Blogging

Ideas for Blogging, including websites, information, and tips.

Driving Traffic: Ten Tips from Yaro Starak

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In every bloggers life comes a special day – the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else”s blog chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader – you. Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best friend about your new blog but that”s about as far you went when it comes to finding readers.

Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers. These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.

It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called “traction”, which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.

Top 10 Tips

10. Write at least five major “pillar” articles. A pillar article is a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good “how-to” lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn’t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.

9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.

You don”t have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.

8. Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging be serious about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need a easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that”s the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you’ve done a good job!).

7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people’s blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.

Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.

6. Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger”s article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry – it”s sort of like your blog telling someone else’s blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.

This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important – it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will likely come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.

5. Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.

4. Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival often enjoy a spike in new readers.

To find the right blog carnival for your blog, do a search at blogcarnival.com.

3. Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it”s so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it”s worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps!

2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com. This is another tip that doesn’t bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it”s worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have – your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.

How you benefit is through what is called your “Resource Box”. You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.

1. Write more pillar articles. Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I’ve listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won’t stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers.

I hope you enjoyed my list of traffic tips. Everything listed above are techniques I’ve put into place myself for my blogs and have worked for me, however it”s certainly not a comprehensive list. There are many more things you can do. Finding readers is all about testing to see what works best for you and your audience and I have no doubt if you put your mind to it you will find a balance that works for you.

This article was by Yaro Starak, a professional blogger and my blog mentor. He is the leader of the Blog Mastermind mentoring program designed to teach bloggers how to earn a full time income blogging part time.

To get more information about Blog Mastermind click this link:www.BlogMastermind.com

Who is stealing your blog’s content?

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I was browsing some links for my website when I noticed this odd page (see image). And I started reading a ‘response’ to an article I wrote in October, 2007 about the problems of Adsense (original here), I noted that the organisation tone of the article seemed similar to mine, so I checked it out. Voila! Another content thief. This guy stole my entire article, added ten reasons why Adsense is good at the beginning (some most of which is similarly copied – from Problogger’s Article on the same topic, some seems original ) and posted it on his blog.

You can see the original. Then look at this jpeg of the article on his website.

stolen article

This guy stole my article, and even kept the original funky formatting that I used in this article. He didn’t even bother to change anything… just copy and paste. What is a blogger to do? Well, I posted a comment in the article, then fired off a polite cease-and-desist type of letter to his hosting company. It’s amazing how much you can find out from doing a whois search. Within an hour or so, it seems that the owner of this site removed the content as I was forced to go to Google’s cache to see the original entry. It’s still there (though it will be gone soon), and it’s still linked on his blog in his article directory.

shot#3

Basically, though, the site is a splog for articles from article directories and (probably) other stolen articles from innocent bloggers. In fact, the articles from the directory are all unattributed as well, which means that the break the article directories’ TOS. I doubt that anyone would find useful information on the site, which is why I didn’t post any links to this site. No sense giving it link-love.

I guess it’s flattering but it still makes me mad when someone copies my entire article or blog without any attribution or permission to do so. Who knows? If he bothered to ask, I might have said okay. If he had asked. But then thieves don’t ask. They just take.

Shame, Deceit and Double Standards? How to get caught in the trap

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I have recently done two opps for PayPerPost again after nearly six months, and I must say… I was thrilled to be active again when I nabbed a couple of great opps: for a webhosting review site and for a computer repair service. And I really enjoyed writing about both opportunities – I was able to add a lot of my experience to both opps and wrote far and above the minimum requirements of both opps. If you look at them, you’ll see why they are different from some of the other opps that I have seen done by other bloggers. Indeed, there are many fine bloggers in PayPerPost; they also write a lot of wonderful opportunities, you’ll find some of them in my buzzes, others in my friends , and more in my comments.

Coercive Non-Disclosure

no disclosure

I’m pretty sure that’s a phrase you haven’t heard of, it’s not one I had thought of until a few days as affecting bloggers, until I got a rejection for one of my opps in my inbox. I took a look at the comment and was informed that I had failed to abide by one of the requirements, that of disclosing the post. Irony of ironies was that I’ve run a disclosure on my site since late 2006. In fact, in those days, few opps would require such a non-disclosure.

What is Coercive Non-Disclosure?

Coercive Non-Disclosure is a requirement imposed by some advertisers that the blogger NOT reveal the sponsored nature of the post. In other words, the blogger is not able to reveal to his readers that payment is being made. In the beginning, I never used to worry about such things (I’ll be honest about that!), but having worked with several sites on Sponsored Posts, including PayPerPost, SocialSpark, SponsoredReviews, Blogsvertise and one or two others over the past two years, I’ve become MUCH more discerning about such posts, and usually avoid them. In fact, looking through several of these systems, they can constitute upwards of 30%-50% of the available opps. In December or January, I was looking through my own ‘About‘ page, and started reorganizing that, trimming the fat, and trying to make something that resembled what I actually did. In that page, I made a promise to my readers: I will endeavor to disclose that relationship.

Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa

And I did fail at that. Thanks to Payperpost, I got the opportunity to revisit the post, and disclosure page, where I rediscovered that sentence. I faced no other choice: to remove the links, and other accessories. Fortunately, I had written a fairly decent post about servers problems anyway, so the neutered post fitted in well as it was. I’m pleased I spent that much time writing it. However, I had to eat humble pie on that one! So I’m now making my own confession about this. I think I did feel shame about this.

It got me thinking!

I hadn’t paid attention to such posts in the past, but somehow the whole affair got to me. I started to read the Terms of Service that PayPerPost has on their website: it clearly states –

advertising on ppp

Round #1: Needing a Little Support

I’ve created an image showing the TOS as of the writing of this post and linked to it for you to read yourself. Anyway, that’s when I fired off this email to Customer Love: asking whether this coercive non-disclosure isn’t in fact an infringement of their own TOS. I also flagged a few advertised opps to bring it to their attention. This is the email/support ticket I submitted:

It’s come to my notice that a number of advertisers are actually infringing on the rights of bloggers as per your TOS… This is called co-ercive non-disclosure…

Phrases like no-in post disclosure or similar are now illegal under PPP’s TOS: and the statement is NOT hidden away…

Could you comment on this… Please?

Excerpt from TOS
2.1. TRANSPARENCY & DISCLOSURE.

PayPerPost requires full disclosure by all Marketplace participants. Any attempt to instruct, coerce or manipulate a Blogger into hiding the commercial relationship between you and the Blogger may result in removal from the system. Advertiser agrees to comply with Our Advertiser Code of Ethics, the Federal Trade Commission’s Staff Opinion Letter dated December 7, 2006, WOMMA’s Ethical Blogger Contract Guidelines, and all applicable laws and regulations, including but not limited to Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Federal Trade Commission’s Endorsement Guidelines.

Care to make any comments?

I think I was a little mad at the time, because I didn’t argue my case very well. I merely asserted what to me had become obvious. To which, I received a nice reply from Gordon at Customer Love who wrote:

Hi Kenneth,

Thank you for reaching out to us.

All opportunities and blogs that participate in the PPP marketplace do require disclosure. There are 3 types of acceptable disclosure in this marketplace.

  • 1) In post disclosure – e.g. this post is sponsored by ABC company
  • 2) Bubble disclosure – this is the bubble add at the end of a post that states sponsored by ABC Company
  • 3) Site-wide disclosure – this is an overall policy for the blog, where the blogger would have a link to Disclosure Policy, or something similar.

When an advertiser requests no in post disclosure, they are requesting that neither 1 or 2 are used, but 3 must be present, in order for a post to be approved. Therefore, an advertiser’s request for no in-post disclosure is not infringing on the rights of the blogger. If a blogger does not feel comfortable posting for an advertiser that requires only site-wide disclosure, then the blogger has the right to not take the opportunity.

All opportunities are reviewed and approved by IZEA employees. We will not approve any opportunities for which the advertiser is requesting NO disclosure, at all.

I hope that this answers your question.

Best Regards,

Gordon

I wasn’t satisfied with this explanation. Why? Because instead of putting the choice in the hands of the blogger, it clearly allowed the advertiser to dictate WHAT kind of disclosure was required. So I wrote a detailed reply that examined each of the documents that was sited and am posting it below for your information.

Round #2: Reopening Old Wounds

After the ticket was replied by Gordon, he closed it. Mmm. Of course, this was just the thing I needed to start my next rant, this post, and hopefully, an interesting discussion.

I just wanted to say that I took a look at the opp I took and I was personally ashamed about taking an opp that required no inpost disclosure.

I had made a pact with my readers about this a while ago, and hadn’t noticed it until I was forced to look at the post as part of a revision requested by PPP editors.

Unfortunately, when I read the post, the coercive non-disclosure of the posting made me very unhappy… Then when I read the TOS, I began to see things quite differently.

It’s difficult to imagine that this is NOT infringing the rights of the Blogger: “Any attempt to instruct, coerce or manipulate a Blogger into hiding the commercial relationship between you and the Blogger may result in removal from the system. Advertiser agrees to comply with Our Advertiser Code of Ethics, the Federal Trade Commission’s Staff Opinion Letter dated December 7, 2006, WOMMA’s Ethical Blogger Contract Guidelines, and all applicable laws and regulations, including but not limited to Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Federal Trade Commission’s Endorsement Guidelines.”

I fail to see HOW this coercive non-disclosure DOES NOT infringe not only the blogger’s freedom… it is specifically telling the BLOGGER HOW he or she MUST disclose. Moreover, the failure to include a specific disclosure specifically suggest that the post is NOT sponsored, and that therefore the BLOGGER is hiding the nature of the commercial relationship between him- or herself and the advertiser. It is also against the trend of fully disclosing relationships that we see in other media…

But worse, a closer reading of the wording of your own Guide of Ethics states: “That’s why we insist on a strict policy of full-disclosure when you discuss an advertiser’s product or service on your blog. By receiving payment for blogging about a certain topic, even if you would have written about that topic anyway, you run the risk of giving the impression of a conflict of interest. By showing your audience, in a very visible and proactive manner, that you are being paid for that content, you will maintain the trust of your readers and avoid any appearance of impropriety.”

Anything other than stating a particular post is sponsored is not, and cannot be, a full-disclosure. A blogger is hiding details of a relationship under the guise of a general blog disclaimer. Other words that are used include: “conflict of interest”, “impropriety”, … I’m sure you can pick up a few more.

Having read through the letter from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), I can only cite the conclusion of the letter: “the decision … should NOT (my emphasis) be construed as a formal Commission determination…”. Such lack of specific guidelines are only appropriate at the time the letter was issued (nearly 3 years ago!)…

As far as the WOMMA guidelines go, I can’t see how coercive non-disclosure in posts is NOT in contravention of this spirit. The words read: “… we do instruct them to be open and honest about any relationship with a marketer and about any products or incentives that they may have received.
* We stand against shill and undercover marketing, whereby people are paid to make recommendations without disclosing their relationship with the marketer.
* We comply with FTC regulations that state: “When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product which might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience) such connection must be fully disclosed.”

Gordon, I’m sure that you know the guidelines at least 10x better than I do, yet I fail to see how PPP can condone such a practice. PPP is barely within its own TOS, its clearly contravening the spirit of the law, though the letter of the law may not be spelled out clearly as yet, and it’s way over the limit in terms of WOMMA’s Code of Ethics.

Don’t get wrong, Gordon, … I’m a huge supporter of PPP, but I stopped using other services when almost 90% of the posts required non-disclosure. After looking at my opps yesterday, I saw 2/3rds of them also required coercive non-disclosure. It’s that hidden, secretive nature of paid blogging that is really undermining the whole industry. On this point, Payperpost SERIOUSLY needs to reconsider its position, and make the RIGHT decision for its own advertisers, bloggers, and their readers. Otherwise the lawyers will have a field day, if they have a chance, and Ted’s dream will be sued out of existence.

BTW, to open up discussion on this whole issue, I’m posting it on my blog for my own readers to discuss. I’d certainly be grateful of feedback on this issue, if you have time, though you seem to regard this issue as already decided. I’m not so sure the FTC feels that way, though.

Having read through the letter from the FTC, the words that keep coming to mind are: ‘deceit’, ‘trickery’, ‘omission’, etc… Since I reopened the ticket, I’m still looking to a reply from Gordon. This is a crack that’s been open for a while, and hasn’t been repaired properly yet. Let’s see if they see it that way, though!

Personal Reflections

Regardless of the way PayPerPost’s lawyers choose to frame the discussion, I’m finding myself somewhat unhappy nowadays with the sense that I’m working with a company or advertiser that would encourage me to engage in such practices. I’m happy though to be working with PayPerPost’s successor, SocialSpark. Though SocialSpark is a sister company of PayPerPost, and the TOS is remarkably similar in this paragraph:

SocialSpark requires full disclosure by all Marketplace participants. Any attempt to instruct, coerce or manipulate a Blogger into hiding the commercial relationship between you and the Blogger may result in removal from the system. Advertiser agrees to comply with Our Advertiser Code of Ethics, the Federal Trade Commission’s Staff Opinion Letter dated December 7, 2006, WOMMA’s Ethical Blogger Contract Guidelines, and all applicable laws and regulations, including but not limited to Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act and the Federal Trade Commission’s Endorsement Guidelines.

I know for a fact that SocialSpark does not permit such disclosure practices, all posts are fully disclosed. I’m quite perplexed how an identical statement can be used to say one thing for SocialSpark, and another for PayPerPost. Given that SocialSpark is considered to be PPP2.0 in many respects, it’s quite clear that PPP’s current view of such coercive arrangements is not how things will be done at some point. I, however, feel that we need to press harder for clearer standards on this point.