Blab Web

TVDeck

2009-09-21T21:25:00.000-07:00

I always get emails asking me about my latest projects and how I can give feedback to people who are starting up a new company, from my experience in the past. So this time I am being proactive, and letting everyone know that I'm working on a new start-up; which everyone can keep an eye on & look forward to!

There is a lot of work needed to be done before we launch the site, but it is going to be like nothing ever done before. :)

Make sure you sign up at TVDeck.com to stay updated with what is going on there and assure that you can get a beta invite! And I will post articles here more about it. If you guys have any questions you can always contact me through the contact tab or sending me an email.

Please also join us at our Facebook fan page; because we love giving out free stuff; and our Twitter profile!

The Affiliate Site That Sold For $48 Million

2009-05-25T20:38:00.000-07:00

This was originally posted at VentureLevel.com and has been re-posted with permission.

I am pretty sure you have heard of "affiliate marketing" before, but if you have not, it is basically where you get paid upon delivering a certain action. I won't go into that into too much detail, so I don't bore most of you, but if you really don't get it, search for the term online.

There are a lot of affiliate marketers in the space today, regardless of if they make $0.05/year or 7 figures, they are all the same. It is just how one decides to present affiliate offers.

I'm going to tell you about a specific example of how a business was created from affiliate marketing and sold for about $48 million.

I can't go into detail about the specific company because I told you the amount that it was roughly sold for, but I will tell you everything that the business was about. It was basically a website promoting affiliate links in the travel industry. If you are the least bit involved in affiliate marketing, you will know that hotels.com has affiliate offers as well as other travel sites. This affiliate site was created from hotels.com and expedia.com affiliate offers. For quite a long span of time it was the number one performing "affiliate" for expedia.com.

To be a number one affiliate for any program, it takes A LOT of sales. In order to make sales, you have to be putting the right amount of money in advertising and even have repeat customers to your site. But it is all easier said than done, quite frankly.

I won't discuss how much the company was cranking in on a daily basis, but I'm sure that you can figure out some estimates by looking at the sale price of the company.

Everyone wants to learn the affiliate business, but it is hard to learn from a lot of resources on the web, since they are mostly restating same concepts and there is a lot of risk when you want to try out a new business with your own money involved.

Jeremy Schoemaker, also known as "ShoeMoney" is giving away his knowledge in a 12 week course, which is again, completely free. The course originates from his major book deal, which has been canceled, but it is all worthy information. All you have to do is sign up and you will receive emails of how to's and detailed information on getting into the affiliate business. Jeremy is also getting vouchers from ad networks, so you can experiment with advertising, without risking your own money. If anyone in the industry know's their stuff, it is Jeremy. I wouldn't promote him if I didn't think he was giving beyond expectations.

I encourage you to sign up and really learn what he has to teach, even if you decide not to become an affiliate marketer or create a business from it, you will get a very thorough understanding of the industry, for the future.

P.S. - Please don't contact me to ask about the company I discussed in the article because I cannot say much due to a NDA.

Sign up for the ShoeMoney Internet Marketing Course here.

Monetizing The Future

2009-03-22T21:37:00.000-07:00

Everyone loves to have free services instead of even paying the slightest money for subscription. But the reality of the future, from what I see, is that GOOD content will come with a price tag. Whether it might be small, it will still come with a price. Just like watching cable TV versus the free local channels. If you want that quality, you will probably end up paying for it. Here is my two minute take on monetizing the future of web content.

Privately ran blogs, will turn towards selling paid subscriptions, which will end up being the majority of revenue even if they continue to sell advertising space. I don't think that public news corporations will sell subscriptions to their online properties, but you never know.

On another note, people will probably stop visiting average blogs, with no reader benefit all together. There is just too much worthless information on the web these days, and the days for that information are numbered. Charging for awesome content will end up wiping the worthless content off the grid too.

People will pay for this content also because we will all be used to paying a dollar or two to watch that favorite online TV show of ours. Of course there will always be those who get upset over paying small fees to watch or read their content, which is when the stolen content and distribution issues will end up being a problem, also known as piracy.

You may argue that sites or content providers won't gain new viewers or readers, but there will probably be some free stuff still given away- kind of like trailers to movies.

Oh and if you don't believe me, some have already started to charge. Just check out Loren Feldman's 1938Media.com. His content is obviously top notch- and he is charging for it- AND people are willing to pay the small price tag.

What do you think about the future of web monetization?

Start-Ups Would Fail Without Twitter

2009-03-12T21:49:00.001-07:00

I'm pretty sure you have noticed that the "top dogs" are desperately into gaining all the Twitter followers they can possibly get. For example there was recently an offer by Jason Calacanis from Mahalo for $120,000 to Twitter, Inc. to get on the top 20 recommended follow list which shows up to new users after the sign up for the Twitter service, for a term of one year and he was willing to pay $250,000 for two years AND he is also willing to pay it up in ADVANCE.

Michael Arrington wrote a post on TechCrunch about how he views the "value" of Twitter traffic. He does go into detail of how many page views TechCrunch is getting from these followers and they are pretty interesting numbers to ponder upon. In the post, Michael states that Jason said he believes that acquiring all those followers, he could pull in $1 million more in revenue for his company. Now let me just say this- $1 million from Twitter traffic would require A LOT of spamming AND retweets. These are just speculative numbers, but I think that a lot of people seem to be turning Twitter into some business resource or a "game" of who can get the most followers and publicity.

As many of you probably know, Guy Kawasaki has a new start-up under his belt- Alltop. If you go check out his Twitter timeline, there is a lot of Alltop promotion throughout the day- each and every day. According to this Alexa the current rank for the site is at about 61,000. Keep in mind that there is A LOT of Alltop promotion going on all day and with Guy's 83,000 or so followers and all that promotion, I would expect the site to be gaining more traction. I personally think Alltop is a great start-up and like the service a lot, but I'm just stating some thoughts here. I also think everyone can learn a lot from Guy Kawasaki.

You have probably seen a lot of contests on Twitter as well. Starting from people giving away Flips to other gadgets, in an attempt to gain more followers. The reality of the situation is- most people are probably just following for the prize and then unfollowing once they win- or lose.

But here is the even more interesting thing to think about. It doesn't really matter if you have 1, 100, or 1 billion followers on Twitter because after a certain point it is all about what you have to offer. Sooner or later people are going to figure you out- well those of which are actual followers and not bots. If they like what you have to say, they will keep up with what you are saying, but if you keep promoting to them all day, every day, and it is mediocre information, followers aren't going to click your links.

I guess it all comes down to the risk factor. If you are willing to take the risk to build up your follower count to whatever number actively, you better be prepared to DELIVER to people and not just market some 1/2 baked service. Eventually the true useful products and services always win, with or without Twitter.

Why YouTube Will Stick Around Forever

2009-03-01T21:33:00.001-08:00

In the online world, there are always ups and downs in the lifetime of a service being offered. Hypes create services to be the center of attention and then comes the time when something better steals the thunder. But there is a reason why YouTube will stick around for a long time to come, even though there are numerous other platforms to share videos.

1) There's far more content on YouTube than elsewhere- It probably goes back to the phrase "content is king," but honestly, YouTube has tons of videos on it, of which a lot might be senseless, but there is still a bunch of great clips on there.

2) Usability- YouTube is probably the easiest site you can use, next to Google. You type in virtually any term and you can find a video related to it. Compare YouTube to another video platform, I don't think you will find one that is any easier to use. I've even seen a 5 year old use YouTube.

3) Integration- Sure you can stream live from your iPhone using Qik and maybe not YouTube, but who cares about live streams? If you truly think about it, nobody outside the social media space probably cares about live streaming videos. More people care about watching or reading content than producing it. YouTube has been there since the iPhone came out.

4) Hard to copy- Social networks are always "stealing" their competitors user base, but the YouTube user base is hard to "steal." With a social network if one friend goes, two will go, five will go, and so on. YouTube has the ability to subscribe to people's videos and all, which is in a way creating friendships, but the service really can't plummet as fast as some other services could.

5) It's a brand- It seems that everyone who knows what online video is, knows what YouTube is. The brand has a strong reputation. It is what keeps the people coming back day after day.

6) Many have created a business around it- A lot of people make money from creating YouTube videos in one way or another. If you look at how many people are doing this and then add all of those people's audiences, you end up with a large user base. Unless the people making the videos switch platforms, the people following those videos aren't going anywhere.

7) The Google touch- Google is huge, since they own YouTube, the chances of them keeping an upper hand in online video for a long time to come is extremely high. Big companies usually know what they need to do to stay ahead.

Facebook This, Twitter That

2009-02-16T23:53:00.000-08:00

Everyone seems to be so upset when some big social network or online service does something to cover themselves from legal trouble, or even benefit from a business prospective. I just don't see why people need to be "upset" with the recent changes in the Facebook TOS or any other changes that social networking sites make. It's all part of the "biz." From a neutral standpoint, I think anyone that is truly upset with the whole privacy aspect of Facebook, should just close their account...and probably never join another social network again. I mean... don't they all lack privacy after a certain point? Plus, do people really have a "right" to complain? Facebook is a free service which nobody pays to use, if people were paying I would understand that their "demands" should be met.

With the known fact that nothing rides high forever, if users keep up the negative vibe towards Facebook, this is probably the start of the end for Facebook. No doubt, there will probably be a new "Web 3.0" social networking site arising soon.

On the other hand, it also seems that people are thinking too much into social networking sites. For example, just about everyone has figured out how to monetize Twitter, except... Twitter, Inc. From the be-a-magpie or whatever deal, to selling your background through Twittad, to the recent "gain more followers" game. If people keep using Twitter for ways it is not meant to be used, the value of Twitter will be lost, quicker than ever.

In my opinion, MySpace users look like the only- "go with the flow" type, since you don't really hear any "mass-hate" towards News Corp. or MySpace from its users...even though I think MySpace is one big advertising campaign.

Sometimes people just cannot be pleased, but if people stopped trying to dig deep into issues that they don't need to, there would be less time wasted after unnecessary discussions and more people would be able to move on in their lives to the finer things. - Like quality time away from your computer.

Economic Thoughts

2009-02-08T15:43:00.000-08:00

1) It seems like every large corporation could use a bailout, could you?

2) If you could give out $1 Trillion, how would you do so, (to "stimulate" the economy)?

3) Where will fuel prices be in one month?

4) What corporation will be the next to go bankrupt?

5) Will the "sale" at Circuit City stores ever be a true "sale?"

Internet Thought

2009-02-03T20:05:00.000-08:00

1) If you could register any domain in the world, what would it be and why?

2) The internet was just discovered, what would the first service you sign up with be?

3) Since the internet was just discovered, would you pay $100/month for broadband internet?

4) Are your grandparents (or parents) writing on your "WALL" yet?

5) Are you spending more time on Twitter than you do talking to your significant other?

Write Scanable Content

2009-02-03T19:20:00.000-08:00

Lets face it, most people don't read each any every word of a post now-a-days. When I visit many sites, I try to find something I like to read and briefly read through the article to get the main points and thoughts of the writing. Chances are most of your readers are just skimming through your content as well. The main idea is to get the point across to your readers whether or not they read the entire post, so how can you write content that can stand out, without being dull?

-Use headlines- If you are using bold headings and showing the main thoughts of each idea, people will be able to scan through your post and read what the main idea is.

-Break stuff up- This can potentially increase readership time spent on your blog. If content is split up then you can help the reader, read through things in parts and come back to a post at a later time either if they don't have enough time to read the whole thing in one sitting or if the post just has a lot to say and they choose not to read it all at once.

-Post videos- Users have a tendency to want change. If you just keep writing, writing, writing, chances are that people might end up getting sick of it. Instead try posting a video.

-Pictures can say a 1000 words- A picture can truly speak to every person in a different way. Many thoughts can be expressed in one picture that 5 pages of text might not be able to explain. Posting pictures through your posts can ease the readability.

-Post audio- Some people like to listen, while they surf the web, do the dishes, or even go for a jog. You might want to explore the thought of having podcasts on your blog or just posting simple audio segments of what you usually end up writing, if you think it will deliver the same or higher experience for your readers.

-Combine thoughts- If you are trying to say two similar things in different sections of a blog post, see if you can mix them into one and combine the thoughts to make the read go a little bit faster and less repetitive.

-Use bullet points- Bullet points can outline the main thoughts of what a blogger wants to express to a reader. A reader can also simply follow through on batches of bullets instead of reading a few paragraphs.

-Write two or more posts- If something is going to take a lot of explanation, sometimes it is best to write posts in different parts. For example you can do "part 1 of trip to Mexico," "part 2," and so on if need be.

-Simplify thoughts- When you are writing something in 10 words that can be said in 5, chances are it will help the reader stick through your content and have the read go easier. You should try to make a blog post as easy as possible to read.

Mixing up your writing/vlogging/speaking style can keep things fresh for the reader and yourself, as the blogger. Always try to deliver a change to readers to not only help them change the mood, but draw in new thoughts and emotions as the blogger, as well as trying to catch the eyes of new readers.

Social Media Is Changing? It HAS Changed.

2009-01-30T21:22:00.000-08:00

All over the web, you hear talk about how social media is changing for 2009, but I already think things have changed. It used to be that everyone relied on search traffic, etc. to get traffic to their websites, but now I personally believe the focus should be on other presences. Everyone knows how Twitter can help grow your site, but that is a side issue. Same thing with Facebook. The problem with these two “tools” is that you can only do so much and people can only see what’s up if you are connected to them as well.

I think the new focus should be on services like Guy Kawasaki’s very own Alltop. Getting your feed on this service is where it is at. I have no doubt that Alltop is going to evolve for the greater good of its users over the course of the future, but what is Alltop providing that other sources of traffic cannot? It used to be that everyone was involved with the SEO of their website and how to play games with search engines in order to rank #1, but that is no longer the case in the internet world. I think SEO is okay to play around with, but after a certain point it is just a waste of time and money. Instead, spreading content and connection to your audience over useful and meaningful services like Alltop, will essentially be the winner.

What the heck am I talking about?

Twitter was good and is still great to connect with your audience. I have 8,000 or so followers, but I would still rather have my feed on Alltop if I had to choose between Alltop and using Twitter. People don’t know to come look for “Romil Patel” or “Venture Level” or “Blab Web” when they are looking for something I am talking about. Instead, people look for key terms like “business” or “entrepreneur” or “blogging” when they would be looking for the type of information that I am writing about. The problem with Twitter is that only people who have read my content or know me will follow me and that isn’t a way to spread content. When people search for something in Alltop, chances are they will visit a new site, of which they have never heard of before. This is what makes services such as Alltop great.

Why do I keep saying Alltop, when there are so many other options?

Alltop is a growing service. Numerous people are visiting it on a daily basis and essentially if your feed is being presented on Alltop, you are growing as well. It basically takes the marketing aspect and multiplies it by 10 or more because your blog will be featured under relevant searches. I am pretty sure that there will be an ability to personalize your “daily reads” soon on Alltop, so users will be able to really sync all their news or blog sources in page. So I can’t stress how beneficial it could be to be on Alltop.

Will you get on Alltop?

The answer to that is quite simple. Alltop was named after being a service that takes “all of the top” feeds on the internet and presents them in one place. If you are not the top, don’t expect to be on Alltop quite just yet. Work on developing your site so Alltop would want to put your feed on their site.

Anyways...

All in all, the web HAS already changed. It will keep changing, but people need to move their focus off of the little things and look at the big picture. The sooner people realize that there is more to marketing their blogs than Twitter or Google keyword searches or even Facebook for that matter, the faster they will potentially grow. In fact, I wouldn’t even classify Facebook as a way of connecting. It is just something that people have manipulated into making a marketing tool.

In the end, it is extremely important to grow a brand so you can rely on yourself being the #1 tool that you use to continue to grow. While it is natural to use other tools to establish your brand image, you shouldn’t rely on these resources forever. What if any of the services you use were to shut down? Your brand would drastically be affected and potentially collapse altogether. By becoming less dependent on 3rd party services, you help your brand stick around for a long time, more often than not. In other words, BECOME THE NEXT GOOGLE...or at least the next Yahoo! ;-)

Digg Traffic

2009-01-28T21:52:00.000-08:00

Have you ever thought one of your blog posts should receive more attention than it has so far?

As most of us know, Digg is a great way to spread content and really popular content can get to the front page of the site and drive a lot of traffic to your site. I have heard of Digg driving about 40,000-50,000 visits to a site if it is on the front page. Most of the traffic is in the first hour or so then it gradually decreases as it has been on the front page for a longer time. The whole point of getting on the front page is to get more attention to a particular post, you shouldn't assume that it will drive a steady amount of traffic to your website for a long time to come. In this case, for the most part, it is quantity traffic and not quality. However, any main-stream attention is usually good for the upbringing of a site as a whole.

Now that I have established the goods of getting on the front page and what not to expect, I want to tell you how exactly you should play out your Digg game. If you are running an A-list site, chances are you will have enough attention to drive Digg's out of the roof just by placing a button saying "Digg this" within your blog post. If not, then you will have to be proactive and think 10 steps ahead.

If you truly believe that one of your posts will be among the more interesting or worth-spreading posts on your blog, then you should place a "Digg this" on your post. There is a simple piece of code provided by Digg tools that helps you give the ability for readers to Digg right from the post. The code is:

and will look like:

By putting the button on your post, potentially every reader that uses Digg, will think about Digging the post if it is awesome. Often times readers don't think of Digging a post if they don't see a button, but if they do, they might as well Digg something since it is convenient for them in just a click. Also, any new attention that comes to your site by your readers spreading your content, will also know that the post is on Digg and might give it a Digg also if they see the button.

Next, you should personally drive more attention to the post. Make sure you tweet the post on Twitter, tell anyone that reads your blog regularly to read and ask if they will Digg the post. Driving traffic manually is one of the most effective ways to get a post Dugg more often than not.

After you have done those two simple tasks, you just sit back and wait. If the post is really great, you will see the Digg's increase. If it gets enough Diggs, your site just may be featured on the front page of Digg!

What influenced me to write this post?

I recently wrote a really interesting piece of information on my blog at Venture Level. The post was about Slumdog Millionaire's Business Model. Alone, the post page generated about 3,000 views and aside from that people that read the posts on the front page of my blog without click through to the post page is probably higher.

What I didn't do was- place a Digg button within the blog post from the start. -I did this, I believe it was the next day, when the traffic to the particular post page was substantially less. I think my biggest mistake was not placing the "Digg this" button on the post from the start or I really believe it would have received enough Digg's to be on the front page of Digg. The article was quite interesting as I got numerous emails complimenting my on the post, so I have no doubt that each person that was on Digg, would have Dugg my post.

A last note:

There is no secret to getting featured on Digg, anyone who says that is just messing with your mind. A rule of thumb to go buy is: if a particular post is stellar, it will show itself, by receiving enough Digg's. And a last thing to remember is, if nobody reads your site, even if you have the greatest content on the earth, it won't get Dugg, so you have to tell people about it!

Reduce Site-Scrolling Readership

2009-01-22T17:21:00.000-08:00

We all do it, go to a website, scroll through the page, then leave because we don’t find anything appealing to read. But working so hard to get the readers to your blog, if you are just getting site-scrollers, it is pretty much pointless. How can you lessen the site-scrolling and increase the actual reading?

A few simple steps:

-Add pictures throughout your post- Even though you may be adding pictures at the top of your post, if you tend to have little graphics throughout, it breaks the post up into smaller parts, along with the probability of a reader seeing something they like leading them to read the whole post. While adding pictures is good, don’t add too many where the post is just a picture post- unless it is a picture post, then add as many as you like!

-Change the font through your blog- I don’t think you need to change the font within the same post, however changing the font from post to post, can surely draw more attention to individual posts.

-Make it easier to be able to tell advertising from content- Some “money maker” bloggers might say that this is a bad idea if you want to increase ad revenue, but think about it yourself…when you are visiting someone else’s website, doesn’t it annoy you when you get interrupted with a big advertisement, or worse yet, you can’t tell the ad from the content and you actually click the ad, then the whole read is messed up because you are diverted to a different site.

-Don’t have a crowded site- While you don’t want to have a dull site with only text, don’t make your site the next Million Dollar Homepage and garble the readers with a bunch of content, leading them to just be lost within your site that they actually don’t read anything. Also try to make it easy to tell one blog post from another- I have visited a few blogs that barely have spacing between posts. This makes people just scroll through from start to end.

-Remove that “Are you subscribed to my newsletter?” pop-up- I’m pretty sure that the pop-up window is getting people to subscribe to your newsletter, but is that the first thing you want people to see when they visit your blog? I personally believe that the first thing that readers see when they visit your site, usually the title of your first post, should intrigue people to actually stick around.

-Lose the sales pitch- Often times I visit blogs where the blogger is trying to sell something to the readers or get them to sign up for something, while it may not be a bad thing, when visitors see that, it makes them feel like the whole blog is just a big garage sale. When people visit garage sales, they don’t analyze products like they do when they are at a real store buying something. It’s either a go or no go.

-Have a great site design!- This is, by far, one of the most important things to have in order to get people interested, instead of just scrolling your site. I will admit, I do visit sites that have a really interesting design or layout and sometimes I just stare at it. When visitors see something cool, they take a minute to soak in the goodness!

Do you have any thoughts on how to lessen the site-scrolling?

Make Sharing Easier

2009-01-20T21:37:00.000-08:00

You may notice these buttons on almost every leading blog or website, making it easy for readers to spread content among their communities through all of the leading forms of social networks, email services, and social news sites. Have you ever thought about how it could increase your blog traffic or even increase blog exposure in general?

I recently added the ability to share content on Venture Level by using a tool from SocialTwist called Tell A Friend. It is quite easy to set up the widget to be in your blog, as they guide you through the whole process in a few easy steps. After you install the widget, you are able to track stats to see how content is being shared. The good thing about Tell A Friend is that it doesn't slow down site load time too much, while providing the ability to share content through 40 or so forms of media. The widget doesn't take up much space, but when a user chooses to share content, for example, through Digg, a window pops up asking the user to input some information and submit their entry.

Having added the widget recently, I have seen the most uses for email sharing and bookmarking. Lets face it...people are lazy and they really want to be able to do something in a click instead of five clicks. By adding these buttons, readers are more likely to share content willingly, just because of the convenience it is to do things with just one click.

Do you have this implemented on your blog?
Are you going to add it?
Any other thoughts?

Controversial Content

2009-01-17T20:28:00.000-08:00

Blogging is a public form of media. That said, virtually anyone can read it and judge it. I have got numerous emails asking how to judge content and see if it is "okay" to publish on blogs or when to second guess a blog post as a blogger. The truth is that there is no written rules about what people should publish and what people shouldn't publish, but there are some tips that you can follow to keep your blog with a neutral attitude towards your audience- and maybe even your boss, co-workers, or anyone else that may be reading your blog!

Try to keep content "neutral"- While bloggers always provide their view on certain topics, it is good to try and keep opinions limited. If you are talking about issues that some may view offensive if you side one way or another, maybe you are better off not mentioning what your opinion is.

Don't talk about people you work with- Even accidentally, people might run across your blog to a certain article that is talking about them, in a bad way. By simply searching for their own name in Google, your article that talks about how you hate your boss may show up, since you mentioned their name. Even if you don't mention your bosses name and they come across the article, it might cause some tension at work. After all, you don't know whether or not your boss or co-worker reads your blog on a regular basis :)

Don't talk about your work in general- Especially if you are working on top secret stuff, don't do it. People can get fired for talking about work related projects that only employees of a company are supposed to know about. If you want to keep your job, don't bring your work into your blogging, unless it's public information.

Don't "report" half baked information- There are blogs out there that are based upon reporting false information, but if you run a blog that reports factual information and you think something might be false, don't discuss it. Readers trust what you say and if you are not sure if something is accurate, it's best to keep it to yourself until you know more about or at least tell your readers that you are not sure about the information stated, if you must post it.

Look at your posts from different views- It may be that what you may view offensive, others may not. On the other hand, something that you view as not offensive, others may view extremely offensive. It's best to keep an open mind while judging your content and see how others would think about it.

Chances are if you are second guessing whether or not to publish that one article, it may not be a good article to publish. Give it some time, think about it, have a friend or family member read and judge it and then make the decision of publishing or not publishing it. After all, blogging is something where you can state your thoughts, but siding one way or another with issues may cause you to lose readers.

Mellow Content

2009-01-13T13:26:00.000-08:00

It may be harsh, but it could be true. If you have been blogging for a few months (or even a few days) you may notice as you surf the blogosphere, there are many, many blogs around the internet. In addition to blogs, there are numerous other forms of online content of which some is really useless. I would say that the majority of content around the web is either useless or restated far too many times. This is where your blog comes into play. Ask yourself this one question: Is my content intriguing or is it something that people can't get by without knowing?

Now ask yourself this question: Which sites do I visit daily and why? By asking these two questions you will get a better idea of where you want to direct your blog in the future. Most people think when they are writing content, it may be the best in the world and everyone should read it, but you really have to ask, is it really something that people would crave to know. When people really are interested, you won't find yourself as much into promoting your blog because your readers will end up doing that for you.

As you probably noticed, I have been writing less on Blab Web, while my daily traffic and subscriber count keeps going up. I also keep getting more and more emails. While I'm not one to judge my own content, I've gotten emails recently from a few people who tell me why they read by blog. They have stated various reasons from liking what I have to say about blogging with no kind of "b/s" and others have said they read my blog because they find the content can be truly implemented into their blogs, unlike some other blogs where there are strings attached, like "get a million visits to your site in 1 day." - I appreciate all that have sent their kind words regarding my blog!

The true key to running a successful blog is to have flavorful content. When people read or see something they truly like, they will share it among their communities on the web. If you direct your blog in a way that the content can really be useful, instead of just "reporting" or writing something that people could possibly do without, you will find that the quality of traffic will improve along with the interaction of readers.

Read your future posts and see what you think of them, in an unbiased way. If the article was featured on the front page of Yahoo!, and you read it, would it make you want to follow your own blog in the future, or is it just a one-time deal? Converting new blog visitors into permanent readers requires each and every post to be mellow, in addition to being unique.

Offline Blog Promotion

2009-01-09T19:28:00.000-08:00

Did you know that promoting your blog or website off the internet, can probably drive traffic to your site, which will possibly come back?

Recently, I've started heavily promoting Venture Level in the offline world, also known as "The Real World," and it has driven a significant amount of traffic, that not only visits once, but many times to come after their initial visit. You can also grab a whole different audience, that you may not be able to appeal to, through other forms of promotion.

Why is it a big deal to promote off the web?
To build brand loyalty. While you may not consider your blog a so called "brand," it is a brand. If you blog about poker, there is a very good chance there is another poker blog on the web somewhere. By promoting off the web, you are attracting people that probably don't read any poker blogs and since you are the first one they will probably visit, it will be captured in their minds. After some time, as they discover other poker blogs, they will most likely keep reading yours since it was the first one they have ever visited.

When you promote off the web, you are also capturing the audience in a different way. It is very different from web promotion because you are not making it easy for people to just click a link and click out just as fast. Say a person notices your flyer at a local sporting goods store, about your sports blog. It will require some effort on their part to take interest and remember the URL of your blog, so they can visit it later when they head home. If they are to have interest and they do end up visiting your blog, it means they won't just glimpse over your content for a full 10 seconds and click out. They will probably end up surfing around, checking out your older posts, and take some time to actually read what is going on in your blog- given that your blog doesn't look like it is from Web 1.0. When people click to your blog from somewhere else on the web, it was easy for them to visit it, so it will be just as easy for them to leave. Potential readers will probably not remember your site and chances are they may not come back because it took no effort to come to your blog in the first place.

Where can you promote?
-Local stores that sell items related to what you talk about.
-Public posting boards, like at grocery stores.
-Mailers
-Libraries
-Local organizations that relate to your content.
-Advertising in offline media (newspaper, magazine, etc.)
-Your current network (work, Monday night football friend circle!, etc.)

Always remember to ask organizations and stores before you try to promote with them!

A last thought-
I find that if the same amount of effort is put into offline promotion, as is put into online promotion, you might see a better ROI on your time with offline promotion because only people who really have "interest" in your offline promotion will visit. You should always remember to make your promotions intriguing and different. Don't try to sell people, instead try to appeal to them.

Also remember not to cater your blog to the wrong people!

Traffic Numbers From Connecting With Readers

2009-01-06T18:13:00.000-08:00

I always say, "Connect to your readers," but I'm not sure if I have ever laid down the hard facts about the difference between not connecting and connecting with readers. I connect with a lot of readers through Twitter, some on Facebook, and other forms of social networking. The benfits of connecting through social networks is that readers usually "indirectly" follow you even if they don't. If that doesn't make sense, here are some numbers to clear up the thought:

About 40% of my traffic on Venture Level comes from Twitter. -People want to know what I'm writing about without coming to my blog, so Twitter allows me to send them a link with a little phrase of what a blog post is about. The advantage to connecting on Twitter is that I can also share other thoughts with readers.

About 10% of my traffic comes from Facebook.- Although I don't really post items myself on Facebook, there are a lot of people who post my links in Facebook status updates, or as posted items. Facebook therefore drives a decent amount of traffic to Venture Level.

The other 50% comes from natural visits and places like StumbleUpon, Digg, Google, and even RSS subscribers. Having RSS is a good form of getting content delivered to your readers, but it really comes down to making it available to readers in more than just once place. While I don't mind having a good chunk of RSS readership, it definitely shows that my readership would be lowered significantly if there was no social network involvement.

These are some statistics that really show that a fairly new blog, yet becoming really popular, really fast (Venture Level), rounds up awesome traffic, through simple, yet effective ways.

If you want to read a post on Twitter traffic, you can find it here.

2009 For Blogs

2009-01-02T23:11:00.001-08:00

There is no doubt there are numerous blogs being started everyday. However, I feel that many people either aren't interested in starting a blog or even furthermore, don't know what a blog is. I think this year people who have no clue what a blog is, will probably start a blog. It will be like how people didn't know what social networking was with, but everyone somehow ended up on Facebook or MySpace.

That said, along with the growth of the blogosphere, there is no doubt that more blogs = more competition. My prediction is that more blogs will be personal, but with that there will be more blogs in each niche by the fantasy new bloggers will see about "making easy money" by blogging. 50% of those blogs started will probably wipe off the web in the first week or two of starting.

What you can do...
Having more competition doesn't have to drag you down. Make this be the best year yet for you and your blog. Promote it like you didn't in the past. Write better posts and try to gear your posts towards a different audience. If you are serious about blogging, set your priorities and get known for your topic before someone else steals your thunder!

I've been paying more attention to my entrepreneur blog over the past few weeks and I've seen tremendous growth because I've been publishing a lot more frequently than I previously did. I think that my reputation definitely helped in the growth of Venture Level, but it wasn't easy bringing the blog up. Even though I have a solid reputation, it is more difficult for me to bring Blab Web to the next level because there is a lot more competition.

Nonetheless, I will still be publishing and do see growth, even if it doesn't compare to Venture Level. I've been promoting less, but have seen traffic increase and subscriber counts increase as well. This is where it all starts to show that good content finds it's way around the web sifting through that 70% -or so, that is useless information. I wouldn't say that I will stop promoting, but now that my blog has been broken in for awhile now, it's time to let the content do the work and find the readers instead of me finding the readers.

What are your 2009 blogging goals?

eBook

2008-12-29T21:00:00.000-08:00

The year is coming to an end and you have probably made numerous posts on your blog this year, unless you just started. Hopefully you continue to blog in 2009, but you also don't want to forget about what you have written in 2008. If you are writing renewable content, you might want to consider putting together an eBook for your blog posts posted in 2008, so readers are able to access all of the posts in one simple way.

There are a few benefits that can come out of putting together an eBook for your older posts. The main benefit is to have the content still read by numerous people who have not read many of your older entries if they are just starting to read your blog. Chances are the information that you have written is (for the most part) not outdated and still useful. You can also sell you eBook if you think it is really beneficial for people or if you want to earn some extra money. ClickBank is a valuable source if you want to look into marketing your eBook online.

If you don't want to make money off of your content, you can use it as an incentive for people. Tell people they can get a free copy of your eBook if they sign up for your RSS feed. This way you can keep people reading new content while giving them something to read through while they are not reading any new blog content. Triggering readers interest can be beneficial for the long run. Remember when promoting your eBook, don't mention that it's "A valuable source" or "A $100 value" or some kind of sales pitch. I hate that, chances are you hate that, and there's an even greater chance your readers hate that. Instead, tell your readers what it is. Really stir interest by mentioning some of your most interesting or knowledgeable posts that you have written throughout the year. If you are writing a football blog and you interviewed Eli Manning, tell that to your readers! I am pretty sure that will stir interest!

How is an eBook beneficial to you- as the blogger?
-Easy reference
-Keep note of what you have written about
-Future resource
-Marketing Item
-Do one every year and sell the movie rights? - Just kidding.

Archives are a great thing, but sometimes bloggers just need something more. An eBook can give you an easy to look back at reference of what you need to know. Even though you may have written something, you might not know when you wrote it and an organized eBook can help you find a certain post.

Keeping note of what you have written about is also another great thing when having an eBook. We are all human and we forget. Bloggers often forget something they may have written about 4 months ago. A table of contents in an eBook can help you track down a certain topic.

You can't market your blog like you can an eBook. You might not choose to do anything with an eBook currently, but in the future it might become a great resource for you or your company if you are running a business blog.

If you attend conferences related to your blog. You might consider printing out your eBook, in which case it would be a regular book or compilation of articles and hand them out at the conference. This way would be a cheap option to gain attention and attract relevant and quality readership while giving people a preview. Wouldn't you rather hand someone a sample of your work, instead of just your URL?

If you put together an eBook of your posts for the year, you might be able to achieve great things with each years book in the future. Maybe after a few years you can sell all the eBooks for $X and keep a continuous income flow.

I hope this shines some light on why and how an eBook can be beneficial to not only your readers, but to you as a blogger as well. Maybe even keeping an eBook for yourself might come in handy down the road, so even if you are making one for personal reasons, you never know when it will come in handy!

Creating An About Page

2008-12-26T19:16:00.000-08:00

This might go without saying, but it is very important to have an “about” page on your blog. I can’t even keep track of how many new blogs I visit that don’t have an about page. It is interesting that some of the blogs are well established, but lack a page to let readers know what the blog is about!

There are many factors that can help retain readers through having an about page, but the main point of having an about page, is to help new visitors become potential readers by learning a little bit more about what exactly the blog you are running talks about, and perhaps a little bit more about you, the blogger.

What should be included in an about page?

* What the blog is about
* Who the blogger is
* What readers should expect
* WHY people should read your blog
* What you hope to achieve
* Anything else you want readers to know

You may ask why people need to know all of the above information, but it really helps in establishing a quality reader-base. If readers don’t know what exactly a blog is talking about or will talk about if they return, they probably won’t return. People also don’t read blogs, whose owners are unknown. You should at least put something in the about section that relates to why readers should read your blog and why you have knowledge to talk about the topic of your blog.

In addition to having an about page, I believe having a contact page is important as well. People want to be able to easily find contact information to contact the blogger of the blog they read, easily. It can really annoy people when they have a question or comment, in which they have no way of reaching the blogger they wish to communicate with.

Neither the about or contact pages have to be “fancy,” but creating something attractive and informative can attract readers to stick around for the long haul. If you want to check out my about page, feel free to by clicking here.

That One Thing

2008-12-20T14:58:00.000-08:00

What is that one thing you brand yourself by? Something unique, something weird?

If you Google Blog Search your blog niche you will probably find there are hundreds if not thousands of blogs, talking about the same thing as your blog does. How can you win over all those other blogs? I view all other blogs in the same niche as competitors because chances are if a person reads one sports blog, they will not read any other sports blog. Nobody has time to read 10 blogs talking about the same issues or topics, so how do you have someone choose yours?

You not only have to set yourself as an authority in a niche, but you have to be known for something. Whether it is a person who has a Lamborghini, who runs a car blog or a person that has traveled just about every major country in the world for a travel blog, the key concept is to be known for something different. Some may ask how you get known for something or make something public and the correct way to do that would be to simply display that unique thing about you on your blog. If you are not known to readers it is difficult for someone to care about what you say.

It is a form of persuasion, as some may call it, but it is a concept that works. Readers want to know something cool about the bloggers they interact with so you should make it clear as to what is DIFFERENT about you and why YOU ROCK!

Blog Post Length

2008-12-18T11:27:00.000-08:00

500, 600, 700 words? How much is the right amount for a blog post. The truth is there is no "right" answer, but there are various theories you can review to help you make your post "just right" in length.

Most of my posts, on this blog, are no less than 700-1,000 words, but I like to explain in detail what I am talking about so readers get a full understanding of what I am talking about, which increases the length of posts. The only reason why I would say limiting your posts to fewer than 2,000 words or so is key is because you don't want to turn your blog into a novel! In many cases readers just stop reading after the first couple hundred words if the post seems dull or confusing. Having a lot of words can not only confuse readers, but have them miss out on important thoughts or information.

Thinking before you post:

You want to be as concise as possible, at the same time explaining all you want to. Limiting your posts to say 500 words might be unrealistic because you don't want to just throw out thoughts and not elaborate on them either. On the other hand, having a post with 100 words is also not realistic, you are probably better off not saying anything in those situations.

Have a plan of what you want to say and say it. Don't go off topic and keep sub-topics limited. I face the issue of limiting my posts to one topic all the time because in blogging, there is so much interrelated stuff to talk about, I always end up mentioning something else, however I try to break something up into more than one post if I feel there is too much covered.

Acting after you post:

The best way to see if your blog posts are just the right length is to ask someone you know to read them. After you post on your blog, ask a friend or family member to read over it from time to time. See what they think.

Ask questions like:
1) Was it easy to follow?
2) Did you identify all the key points and ideas of the post?
3) Is there something you felt that was irrelevant?
4) Did you want to hear more about a certain thing I mentioned in my post?
5) Would you come back to read more?

To sum things up, try checking out posts for yourself. Read what you post after you post it. Come back after a day or so and actually read an older post and see if you can follow through on what you said. Chances are if you read your older posts you will get a better idea of how much longer or shorter to make your future posts. In other cases, you might want to consider making a video if you want to say something, but you think it will be too long for people to read. It is easier for people to follow a video post instead of reading 3,000 words.

Difficult Readers

2008-12-15T16:04:00.000-08:00

I try to keep my blog a positive environment for all readers, but I think this post is necessary because some readers seem to be having problems with their blogs in terms of their own readers from time to time.

There are all different types of audiences that can be tracked through to your blog. That said, I get emails every now an then from readers asking about how to deal with certain types of readers that might be a pain, a troll, a spammer, etc. There are always possibilities for your blog to be targeted by some random person that might disagree with what you say, might not like your style, or just might be against everything you say and cause trouble. This doesn't just happen to small bloggers, it happens to EVERYONE. A-list bloggers run into this issue big time. Many people are jealous or against what some have to say and want to just be a pain and cause annoyance. Personally, I always welcome people who disagree with what I say, to disagree, and I don't mind that, but sometimes people just want to be annoying and keep emailing you or spamming your comment field just because they don't like how you think. In other cases, sometimes two or more readers can have a conflict on your blog, in which case you would want to immediately control the situation.

How can you deal with these type of "readers?"

-Moderate comments - For the time being, you might want to consider moderating your comments just so your other readers are not annoying by the person trying to ruin the experience and usefulness of the comment field.

-Block their emails - If the "reader" is trying to bring you down as a blogger, you don't need to listen to that, so sometimes you may wish to block their emails.

-Ban their IP from your blog - I would consider this being a last resort, but sometimes banning people becomes necessary to keep your blog clean. Like I said, I welcome everyone to my blog, but if the scene gets destroyed by one individual, I would consider banning them.

-Tell them to lay off - Sometimes people want attention. People can be judgmental, rude, or annoying just because they are jealous of you. Just send them an email and ask them if they can stop spamming or being rude on your blog or to you.

-Dealing with readers who have issues- Like I mentioned previously, sometimes readers get in a feud with each other. In this case you might consider deleting comments of direct insults, etc. or even tell both the readers to keep it clean.

Have you ever had problems with readers on your blog?

$1 Per Day Diet Bloggers

2008-12-14T09:25:00.000-08:00

If you haven't heard of the couple who went on an intense "diet" for a month, you are missing something interesting.

Christopher and Kerri were living on $1 per day each, in some cases they lived on CENTS per day. Obviously, it is difficult to live on $5 per day, but I think $1 per day would be extremely difficult. They broke down what they ate throughout the day, for breakfast, they were eating oatmeal everyday, surprisingly which only cost $.06 per day.

Anyways their story is incredible, but you might be wondering why I am talking about it since this is not a food blog or anything.

The really cool thing is that they started a blog! Back when they started the project of eating $1 per person per day, they started a blog, which since then they have received about 660,000 visits on. Perfect example of how a blog can be started from scratch and potentially raise to the top, if the topic is sparking interest among various crowds. While it may be true that the media coverage helped, you can see from their first posts, they didn't have many comments and now, they are have about 100 comments in their last post it seems.

They talk about sponsorship for their efforts in one of their recent posts, which they could probably get easily having the traffic they have.

Here are some words, from their blog, about where the funds raised from sponsorship will go:

At the end of the of the month all proceeds will go to the Community Resource Center (here in Encinitas, CA). We will post evidence of donations at the end.

Blog Maintenance

2008-12-13T06:17:00.000-08:00

It is something many bloggers lack to do, which is performing blog maintenance. Many bloggers run blogs where information can get outdated. Lets say that "blog A" has a post on it which was referring to another product or service and then 200 posts later, that third party service is no longer in exisistance. Many people think that these posts don't matter because there have been a significant amount of posts and nobody clicks to the previous posts, right? Wrong. The fact that any post on your blog, no matter how old, can show up in search engines and people get extremely irritated when they come to sites that are useless or information is outdated. What does this mean for you? As a blogger, you want to try to appeal to everyone that visits your site, because those are your potential future readers. If someone has an experience with outdated information on the first visit to your site, do you think they will willingly come back? Probably not.

A Blog Maintenance Breakdown:

Check for broken links- Many times websites that you link to move or even shut down. This means that people will basically surf around, come to your site, to be led to a broken link. This is also not good for "SEO," most of those "experts" will say.

Check for outdated videos- Lets face it. We love YouTube. Many bloggers post third party YouTube videos on their blogs. Ever get that "Sorry, this video is no longer available" phrase, when you tried to play a video? While this might not be bad for "SEO," it still might hurt the process of attracting future readers.

Check for outdated information- "Dial Up - $44.95?" Probably not. Although blogs are non-edited content, you still want to make sure you are not showing something far fetched. Go back to certain posts where you may have mentioned some things which relate to the real world, and see if it still stands true. If it doesn't, just write "UPDATE:" and change what needs to be changed.

Running an old poll?- This could not only go for polls, but contests and more. If your poll is outdated, come up with a new one. Coming back to an old poll for two months can really bore everyday readers!

Delete the post alltogether?- Many times information just gets something that really nobody will read about...or need to read about. Say we are talking about how to use AOL Version 2.0, well no one probably uses it anymore, therefore, it is kind of odd when someone searches for AOL and comes through to your site to read that. Obviously if the phrase "AOL" shows your blog as the number one search result, you might want to consider leaving that post intact, since you will probably be getting large sums of traffic, but I hope you get the general jist of the thought.

Those are some main elements to blog maintenance, but there are many more little things you can do to keep your blog "fresh." A side note I will leave you with: Don't forget about those old posts! Even though you might not change information in any of you blog archive, it still exists. Use it to your benefit, show your old posts, as they might have some relevant and useful information. Link back to an old post if you are talking about something relevant and the post might benefit or interest the reader.