Archive for category Internet
Why Business Owners Quit Blogging
It seems that many business owners quit blogging. Are you interested what the reasons are? Are we really that different from business bloggers? We also try to “sell a product”, but in our case it is our blog itself. Here are the reasons why many business people give up on blogging:
1. They are not happy with the amount of comments left by visitors.
2. According to them, they do not have enough subscribers.
3. They do not observe an increase in traffic coming to their main website.
4. They find it difficult to come up with fresh new content for the blog every day or week. Blogs that are not being updated often might not serve their purpose.
5. They cannot work out how to promote products and services via their blog. It is not that easy to promote different products from various industries on a blog.
Maintaining a blog costs money. That is why if there are going to be negligible benefits, then it is a wise choice for a business to delete such a blog. Regular bloggers are in a different position, as they are not oriented on increasing their income. They are rather focused on having influence over other people and interacting with users all over the world. That is why there are some blogs that have been out for years, and they are still performing very well.
Submission to Directories
Posted by Kent in Internet, Technology on August 4th, 2010
In the past, I have written about the importance of including your website/blog in directories to improve your Page Rank ranking and increase search engine results. Submitting your website to directories is important because directories usually have high PR themselves, and being linked from such sites will boost your overall website ranking.
Personally, I also believe that including your website in directories might be a lot more efficient than manually exchanging links with other websites, as from experience I can say that many people do not respond at all to link exchange requests. They do not respond for many reasons, including lack of willingness to exchange links with anybody at the moment, or they might simply not like something about your website. On the other hand, directories are overall more professional, as they are always ready to link to other sites. Additionally, they usually they have very specific requirements when it comes to the inclusion of your website. Even if you have a lot of link exchanges you are still going to benefit from listing your site with directories.
It is important to understand that the importance and prestige of directories differs a lot, so make sure that you focus on adding your website to the more important ones. If you put a little bit of effort into being listed, I am sure it will pay off later. Of course, submitting your website to lesser known directories might not be as beneficial.
Can You Trust Wikipedia?
You do not have to be an expert on the subject of the Internet to know what Wikipedia is. Wikipedia is a very popular website where you can obtain information about virtually any topic. In fact, this might be even the most popular online website where many people turn to find the information that they seek. The main idea behind Wikipedia is the fact that its entries are created by regular Internet users. Anyone can be a writer, and contribute to this famous online encyclopedia. However, if anyone can edit entries, can Wikipedia be really trusted as a reliable source of information? I think that many Internet users would say no. Personally, I benefited from Wikipedia many times before, and I am very grateful for that. However, I encountered situations when I was reading an article, and found it to be biased and one-sided. I think that it is very important to know who wrote an article before you start reading any portion of it. This can be especially true if the article is written about a controversial topic, or a controversial person. Of course, it might not be that easy to discover who wrote a particular entry. Controversial entries are one of the things that very often are not accurate. Take that into account and do not believe everything you read on this popular website.
Wikipedia entries might also sometimes not be very accurate. However, very often if the content of an article is questionable, there is a small paragraph saying that the content needs reviewing and cannot be completely trusted. It is good to know that the overall quality of articles is getting higher, and there are less unreliable or not complete entries.
Whether we like Wikipedia or not, we have to admit that it is the most popular online encyclopedia, and that is not going to change anytime soon. What is your opinion about the subject? Do you think that we should trust everything that can be found on Wikipedia?
Giveaways
I have discussed the topic of attracting visitors in the past; however, this time I have an additional idea for attracting new visitors to your blog, namely organizing giveaways. Giving away things is a certain way to attract visitors to your site. Who does not like to receive things for free? Obviously, people love things for free, but most bloggers are not willing to give for free unless they benefit from it. It may be a link or review, but the truth is that giving away things for free from time to time will increase the number of visitors to your site, and some of those visitors might be really grateful. Additionally, if you do not ask for anything in return, sometimes you will receive it anyway. That is because people will appreciate your good will. You might receive a lot of links to a post where you mentions giveaways, so you will also benefit when it comes to your Page Rank.
There are some bloggers who do not like this method, because they argue that it is not cost-effective. They claim that, for example, giving away 10 books might attract visitors, but the cost of those 10 books might be higher than the possible gain. My response would be that you can also give away things that do not cost anything at all. This includes link backs and any services you can provide.
Things Not To Forget About
Like every other serious profession, blogging has its own code of conduct. It might be unofficial, but it is still valid and should be observed to maintain order in blogosphere. By observing this code on conduct we can make sure that nobody is offended by what we are doing. There are many do’s and dont’s, some of them are more obvious than others. Let me list a few rules that I find interesting and worth applying.
1. If you provided your email address as a way to contact you, respond to emails that come to your inbox. If you receive some unpleasant ones, try responding to them as well. Obviously, you do not have to answer spam messages.
2. Check your spam folder on a regular basis. Your spam filter might have classified some of the valuable comments as trash for some reason. Do not let any valuable comment unnoticed.
3. Approve the comments if you use a comment moderation feature. There is nothing more disappointing for somebody who left a comment to see his feedback unapproved for many days.
Even such small things can make a difference, and you will definitely have a better reputation if you stick to these guidelines. After all, blogging has a lot to do with interaction with other people.
Monetize through CPM Networks
Managing a successful website takes a lot of time and money. That is why many webmasters decide to monetize their site. For webmasters looking for ways to monetize their site, there are different options to choose from, including CPM networks. Those networks operate on the basis of number of impressions, contrary to PPC networks. For a blogger this means that you get paid per each thousand impressions. Sometimes the amount you can earn is not high and it might be $0.10. However, in other cases it can be equal to even greater than $10. In any case, you need a lot of traffic if you want to monetize your site this way. It is important that your site should have dozens or even hundreds of visitors per day. The advantage of this system is that you do not have to place ads in intrusive areas, as from your point of view it does not matter if your visitors click on the links. Even if none of your visitors click on links you will still get paid. This way you can rather attract people to click on links that point to different pages on your website.
This type of advertising is especially attractive for those bloggers who have many visitors, but for some reason the click-through-rate is rather low. If a webmaster having a low CTR website would use the services of PPC networks, he would hardly earn any money. On the other hand, CPM networks look like a great way to monetize many sites. If you are in a similar position, then perhaps you should consider trying them out.
The Growth of Blogging
Posted by Kent in Blogs, Internet, Technology on July 15th, 2010
Some time ago, I read an article about blogging and there were some interesting numbers listed there. The article stated that Technorati, a search engine that monitors blogs, indexed around 150 million blogs, up from 100,000 just a few years ago. It seems that a new blog is created every few seconds, which adds up to thousands new blogs a day, hundreds of thousands of posts a day, and thousands of updates an hour. As you see, the growth rate of blogs is really impressive. But what are really blogs? I think that blogs are lowering the cost of publishing, enabling the rise of content, which is replacing the centralized, controlled content done by professionals. I am not saying that some bloggers do not go pro, but most bloggers are only blogging part-time. Blogs are becoming more and more popular with each passing day. One of the reasons is that very often bloggers allow their visitors to ask them questions, leave comments, etc. A user that visits a blog can actually interact with the writer and that is not possible in case of newspapers.
The article had the conclusion that blogging is still in its early days and it is analogous to where the Web was in 1995 and 1996, so it is not clear how it will turn out. However, as a blogger myself, I am predicting that the popularity of blogging will not cease to grow and some bloggers will become even more influential.
Fake PR Websites Being Sold
Sometimes bloggers decide to buy another blog, because they want to expand their network of blogs. In some cases something about their current blog is not working out as planned. In such a scenario it is important to realize that unfortunately many Internet users might try to fake their page rank. Since PR is one the main ways to measure a sites performance, then some webmasters might want to take advantage out of that fact. Some of them use 301 or 302 redirects that point their sites to sites with a high PR. This in practical terms means that when you visit the desired site you might see a high PR on your toolbar, but this will be a PR of another site. Yes I know, this is cheap tactics, but whenever you are buying a new website or blog, make sure you are not buying it solely for PR. Do some research before buying it. These type of scams also made me think how come Page Rank became so important for webmasters. I am sure there could be many other ways to measure a sites performance including number of visitors, quality of content, number of posts, and incoming links. It seems thought for a lot of people it is a lot easier to simply check a number such as PR, instead of researching the value of a site in a more in-depth way. There are many things that can make a site valuable, so keep that in mind.
Consider Different Niches
There are many decisions a blogger has to make. When it comes to blogging, an important decision that bloggers have to face is choosing a niche topic for their blog. Some people do it consciously, others do it without even knowing it, but all of us in some way decide what do we want to blog about. It is tempting to choose a niche topic that we believe is popular, as we will expect many visitors to come to our website. Unfortunately, this is not always true, as starting a blog about politics would normally attract many people, but you should take into account that the competition is very steep. That is why it is a good idea to consider different niches, even those that you think nobody would be interested in. Personally, I do not believe that there is a niche which no one is interested in. Go to your local library, and take a look at home many magazines are available, and you must agree that many of the topics do not seem interesting to an average person like bathroom magazines for example. Having said that, if magazines like this exist on the market, it means that there is a need for them. This applies to blogs as well. Choose a topic that you like, and I am sure there are going to be people that will like it as well.
Why People Stop Blogging
Blogging is a great way to express yourself, and an efficient way to share your knowledge. Blogging is certainly attractive for many reasons. That is why I have been asking myself a question why people stop blogging. Why do they abandon the results of their hard work? Here are some reasons why people might stop blogging at some point:
1. They do not see enough people visiting their blog as they wished. They feel that their blog is somehow inadequate and not attractive. Being proud of your website is important, if you want others to appreciate it as well.
2. They abandon blogs because they decide to spend their time in some other way. Blogging is time consuming, so take that into account.
3. They do not make any money from their blog. This can be especially discouraging for people who pay a lot of money for hosting, web design, SEO, advertising, and other services.
4. They do not see the results of their work immediately. Blogging is not for everyone, as it requires patience and often some investment. Many people start seeing results after at least a few months of blogging.
5. People start too many blogs at the same time and later are not able to keep the pace.
6. Some bloggers are no longer interested in a topic that they chose in the beginning of their blogging life. It happens. In my opinion, blogging about something that you have passion for is crucial.