What Is a Good Content?

Each one will define a good content differently as he will for a movie or a book, so this post is likely to elicit divergent responses. Whether a content is perceived as good or bad by readers or bloggers themselves depends on their personality, needs, the topic at hand and perhaps even ethical norms.

The following principles on creating a good content do not purport to be universal, but I do hope that as you mix and match these guidelines you’ll eventually identify what suits your unique circumstances.

Usefulness and Uniqueness

To define what is useful and unique, you need to consider the needs of your market. This is one of the fundamental principles of marketing that is as applicable to blogging as it is to selling a car or computer. Understand what your customers are looking for, and then create a blog aimed at fulfilling those needs.

Though it is equally important to consider your own interests, experience and knowledge as a blogger, it is essential that you know what your readers want so you can create a content that adds something to their lives.

The usefulness of a blog could be categorized as follows:

• Entertainment - The web-surfing population is increasingly turning to blogs for entertainment. There are blogs aimed at those looking for laughs, gossip and fun conversation.
• Education - Blogs are good sources of educational contents.
• Information - Many successful blogs are aimed at certain groups who seek specific information.
• Debate - Some blogs are frequented by people who want to engage in a debate or in an old fashioned dialogue.
• News - Blogs are used by some to keep abreast of the latest news in a particular field.
• Community - There are also blogs that primarily function as a virtual community. In this type of blog, content is only secondary to socialization.

There are more ways by which blogs can be useful. Though many blogs fulfill more than one of the above needs, it would be unwise to satisfy all of them at once.

Readership Survey

Know what sort of information is in demand by researching your blog’s readership or potential readership. If you are already running a blog, provide online questionnaire for your readers or just ask them to post their feedbacks. Doing so will help you identify what information is needed by your market. If you don’t have a blog yet, you can research your potential readership by reading feedbacks posted in other blogs or electronic forums that discuss your prospective blog topic.

How to Create a Unique Content

With almost all topics being covered by blogs and contents growing every second, surviving the competition entails uniqueness. Usefulness of content is itself not enough to attract traffic. The more unique the blog is, the more likely it will attract visitors since they’ll see something in your content that is lacking in other sites.

Being unique means presenting a content in a different tone or voice, or perhaps expounding on a sub-topic.  If everyone is into a newsy style of blogging, distinguish yourself with an opinionated content. Variety of contents could also do the trick, by building sub-niches.

Originality of content - That original content is always best is disputable. In the strictest sense, an original content presents information in a unique way, that is, without quoted excerpts from other blogs. Though quotations may be few, a blog with such elements cannot purport to be totally original.

I recommend that you aim for originality. But it is also worth considering to include quotations if doing so is useful to your readers.

The brief, basic concept of the program is: You buy at a certain price, you sell back at a higher price (this is done by the unique Sell Back Option)

If you’re interested to make extra $100, $200, $700 or $1200 per month (plus weekly bonuses and redeemable vouchers) go to my Ceramic money making blog, Buat Duit Online (it’s in Bahasa Malaysia by the way)

Till then.

• Direct advertising on my blogs - $135.00
• Review on ReviewMe - $25.00
• Ceramic Biz (Malaysian only) - $1,188.40
• Page Peel Ads - $27.00
• TLA - $62.33
• Chitika - $16.81
• Backlinks - $12.00
• Entrecard - $14.00
• Adgitize - 29.12
• DB Hoodia Affiliate - $49.97
• UH Hoodia Affiliate - $213.60
• Squidoo - $5.90

I’m offering text link from within the articles of my health sites, if anyone’s interested. Links will be no-follow free.

The sites are:

1. Healthy Lifestyle Blogzine ($2 per month per link)
2. Natural Health ($1 per month per link)
3. Essential Aromatherapy Oils ($1 per month per link)
4. Healthy Cooking Recipes ($1 per month per link)
5. Blood Pressure ($1 per month per link)

If you are interested, please provide these info:

1. URL of the article.
   For example: http://natural-health.most-effective-solution.com/2009/05/natural-remedies-for-fibromyalgia/
2. The keyword.
   For example: muscle pain (First paragraph, second sentence.)
3. Your website/blog URL.
   For example: http://all-about-muscle-pain.com

Please use the contact page with the subject HEALTH BACKLINKS with the info above. I will contact you with the payment info (Paypal only!)

Happy linking!

What did I do differently in April? Nothing!

Ken Brown of Adgitize announced changes in Adgitize earnings calculation last March. And it was a very good move indeed!

Basically, publishers who scores 300 to 500 points daily will get around $15 to $35 per month. Publishers who scores 100 to 299 will get around $1 to $10 per month. Publishers who scores less than 100 will get less than $1 per month. And it’s easy to score 300 to 500 daily!

If you’re not an Adgitize member yet, I urge you to join Adgitize now. Adgitize has the best ‘advertising +traffic generating + reward’ concept ever. Better than Entrecard!

By the way, here’s a breakdown of my April 2009 earnings.

Total Earned For April 2009: $28.12

Factors to consider in domain name selection

Choosing the right domain name could be as complicated as choosing the name of your first-born child. What I will discuss are the things to keep in mind when selecting a domain name. Since personal tastes also influence name selection, don’t expect that there is a gold standard for this procedure. You may see successful web sites that more or less consider these factors.

Goals and objectives

What is your long-term vision for your blog? Depending on the goals and objectives that you want to accomplish, your URL should have certain attributes that not only appeal to prospective web visitors but to search engine crawlers as well.

• What is the blog all about? It helps if the domain name of your blog is suggestive of its topic.
• What do you want to accomplish with your blog? Is it for hobby or business-oriented purposes (like marketing a professional service or generating advertising revenue)?
• What should it look like? Will your blog be written by one or many authors? How long are the posts?
• What’s the tone of the blog? Is it conversational, serious or humorous?
• Who are your target audience? Are they young, old or professional?

As you can see, naming a blog is like naming a business. Things that relate to product, target customer and brand image have to be considered.

How do you want prospective visitors to know your blog?

In addition to the existing readership base, traffic to a blog comes from two other sources: search engines and links from other sites.

The source of web traffic is a crucial factor in domain name selection. The relevance of the factors to be discussed next varies depending on which source of traffic you choose. Each has distinct advantages and disadvantages.

Keyword-based domains

These domains contain keywords suggestive of the content of a blog. A keyword-rich domain has several advantages. First, it makes it easy for blog visitors to judge whether the information they need is covered by the blog. Second, search engines index and rank web sites with reference to its domain name. Therefore, keyword-based domain will benefit blogs that heavily rely on SE-generated traffic. Examples of keyword-based domain names are Mobilephone7, Digital Photography Lab, the Movie Blog and Sims Gamer.

Brandable domains

Brandable names are mainly intended to facilitate name recall and emphasize brand image, though such domains more or less connote the topic or theme of blogs. If you want to create a loyal readership base, use brandable domain names. Brandable names should also be able to deliver good SE ranking, since keywords are not the only metrics used in web site indexing. As a matter of fact, many blogs cited in Technorati’s Top 100 use brandable names and not keyword-based ones.  Examples of brandable domains are Boing Boing and Gizmodo.

You can also combine keyword-based and brandable domains. For instance, “Engadget” not only suggests the blog topic (gadget) but creates a memorable domain name as well.

Which of the two naming strategies is better is a highly debatable topic.  Supporters and critics of each strategy raise good points, making it difficult for a novice blogger to decide between the two options.

Future scope of a blog

When choosing a domain name, you should consider how likely you are to broaden the topic of your blog. You may find yourself in a situation in which your keyword-based domain is too narrow to describe the overall content of your blog. If your blog is likely to develop into numerous sub-niches, consider a keyword-based or brandable domain that is more flexible to suit the expanded scope of your blog in the future.

The second thing to consider is whether you’ll run a single site with multiple blogs like About.com. The site runs numerous blogs with distinct domain names.

And finally, don’t use a domain name that is time specific. Usually, the popularity of such names is short-lived.

Name length

Both short and long domain names have advantages. Technically, a domain can go as long as 67 characters. However, many prefer shorter ones for a number of reasons. The shorter the domain names are, the less would be the room for errors when typing the URL. Shorter ones are also easy to remember and more suited to word-of-mouth marketing.

On the other hand, longer domain names have a lot of rooms for keywords. More keywords in domain names means higher search engine ranking.

Top level domains (TLD)

The most popular TLDs are .com, .net and .org. Which TLD is better is subject to debates, as each has distinct advantages. Generally, TLD falls into either of the two categories: country code TLD and generic TLD (i.e., .com, .org and .net).

Here are the factors to consider when choosing TLD:

• Internet law - Legal provisions pertaining to TLD vary from country to country.
• Search engine optimization (SEO) - Many debates over TLD choice center on the issue of SEO. Many think that .com is the best choice as far as SEO is concerned, followed by .net and .org. On the other hand, the use of country code TLD improves local search engine ranking. If your target audience is not bound in a specific country, I recommend that you use either .com or .net.
• Memorability - .com is the most popular TLD. If your domain name ends with other TLDs, you may drive away prospective visitors who always use .com in their browser’s address bar.

Use of hyphens

This is another debatable issue in domain name selection. There are two main reasons why you might want to use hyphenated URL. The first is the desire to use a name that is already taken by other sites. Though most of the good names are already used, they can still be adopted by adding minor variations like a hyphen. Another good reason for using a hyphen is SEO. URLs with domain names parsed by hyphens are recognized by search engine crawlers more easily.

But before you hyphenate your URL, take a look first at its disadvantages:

• Hyphenated domain names are more difficult to remember.
• It’s inconvenient to recite a URL with hyphens, thus impeding with word-of-mouth marketing.
• Hyphenated domain names are more likely to be misspelled.
• Many webmasters treat heavily-hyphenated URLs as spams.

Alphanumeric address

Another way to adopt a popularly used domain name is to modify it by adding numbers at the beginning or end of it. This technique increases the chance of your site to land into a higher search rank, but doing so may damage its professional image.

Easy-to-remember names

It is a general rule to choose a domain name that is easy to spell, pronounce, remember and type. While considering the aforementioned factors, make your domain name as simple as possible, or else you may turn off prospective visitors.

Observe trademark and Internet laws

Check if your desired domain name is trademarked to avoid costly lawsuits. Legal threats have plagued a number of bloggers, forcing them to change their domain names.

Adding the ‘blog’ word

The main advantage of using the word “blog” in the domain name is that it opens up new naming options. However, this may prevent new bloggers from modifying the name of their sites when shifting from a blog into a different format. Another disadvantage is the reduced capacity of serving blog-related advertisements sponsored by Google’s AdSense. If the word “blog” is mentioned frequently in a site, ad relevancy may be affected.

Creating multiple domains

Many professional webmasters recommend this practice in order to protect niche in certain circumstances. If you have a domain name ending with .com, you may also try to simultaneously run the same blog under similar domain names, but this time ending with .org or .net.

Ask the opinions of others

Being too preoccupied with domain name selection may cloud your judgment. Make sure to include the opinions of your friends and prospective visitors before buying a domain. Also keep in mind that people from cultures other than yours may respond differently to a particular domain name.

Black-listed domain names

Google bans defunct domain names that were purchased and then abandoned by spammers. If your blog uses such domain name, it will be mistaken as a spam and be bypassed by search engines.

Again, let me emphasize that the above guidelines do not purport to guarantee a high-traffic site nor a SE-topnotcher.  As a matter of fact, many successful sites deviate from the above rules. The bottomline is that there are ways to increase the chance of getting web visitors. It’s up to you to decide how “smart” you want your domain name to be.

Hosted Blog Platforms

Many bloggers are using this type of platform because it is easy to run and free in most cases. Blogger.com, WordPress.com and MSN Spaces are among the most popular. Aside from offering blog hosting, TypePad also offers standalone option through remote hosting.

Blogs hosted by third-party carry the domain name of the platform provider. A URL for such blog is usually a combination of the provider’s domain name and the name of the blog. A sample URL for a blog hosted by Wordpress.com looks something like “fitoverfourty.wordpress.com” where “fitoverfourty” denotes the blog’s name, followed by the domain name of the host, “wordpress.com”. When the domain name of host is in included in the URL of a blog, it implies that the blogging platform offers a  free-hosting service.

The Good and Bad Sides of Hosted Blog Platforms

Pros:

• Cheap (if not free) - Blogger.com, Wordpress.com and MSN Spaces are free.
• Easy to set up - This type of blogs usually uses default templates or layout patterns. The set up could be as simple as selecting from a list of template designs. If you are ignorant on the technical side of blogging, you will find hosted-blogs user-friendly.
• Simple to run - After setting up the layout of a third-party hosted blog, you can immediately start posting. The learning curve for basic blogging procedure is nothing to worry about as many hosted platforms only require users to fill a text box and hit a button to post a blog entry.
• Updates made automatically - Changes in a blog platform will automatically apply to all of the hosted blogs.
• High search engine ranking - If a third-party blog-hosting platform has a good search ranking, its hosted blogs is likely to rank high in search results as well.  Though your blog won’t be indexed in search engines as soon as you start, there is a good chance that it will be picked up by search engines quickly. In the long run, however, third-party hosted blogs may not rank much higher than independently hosted blogs.

Cons:

• No room for customization - Professional looking blogs are difficult to achieve in hosted-platforms. If you need to customize the layout or structure of your blog, hosted-platforms offer limited solutions. Customization options vary from platform to platform. For instance, WordPress.com won’t allow you to add advertisements to templates.
• Default designs - Hosted blog platforms have default design templates. Bloggers who do not know HTML and CSS have no choice but to choose from these templates.
• Less control - I frequently hear bloggers complaining of their inability to control third-party hosted blogs. The URLs of their blogs have default subdirectory names and the availability of their blogs totally depend on the platform. For instance, there are several times when TypePad went offline.
• Generic URL - The URL of hosted blogs always includes the domain name of the platform, so don’t expect to get the benefits of a unique URL. Though blog hosting platforms have run many successful contents, some bloggers shrug it off due to the lack of professional-appeal of generic URLs.
• Going independent can lower search rank - It is easy to transfer the content of a third-party hosted blog to a stand alone platform. However, such transition can lower the search engine ranking of a blog owing to the change in URL. Some bloggers who had run a high-traffic blog on a third-party platform were dismayed by the poor search engine ranking of their blogs following the transition. Moreover, loyal readers have to be redirected to the new URL.

When to Use a Hosted Platform

Blog on a hosted platform if you don’t care about unique domain name, customized layout and other advanced features available in a stand-alone blog. Though many hosted-platform critics think that serious bloggers shouldn’t use this platform, keep in mind that there are many successful blogs that ran on this system.

Stand Alone Blog Platforms

An independently-hosted blog has a unique domain name. Among the popular stand alone platforms are MovableType, Pmachine, Greymatter, Wordpress.org, B2Evolution, TextPattern and Expression Engine.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Stand Alone Blog Platforms

Pros:

• Customized design - Standalone blogs have very flexible layout. However, you need to have some background in HTML to make the most out of blog layout and design. For HTML dummies, there are default templates to choose from.
• Adaptability - Dynamic features are fully operational in WordPress.org and other standalone platforms. Plugins can be embedded in the source code of WP-hosted blogs. Similarly, other standalone platforms usually have plugin applications developed by dedicated communities of programmers.
• Free service - Many standalone platforms are available for free, though some charge license fees if you have multiple blogs or using them for profit. Domain names and hosting are not provided by standalone platforms, so you need to shoulder their costs.
• Unique URL - With standalone platform, you can choose your own domain name. This gives you the advantage of having an easy-to-remember URL that conveys your desired brand image.

Cons:

• Complex set up - Before you can get your standalone blog running, you first need to search for hosting provider, set up a database, download the platform and upload the files to a web server. Unless you are web savvy, publishing a standalone blog can be challenging. If you have no web publishing background, you may try to read some tutorials in the Internet before turning to a professional developer. You can also make things less complicated by signing up with a web host provider that can install the blog platform for you. Host-assisted setup is becoming increasingly popular, with some platforms even recommending this service.
• Cost - Though many standalone platforms are free, domain name and hosting come with a price. Domain names usually cost a yearly fee (just like hosting) and a registration fee. There are a lot of affordable hosting plans to choose from, but expect to pay more by the time you need to host a high-traffic blog.
• Updates - As standalone blogs come up with new versions overtime, you may find yourself updating to the most recent release. Again, this requires technical skills.
• Hosting problems - Just like a hosted platform, standalone blog platforms may go offline due to technical glitches. Therefore it is important to maintain a backup file and to choose a reliable hosting service provider.

When to Use Standalone Blog Platforms

Standalone blog platform is for those who want to have customizable layout and flexibility with blogging. Use this platform if you want to convey a professional image and run dynamic applications and design. However, a web programming background is required to make a professional-looking standalone blog.

Remote Hosting Options

TypePad and Blogger.com combine hosted and standalone blogs via remote hosting. In this set up, bloggers choose their own domain name and hosting service provider while using Blogger.com or TypePad’s publishing system. Remote hosting suits new bloggers who are not too confident yet with their contents. Since domain names are independent of the platform used, shifting to another type of platform is less problematic.

To sum it up, use standalone blogs if you need professional-looking layouts. Blogs that aim to generate profits from affiliate marketing or online advertising or those that promote business or professional interests are more suitable to standalone platform.

For personal blogs, a hosted platform will suffice. Blogs recounting one’s personal stories or those of their loved ones do not warrant the same amount of time, money or patience as spent in standalone blog. Third-party hosted blogs come with generic names and can be set up as fast as 5 minutes.

“What are the cons and pros of blogging on TypePad instead of Wordpress?”

“Is Blogger better than an independently-hosted blog platform?”

“When should a free blogging platform be updated into a fee-based set-up?”

Choosing a blogging platform depends on the goals of your blog and other things. So rather than make one or two recommendations, I will instead lay down the factors that you should consider when choosing a blogging platform.

Being careless in choosing a blogging platform may have costly implications. There are many blogging platforms to choose from, and chances are you will be tempted to change your current platform at any time. Many blogging platforms allow you to easily import and export your content by the time you decide to shift to an independently-hosted blog. But beware that doing so can damage your search engine ranking. So take your time in selecting a blog platform. Below are 4 main factors that you should consider.

1. What is the purpose of your blog?

This is the most important consideration. Is blogging only a short-term undertaking? What do you want to accomplish with your blog? Is blogging only a hobby or is it business-oriented? Are you planning to post advertisements and sponsored links in your blog?

Deciding on what goals your blog should aim for must precede all other factors to platform selection. Business-oriented and hobbyists’ blogs have unique requirements that may not be supported by a particular blogging platform.

For instance, online advertisements and affiliate links are not supported by Wordpress.com, except in bigger blogs. Though Wordpress.com hints at accommodating profit-oriented blogs, there is no guarantee that it will push through in the near future. If reaping advertising revenues is the goal of your blog, you should consider other platform.

2. How much is your budget?

The cost of blogging platform ranges from free to expensive. The costs associated with blogging apply to:

• the blog platform itself
• blog hosting
• domain name

Depending on the blogging platform and the price, services range from basic to comprehensive. Blogger.com and WordPress.com provide free platform, domain name and hosting service. WordPress.org (different from Wordpress.com) offers free platform and leaves hosting and domain names up to the bloggers. MovableType charges a platform license depending on the size of blogs and whether they are intended for commercial, personal or non-profit use. The costs of domain name and hosting are shouldered by the bloggers.

Aside from platform-related costs, there are other expenses that you may deal with during the early stage:

• Design - There are free templates that come with all blogging platforms. But if you want a more professional-looking or customized layout, you may need to hire a Web designer.
• Blog tools and analytics software - These include offline blog posting tools and traffic tracking software. If you are a beginner, you don’t have to bother about these tools, but you will find them useful down the track.

3. How technology-savvy are you?

There are blogging platforms that suit certain level of technical know-how. For those who are inexperienced in blog or website development, you should find some blog platforms more user-friendly than the others.

If you settle for more advanced set-up, you can either ask a tech-savvy friend for help or pay a developer. It’s also a good thing to take advantage of online communal knowledge and forums dedicated to the technical aspects of blogging.

4. What are the latest blogging platforms?

Blogging platforms come and go. Expect better platforms to emerge in the future, or some to vanish in obsolescence.  Keep abreast of the technology trend by looking for what other bloggers are into.

Topics of interest

Perhaps the most important factor you should consider when choosing a niche topic is your field of interest. Though the interests of others, demand for a particular piece of information and profitability of a blog subject are important as well, chances are you will find yourself running out of fresh content for your blog if it is about something that doesn’t interest you at all.

Before you start a blog, ask yourself, “Can I work on this topic for the next 12 months?”. If you can’t, look for other topic rather than waste time on writing a blog with a short lifespan. Creating a popular blog doesn’t happen overnight, so be sure that you can sustain your momentum during the early stage of your blog.

Lack of interest in your topic will inevitably manifest through the quality of your content. Readers can sense whether a blog is written out of passion or not. Your audience will drop your blog if you give them the impression that you yourself is not interested in what you are writing about.

Popularity of topic

As important as the blogger’s interest is the popularity of topic. You should select a topic that interests others as well. Just like in other market, the Law of Supply and Demand also applies to blogging.  You don’t market ideas only because you like them, but because others like them as well. Unless there are people who are interested in what you are saying, building a high-traffic blog is impossible.

But keep in mind that the Internet population has diverse demographics. What interests one segment may not appeal to others. Your blog should be viable as long as it falls in the field of interest of any sizable group.

Look for the trends

Of course not all popular topics remain to be so in the long run. As a blogger, you should assess the lifespan of a particular trend and know what direction it is heading to. Does the topic poise to become more popular or will it wane in the next few months? Predicting what will be the talk of the town in the next six months will prove to be profitable for your blog.

Make it a habit to look out for what people are interested about. Ask yourself ‘what are the things the public will search in the Internet?’ Keenly observe current events and pay attention to what the TV, magazines, newspapers and even the people around you are saying.

How tough is the competition

The importance of avoiding cut-throat competition could not be emphasized more in blog marketing. One of the common mistakes of bloggers is to pick a popular topic without thinking how they can stand out from the competition once the topic spreads across the blogsphere. Keep in mind that the demand always affects the supply. The greater the demand for a piece of information, the tighter will be the competition among bloggers.

As the amount of information available in the Internet continues to grow, it is increasingly becoming more difficult for bloggers to discover an unserviced niche. The key is to shift your attention from mainstream topics to specialized niches. The less popular a topic is, the less likely you will encounter competition.

I know a blogger who saw his income rising after shifting from mainstream topic to a more specialized one. Who would imagine that blogging about lawnmowers is more profitable than blogging about gadgets. What’s more surprising was the short time frame for making the lawnmower blog profitable.

Creating a sub-niche

Another way to find a profitable blog subject is to determine what well-established bloggers are lacking. You can capitalize on the shortcomings of your competitors by growing the unserviced area of their market into a sub-niche.

How can I constantly update my blog?

Regular updating of contents determines the long-term success of a blog. Readers do not visit the same blog just to read what was posted in their last visit.

Ask yourself, “Do I have something to post in my blog in the long run?”. This is in line with what was previously discussed regarding your interest in a particular topic.

There are a number of online resources that can help you update your content, such as Yahoo! News, Google News, Topix, Technorati, Taglines and Blog Pulse.

Profitability of a blog subject

Profit-oriented blogs should be aimed at topics that attract advertising revenues. Choosing what topic to blog about is like making an investment. A profitable topic is one that attracts market segments that are being targeted by your sponsors or advertisers. Blog topics are not equally profitable. For instance, contextual ad programs like AdSense and YPN barely generate advertising revenues for some blogs, but bring thousands of dollars to blogs on other topics.

The type of income stream also affects the profitability of blogs. Affiliate marketing is effective in certain blogs, so are impression-based ads.

After considering the above factors, you should be able to decide on what topic to blog about.  Though it is hard to find the ideal blog subject that meets all of the above criteria, you should get over it and start blogging.  Knowing the weaknesses of the topic of your choice should be enough to guide you in improving your blog.

Here is a loose prediction of what you can earn with Adgitize.

• Daily score of 300 to 500 points = you can earn from $15 to $35 a month.
• Daily score of 100 to 299 points = you can earn from $1 to $10 a month.
• Daily score of less than 100 points = you can earn less than $1 a month.

If you are not a member of Adgitize, you’re missing a lot. Join Adgitize today!