are downsides in full feeds (for one they become more attractive to scraper sites) so make your decision carefully - but if it’s subscriber numbers that you’re after full feeds will be something to consider.
9. Give Your Feed Readers a Bonus

Something I’ve seen more bloggers doing of late is giving their readers an incentive to read. For example Chris Garrett offered a free ebook to any subscribers. From what I hear it’s worked well for him.

I’ve seen others talk about putting exclusive information for subscribers into their feeds (how they did this I’m unsure) and putting subscribers into a prize draw for a giveaway.

Of course keeping people subscribed is another matter and a certain percentage would no doubt subscribe and then unsubscribe after the incentive disappears - that’s where having quality content and an engaging feed comes into play (see the rest of this series for this).
10. Promote your Feed at Key Entry Points

Where do people enter your blog? Are there some pages that bring in more traffic than others via search engines, referral links, social bookmarking sites etc? If so - consider these pages as key points to give your RSS feed a special plug.

For example if you’re fortunate enough to get some mainstream media attention or one of your posts gets on the popular page of Digg or Delicious - why not add a quick link on the page everyone’s arriving on to promote your feed?

Put out the welcome mat at key points and help your readers find a way to make themselves at home.
11. Run an Ad Campaign

One blogger that I worked with last year ran an AdWords campaign to promote his feed (with some success).

He created a landing page for his blog that had the one goal of converting those who landed on it into loyal readers via RSS and his newsletter. The results were really encouraging and a great way to launch his new blog. In fact it was so worthwhile that he continues to put a few dollars a day into a simple AdWords campaign to promote his blog.

Similarly - other bloggers have done the same thing using other ad systems like Blogads.

These are some of the ways that I’ve used to get readers to subscribe to my RSS feed - how do you do it?

Source:

ProBlogger.net

Like many people who run a business via the Internet, I use affiliate programs to supplement my income.One of the affiliate products I use myself and love to promote - Proposal Kit - had been performing particularly well for me recently and I decided to help things along by creating a Google AdWords campaign based around my reviews of the product.

After one month, the campaign was going ok, I was getting a few sales here and there and certainly making a good ROI on the promotion. However, although my Click Through Rate (CTR) was pretty good (1.2%), it was starting to slide backwards and I thought I could do better.

As you probably know, your ad position in Google relies heavily on your CTR compared to that of your competitors, so I was keen to turn things around and keep my high ad positions.

Around this time, I bought Nick Usborne’s book Net Words and started to read it, taking notes as I went. I realized that according to Nick’s philosophy, my AdWords ads were flat and boring. They were just not appealing enough to entice people to click on them.

As Nick explains in his book, “Being blah guarantees you’ll never be heard”.

So I set about re-writing some of my ad text to speak more directly to my audience and ask them a question that required a response. Below is an example of an ad targeting the search query business proposal before I changed the text:

——————————————————
Business Proposal Kit
Close the sale with a professional
business proposal template kit.
——————————————————

And here is the text I replaced it with:

——————————————————
Need a business proposal?
Create your own professional
proposal with our template kit.
——————————————————

The aim was to get my average CTR for the entire campaign up to around 2% from the existing 1.2% it was sitting at. I logged off for the evening and went to bed, not expecting too much. The next morning, I had messages in my email in-box advising me that I had made 3 sales overnight! I was quite excited and logged into AdWords to see how things were going.

Sure enough, my clicks were way up and two of the three AdGroups I had edited were showing an average 33% CTR! My overall campaign CTR had risen from 1.2% to 2.4%. I had never experienced CTR that high before. The ad I had changed used to show a 2.5% CTR and after a few days the replacement ad displayed a 4.3% CTR.

More motivated now, I studied the ads that had attracted the most clicks and created more ads around related keywords and phrases, using similar headlines to the ads that were performing the best. This time, I incorporated Nick’s advice to use short and punchy copy.

Below is an example of an ad I was using to target the search query seo contract before I changed the text:

——————————————————
Sample SEO contract
Proposal Kit provides a perfect SEO
contract template. Read our review.
——————————————————

And here is the text I replaced it with:

——————————————————
Need an SEO contract?
Create yours.
Today.
——————————————————

After another week, my average CTR for the whole campaign jumped from 2.4% to 4% and I had a couple of ads showing 100% CTR! You can imagine how excited I was. Of course the high CTR builds on itself because the higher your CTR, the higher your ad position and the higher your ad position, the more clicks it is likely to attract.

So my campaign had jumped from 1.3% in the first month, to 2.4% in the second month and after my fine-tuning, it’s now showing a 4% CTR consistently. And the sales? Well I now average between seven and ten sales per week, up from two per week over the past six months and my affiliate commission is at an all time record.

The exercise just goes to show that a few thoughtful tweaks to your ad copy can make a HUGE difference to your bottom line. So what are you waiting for? Go tweak that copy in your own PPC campaigns…

Source: here

AdSense do’s

• Customize your AdSense ads, don’t just use the default settings.
• Write your content with not only the reader in mind, but with Adsense considerations as an issue.
• Don’t be too concerned with AdSense ads taking away from other offers on your site. It’s been my experience that if people are interested in your content, and in the AdSense ads, they’ll finish reading your copy first, then come back to the ad if that’s of interest to them.
• See AdSense as a partner, not a competitor. If you don’t have what your visitor is wanting, while you may not get a sale, you may still generate revenue from that visitor by using AdSense.
• Positioning is important, place the ads where they are most likely to be seen.
• Google allows you to place up to three instances of AdSense code on each page - use them if you can, but vary the type of implementation

Adsense don’ts

While Google is a nice partner to work with, they are strict on a number of issues.

• Once you implement the code, do not click on the ads yourself. Given the amount that some advertisers are willing to pay, Google is very, very sensitive to click fraud.
• Tell anyone else using a computer from your home not to click on the AdSense ads, just to be safe.
• Do not ever, ever try to “game” the system. Google is well aware of most of the tricks people use to engage in click fraud and pursues those people vigorously
• Don’t implement AdSense code where no-one will see it.
• Don’t incentive AdSense ads by offering rewards to visitors for clicking on ads.
• Don’t beg for clicks e.g. “help support this site, click on this ad”
• Don’t place AdSense ads on an empty page.

Any of the above can result in your AdSense account being suspended.

Source:here

The amount of quality inbound links to your site is one of the most important criteria used by search engines to rank your pages. Therefore, a well conducted link exchange campaign is one of the most effective Internet marketing strategies you can follow.

Remember that to search engines not all links are created equal: some links are more important and will have more value than others. The best links are those from high quality, highly ranked pages with a topic related to your site.

These are the steps you must follow for a successful link exchange campaign:

1. Create a Links page on your site, where you can place links to all the sites that link to you. Make sure to provide clear instructions on how to link to you, including the exact HTML code you want your link partners to use.
2. Download the Google toolbar: The Google toolbar is an addition to your Internet Explorer browser that will display the Page Rank of every page you visit. Page Rank is Google’s way of telling you if a page is important and ranks well. If a page is related to the topic of your site and has a high Page Rank, you definetely want them to link to you. To download the Google toolbar, go to http://toolbar.google.com and follow the instructions.
3. Go to the major search engines and search for your target keywords (the words you think people will use to find sites like yours). Click on each of the results and see if the site:

a. Is complementary (non-competitive) with your site

b. Has a good Page Rank.

c. Has a links page.

If it does, put it on your list of selected sites.

4. Write to the webmasters of the selected sites and ask them for a link exchange, following these guidelines:
   1. Place a link to them on your own site before contacting them.
   2. Start your letter by explaining the nature of your site, how does it relate to theirs, and how both would benefit from the exchange.
   3. Give them the URL of your links page, so they can see their link and make sure that their link information is OK. The fact that they see their link on your site will make them more inclined to reciprocate.
   4. Give them the exact HTML code that they should use to link to you. By all means, include your main keywords in the link text since that will give you a boost with the search engines. For example, if you own a pet supplies store called Petmart, and assuming that your main keywords are “pet supply store”, it is better to make the link text: Petmart - The Pet Supply Super Store, instead of just Petmart.
5. Keep track of what you’re doing: maintain a spreadsheet where you can write down the name of each target site, their webmaster’s email address, their URL, the URL of their links page, the date you first contacted them, and the date when they finally placed the link to your site. If you don’t see your link after a couple of weeks, send them a reminder. If you don’t get a response in another week, remove the link you originally placed on your site and move on.

Source:here

1. Addthis.com - Bookmarks / Social News Sites
It is great to offer your visitors a choice of different bookmarking and social websites but sometimes having 10 different buttons so that you can include every service is a little much and more distracting than anything. The best solution for this problem is to use the bookmarking service offered by Addthis.com. They allow you to place one button on your site and when it is clicked a pop-up offers 20+ different website to add this website too. A must have to getting return visitors.

2. Adbrite - Advertisement
Monetizing your site is not always a good idea off the get go but if you are getting some serious traffic and wouldn’t mind making a couple extra bucks it might be worth while to check out Adbrite’s Ad Service. They offer a variety of text, banner, interstitial and video ads. You are able to edit the colors to match your site as well as target ads towards your sites demographic.

3. Netscape / Digg
These social bookmarking websites offer an excellent resource for anyone to get a nice surge of high volume traffic. Digg is notorious for bringing sites to their knees within minutes. This amount of traffic will help get your site viewed by a large variety of people and helps build awareness of the other content you offer on your site. Use these sites as a way of pro

4. Forums
Forums are your ticket a vast amount of users looking for content rich sites, and a conversation of course. You cannot sign up for a forum thinking you are going to plaster your link on every forum you can. You will be banned from the forum very very quickly. Instead take your time to get to know a couple of the other forum users and by building a relationship with them you will become recognized within the community and many users will visit your sites.

5. Search Engines
Probably your best bet for content related traffic. By making sure you are listed on search engines you allow yourself multiple sources of visitors at a fairly constant and steady pace. Search engines allow new users to discover yourself without you advertising. Search engines base their results on the quality of the page so don’t think a tag with a bunch of big keywords will help ya out. You want to provide quality work so visitors continue to come back.

6. Return Visitors
This brings me to my next point. Return visitors are extremely important to any website. They are the loyal visitors who visit anywhere from 2-4 times per week to multiple times a day. These are the people that will interact with the website and also promote the site through word of mouth, the best form of advertising.

7.Comments
Comments give new visitors an idea of the quality of the work on the site. Making it easy to post comments is pivotal as people do not want and will not search for these types of things. It is one of those things that needs to be in their face.

8. Link Exchanges
Trading links with other bloggers who share similar sites will help increase traffic and create a strong network between sites. Networking your site with others will also help in search engine results as well as exposure.

9. Choose a general topic
People want a general idea of what they are going to read whenever they visit your site so do not jump all over the place with your topics or you won’t be able to attract any steady, constant readers. If you are interested in say the Ottawa Senators then base your site around hockey in general or even sports in general so you still have a wide variety of things to write about.

10. Ping Directories
Pinging directories means sending them a request which contains the updates that you have made to your site. With this information in hand search engines and site directories can index your site and place it into their databases. It is quick because they do not have to crawl the web looking for your website. Sign up for A feedburner account (Feedburner.com) and use the FeedPing to ping a large selection of different sites.