Big Increase In Page Impressions and Small Increase In Revenue - Blogging Experience

I have promised myself I will be blogging on my blogging experience as I go along. So here is an update ...

As I type, the page impressions stand at 121,886. Number of visitors are increasing and so are the earnings (no pay offs yet though) - though not at the rate I would like.

This is what I have been doing so far.

1. Blogging regularly. It is becoming a habit now. I have noticed that the more you blog the faster new ideas come tumbling. After a while, you own a style that is distinctive. Hopefully, I have a distinct style of my own by now. I have noticed that my hobbies are feeding off each other. I like to read and I like to blog. My reading gives me ideas for my blogs and my blogging success (?) gives me the push to read further.

2. Spreading my net wider. Basically increasing my catchment area. The idea is to get trickles from a wider area. Towards that I have started Squidoo Lens, which I kind of enjoy. I also am consistently leaving comments on other blogs of interest. This needs to go. I am not very satisfied with the Blog Directories. Not many visitors from these. However, the number of visitors are growing from the IndiBlogger forum, where I love to contribute.

3. I recently started building followers. Right now I have only three. This is on a reciprocal basis, which is a nice arrangement - I get to read some interesting blogs. I think this will give my blog more visibility. The subscription drive through mails continues. My subscribers are my captive audience, sort of.

4. I am paying more attention to catchy titles and attractive pictures. Internet surfers have notoriously short attention plan. Need to grab their attention at first glance. Not sure how successful I am. Will know shortly.

5. I am still reliant a great deal on Alpha Inventions to get me visitors, which it does admirably. There is another similar application on the Internet. It is called Condron. The flow of traffic is much less from here.

I have now decided to do measure the rate of increase of page impressions, rather than just page impressions. So my next update, perhaps next month, will contain better statistics.

The aspect that I am still not very satisfied with is the quality of advertisement. I have a feeling I know why this is so. The topics I write on are varied. This must be throwing the adsense algorithm off. I do not want to compromise on my reading pleasure for advertisements though. But if the visitors do not find relevant advertisements to explore then the success criteria I have set for myself is not met. So it is kind of catch-22.

Adsense offers a few tools to manage adsense advertisements. Need to explore this too.

Picture Courtesy: Ilker

Blogging - 7 Things That Work For Me And 1 That Doesn't

Having blogged almost continuously for about 4 months now, I am getting a feel of what works for me. I haven't yet figured one that doesn't.

Here's the list of what works ...

1. Using a neat template ... Too much clutter is a no-no. The attention span of a visitor is short. Need to capture and keep the visitor for a long time.

2. Using pictures ... Pictures capture attention. Not too many of these. But definitely above the fold-line. And the best place to get royalty free pictures is Stock Xchng. Remember to leave a message for the photographer thanking him/her - that also ensures that one extra person will visit your blog. Also remember to credit the photographer in your blog.

3. Blogging My Mind ... I know it is good to focus, great for traffic, etc. I have other blogs which are extremely focused. But you got to have one for fun. Where you can blog your heart out. So that even when no one is visiting your blog, you are driven to blog continuously.

4. Being a Good Citizen of The Blogosphere ... It is fun to make virtual friends. It also means that people in whose blog I have left a comment visit mine. I make it a point to leave comments in at least 5 blogs per day.

5. Welcome Text ... I think my hit rate increased after I introduced a welcome note for my visitors. In any case, it is nice to greet strangers. I read somewhere long ago in Reader's Digest:

A stranger is just a friend you haven't met before

6. Non-linear narrative ... I get more visitors to the posts that do not follow a plain, straight line narrative.

7. Asking For Feedback ... Asking for feedback of like minded friends you met on a forum is a great help.

Here's the list of what I still need to figure out ...

1. How do I ensure quality advertisements on my blog that interests my visitors? Blogging is in my control. But how do I get my visitors to become interested in the ads.  I wish I had the creative control on the advertisement on my blog. Meaning, I wish I could design them.

But then that would mean that the advertisements would look exactly like my blog!!  Is that a good thing or a bad thing? You decide.

Note: The picture used belongs to jaylopez (See gallery)

My Place In The Sun

How would you like to earn $250,000 per week? No this is not a scam. This is happening and we are all contributing. But more of that later down the post.

27-March-2007 is a date I will remember for ever. It was on this date I first published my blog. On that date I became someone who just searches for information on Internet to someone who provides information. That in itself is a huge satisfaction. The blog on DO-178B is niche.

It took me another year or so to decide to start blogging on more general topics and monetize - this blog. As of this moment this blog has been viewed by over 90,000 individuals.

But consider this. There are more than 50 million bloggers world-wide. In India alone there are more than 6000 bloggers. These are conservative estimates. So, my blog is one among 50 million? What are the chances of getting any readers? Where is my place in the sun?

And then Chris Anderson comes to rescue. It turns out that I am part of a LONG TAIL.

So what is a long tail? For example, if you plot the graph between number of visitors (in Y-axis) against all the blogs in the X-axis. Now arrange the blogs on X-Axis from those getting maximum hits to those getting minimum. You would get a rapidly declining curve with the first few blogs getting huge number of visitors. The curve rapidly declines but the value never touches zero on the X-axis. The curve goes on and on.

Let me take a better example ... an example that I am familiar with. My blog has non-zero visits. Everyday there is at least one visitor. The visitor may or may not check out any advertisements. But in a month there is at least one click on the advertisement. That amounts to a few cents. Now it seems 98% of the more-than-50-million-bloggers fall in my category (more of less). So that is 50 million cents a week. And even if we take 50% of these blogs to be inactive, it is $250,000 per week. Not bad earning for someone like Google whose advertisements adorn most of these blogs.

Google, e-bay, Amazon, i-Tunes have all understood this new economy. And are exploiting it.

The ancient Indians too understood this. There is a proverb: "drops fill up oceans." (translated from Hindi)

So, even if I am a tiny cog, I am contributing to the Internet economy. Not bad for a five month old blog.

In Support of Slow Blogging Manifesto

I am not exactly a slow blogger. My desire to blog something every day is overwhelming. And I blog like maniac. Recently I posted an Anti-SEO Manifesto. Today I googled 'blog manifesto' to search for like minded bloggers and I came across this amazing Slow Blogging Manifesto.

The focus is on content and rejection of the desire to be on the first page of a Google Search for generating traffic (though ironically, this site due to its relevance appears in the first page!).

Now why is Slow Blogging superior? Because by reacting instantly you are working on noise and not on substance. Have you noticed how an event makes much more sense a couple of weeks, months, or years down the like. It is called hind sight. Everything looks more settled hind sight. By blogging instantly one just adds to the noise and then herd mentality takes over. Substance is lost.

There are instances when instant reaction helps. The outrage and grief post Mumbai is classic case. Bloggers played a part too. And it helped. But does it help every time?

Every thing has a place. Fast food and food that is cooked with time and deliberation.

Blogging in general is seen as fast food. I am glad someone took up cause of slow blogging.

Posts that are deliberately written will have more relevance and be of value even many years after these are written.

Do you agree with the Slow Blogging Manifesto? If yes, you may also agree with the Anti-SEO Manifesto.

An Anti-SEO Manifesto

This whole SEO business is getting on my nerves.

Or perhaps I am old-fashioned. But try as I may, I am unable to get into an SEO mode for my blog. When I first started blogging, I methodically searched the Net for tips to increase visibility of my blog. After all, I want others to read what I publish. But most of ideas seem to be bordering on the unethical. Let's see what it is all about ...

As per Wikipedia,

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results.

The idea is to get you site in the first couple of pages in a search engine results. However, it seems to be that while blogging to get my blog noticed I have to focus more on SEO than the content itself. First get the SEO thingy done, and then the content.

But are the SEO techniques suggested by blogs natural? Let's take some examples that I find detestable ...

• Labels: I am supposed to add all the relevant labels so that the search engine can pick them up. Why? Why can't the Search Engines pick up relevant contents.
• Title: Wordpress helps in generating SE Optimized title. Blogger doesn't. So I saw in a blog a work around. First give all the key words in the title. Then save. And then modify the title to a normal one. Seems like cheating. And why can't I use punctuation marks in the title, if it makes sense?
  
• Building links: Since link farming is a bad thing, I am supposed to exchange links with other bloggers. You scratch my back and I will scratch yours. My question: would I do that if Google did not place importance on links? Would I still exchange links. I understand the importance of links. I believe Larry Page got this idea of ascertaining the importance of a website by the number of references to it. Similar to the references in a paper of a scientific journal. His parents are physicists (I need to confirm this, I remember having read this in Google, The True Story). But links should have meaning and relevance. The links should be built in the content of the blog. A list of blogs in the blogroll is no value addition to the content. Again I find reciprocal links bordering on fraud.
• Keyword Stuffing: Search Engines look down upon Keyword stuffing. In spite of that I saw on one very famous site that pays you for writing articles insisting on using keywords at at least 5 places. It goes on to mention where exactly the keywords should be. This obviously is a good SEO technique. What happens to the content of I have to twist and turn the words to fit keywords at 5 points. Also, if I have to use a keyword multiple times because of what I am writing, and it comes naturally, why should that be rejected as being keyword stuffing.

I could go on and on ...

So here is my personal manifesto. For what it is worth.

While blogging my focus will be on content; not search engine optimization. If the search engines do not find me and list me on the first two pages of a relevant search, it is just too bad - perhaps my contents are not up to the mark. But submitting to the dictates of SEO is akin to man bowing down to machine. Search Engines have to accommodate me. Not vice-versa. The future of search engines is in developing (neural?) algorithms that crawl and analyze contents. This manifesto is in anticipation of that.

So will my blog continue to languish at the bottom of the heap? Perhaps. Perhahs not. But I refuse to sacrifice the joy of unfettered writing. I will be active particiant in blogosphere. Will continue giving outbound links if it makes sense. Will comment on good blog entries and leave my signature behind. Will participate in forum discussions. Will blog regularly and hope for the best.

Content shall be the king.

Use ScribeFire To Post Attractive Blogs

I am typing this blog using ScribeFire. This is an add-on to the Firefox. I am not sure if this is available on other browsers too.

I would recommend this for anyone who finds the editor on their blogging platform inadequate.

Though I am not sure how this will look like when I finally publish it, the editor has some amazing features.

The editor lets you use various fonts, strike true through and font sizes. You can also set the font colour. The editor lets you insert special characters too - brilliant! But not ½ as brilliant as the ability to publish posts to different platforms. I do not have to go to my blogging platform(s). I will be able to publish my posts to different blogs from this one editor.

I am still exploring the various options.

Once I publish this, I will come back to tell you how good or bad this really is. Cleverly used this should improve the attractiveness quotient of posts and hopefully increase traffic.

Try it.

PS: I had to come back to put the labels for the post. But that's about all. It is like using HTML without knowing how to use it.
I would strongly recommend ScribeFire or an equivalent.

PPS: Ok. I figured out how to insert labels. There is a side bar on ScribeFire that lists your categories that you need to select. I am very pleased with this tool.

Most Popular Blogs

Most of the most popular metrics is based on number of visits or average number of visits over so many days or like Google does, using the page rank. Technorati also uses the number of times a blog has been referred by others (or something similar)

However, what I would like to see, for blogs particularly, is a metrics based on the following additional factors:

a) Time spent by each visitor per visit

b) The ratio of number of comments to number of posts.

Thus, the formula would be

Popularity ranking of blog = function of (no. of hits, duration of stay per visit, ratio of comments to post).

This formula ensures that the content of blog is also made a factor to determine popularity.

What would be your formula?

Note: This post is triggered by a query in the Indiblog forum.

Christmas Gift From A Blogger

It's the season of giving. And what does a blogger needs most? Traffic, with a capital T.
So I have decided to search the web using Stumble Upon and pick up the best, in my opinion, of course, and place the blog in www.alphainventions.com using my AIID#.

This I will do till 25th December, starting today.
I can just image the pleasant surprise on the blogger's face when s/he sees a huge number of hits.

A perfect Christmas gift for bloggers from a blogger! The best thing about the gift - it shall remain anonymous.

Two Definite Ways To Increase Blog Traffic

After having blogged almost continuously for the last couple of months I have settled for two simple methods of increasing blog traffic:

One - Submit blog on AlphaInventions. Once you log in you would see blogs flashing across your screen in rapid succession. So instead of you visiting blogs, they are visiting you. Submit your blog to be in the reading cycle - multiple submissions is recommended (not in rapid succession please - everyone needs a chance). Imagine hundreds of blogger like you logging on to Alphainventions and checking out your blog as it flashes past your screen. Traffic multiplies. You could also pause a blog of your liking and leave a comment, which of course, is a great way of making friends and improving secondary traffic.

Warning: Alphainventions could be quite addictive.

Two - Stumbleupon. This is like surfing the net with a TV remote, except imagine a remote that randomly picks up a channel. What fun! Download the Stumbleupon toolbar and with each click discover a random page on the web. Now, you can constraint the randomness to the domain of your choice. Thus, when you stumble upon a blog of your liking, leave a comment. This increases your visibility on the net and is likely to get you return visits. The trick is in leaving more than just "excellent blog" kind of comment. Ensure that your comment is a value addition. So, whoever reads the comment would like to visit you to see what else you have blogged upon.

Both, Alphainventions and Stumbleupon, are free services.

As long as you keep your blog updated with interesting posts the above two methods will definitely improve your blog traffic. I guarantee it.

Accidental Damage To Your SEO

I discovered this quite by accident. And this is something we bloggers need to be extra careful about. If you (accidentally) publish a post without a title in Blogger, the URL will take words from the first set of text of the post and your URL is damaged for ever. This is a disaster as far as SEO is concerned. The only way to resolve this is to copy the text, delete the original post, create another post and republish.

Increase Blog Traffic Using Alphainventions

I generally don't fall for such gimmicks. If someone says I can guarantee your traffic, I would laugh at him. Besides, for some (crazy?) reason I believe my contents will be sufficient to drive traffic.

I must have accidentally hit http://alphainventions.com. There is a small field up there that says "Notify Readers About My Blog". I had nothing to loose any way. Within minutes of placing my blog site there I got a few hits. That surprised me.

Ok, so this is my plan. Every time I blog - which is very often - I will go to Alphainventions and click.

Hopefully the traffic will increase.

Does anyone know how this thing works?