BlogLabs
Tools, Tips and Resources
As Eminem would say, guess who is back?
We got a bunch of applications for the Bloggers Face-Off last week, so hopefully we will be able to keep this column going regularly in 2009. I will aim initially for one new face-off every two weeks (so two per month).
Joost de Valk is a good friend mine, and a terrific SEO and WordPress developer. He blogs at Yoast.com, which is a must read for anyone interested in those two topics.
Satish Gandham is another popular tech blogger. GeniusHackers.com, his main gig, has just crossed the 7,000 RSS subscribers mark, and it covers a wide range of topics, from software to blogging tips.
We got a new table format too, which gives more room for the answers. Thanks Glen for that.
Joost de Valk
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Satish Gandham
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| 1. How many hours per day do you dedicate to the blog? |
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| From 2 to 4 hours per day | I spend most of the time on line, chatting with fellow bloggers, reading other blogs and tweaking my blogs design. I can not exactly say “I spend 2 hours or 3 hours on my blog” |
| 2. How many page views does your blog get daily? |
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| Around 10,000 | From 8 to 10,000 per day (70% of my traffic is organic) |
| 3. Do you make money with it? From what sources? |
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| Yes, about $4-5k a month, from direct ads and affiliate programs | I make around 400USD per month from links sales and direct advertising. GeniusHackers.Com is banned from Adsense for having some posts related to hacking |
| 4. How long did it take for you to reach 1,000 subscribers? |
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| Long | Initially I dint concentrate on increasing the feed count. You can take it to be around 15 months. My feed count raised from 500 to 7100 since December though |
| 5. Do you think one needs to post daily to be successful? |
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| No, being unique is way more important | I don’t think so, but you must consistently post quality content |
| 6. What is the biggest blogging mistake you did? |
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| Doing paid posts in the beginning of my blogging career. It’s a waste of valuable time and it pushes away you readers. I now only do sponsored posts when people have a topic that is truly relevant for my readers | My biggest blogging mistake was not having a .Com domain in the beginning. You can read more about it here |
| 7. Twitter is a distraction or a good promotional tool? |
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| A good promotional tool and a GREAT way to have meaningful conversations | I don’t tweet much, so its not a distraction for me. It sure is a good promotion tool if you have good number of followers |
| 8. Do you think AdSense makes a blog look unprofessional? |
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| Depends on how it’s used, but I’m not a fan | I don’t think so, adsense ads are neat and unobtrusive if used properly |
| 9. If you could give an advice for a novice blogger, what would it be? |
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| Only do it cause you love it, not because you make money from it | Write quality and original content. Learn some basic html and php if you want to have total control over your blog look and functionality |
| 10. What is the best way to increase website traffic? |
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| Write relevant, interesting and truly unique stuff / tools etc. Just give people something they can use or think about | The best way to increase traffic is to write good content, apart from that use keywords in your post and highlight the keywords with strong tags |
Got the Internet Marketing Newsletter?
Skype’s highly anticipated application Skype for iPhone is now available via the Apple App Store. The app also adds Skype calling and instant messaging to any second generation iPod touch with a compatible headset and microphone.
Skype for iPhone requires a Wi-Fi connection to make the free Skype-to-Skype calls or regular calls to mobile and landlines. Users will not be charged by Skype for making and receiving Skype-to-Skype calls using an iPhone or iPod touch.
(What excites me more with this service is that it allows my iTouch to become a mobile phone in itself. Who needs an iPhone now… I still want it though)
While I’ve delayed the start of the 31 Day Challenge until next week I wanted to show you a glimpse behind the scenes of my signup process using one of the features that Aweber gives those using it’s email newsletter system – Web Forms.
The idea is simple – Aweber lets you make up as many signup forms for your email list as you like.
In launching the 31 Days to Build a Better Blog Challenge I have so far set up 5 lists. Let me explain each one in the order that I set them up:
You can see from the above that all but one of the options directed people to a ‘page’ (as opposed to a ‘post’) here on ProBlogger. Each page had it’s own web form (you can set them up in a minute or two) which enabled me to track the results of each one.
The beauty of this is that at a glance you can see where your subscribers are arriving from. Here’s the stats as they currently stand (click to enlarge):
You can see that some forms were viewed more than others and as a result better results – but the line I’m most interested in is the S/D and S/UD lines. S/D is the percentage of ‘displays’ of the form that sign up and the S/UD is the percentage of unique displays that signed up.
You can see that while the ‘in post’ form drew the most subscribers that because it was viewed so many times that the ‘previous newsletter’ and the ‘twitter’ forms actually were more successful at converting a higher percentage of signups.
This type of information is amazingly powerful to know when it comes time to run other promotions!
Using unique web forms is useful on numerous fronts. Not only does it enable you to track different promotions (as I’ve done above) but it is also useful at tracking a variety of other factors including:
The options are endless and as Aweber gives you unlimited forms you can really test, tweak and improve your signup rates considerably over time.
Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.
Using Aweber Web Forms to Track Conversions for Email Newsletters
