eXtra For Every Publisher

One of the smartest posts I have read recently comes from JohnCow.com called “We Got Fired!” where Bob writes about spreading himself too thin, and getting rid of certain projects. What is ever better is his usage of a point system to decide what stays and what goes. It is a little difficult to be so rational, but I am sure it works very well.

Here is a snippet from the article:

We took out a notepad and jotted down all our domains. Each domain/project would get a rating between 0 and 5. Anything below 3 is going in the dumpster! Might fetch a penny or two by someone who thinks the project is worth seeing through. Pennies you can put in the projects you’re dedicated to, hence improving them!

I have to say that this is something I struggle with all the time, as I work more and more for Bloggy Network, I have less and less time for the projects I would like to do. This has lead me to give or sell some of my greatest ideas to Bloggy Network in hopes of seeing them come to fruition.

It is hard not to want to do everything, but focusing on a few projects will help them become more successful, and leave less of a chance of burnout, something that I have faced a few times in my blogging career.

Check out the full post at JohnCow (not a misspelling).

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Darren Rowse, as part of his 31 Days to a Better Blog project, posted about finding a sponsor for your blog, something he has a fair bit of experience with.

He gives some great tips in the post, but one stood out to me more than the others:

If you have a smaller blog and haven’t had a sponsor before don’t aim for the stars straight away. It might be worth starting out by approaching smaller retailers, websites or companies in your niche and see if they’d be interested in some sort of partnership rather than aiming for the very biggest ones right up front. I did this a couple of months after starting my first digital camera blog and emailed 10 online digital camera sites to see if they’d be interested in advertising. 3 of the 10 bought small ads on my site (I think it was for something around $15-$25 a month). It wasn’t a lot of cash (and I didn’t have a lot of traffic to send to them) but I learned so much and made a little money in the process.

With so much competition out there, it can be very difficult to find sponsors for your blog. I have been lucky a few times, and have become friends with most of the people that have sponsored one of my sites. I didn’t make a ton of cash off any sponsorships, but it out performed AdSense, and networking connections are worth much more than pretty much any sponsorship.

Check out the full article on Problogger.net.

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I have a little pet peeve that I want to share with all of you. I hate seeing emoticons in posts. Those little images of happy or sad faces do not equal a thousand words, despite what you have heard about images.

Even worse, on some blogs they are styled incorrectly, and either have too much or too little spacing, and don’t align properly with the surrounding text. And don’t get me started on the ones with borders around them!

Emoticons should only be used in the occasional comment, and in e-mails or instant messaging conversations.

Some people might think that personal blog posts can be spruced up with emoticons, but I think it just waves the lack of professionalism in the face of everyone that reads the post.

So please, I beg of you, don’t use emoticons in your post.

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Over on Blogging Tips, Kelby Carr has put out a post that gives some details pertaining to the Google Sandbox.

I didn’t realize how many people did not understand the concept of the Sandbox. The Sandbox is basically a zone that a new site sits in until Google decides it is quality, and should be properly listed in their search engine.

I have to be honest though and say that it has been a huge thorn in my side because I love writing, but my weakness is advertising, and as such, I depend greatly on Google to send me some traffic.

Here is a snippet from the article:

How do I get out of the Sandbox?
First of all, don’t panic. Don’t start second-guessing yourself and tinkering with your entire site. The single best thing you can do to get out of the Sandbox is write quality content, optimize your site and pages for search engines, and repeat. You also need to have patience.

Here are musings about that from Big Oak:

The quick answer to this is yes, there is a way out of the sandbox, but you will not like the answer. The answer is to simply wait. The sandbox filter is not a permanent filter and is only intended to reduce search engine spam. It is not intended to hold people back from succeeding. So eventually, if you continue to build your site as it should be built, you will leave the sandbox and join the other established websites.

If Google is filtering you when it comes to highly competitive keywords, try to find other ways to promote your site. You shouldn’t be solely depending on Google anyways as their rankings change constantly, and an article that might get you thousands of visitors one day, may only bring in one visitor the next.

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One of the most annoying things to deal with as a blogger is the annoyance of having the spelling and grammar police comment on your posts about how you messed up various bits of the English language.

I have to admit that while English is my first language, and really the only one I am competent in, my schooling in its grammar and spelling was pretty horrible. I didn’t learn what a noun or verb was until I was in grade eight, or thirteen years old. I think that is pretty dismal, and while it doesn’t excuse any of the mistakes I, or anyone else makes, readers have to remember that in blogging, it is rare to have an editor, and if there is an editor, he or she probably wasn’t an English major.

Readers should cut bloggers some slack, and try to understand the context of the post, and enjoy the content. I don’t mind when I am corrected on a personal name, or website, but I don’t need to know that I missed a comma.

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