Category Archives: Quick Notes

Blog Advertising Audit

Darren Rowse, of Problogger.net, has written a post as part of his 31 Days to a Better Blog project, in which he recommends that we all take some time and look over the advertising on our blog. You might find that you could be making much more money using a different advertiser or even just position advertisements differently.

A snippet from his post:

Pick one aspect of your blog’s ads to change and watch what happens to your ads performance once you have. I did this last week and increased the ad unit size of my AdSense ads on this blog from 300 x 250 to 336 x 280 and saw a jump in CTR without losing much in the way of readability. It’d been a year since I tweaked those ad sizes – just think about how much money I’ve lost in that time!

This is something that I try to do on all of my blogs every two or three months. People can quickly become blind to the advertisements on your blog, and so just changing the position, size or colours of those ads can increase their click through rate for a period of time.

Some people worry about moving things around and lowering the money they make, but as long as you make a backup of the files you are changing before you change them, you can always revert back to the way it was previously.

Advertising online is a tricky business, but with some time, experimentation, and research, there is no reason why any blog couldn’t make a bit more every month.

Originally posted on February 1, 2010 @ 10:27 pm

Too Many Choices, Too Much Content

Sarah Perez, a Grand Effect founder, wrote an amazing post on ReadWriteWeb about the issue plaguing many bloggers and social media fans currently: there are too many choices.

Sometimes it’s just hard to keep up. In this technology-focused niche we all live in there are new applications, new initiatives, and new platforms that spring up every day, not to mention constantly breaking news that fills our RSS readers. Take a day off and you’re behind. Take an hour off and you just missed 300 more blog posts. In addition to the everyday struggles of information overload the average computer user deals with – like the overflowing inbox, for example – those in the internet/new media/technology space aren’t just overwhelmed with new content, but also with new applications and choices to manage that content. What’s a web-app loving person to do?

I have found this to be a huge issue in my time as a full time blogger, and it was only made worse by all of the new sites and services that have been added. Check out the article, and just by scanning down through it quickly looking at all of the links added to the post, you can see the issue as bright as day.

Currently, there is no real solution that has come to light, but I have always tried to reduce the number of sites and services I am actively following and look for certain ways to filter out the news, posts, and content so that I don’t get too overloaded. It has been hard, and I have been unsuccessful a few times, but fighting to remain relevant while not overloaded is a never ending battle.

Originally posted on May 17, 2010 @ 5:59 pm

How to Start Looking for a Better Job

LifeSpy, a site I used to own, has a great article on how to look for a new and better job. The article could be used for finding any type of job, even one in online publishing as a paid blogger.

Broadcast. Your boss is probably not the person to know that you’re looking for a better, higher-paying job, but tell your colleagues and friends that you are on the lookout for another job. Your friends/colleagues may know people who can help you get a job interview. If you’ve been wise enough, you should probably now have a good base of contacts. Some of the companies that you’ve dealt with may have openings here and there.

Surf. The internet has an amazing network of resources and you can maximize your internet connection by checking out sites which have regular job postings. If you feel guilty doing job hunting during office hours, do it in between breaks so you can search for available jobs without using up your work time. Now if you know that the office network’s a secure one, for the love of all that’s living, do it elsewhere. Your snotty network administrators may intercept your activity and get you fired in no time.

Searching for a job can be difficult, but if you take the time to search around online, there are some great resources. I know a few people that have found decent blogging jobs on the Problogger Job Board so check it out if what you are looking for is a problogging job. I, personally, couldn’t recommend this career path enough.

Originally posted on June 24, 2010 @ 12:49 pm

7 Things You Need to Know About Writing Lists That Work

Copyblogger is an expert when it comes to using the power of making list posts. He has done wonders with them, and so have many other bloggers, all thanks to the fact that none of us have any attention span.

Simply put, lists work because they conform to the idea of “Left-Brain Marketing”. Everyone has two sides of the brain, and each part controls a specific way of thinking. The left brain is analytical, and prefers a step-by-step approach (i.e. lists) while the right brain prefers to see the big picture first and then deal with the details later.

Television commercials take the right brain approach with highly-produced images and expensive repetition. On the other hand, the left brain list format has been a successful approach for many decades with direct marketers, magazine publishers, late-night comedians and more recently with Internet content producers and social media marketers.

Many social media users want to know exactly what they’re in for, and the list format caters specifically to that need. It lets them know up front in the headline what to expect and what the time commitment will be.

If you want to gain some attention to your blog, set up a few list posts about pretty much anything, and you will most likely see some decent return. I, for one, hate the longer 101 items lists, but give me a dozen points on being more productive, and I will probably read it.

Originally posted on March 1, 2010 @ 11:47 pm

40+ Firefox Add-ons for High Speed Blogging

Mashable has a list of some great add-ons you can use with the Firefox web browser in order to blog faster and easier. Many of the items in the list are for specific blogging platforms like WordPress, LiveJournal and Blogger, but others are for dealing with photos, advertising, web development and search engine optimization.

Firefox works great on its own, but it’s the thousands of extensions that make it excel. We’ve pulled together more than 40 add-ons for Firefox that provide quick access to handy blogging tools. But whatever you do, don’t install them all at once.

Check out Mashable’s 40+ Firefox Add-ons for High Speed Blogging.

Originally posted on August 9, 2010 @ 1:26 pm