Every blogger knows that links are important, but, the quality of a link varies enormously. These are some of the factors that determine the quality of the link to your site.
Number of links on a page.
If your link is the only one on the page, it will have much more weight, than if it is one link out of 100. In the initial creation of Google’s page rank. The strength of a link was determined by a random walk model. If you goto a page, how much chance is there that the visitor will click on the link to your site. Clearly if there are only a few links, there is a higher chance people will click so Google give it a higher weighting.
For example, Blog Carnivals are a good way to get links, but, the quality is invariably reduced because there can be upto 100 links on the blog post.
A link on a sidebar is good. But, if there are 100s of links on the sidebar, its weighting is reduced.
Relevance of Link.
This is very important. Why would a blog on cycling link to a site on life insurance. If you have a blog on life insurance, you need to get links from finance sites, preferably sites about life insurance. If you have a link to life insurance on a blog about poetry, there is a higher chance google might suspect it is a paid link.
Duplicate Content.
Sometimes I see other blogs copying my content and giving a link back to my site. This splog is of little benefit. Sites with duplicate content are not given high weighting by Google, so their links will be less important.
What is Purpose of Site?
If the site’s purpose is to give links to other sites, I feel this reduces the quality of the link. For example, anyone can write an article on an ezine and get a link back to their site. Because everyone can do it and because ezines link to so many sites, I feel that the quality of the link is reduced. It is the same with blog directories and link directories. Their main purpose is to give links, nobody actually reads these sites because they have no interest. Therefore, the power of a link is reduced.
If the site offers high quality articles and doesn’t link out to all and sundry the power of the link is worth more.
When we start blogging, we feel like a beggar. We have to work really hard for the smallest amount of traffic and 10cents from Google adsense. But, what keeps us going is the knowledge some bloggers have risen through the ranks from being another anonymous blogger to raking in $1000s a week. These are the evolotionary stages of being a blogger. Maybe you see yourself amongst these different stages
1. What is a blog?
Did anybody read the manual “how to blog” before starting? I doubt it - I didn’t. Most bloggers stumble into blogging without really planning it. In the process we go through alternating periods of excitement and frustration as we learn through our own mistakes.
2. I’m going to do this properly Now.
We leave our free .blogspot domain and finally get a proper domain name, with reliable hosting. We even starting reading other blogs which offer blogging tips. We realise that blogging isn’t as easy as we first imagined, but some bloggers have really made it work for them.
3. Adsense Enthusiasm Stage.
Religiously checking our statistics, we find we have just earnt our first dollar in a day. ! Suddenly our mind jumps into calculation mode. If we can earn 1 dollar from 1 adsense block. If we triple the advertising we can triple our earnings. Then if we increase the number of pages and the number of blogs… well in 6 months we’ll be earning 4 figures a day! In the enthusiasm for adsense dollars, our blog is given 3 really large adsense blocks. To us, these adsense blocks look beautiful because they are going to enable us to retire in 2 years time. The fact this may put off readers conveniently escapes our attention.
4. Blogs spring up like Mushrooms only to fade away.
In our new found enthusiasm, we also start off blogs on every topic we have the slightest interest in. We spend time setting them up, only to realise we do not have time to maintain them properly. Slowly our blogs fall by the wayside, to join the millions of other blogs sharing the same fate.
4. Adsense Reality
What happened? I tripled the amount of adsense ads and now my earnings are going down. Despair sets in - I’m never going to make a living online: 10 hours a day for 50 cents per day. That makes a pretty bad hourly rate, I’d earn more picking sugar cane in Cuba. This stage can often be the end for some bloggers. However, others may be able to get past this stage by being patient and / or the fact they enjoy their blog anyway. A good blogger will learn from his over-enthusiasm; he cuts back on his advertising and concentrates on developing his blog in a sensible / long term fashion.
5. Do anything for that big link.
Our new strategy is to gain readers through commenting on other blogs. We also aspire for that elusive link from an A list blogger, or getting on the front page of Digg. This stage often ends in disappointment; our submissions fly of the new section of digg, before we can even say “digg is so unfair and unjust.” We write to A list bloggers and are bemused as to why they don’t share our enthusiasm for our best article: “top 10 ways to get links” (hint: other people have probably written on this topic already)
A newbie blogger is liable to be overwhelmed by the sheer number of different aspects that go into blogging. It is hard to know where to spend your time and energies.
This is what I suggest in terms of priorities.
Write.
You have to write good articles. It is advisable to write 5-7 really good articles. These articles should set the tone of the blog. They are the kind of articles that you would be happy to put in a selection - ‘Recommended Reading’. You can highlight these excellent articles, so that people who come across your blog will read them and want to bookmark it. Without good content everything else is a waste of time.
Links.
You can write 1,000 excellent articles, but, if you have no inbound links, if you don’t tell anyone about your blog you should expect 0 traffic. You may get the odd short burst of traffic from blog posts, but, these will soon tail off (google, give new blog posts high rankings for about a week before dropping there rankings.) Getting links is an art. The most important is to have some good content. View - How to get links to your blog
Note: Links should be natural. You want to slowly build up the number of links that you get. Don’t wait 6 months and then think - I’ll get a 100 links this week. It doesn’t work like that. Google want to see a steady progression of links. The sooner you start the better. If you don’t get any links you will be demoralised by the lack of traffic.
Note: I will be writing more advice about links soon.
Not every article has to be very indepth. It is good to offer a mix of long and short posts.
Encourage Subscribers.
This is similar to point number 2. Subscribers are the best way to build your blog and gain natural links over time. See: How To increase RSS subscribers. You should look to start building RSS subscribers soon after writing your first 10 articles.
Good Design
A new blogger should get a good design. This is essential for attracting new subscribers and links. However, you don’t want to spend too much time because there is a lot to learn in this area. I advise using a free template and pay for a really great logo. People don’t expect perfection in design. Something clean and simple will keep you going until you make the big time. But, you want to stand out from the crowd.
Things For New Bloggers To Avoid
Looking for affiliate programs.
There is no point trying affiliate programs when your trafffic is small. Get traffic first before worrying about advertising.
I am amazed at the difference between traffic for blog pages and static pages. On my economics site by google blogger blog has 423 posts and gets on average 4,000 daily page impressions by Google Analytics. A static section of my site has 130 pages and gets on average 35 page impressions by Google analytics. A post on a blog gives a ratio of 10 page views per post. A static page gives an average of 0.3 pages.
It would be interesting to understand the disparity between blog pages and static html pages.
One potential reason is that the static pages are generally shorter.
Maybe their keywords are not so good. Although I tried on both sections to choose ‘keyword friendly’ titles.
Maybe google give higher rankings to blogs, especially with a reasonable RSS susbcriber count?
But, it gives a clear incentive to add blog pages rather than static pages. In fact, I ended up adding a second blog, because I didn’t want to overwhelm the first blog with too many posts.
Another issue worth mentioning is that blog posts often give ‘temporary traffic’ For example, I have a few pages such as Euro 2008 forecasts, which is giving good traffic during 2008, but, will obviously drop off next year. Even blog posts without dates often give diminishing returns over time. I think what is happening is that Google, give a higher weighting to recent blog posts because this is often what people are searching - recent posts.
It may also depend on the niche of the Blog Website. On another site www.biographyonline.net , the results are less conclusive. Here the static pages get a similar level of traffic to the blog pages (although here the blog has only 123 pages). The difference here might be that the static part of the section is actually a higher quality than the blog. In depth biographies are given static pages. Blog entries are shorter snippets. Also biographies don’t lend themselves to blogging. I mean dead people are more suited to a static site than a constantly updating blog. So in this niche, people don’t want blog entries, but, in economic, recent events are more important.
I would be interested if anyone else have evidence of traffic volumes for blog posts vs static pages?
Yesterday, I mentioned the importance of getting a good logo. A good logo does several things including helping to build your blog brand.
Importance of Branding Your Blog
Helps you to stand out from the crowd
Makes your blog memorable, rather than another statistic
A strong brand will make people take more notice. For example, if Problogger writes a post about linking it has more authority than if some unknown blogger wrote the same thing on a .blogspot domain.
Helps to tell readers what your blog is about. - Too many blogs fail to do that. You can there and you have to work out what it’s all about.
How To Develop Your Blog Brand
Pick a catchy and memorable title and tagline.
Have a distinctive blog design. At least get a custom designed logo.
Have a clear purpose for the blog. (note don’t feel obliged to get that purpose straight off, sometimes it becomes clearer after first few weeks blogging)
Stick to certain topics / style.
Write in a consistent way.
Quality is preferable to quantity when writing posts. Many high RSS subscriber blogs have a weekly output of 2-3 posts.
Give it a Personal Perspective. Writing from experience or with real life examples helps to make the blog more interesting and memorable.
Look at Professional companies and how they build brand loyalty and brand differentiation. Visit Bonbrand for ideas.
Many bloggers are reluctant to spend any money on blogging. There is often a notion that bloggers should be able to do everything and there is no need to spend money. However, if we try to specialise in everything, we spend too long learning how to do things. Yes, a blogger needs to be a jack of all trades, but, there are some things which are better to pay other people to do.
In the beginning of my blogging I designed a lot of my own logos; they weren’t bad, but, they weren’t great. Then I started paying professionals to design a logo. For a relatively modest investment you get a good return.
The visual impact of a blog is important - it says a lot about the standard of your blog; and creates a positive or negative first time impression - depending on how it looks. I do recommend paying for a good logo. This will help your blog stand out from the crowd and draw people to subscribe, bookmark and link to it.
If you’re too tight to pay $50 for a good logo, you will always struggle to become a professional blogger.
Just a light hearted look at irritating people who might work in an office near you. Sources: The Office, places where I have worked.
1. Boss Pleaser.
A Boss pleaser will dress like his boss. He will found out what the interests of his boss are; even if it is building model trains the eager to please worker will develop a fascination with the latest Hornby 00 model. He will drop into conversations flattery and false impressions of being interested in model railways. - Anything to win the favour of the boss. You can see the insincerity of this approach, but the really annoying thing is that the boss falls for it every time.
2. I’ll Be Getting a Much Better Job Soon Anyway.
You’ve been working away in an office for 5 years, you know it’s not the best job in the world but the last thing you need is some smart alec college graduate who has only taken the job temporarily before he gets ‘A high flying job in the city’ The spoilt grad spends his 6 weeks saying he will soon be leaving this ‘dead end job’ and ‘dead end company’ If you had any illusions about the nature of your job, this temporary worker will make it very clear for you.
3. Office Pedant
“Sorry, I don’t mean to be pedantic but, the stapler really doesn’t live on this desk does it?”
The office pedant will see problems where there are none. Minor breaches of office etiquette became battlegrounds of supreme importance. It doesn’t matter if you lose out on orders worth £100,000, it is more important that you get the colour scheme of your filing system correct. There is no way to beat the office pedant, there will always be some minor infraction - paper clip out of place, health and safety, missed internal deadline - the list is endless. Don’t try appealing to common sense, this will really drive them crazy.
4. Claim Credit for Things They Didn’t Do.
A lazy worker is not so bad, but, when they start claiming credit for things they didn’t do, they become positively irritating. Some workers have a remarkably short memory, they will allow other people to think of ideas, work hard and then at just the right moment will come into the picture and claim it was their own idea from start to finish. Not only that, but often they are ideas they opposed. But, when they see that they work, they want to see them as their own. This could be your boss or it may be someone from another department. It’s difficult to deal with because you have to either ignore it or descend to their level and battle to point out how they actually had nothing to do with it.
5. Criticise Other People
Sometimes, it’s hard not to find some faults with people. But, nobody needs the professional critic. The critics will always be pointing out the faults major or minor, with everyone from office cleaner to Chief Executive office. The only person they don’t criticise is themselves (who of course is perfect)
6. Patronising.
“well, you have good intentions, but…
“With respect, I think…”
“Thank - you, if you leave it on my desk, I will have a look in due course…
“That’s very good, now can you go and make me a cup of tea, lov”
Some bosses specialise in being patronising. No matter what you or they say, you can’t help but come away with a feeling of being as insignificant as an ant.
Just in case you need some writing inspiration. Every year, English teachers from across the USA can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays. These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year’s winners:
1. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli, and he was room temperature Canadian beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
6.He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.
8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.
9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.
10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.
