Home > Ahmed Bilal’s Blog

1.6.10 - Will the Google bashers please shut up?

You can’t pass a day in the blogging / SEO / make money online niche without hearing someone complain about Google. For some it’s about getting shafted by the search ranking algorithm, for others it’s a tiff over things such as the no-follow debate and paid links mess, and still others who have a deep-rooted mistrust for all things Google because of Google’s increasing influence over the web.

Here’s the hard reality – at least ONE of your top-ranked sites will eventually suffer either through a hand-job or because of some quirk in the algorithm. You WILL get screwed over by Google and your rankings WILL drop. It’s how the game goes – if you cannot control 100% of your ranking factors (and you cannot), then you are not 100% safe. There is ALWAYS a risk with Google or with any other vehicle that you depend on to earn your livelihood.

There are only two ways out of this:

Remove Dependence
Develop a system that allows you to earn money even if Google disappears tomorrow morning. Develop a system that survives even if PayPal shuts down in the next 24 hours. This is by no means an easy task, but it’s definitely achievable, as long as you know your end game (what you need, as a bare minimum, to live comfortably) and work towards securing that first.

In theory you can have a system that transcends mediums and will survive everything but the absolute breakdown of human economic relations (and even then you should have a backup plan).

It’s not going to go doomsday and not everyone is that fanatic about preparation, but at the very least you should have the following:

  • A minimum of 3 different (and non-related) revenue streams.
  • At least 2-3 different backup plans for generating income in the short and long run if one or more of your revenue streams collapses

I’m by no means what I would call a successful blogger or internet marketer, but I do have one thing at my side which few people have – the ability to have ‘backups’ ready at all times. If today I was to lose all my current income sources I could, with some (but not too much) trouble, switch to alternative ways of generating income. It would take the collapse of the Internet to push me into serious problems, and even then I’ve got things covered.

I’m saying this because to achieve financial independence it’s not merely enough to make enough money, it is to create a system that is (as much as possible) disaster-proof and not dependent on anyone or anything.

Stop Whining & Find A Solution
John Andrews (the Aaron Wall interview over at ProBlogger led me to his blog, and I’ve been devouring his blog since) says it best:

I say it over and over. Stop projecting your own beliefs onto Google, and start listening. Google is practically shouting at you, telling you how to rank well.

I suggest you go ahead and read the whole article. Sure, he broadsides the whole panel on the buying links session at last month’s SES and sure, you will probably roll your eyes when you read about ‘listening to Google and playing by their rule-book’, but there is plenty of wisdom in those words.

Listen, there are only three ways you can beat a system:

  1. You can build a rival system that’s better and more popular. Even if you have the resources and the manpower, first-mover’s advantage and Google’s huge lead is one big monster to overtake. You are better off cutting the competition up (going after vertical search) or trying something else.
  2. You can find loopholes in it and exploit them – good for you if you do so, but this is a short-term, risky strategy.
  3. You stop fighting and bitching about it, learn how it works and then use that knowledge to your advantage. That means figuring out what works today and what’s going to work 5 years down the line.

It’s not rocket science, just blood, sweat and time. Pay someone to do it for you if you have to, but there’s only one approach to long-term success with Google and it doesn’t involve bashing Google for it.

If your business does not rely on Google, more power to you. If it does rely on search results though, what exactly are you gaining by complaining?

As John says:

You need to get to know Google, and listen to what Google says. You don’t need to agree, and please, stop whining.

This article was originally written on 11 Sep 2007 for Performancing.com.

Filed under: Google - No Comments

1.6.10 - How do you pay your bloggers?

A growing trend of consolidation in Blogging and in the online world in general has seen many blogs and bloggers join blog networks in a bid to leverage pooled resources (brand promotion, advertising rates, design / programming / promotion help, etc).

Whether you’re starting your own blogging network or just hiring bloggers for your blog, there is one question that always leads to a lot of questions and debate:

How do you compensate the bloggers?

There are 5 different methods of compensating bloggers – let’s look at each of them briefly:

  1. Blogging for Free
    Whether it is out of passion for the subject, love for the blog or because the blogger wants to build their own profile (see yesterday’s post on guest blogging), free content is the cheapest but also tough to manage. Bloggers are rarely consistent if their only compensation is ’satisfaction’ of writing, and quite often quality control weeds out 90% of submissions.

    It may be a smart idea to have bloggers kick off for free if there is already a ‘main blogger’ running the show, but apart from sporadic submissions you cannot rely on free submissions except in a few niches (and then there’s the issue of quality).

  2. Pay Per Post
    $5 / post or $10 / post rates are quite common in blog network circles, and there’s the added advantage of attracting a LOT of bloggers who can work on your blog part time and write as much or as little as they need to.

    Personally I’m not a fan of this approach – blogging is a continuous experience, not something that should be broken up in terms of per-post payments. It seems to work for some networks, but out of the 5 options mentioned here this is the one least likely to produce good long-term results. You are better off hiring a blogger and pay them $100 for 20 posts per month than to have 20 different people write 20 posts for $5 each.

  3. Profit Sharing
    It’s a popular way to motivate bloggers to get involved in the success of a blog. This usually works by either giving the blogger a share of the profits (50%-80% from what I’ve seen) or by giving them 100% profits from one revenue stream and reserving another for themselves.

    One strategy I’ve used on some blogs is to give bloggers 100% of AdSense revenue but to reserve ad slots in the sidebar above the fold for the network. In the long run, when the combined power of the network (let’s say 2-3 mil PageViews / month) is big enough to command high CPM rates, then those ad slots will earn the network plenty.

  4. Contract / Salary
    Another popular method is to pay the blogger a monthly fee (ranges from $100 to $1000+) in return for a minimum number of posts per month. It’s an expensive but ’safe’ choice, because you get in people who are committed to doing a minimum amount of work each month and while the blog may now earn much in the beginning this approach in popular niches can allow you to make a lot of profits while keeping bloggers happy.

  5. Profit Sharing + Salary
    This hybrid model is perhaps the most popular that I’ve seen after the contract model. Basically, you pay the blogger a fixed monthly salary plus give them a share of the site profits. This gets you the best of both worlds – giving the blogging financial security AND giving them an incentive to contribute to the blog’s success.

I’m interested in hearing about how you pay your bloggers. Do you use the hybrid approach or pay a fixed amount each month?

From a financial point of view you need some capital to start a blog network and paying salaries can rapidly become the single biggest drain on your resources. If you’re starting out, using the profit-sharing approach (where you give them 100% of one revenue stream and take out ad space in the sidebar, like I’ve done) could be a decent way to go forward and motivate bloggers to grow.

What’s important to remember is that while not everyone blogs for money, money IS a driving force for most people and if someone feels that they are not getting what they deserve for their efforts, then there will be disagreements between them and you and eventually you will lose them. The takeaway is to ensure that a) bloggers know what the benefits are and b) those benefits should make the cost of moving away from the network quite heavy.

Or at least you should get your bloggers to think that way.

Also Read: Chris Garrett on Blog Network Payment Strategies – he does an excellent job of discussing the pros and cons attached with each of the options mentioned above.

This article was originally written on 10 Sep 2007 for Performancing.com.

Filed under: Blogging - No Comments

1.6.10 - Five reasons to start guest blogging today

I’ve been thinking a lot about blog promotion in the last couple of days and one strategy that I’ve always seen being under-used is guest blogging.

There’s no downside to it – unless your blog is #1 in its niche, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t take time out from fussing over your own blog and write a killer article for another blog.

What guest blogging can do for you (and your blog):

  • You get several deep links (if you link back to your own articles) back to your blog which from a high-ranking blog can pay off in the long run).
  • A good article will inevitably gain your blog new readers and increase your RSS subs (so be prepared to follow up with more good articles on your own blog.
  • If you’re looking for consulting work / paid blogging gigs, guest blogging is an excellent way to position yourself as an authority.
  • Builds a good relationship with fellow bloggers, something you’re going to need if you want them to notice you and link to you.
  • Reaching new audiences keeps us on our toes to keep our blogging at a high level of quality, and guest blogging itself pushes us to write better than our comfort zone would allow us to.

Ultimately it all boils down to quality writing and giving people what they want, but if you’re looking for ways to improve your blog’s profile guest blogging (like having an article published in an offline publication) is a reliable, effective method to apply.

Usually we hold back from guest blogging either because we’re lazy (Ryan) or because we’re hung up on our own egos to go anywhere else and write. In some cases the later can be a good thing in a person who is talented and motivated enough to build a #1 blog, but usually it’s a case of limiting your blog promotion options and being too pig-headed to take advantage of what’s on offer.

Deb, Chris and Liz are just 3 excellent examples of using guest blogging to build their own profile – and it’s not a surprise that these 3 are some of the more successful bloggers that I know.

So… where are you guest blogging next?

Also read: Matt’s thoughts on guest blogging.

This article was originally written on 9 Sep 2007 for Performacing.com.

Filed under: Blogging - No Comments

1.6.10 - How social networks teach good SEO

When most people think about ‘SEO’, they think of link requests. While that is a basic part of SEO, it’s also insulting to the practice of search marketing. IN comparison, it’s a bit like saying that mathematics is about adding and subtracting numbers, or that playing the guitar is all about strumming a few strings.

Such views give an incomplete picture and oversimplify the subject to a point where it becomes open to ridicule. For me, SEO (or search marketing) has always been about figuring out what the search engines will want tomorrow, what their endgame, their main goals are and how they plan to rank websites in the future. As the algorithms evolve, my aim is to have my sites rank higher automatically through smart SEO and working on those factors that will be valued more and more in the future.

So what are the search engines aiming for? Beyond the strict academic citation model, an easier way to understand search engines is to study real-world social networks.

A social network at its most basic level is a collection of people you know and are in contact with. You share ideas and information, give and receive recommendations from your friends, and you can let your network stagnate or choose to grow it by meeting new people.

One of the most important ways of finding new information and meeting new people is through recommendations provided by people already in your network. Also known as ‘word of mouth’ marketing, this process works on the basis of unbiased recommendations from known (i.e. trusted) sources.

The sharing of ideas and information withing social networks (i.e. recommendations) functions on the basis of trust – you either trust the recommendations given to you by your friends and family or you don’t. The criteria for trusting these recommendations comes from those two metrics: whether the recommendation is unbiased (that is, no ulterior motive involved) and whether the recommendation is from a known source (so you can evaluate if that source’s judgment can be trusted or not).

If a recommendation is biased, it loses value (but isn’t completely worthless). if a recommendation is from an unknown source (you don’t have to personally know the source, you just need to know / have previous experience with that source and their recommendations), you can’t trust their judgment (but maybe their argument is very compelling).

So how do you raise your search engine rankings?

The most valuable recommendations are those that are unbiased, compelling and come from highly trusted sources (that is, sources known to be trustworthy from past experience). With the right quality and quantity of recommendations, any service or product can beat its competition (provided the user experience matches the hype).

Replace ‘recommendations’ with ‘links’ and you have your answer.

This article was originally written on 7 Sep 2007 for Performancing.com.

Filed under: SEO - No Comments

1.6.10 - Promote your blog (network) using a toolbar

Admittedly, the “download our free toolbar to keep up with the latest news” gimmick got old and tiring very quickly. No one in their right mind wants screen space taken up by needless floating toolbars, and most Internet users find switching between toolbars a hassle.

However, the toolbars that ARE successful have gone a long way in promoting those websites, and as such this approach has the potential to work wonders for popular blogs in non-technical niches as well.

A browser add-on such as a toolbar must make carrying out important tasks (related to a niche) a LOT easier, plus it should be simple and intuitive to use (no mystery icons), easy to modify and all-in-all, a genuine improvement to a person’s life. You should build something that’s worth sharing and gets people to talk about you.

For example, if you had a blog on weight loss, you could release a toolbar that allows the user to access weight loss tips, healthy recipes, get medical advice, run calculations right in the toolbar, search the site archives for information, etc etc – essentially, have access to everything they need from the toolbar itself.

There are plenty of ideas for different niches (incidentally, if someone reading this is good at programming and wants work, PM me) but the key idea behind this is to leverage the popularity of your blog and it’s existing audience and make it work for you.

What are the benefits?
One, it helps build brand loyalty with your current audience. By bringing your site (via the toolbar) in their browser, your readers will have the option to interact with you / your site all the time they have their browser open, not merely when they are actually on your site. Apart from increasing access and exposure, loyal readers become more loyal, and thus it’s less likely that they will get up and go elsewhere.

Two, it enables your audience to make personal recommendations. Loyal readers are more likely to talk to their friends and family about your website. In addition, access to your website via the toolbar makes referrals more likely – if your toolbar is truly the work of the devil and the best possible tool in that niche, people will talk, a lot, and your blog will get a lot of word of mouth attention.

Yes, these aren’t ‘tangible’ profits, although you could easily make money by a) licensing the toolbar to other brands, b) by increasing traffic towards your site (and thus revenues), c) promoting affiliate products via the toolbar, etc.

Depending on your niche, you could figure out a dozen different ways to monetize a toolbar if your aim is to get it to make more money. My aim would be promotion, not monetization.

Mind you that these two benefits mentioned above are valid for making a mobile-friendly version of your website, especially if you have live information that needs to be accessed regularly.

So how do Blog Networks benefit from this?
Simple – just like we talked yesterday about the ‘hub’ being the aggregator and gateway to other blogs in a network, the toolbar is the ‘lens’. It gives immediate access to all parts of the blog network, so even if you have a reader from a specialised niche blog downloading and using the toolbar, he would have access to the articles, tools and resources of the whole network.

Depending on which niche you’re in, it can be anything from a handy resource tool to an absolute necessity for your users.

Ideal Contenders
A few blogs / blog networks off the top of my head who would benefit from such an approach:

  1. Darren Rowse (don’t know if he’s already done this, so sorry if I’m repeating it).
  2. A decent SEO toolbar (the ones we have currently, I’m not too keen on them).
  3. A WordPress developer toolbar.
  4. Paul Tan, for his car blog.
  5. Someone I know who is planning plenty of sites on dogs.
  6. SplashPressMedia, assuming that something intelligent and genuinely useful can be built.
  7. Steve Pavlina.

The Biggest Obstacle
I hate toolbars. Apart from my ‘Bookmarks’ toolbar in Firefox, I rarely use anything else. I’m not keen on adding more clutter to the visual space and as a result I’d be OK with 1 more toolbar at the most, 2 if both were really good (you can toggle their visibility, of course, but I’m talking about toolbars showing at all times).

The biggest obstacle then is to build something genuinely useful – something that is so good and such a necessity that people won’t be happy without it.

But isn’t that the same challenge with building a good blog as well?

This article was originally written on 4 Sep 2007 for Performancing.com.

Filed under: Promotion - No Comments

1.6.10 - Being #1 in your niche – One vs many blogs

How do you dominate a niche? Do you build 1 mega-resource website using categories / subdomains for your subniches, or you do you build a separate website for each niche?

Both approaches have their pros and cons.

A single big site benefits from economies of scale, is cost-effective, allows for a focused use of resources, requires less manpower to manage, can easily dominate search engine rankings in the long run, and can perhaps earn more revenue thanks to direct advertising deals.

On the other hand, if you have several small sites, it is easier to build a passionate user-base, it’s easier to be #1 in the sub-niche and there is no single point of failure where income, traffic or search engine rankings are concerned.

In comparison, both approaches offer strategic and financial advantages. Which one would you choose?

We had a discussion on this topic last week and we took one of two positions (I sided towards the ‘one big site’ method). However, what struck me this morning was that there was no reason for us to make an ‘either/or’ decision – we could just as easily combine the two approaches and build a crack network to dominate any niche.

The basic idea is to use a hub and satellites approach – the big, general-niche site being the hub and the specialised sub-niche sites being your satellites.

How does it work?

Nick wrote about this some time back, and I’m surprised to see how few blogs and blog networks have adopted this approach during that time. Here’s what he said:

  • Each sattellite blog posts exclusively within it’s very tight niche.
  • The Hub Blog reads all of the sattellite blogs, and rewrites the story to be a little more general, as opposed to simply copying it.
  • The uber blog credits the sattellite/specialist blog, providing readers with a way to connect from the content (which is arguably the best place for a link) to the specialist blog, and subscribe if that’s their passion.

The idea is to create many small, tightly focused blogs within a broader niche, that feed the uber blog – you sit an editor or 2 on each satellite, and have 2-4 people work on the uber blog – the uber blog would also cover more “industry news” type stories that may not relate to any particular model.

So enthusiast readers get specialized blogs, and general interest readers get the best of those stories (not all!) in the uber blog. Making the network much tighter, and more attractive a buy for advertisers.

The hub blog makes it easier to put a ‘face’ to the network, while the specialised blogs caters to specific groups of readers.

And before you think that it’s difficult to implement this using WordPress, I beg to differ. By simply using a decent RSS aggregator plugin (WP-O-Matic comes to mind, the new version is out, you know) you can automatically pull posts from all over your network into a single main blog where an editor or two can work on rewriting and posting the best articles. Need multiple themes? You can use something generic like the News theme or the ModernPaper theme and changing colours and headers for each satellite blog, you can save time and money on design and the launch process.

So, how many of you probloggers are using or plan to use the hub and satellites approach discussed above?

This article was originally written on 3 Sep 2007 for Performancing.com.

Filed under: Branding - No Comments

1.6.10 - Want to be a better blogger? Tell funny stories!

At Performancing and especially after working with Ryan I’ve become a fervent believer in being lazy AND in experimenting and finding new ways to give myself and my blogs an edge over the competition.

It’s not a contradiction – If you’re lazy, you’ll wait and pick out the techniques that give maximum benefits for the least amount of effort (on the other hand you can’t be good if you don’t practice hard, so you’ll always be in a situation where you have to work hard, which kind of sucks and again underlines the need to pick the stuff that really, REALLY works).

My goal today is to give you a surefire, money-in-the-bank method to be a better blogger. And since ‘better blogger’ is too vague, let’s pin it down to the holy trinity that bloggers crave:

  • Clarity – You have to get your point across, or you are wasting your time (worse, you’re wasting your readers’ time).
  • Impact – What you say must matter to your readers, otherwise you’re wasting….you get the story.
  • The Velvet Cord – In direct marketing / sales writing circles (where I first heard this, and I know I’ve probably gotten the term wrong), the velvet cord is that thread, that plot line, that ties the whole sales pitch together. In story terms, it’s the unifying theme, the binding idea, the basic gist. In blogging terms, it’s the purpose of your blog (knowing “why you’re blogging” is very important).

If your writing doesn’t get your message across, if it doesn’t have an emotional impact on your readers and if it’s not in sync with what you aim to do with your blog, you’re wasting your time, etc etc.

How to get these three skills nailed down to the exact centimeter?

Tell Funny Stories.

When bloggers tell you that blogs are conversations, they’re not joking. What they’re probably not telling you though is that blogs are usually akin to a stage performance – where one person comes on stage and talks to the audience. Depending on how interesting / entertaining the speaker is, his audience will grow. Depending on how engaging he is, the feedback he gets will grow. Depending on how clear and powerful his stories are, his audience will learn from him and hopefully apply what they’ve learned to their own lives.

So why should you tell funny stories? I’m not asking you to be a standup comedian (which, by the way, if you can manage it, will make you a black belt blogger. Seriously.), not yet at least. But what I AM asking you to do is to improve your story telling skills – and to practice those skills on your social circle (if you don’t have friends and THAT’S the reason you’re blogging, you’re fucked). You could try telling stories on your blog, but it’s not as effective. You need to feel the response, the energy (or lack of it) in the room, read the body language of your audience).

Practice. Find a way to get your point across, fast and with just the right amount of details (too few and they won’t picture it, too many and they’ll have trouble imagining it). Learn how to say the things and use a tone of voice that evokes strong emotional responses from your audience (preferably non-violent). And throughout all this, remember that your job is to entertain – if you can’t do that then you’re failing yourself and your friends.

Sounds rough, especially that last bit, eh? If you think that’s rough, you should think about the pressure that blogging for the best blog in
any niche brings to its bloggers. Long story short, if you want to be the best, you have to set the bar higher than anyone else and that means, for a start, that you have to deliver on what your blog promises every single time, in spades. And trust me, if you can handle (and deliver) under the pressure of being entertaining at all times, blogging (and great blogging), will become second nature to you.

I’ve read books on being a better writer (and I believe they helped for a while, too). I’ve read countless articles on being a better blogger. I get it, there are just 56,701 different things I have to integrate into my personality to reach that high level of blogging wisdom.

I don’t buy into that bullshit. There is ALWAYS a faster, smarter way to the top, and it almost always requires you to do something that 99.9% of the other population is unwilling to go through. Here, you have to learn how to be funny, all the time. Do that, and you’ll be a blogging celebrity / rock star, THE king of your niche and yes, you could easily pick up chicks through your blog too.

You know, we should run a ‘entertain me’ type of blog competition here on Performancing, where members submit entertaining stories and readers rate them. Except I don’t think that many people will jump to the chance of proving themselves to be entertaining, either because they’re scared of failing or because they’re not willing to try hard enough (it’s the same thing, actually). And the one person who dares to do it, is probably a better blogger than me. Figures…

This article was originally written on 2 Sept 2007 for Performancing.com.

Filed under: Blogging - No Comments

1.6.10 - Your blog’s first week of content

In past few days we’ve talked a lot about the different steps associated with launching a new blog. Today I want to take this a step further and talk about what content you need to prepare and publish during the first week (or first 2 weeks) of your blog.

Let’s say you want to start a blog covering the popular TV series ‘Heroes’ (2nd season is about to start, and it is a kickass show, so if anyone wants to take this project up PM me and I’ll be glad to help). Here’s how I would write the first 2 weeks of content – or more appropriately, the key ‘resources’ that the blog needs at the time of launch.

Episode Details
Most websites do a sloppy job of covering the episode-by-episode storyline. For Heroes, however, you’ll find that there are detailed entries for every episode in Wikipedia – and since you want to be #1 AND there’s enough room in this niche to reach that spot comfortably, you have to go and do one better than what Wikipedia has done.

This means creating posts for all 23 episodes of the first season and then doing detailed plot summaries, key moments, goof-ups and what not for each episode. It pays in spades if the episode is fresh in your mind, so you should probably watch them again and write afterwards (take 2 a day, that’s about 3 hours of work and you can be done in 12 days).

The shortcut to this is to take everything that Wikipedia offers then edit and add to it, to the extent that the Wikipedia entries start looking like summaries of your pages (I’m serious). Your objective here is to be the best resource possible for Heroes, and while anyone can get the story from a simple plot summary, you’ll have to jack things up a couple of notches to make people notice and talk about you.

Character Details
For each character, you should do a complete storyline starting for the whole season 1 (and then continuing it beyond when the series starts again). It would also pay to write in detail about the character’s background as told by the series and any information gleaned from news sources around the show.

Image Galleries
There are a LOT of people who will have a new interest in Hayden Panettiere and Ali Larter (as well the guys, but I don’t know their real names ), so think of Google Image Search as your best friend and create extensive image galleries for these artists. Read this excellent article on finding images for your blogs, always quote your sources for images and news and use the NextGEN Gallery plugin for WordPress, I haven’t used it myself but from what I’ve seen it’s quite good.

Rumours and Spoilers
No self-respecting TV series blog can go without an active rumours section. Find out the best sources for news and rumours (and spoilers) for Heroes, and get the news ‘out there’ as quickly as possible. It helps, if you’re starting a new blog, to make a list of all the latest rumours and spoilers and put them up as an introductory post.

More
The above should be enough to keep you and your readers busy in the first couple of weeks, but that’s not all there is to it if you want to dominate the niche. For example, content-wise, it’s probably a good idea to check the Heroes entry on Wikipedia and see what you can add and improve on your blog. The greatest advantage you’ll have at this point is that your readers can discuss and give feedback on each page / post and considering how active tv viewers are in forums, launching a forum once you’ve got good traffic going (bbPress or SMF if you ask me) is the next step.

Putting all the things I’ve mentioned together (especially if you ‘borrow’ from existing content) should take you a week’s work, at best. During that time you can easily have someone do some custom graphics for you and customise the latest Performancing theme so that in a week’s time, you are ready to launch your blog.

However, you’ll notice that everything that I’ve mentioned doesn’t really ‘differentiate’ me from any other blog or site claiming to be the ‘#1 resource’ for Heroes. In this case, the ‘resources’ I’ve listed above (and tons of other information that you can put up) are not the difference.

I’ve left the ‘unique angle’ approach open as an exercise, so feel free to come up with any suggestions on a possible ‘unique angle’ and / or anything else that you might suggest to a blogger to do for such a project.

This article was written on 30 Aug 2007 for Performancing.com.

Filed under: Blogging - No Comments

1.6.10 - Is your blog #1 in its niche?

No one starts a blog aiming to be #2 in their niche, or worse, to be completely unknown and an invisible part of the blogosphere.

On the other hand, not many people start with a clear vision and a step-by-step, executable plan to be #1 in their niche. And from the few who do so, hardly anyone stays the course in the first 6 months.

Now before we talk about blog positioning and working to be #1, here’s a question for you: For the last blog that you started, what was your plan to make it #1 in it’s niche / subniche?

There are two ways of being #1:

One: You can use the bulldozer approach, where you go up against established competition and then try to steamroll over them by spending more money, more time, getting more links or just getting dugg more than them.

Two: You find an angle, a facet of the niche that does not have a clear #1 blog, and you jump with both feet in it and from day one, you act as the authority in that niche (and deliver on it).

Usually, the most successful blogs use a combination of the two approaches, and when you ask people about their approach, they are as liable to mention the second approach as they are to mention the first one.

However, in reality, you’ll see the top blogs in any niche use the same strategies and ‘gimmicks’ (if any) to build their readership and to stake their claim as #1. In other words, blogs practice the first method almost exclusively, and we rarely find bloggers who dare to take a ‘unique’ angle to the niche (and by unique I don’t mean a person’s unique thoughts or views on a subject).

What is the most important benefit of being #1?

Who’s the king of blogging?

Who’s the king of search marketing news?

Which domain name registrar is the most popular (not best, but most widely known)?

Which blogging platform is most popular amongst newbie bloggers?

The answers for each should be quick and evident (Darren Rowse, Danny Sullivan, GoDaddy and BlogSpot), and there lies the rub – if your blog is automatically associated, by name, as the primary source of knowledge for a niche, you will have managed what 99% of bloggers will never do.

And you’ll be rich because of it.

I cannot overestimate the importance of aiming for the #1 spot and the value of acheiving that spot.

It goes back to the two paths to being #1 – if you have competition, then option 2, finding a new, different angle, is the best path to go on and one that should dictate all your plans.

If there’s no (or little) competition, or if you’ve already found your unique angle, you need to apply option 1, the bulldozer approach, to wade in and dominate as quickly and as comprehensively as possible.

Position your blog to be the #1 source of information for your target niche. And if you need help in learning how to differentiate your blog, read Chris Garrett’s article on “Positioning Your Blog“.

This article was originally written on 30 Aug 2007 for Performancing.com.

Filed under: Blogging - No Comments

1.6.10 - Is a good domain name as important as good content?

Domain names and quality content go hand in hand – it’s not a case of one over the other, rather it’s a case of getting both together to make a kick-ass blog.

However, depending on which stage you are at in your blog’s life-cycle, each factor will have a different role to play and understanding that role can help you make your blog more successful.

In the short run, right after launch perhaps, the name of the blog is perhaps one of the most important selling and branding elements available to the blogger. You can do more and go further with a good name and average content as opposed to an average name and good content (I’m talking about short-term results, the first few days or weeks after a blog’s launch). Since it’s a new blog, people will give you some leeway when it comes to product quality. However, if you are average in your brand (name), people won’t remember you as easily as they would remember the other blog with the cool name.

In the long run, however, product quality always trumps the ‘cool’ name. So while having a good name will help you in the beginning, in the long run you can have a successful blog by taking an average name (not a bad name though) and build a brand around it simply by consistently providing your readers with quality content.

So how important is the blog name and blog branding for you?

This article was originally written on 28 Aug 2007 for Performancing.com.

Filed under: Branding - No Comments

Page 5 of 16« First...3456710...Last »