WARNING: I AM BREAKING THE RULES HERE . This post is neither short, pithy, or catered to web-ADHD. This post is for people with an adult-level attention span. If that is not you, go check out Gawker or Boing Boing for your sugar rush. Thanks! There are too many traffic tips out there. Way too many. There are too many Top 10 lists and too many How-to articles about getting traffic to your blog. With so many "Easy Steps" lists relating to traffic, why is blogging such a revolving door? It is, you realize. There's a reason that most of the "professional blogger" sites cater their content to newbies and neophytes. New bloggers quit, newer bloggers show up. Old bloggers don't need all this advice. They need some, but not this much . You see, new bloggers are, in fact, a market segment. Are we tracking? It's far too easy to find newbie blogging tips. The bitch of it is, most of these lists omit, downplay or vague-out on the most important tip there is . Let...

Miracle Traffic Bot Remember: Adsense doesn't make you money; traffic makes you money Write posts that link to good content on higher-ranked sites in your niche. If your traffic is low, click on those links yourself - webmasters will take notice. Post on forums in your niche and add your site to your signature Submit articles to article directories Use Technorati Tags Submit your best articles to Digg and Del.icio.us Comment on other blogs with similar themes to yours Become a regular on several similarly-themed blogs you like Use Google Sitemaps Write about well-known people in your niche Use a blogroll, but only add sites that you would really recommend. Less is more. Read Problogger Remember: Good content + good advertising = traffic Choose a niche you're passionate about Post/write an article/add content every day ( update : or don't ) Make your content unique and useful Be timely: break news, comment on new information, become a valuable source of i...

Related Post: Are Professional Bloggers Out of Touch? tagsters: nick denton , gawker , gawker media

Tom says you are . Not sure I want to use that particular term, but I like the article. Here's the summary: 1 . Join the conversation. I.e., don't expect traffic to come to you just because you're adding content to your blog. Get out there and comment, people will take notice and check you out. While I agree with this, it really depends on the kind of content you're writing. For instance, this blog gets a lot more traffic from web searches, Technorati and other blog directories than I could ever get from commenting on other blogs. I could probably stop commenting on other blogs without any significant loss in traffic; but being a traffic ho' pretty much guarantees that won't happen. 2 . Don't spend too much time trying to get links from the big boys. If a site like Problogger linked to you, you'd get a bunch of traffic; but a site like Problogger probably won't link to you. Focus your traffic efforts elsewhere (say, on blogs that aren't miles ahe...

Adsense, as we know it, is ending. (Not really.) But a title at Copyblogger that reads, " It’s the End of AdSense as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) ", does make it sound that way. The post itself is referring to this li'l report here ; a study finding that advertisers wasted about $800 million on bogus clicks in 2005. It found that 15% of clicks are dirty. That's not just Adsense click fraud; they're talking about Yahoo and all the rest as well. Are we surprised? Nah'. Most Adwords advertisers are already well aware that conversion rates on ads that run on independent websites (as opposed to search results) are For Sucks, in general. However, depending on the kind of ads you're running and the ratio of slimy-suck-punk ass websites to good websites they show up on, it can be worth it. Personally, the ads I run show up on Google searches only. For instance, I'm fond of selling Rhapsody (aff) subscriptions, but running those ads on independent websites i...

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Please, please: don't post on your whereabouts. We don't care where you are. Looking around for new feeds to suck on (stop it), I came across a "popular blog" -- or shall I say "successful blog"? -- whatever; it was a blog that people think is all that . The first two posts were all about some trip to somewhere-or-other and what country said blogger currently was in. Blink. Yawn. Bye. Sure, the blogger in question probably doesn't care that he's losing a potential subscriber here and there due to putting them to sleep; after all, the money's rolling in. But hey, just because you're making a bunch of money doesn't mean you can't make more . This is America. And if you don't happen to be a "successful blogger"/"pro blogger"/"numero uno blogger", you really can't afford to be the blogging sandman. So, tell us something cool. Your geographical disposition is, shall we say, not. If you have already co...

This is just way too much drama over putting a little Adsense banner on her blog. I don't mean to laugh at her pain... and I didn't. I just smiled a little. Woke Up This Morning : "I don't know if you noticed the adverts that appeared on the left hand side. I always said I would rather stick a fork in my eye that(sic) put adverts on my site, and let me tell you, if I could find a fork, I might be heading towards a hospital right about now." (...insert more self-loathing...) And then the best part: "If it makes you feel any better, I labelled the div they are contained in "sellout" because that is what it is." Ouch. Looking over the blog, I'd hardly call it a charity gig. Just a web diary-type affair. Nothing wrong with getting a little ad revenue to cover the costs. But you know, if it causes you this much pain to use Adsense, why not consider a tip jar ? Hell, you could even call it a "Karma Jar". Tags: adsense , advertising , ti...

Being a Ticking Timebomb of Rage (as you do) while surfing around today, hated things started coming to mind. About blog posts. It's easy to find fault in others (and fun, too); but I started wondering, do I do the same things? Since it's nearly impossible to impartially judge your own writing, why not judge other people's writing, find what sucks, and then look for the same problems in your own? Next best thing. So, a list of Hated Things was formed (enjoyable in itself), and then compared to my own posting habits. The results were illuminating. What this article isn't: This isn't really about the "rules" of writing, or even advice on how to write well. It's about writing for yourself. You've seen it; the advice articles encouraging you to "write for yourself first". I can't personally vouch for the money-making power of "writing for yourself first" - I'm sure others can - but who cares? Finding The Money is about doin...

6/30/06 How-to guides good , remember? Step-by-step guide to adding Google Sitemaps to your blogger page. Thanks to Randy for pointing it out. BDSM: Baptist Doing Some Muckraking Okay, it's not muckraking; but it worked for the acronym. :/ Darren of Problogger interviews an adult-content publisher . Darren's a Baptist Minister, which makes it fun. Great interview, at any rate. "Content Feed" sounds pretty good (because "RSS" is hard to sell) You like good content; I like good content. If you, like me, enjoy good content that also happens to involve one blogger trashing another blogger's post, read How to Sell RSS (Or Where the Feed Fanboys Drop the Ball). (And while you're at, build your fan club . I'll join.) Tags: google , sitemaps , adult , rss , feed , problogger , besting adwords , copyblogger

Ivan the Optimiser explains how he did it. "Ivan". Heh. Problogger also has some stuff on the subject, as I recall.

Behind the Scenes in the Blogosphere Great reading. A fair amount of it is focused on blogs as corporate/business extensions, but there's plenty on successful independent blogs.

Google is all over the place these days. Looks like Gbuy may be going beta within the week. According to CNN : "To attract customers, Google plans to offer an unspecified rebate to people who make online purchases using the service, known as Gbuy, the Journal said. The service, which would challenge payment options by eBay's PayPal and others, has been expected for several months, the newspaper said." I also heard that Adwords advertisers would be getting discounted rates as well.

Get over there and absorb the goodness. Darren writes: "Following is my A to Z of Professional blogging including blogging tools, platforms, services and ways of making money from blogging (in fact whether you blog for money or not much of what follows should help you improve your blogging)."

Hey newbies, welcome to my club. Have a new(ish) blog? Unhappy with the traffic it's getting? The Voices of Wisdom are going to tell you that you can't expect any good traffic with a new blog. Unless you're a genius, or lucky. Or you bought it. Far be it from me to question the Voices of Wisdom, but blah blah blah... whatever. Sure you can. Of course, our idea of "good traffic" might not resemble theirs. After all, they haven't been newbies for a long time. At any rate, I had good traffic within about 30 hours. I say "good" because: 1. It was traffic, and 2. I made Adsense revenue by day 2. I don't consider it "luck" (this isn't the first time I've had results like this), and if you look around my blog, I'll agree with you this ONE time - for argument's sake - that I'm not a "genius". And God knows I didn't buy it. So, ruling out luck, genius, or paid-for advertising, how do newbs like us get our ide...

This post has nothing to do with cooking . Blogspot's Minima template is great and all, but I was really needing an extra column. Pam of Random Bytes saved the day . If you want to change your Blogspot template, go there. That is all.

Google Tutor has a Sitemaps intro you'll want to check out if you aren't using it. (If you're using Blogger, Sitemaps now lets you verify your site just by putting some code in your template; so you're cool.) SilentBits has a post on top 20 blog designs. Successful Blog gives info on two standalone trackback tools . Thanks, Liz. Top blog designs. Huh. Does a slick design really matter for blogs? Ebay and Craigslist can apparently get away with being ugly, but those aren't blogs. However, I have seen some evidently popular blogs that won't be winning any beauty pageants (in this dimension, anyway). Thoughts?

So, I mentioned the trend of popular blogs run by white bald guys . I was so not kidding. The Five Darren of Problogger Blog : General blog money-making stuff. Random info: What he says about The Bald. Jeremy of Shoemoney Blog: Internet money-making. Random info: Randy of Besting Adwords is mad at him. Stowe of Get Real Blog: Tech news Random info: He changed his picture at some point and somebody cared . Seth of SGB . Blog: Marketing-type info Random info: He thinks all marketers are liars . Craig of Craigblog Blog: Whatever interests the Craigslist guy. Random info: I hate their forum system . And an Honorable Mention: Steve of Micro Persuasion Blog: Marketing and what-not Random info: You don't get a random blurb for being a runner-up. Not necessarily a bad thing.

Internet access was down for me since yesterday morning. How dare they? It's back now, and so am I. And bad, I might add. While I was away my "Shoemoney Dirty?" post got a lot of attention; maybe I'm committing blogger suicide? One can only hope. What's up with popular blogs being run by white bald guys, anyway?

YPN Showcases spammer : "I found YPN's showcasing with Jeremy Shoemaker pretty disturbing. Jeremy runs a Website called ShoeMoney.com which I recently found was spamming me. I sent Jeremy a reply indicating that spamming was against the AdSense terms. He replied 'I guess its a good thing I dont use adsense anymore ;)'. I noticed he had converted entirely to YPN. Anybody know the reason? Was he banned from AdSense for spamming? I replied back that Yahoo! doesn't permit spamming either, but haven't heard further. This last email was sent only yesterday and today he's highlighted by YPN. It's pretty disturbing to me that Yahoo! is showcasing a spammer, but it's entirely possible that they don't know he's a spammer, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Please spread this blog entry, if only to educate Yahoo! about who they are dealing with. http://ypnblog.com/blog/2006/06/21/publisher-spotlight-6/ "