Posted by scoop on June 30th, 2009 in Promotion, Tips | No Comments »
Pro-bloggers it’s time to dig in your heels and come up with something REALLY compelling if you want to get to go to an all expense paid trip to Antarctica. Quark Expeditions has a contest for bloggers with the prize at stake being a spot at a real Antarctica expedition. Here’s what they said in their site.
“Quark Expeditions is searching for an Official Blogger to join a voyage to Antarctica. Do you have a passion for the polar regions? A commitment to the environment? An insatiable urge to photograph penguins?
Post your entry and tell the world why you should be our blogger. Be creative! On September 30, 2009, the entrant with the most number of votes will be selected as the winner.
The Official Quark Blogger will travel with a guest to Antarctica in February 2010 and blog about their experience, chronicling the action, the emotion, and the drama as their polar adventure unfolds.”
As a pro-blogger you should have an edge to because you’re used to writing. Of course with the thousands of entrant used to writing won’t cut it. So as I said it’s time to come up with something compelling and write really well about it!
If you’re into blog monetization you should also realize that what’s at stake here isn’t just the expedition (although that alone should spur lots of people to join) but also because the chance to make your blog famous. Imagine going from a handful of readers to thousands, maybe even hundred of thousands of readers, soon as you win the competition. You can be sure at least that your jealous competitors will be checking out your blog. Not to mention the press you’ll be getting. So just a friendly advice: Join the contest and give it your all. Good luck!
Posted by scoop on June 28th, 2009 in Blog Advertising, Promotion | No Comments »
Deborah Yao, an AP business writer, reported last week about the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) proposed guidelines that would allow them to go after bloggers who do not make proper disclosure when paid for blogging about products/services or when blogging about something when they haven’t even used the product/service. Note that the changes in the guidelines for endorsements are aimed not only at bloggers but all kinds of endorsers. If you want to read the full proposal of FTC you can view the PDF copy of their Notice to of Changes to Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.
With this news what has been the reaction on the net? As can be expected there are opposing opinions. As Brennon Slattery of PC World said, “It’s a good idea to crack down on this new wave of unprofessional behavior. Nonprofessional product review blogs should maintain the integrity of an Internet community where average citizens can freely share ideas without the threat of being swindled by a massive corporation. By accepting payment and benefits from these companies without specifically stating that is being done violates the trust of a community and serves to destroy its very foundation…. This is a good thing, but it also runs the risk of raising hairs on the necks of privacy watchers who aren’t so keen on having their personal blogs examined so closely.”
Aaron Wall’s post on how FTC’s change in guidelines will not really produce the results needed to regulate fake endorsements also makes sense. As he puts it, “What is absurd (to me at least) is how inefficient this process is. What needs to happen is better enforcement on ad networks, search engines, and merchants. Follow the money downstream rather than hunting for nickels upstream. The people who are making fake sites are doing so because they are paid to… You will never track them down one at a time because many domains are internationally owned, anonymously registered, and some domain names only cost a couple dollars to register.”
So there you go. While legit bloggers that do not make big bucks out of paid posts in their blogs will have to start watching their words more closely the ones that are out to defraud the world will still manage to sit pretty.
Posted by scoop on June 23rd, 2009 in Professional Blogging | No Comments »
So can you really make money through blogging? The answer is an easy YES. The more important question though is just how much money can you make? Will the money you make be enough to support you and your family? Will it be enough for you to quit your day job?
Here’s a very interesting (and I find to be true and practical) post from Penelope Trunk. The title of the post, Reality check: You’re not going to make money from your blog, makes her opinion clear enough but what I find to be interesting about the post is not that she thinks you can’t make enough money but the follow things. Note that everything that follows, except those in parenthesis are quoted from Penelope’s post.
Big bloggers come from big media - Most big bloggers today have a strong background writing for print.
Blogging to support yourself is a complete full-time job (If you think that quitting your day job to blog means easy money then you’re in for a surprise. It’s very time consuming!)
You can make more money flipping burgers (Errr. That depends on where you flip burgers?)
Blog for better reasons than money - There are a lot of reasons to blog, but for the most part, money is not one of them… Bloggers defined success as things that mattered in their life: influence, connections, friendships, the ability to lead a conversation that matters to people. Some talked about a blog leading to other business opportunities.
Image source: Exit9
Posted by scoop on May 31st, 2009 in Tips | No Comments »
One of the most rewarding things about blogging is seeing comments (hopefully positive comments) after each post. The great thing about comments is that it does not only make you as a blogger feel good but it also has other positive effects including:
Encouraging readers to read your blog more regularly – However, this is true only if you regularly and speedily reply to comment. If you keep on neglecting your comment section your commenters will end up feeling unappreciated and might not feeling like commenting again. Besides replying to them will encourage them to keep track of your replies and so go back to your blog time and again.
Making your blog more attractive to new readers – You know how a packed restaurant will attract more people than an empty one. That’s because psychologically people think that if there’s many people somewhere then the popularity of the place, in this case a blog, must be for a good reason, hence making them want to also check out the place. Of course, if the place is no good the crowd clears out pretty quick after that and there are no return customers. So encourage a lively comment section but make sure your blog has regular good posts or people will see through your efforts to generate traffic using fake comments.
Networking – You get to meet people with similar interests or in the same industry as you via your comment section. Whether it be for personal reasons or for work you can bet that with regular commenters you will get to meet someone you’ll be glad to have known. A friend of mine found work with the help of his blog. Who knows what valuable people you’ll get to meet in your comment section?
Posted by scoop on May 29th, 2009 in Blog basics, RSS, Tips | No Comments »
Last month one of the tips I gave to make your blog more accessible is by offering RSS feeds. This time we’ll be discussing some ways to make sure that people actually end up subscribing to your blog feeds. Here are some of the things you can do:
1. Use a feed button and think placement – When people wish to subscribe to feeds what they usually automatically look for is the bright orange RSS feed button. Make it easy for your readers to subscribe by providing this button and placing it in a very visible spot. Place it near the top of the page. Never place it on the bottom of the page where people can easily miss the link. You can use a customized feed button but make sure that the function of the button is obvious.
2. Full or partial feeds – As mentioned last time your decision to use full or partial feeds will depend entirely on your preference. As a general rule though blogs with overly long posts and with very frequent posting schedules (at least daily) are the ones that should seriously think about using partial feeds. Another thing you can do is to offer both full and partial feeds to cater to all your readers’ preference. The good thing about this is that you can even use this option to force your readers to decide whether to see full feeds but with ads or to get partial feeds and not have to deal with ads but have to go to your actual blog to read posts in their entirety. Either way, you win.
Posted by scoop on May 17th, 2009 in Design, Word Press | No Comments »
Want to be updated about the latest Wordpress themes and plug-ins? I found a great site for you. – Weblogtools collection. I found the blog while looking for great themes and found some really good ones reported there. They have a pretty good list of plug-ins too but what really drew me were the themes. I’m pretty sure you’ll find a plug-in you’ll find useful though.
What I really liked about the blog though is not only it’s content but also the layout. It makes for a great resource because it is so easy to find what you need. The blog makes use of a three-column layout where snippets of blog posts can be seen on the left column, various less important (at least important for me as a reader) stuff on the right column, and a very useful list of theme, plugin, and Wordpress news smack in the middle of the page. This is my favourite part because at a glance I can start picking links that will help me see the info (i.e. themes and plug-ins) that I need.
I would give an example of their content but Mark Gosh just recently complained about him being sick of splogs copying their content. Though we’re definitely no splog I think you’ll just do as well looking for the themes and plug-ins at their site yourself. Just remember we pointed you to their direction! ^_^
