6 figure blogging 6

Six Figure Blogging

© 2005 Andy Wibbels and Darren Rowse. All Rights Reserved. http://www.sixfigureblogging.com/ v 1.0

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Six Figure Blogging Class 6 Transcript

Andy: Welcome to our final call for Six Figure Blogging. This is the terrifying

conclusion or exciting conclusion, one of those! So Darren, we wanted to finish

up with week five right?

Writing Quality Content (cont’d)

Darren: That is right. I think from memory we were working through the

writing quality content page.

Andy: Right.

4. Make Your Blog Scannable

Darren: For your blog and we got up to point four or five. I think we got

through ‘make it scannable’. I’ll race through that a little bit but basically ‘make it

scannable’ is about trying to make it visually able to be read very quickly to

communicate your main points through lists, formatting, headings. Keep in mind

here is that the limited time that people will spend on your site and so you want

to communicate quickly.

5. Use Names

Darren: Number five there is using names. This is something that I’ve found to

be really important. I haven’t got the source of this statistic but it is one that

stuck in my mind. 28% of Google searches are for product name. So 28% of

people searching Google for a particular product, an additional 9% are searching

for brand names and another 5% are searching for company names.

So if you think about it, that is like 42% percent of people are searching the

internet for names of products, companies or brands which is a significant

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amount if you think about how many people are using the internet. Again, add to

that the amount of people that want to search for people’s names.

Andy: Right.

Darren: And for the names of movies, for the names of sports, and for the

names of events and you actually begin to see a trend there that names are

actually vitally important as you think about your niche.

Andy: Because that is often how people think is in what they already know. They

may not know how to phrase the question to get the search results but they know

what brand names or book titles or movie names or celebrities that are around

the topic.

Darren: That is vitally important. One that you put those names in your content

but even more so like we talked about last week in your title. I would actually

recommend that if you are going to write a post about a particular title then that

particular name of a product then actually just the name of that product is the

most effective way of getting picked up in search engines rather than the cryptic

titles that we were talking about last week.

If I am writing about a Canon E820D camera, then that is the first thing that I’ll

have in my title. It will be right up at the top of my content as well in bold

because I know that is what people are searching for.

They’ll be searching for reviews of that. So often if it is a review of that that I am

writing, then that title ‘Cannon E820D Review’, that is very effective. I find that

most people coming to my site are actually looking for those particular names. So

you want to be predicting what people are searching for in that way.

6. One Idea Per Post

Darren: Number six there is one idea per post. This is partly about search

engine optimization. The search engines get a little bit confused when you write

one post that has three or four different ideas in it.

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So what I tend to do is break up my longer posts into a series of posts so that

each post in that series is on a particular idea. If I am writing about how to find

readers for your blog, I might do a series on how to find readers for your blog

rather than just one with twenty different ways of finding readers for your blog.

So if people are searching the internet for particular information within that

series, they’ll find that post.

It is also important for AdSense as well. If you are running textual advertising on

your site and you have a page which has something with ten or so different ideas

in it, it will actually confuse AdSense a little bit. So I find one idea per post works

quite well.

Andy: Yes, it is that whole idea of granularity where it is not just one website but

posts which is one measure and then there are individual comments, and

individual categories. It is the whole idea of granularity of the information. It is

not just, “Go to my website but that you can go to this particular permalinked

post for this particular topic.”

7. Break Longer Posts Into a Series of Short Posts

Darren: That is right and the beauty, number seven there is break down your

longer posts into a series. The other part of that is that it creates anticipation

over time on your blog. So if you announce I am writing a series on ‘Finding

Readers for Your Blog,’ I’ll know that that is going to get people coming back to

my blog for as long as that series goes.

It will actually create some anticipation and momentum around that. I did the 31

Days to a Better Blog series in August and that created so much anticipation and

spin and buzz around the internet. I was quite amazed by it. So series of posts are

really important.

Topic: What is the Optimal Length for a Post?

Participant: What have you found is the optimal length for a typical post?

http://www.problogger.net/archives/category/31-days-to-building-a-better-blog/

http://www.problogger.net/archives/category/31-days-to-building-a-better-blog/

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Darren: I again, I think I mentioned it last week. Really I don’t have any set

rules around that. I would encourage people to go for two hundred words or

more just for search engine reasons. Probably the most important is about

establishing a pattern on your blog so people come to expect the same types of

posts whether that be the length or the voice that you are writing in. I would say

over two hundred. Once you get into really long like you have to scroll down two

or three pages to get to the end of the thing, the studies show that people will

drop off as you go down. So I try and keep it probably up to a thousand words.

Most of my posts would be probably around three or four hundred word mark, I

would say.

Participant: Ok and the second, I have three questions in a row here. The

second one is how many words do you put in your RSS feed?

Darren: I do an excerpt on mine because I found that a lot of people just scrape

through my content straight on to their websites.

Andy: Right.

Darren: I actually don’t know how much that excerpt is but if you looked on

Problogger RSS feed, you would be able to count it up. It is probably forty words

or so.

Andy: And depending on what tool you are using, you can also have the excerpt

field. So it is not just grabbing the first fifty words of the post body but it is

grabbing what you type in the excerpt. You can also do the ReMovable Type and

TypePad, I think.

Participant: Right, which brings up my third question which is, is it better to

have shorter on the index page but then have goes into the whole article or the

whole thing there on the index page? In other words, I use the Movable Type all

excerpt tool, that kind of question.

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Darren: Yes, I tend to use the extended post feature on Movable Type and

WordPress. So if I am writing a very long article, I’ll only put the first few

paragraphs on the front page.

Participant: Yes, ok. So as a rule, you have them go to two pages?

Darren: Yes, usually after two or three paragraphs depending on how long

those paragraphs are. Ideally I love people to be able to see when they come to

my site, the first two post headings.

Participant: Ok, part of the reason I ask this is as I’ve gone around and looked

at the other blog networks. What I’ve come to see is that everybody is writing real

short stuff. One paragraph and that is it.

Darren: I see the advantage of that and I see why they are doing that but I

personally think that if they are wanting search engines traffic, then they’ll need

something longer than that to get enough content. So the search engines, I think,

they like two or three hundred words ideally.

Participant: I don’t disagree with you at all. The point I have is what you get

when you pay bloggers by the post.

Darren: That is exactly right.

Participant: Ok thanks.

Andy: And then my point of view on that is that you want to get people off your

front page. If you want to think of the cold hard marketing bastard approach to

this, we either want them to click on an ad or to go further into the site and then

click on an ad.

So the front page is going to have maybe six posts on it that all have different

topics. So the contextual ads on that page aren’t going to be as focused around

one particular post. But if you split that post, get the person on to the

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permalinked page, the page for just that post, then the contextual ads, all that

stuff, is going to make more sense in the context of the post.

Darren: Exactly. Every time you get people to look at another page, you are one

step closer to making them a loyal reader.

Andy: Yes.

Darren: So if every page you get them deeper into your site there are benefits to

get. So you want to get people going into your categories exploring some of your

key posts so that is why I highlight my key posts on my menus. Actually show

people your best stuff and you’ll find that they’ll stay longer. They’ll look at more

pages and then you got more chances of them coming back.

8. Write for the Long Term: ‘Evergreen’ Posts

Darren: Number eight is write for the long term. I’ve given you a link to a post I

write evergreen posts; there is a time related post. This is a key concept that I

think a guy called Steven Spencer got me on to I’ve linked to in that post. I’ve

linked you to there.

It talks about how some posts that you write will have impact over a long period

of time whereas others will be very time related. So when we did the Olympic

games blog last year, we found that posts that we did on the events, particular

events like the 100 meters men’s free style final, that got a lot of hits when that

event was about to happen and just after it happened. I looked at my stats the

other day on that blog and really no one has ever looked at that page since.

But the page we wrote on Michael Felt, the swimmer, who may have been in that

race actually are still getting hits today because people are interested in him in an

ongoing way. So that is an evergreen post. It will slowly disappear and slowly

become less popular overtime as Michael Felt becomes less popular.

Every blog, every niche will have these time specific posts and it will have the

evergreen ones. I’ve actually believe that both can be incredibly profitable. It is

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/04/30/evergreen-versus-time-related-posts/

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2005/04/30/evergreen-versus-time-related-posts/

http://www.livingroom.org.au/olympics/

http://www.livingroom.org.au/olympics/

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about thinking through, how can I actually increase the longevity of my posts but

also to make the most of those short shop posts, as well, the time related ones?

That is really about writing for the long tail if you really want to use that

technical term.

9. Quantity and Quality

Darren: Number nine there is work on quantity as well as quality. Everyone is

always talking about quality is key. You got to write great quality content. This is

totally true. I totally buy into that but every post that you write is another

doorway to your blog via RSS, via search engines and via potential link ups from

other bloggers.

I am constantly getting asked by bloggers, “Why am I not getting any readers to

my blogs?” I go and look at their blog and they’ve got ten posts. So I really

advise, set yourself some posting goals. One post a day for a year is 365 pages on

your blog. Multiply that by two or three and you actually are starting to develop a

blog over a year which has actually a significant amount of content on it.

Andy: And something that I’ve noticed with your stuff Darren is, like on the

camera site, a post could be an excerpt of a camera review from somewhere else

versus a more extensive thing that is going to have more of an essay.

Darren: That is right. What I tend to do, and I haven’t really talked about this

publicly too much but what I do is the excerpt ones that I do from other people’s

sites and usually they are sent to me by those site and are asking me to do it.

What I do at the end of each one of those is link into my site to a page which is

much more extensive on that camera. I add that excerpt to that page as well.

So the excerpt from the page actually gets added to two pages on my site. One is

just featuring that site’s review and another one is on that particular camera

which will have overtime, ten or twenty different links to different sites on it with

excerpts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_tail

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So those pages are constantly changing in the search engines. We know that

search engines like fresh content and so the actual camera page which has, it

grows over time becomes more and more popular in search engines.

Andy: Are you doing that with categories?

Darren: Yes, I am. So you got to think about the quantity, actually you can use

the same piece of information in a couple of different posts if you are clever

about it too.

10. Learn Your Blog’s Rhythm

Darren: Number ten is learn the rhythm of your blog. We talked about this last

week. Check your stats and find out when your blog comes alive and then

actually work with that and not against it. So my blogs come alive on a Monday

or a Tuesday. I’ll write my announcement posts; I might write my big news on

Mondays and Tuesdays and try and pre-empt to that traffic. We talked about that

last week so I won’t go on about it.

11. Write Original Content

Darren: Original content. While it is tempting to not leave a link to what others

are doing and I see that temptation and I fall into that temptation too. The fastest

way to grow your readership is to actually write original content or a least to

present what you are doing, what others are writing in a creative and informative

way that is actually useful to people.

So many people will only ever link to what other people are writing and don’t

actually add anything to it. That may go ok with search engines overtime but the

only way to build your search engine traffic is to get links from other people. The

only way people will link to you is if they find something original and useful there

on your blog.

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12. Link! Link! Link!

Darren: Number twelve is link, link, link. Many bloggers are scared of sending

their traffic to other blogs and they avoid it. I actually think that sending people

away from your blog actually has a lot of benefits as well. It gives your readers

quality content and the impression that you are well connected and that you are

well read. It also builds relationships with other blogs which we all know will

hopefully in time, bring back some links and bring back some traffic to you. I

think it is really important to send people away from your blog in your writing as

well. That is what blogging is about.

13. Stay On Topic

Darren: Another one is stay on topic. It is very easy to get off and start talking

about the movies you’ve seen and all those sorts of things. I actually really believe

in creating a niche for your blog which is what this whole course has been about

and staying with that niche. If you find yourself being tempted to write about

other things, start another blog. Don’t just write about them on a very general

niche.

14. Invite Participation

Darren: Invite participation, ask questions, be conversational. Don’t present all

the answers on a topic. I actually find that when you present half a case and

invite readers to participate in writing your article, it can actually create a real

buzz around a particular topic. Invite feedback, respond to the comments, all of

these things help to create an interactive blog.

An interactive blog is one that people will be attractive to. When someone surfs

in for the first time and they see you’ve got posts with ten or twenty comments in

them, they’ll want to participate. They’ll think that this is a happening place and

so interaction is really important. I often say that you want to balance your

expertise with invitation and humility.

Six Figure Blogging

So Apple Mac today upgraded their power books in their power Mac. Last week

they upgraded their video iPod. They announced it.


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Andy: I like that.

Darren: And don’t be a know it all. Don’t expertise and humility together and

people will respond to that unless of course you’re writing a blog in a voice, “I am

the expert” and that is the voice that you want to go for. I actually find people like

the humility as well.

15. Predict Hot Topics

Darren: Predict the hot topics. I’ve talked about this before. Ask yourself, “What

is happening next week? What is happening next month? What is happening

next year? And how can I write posts now to position myself for that?”

The people who would have

gotten traffic around that would have been people who wrote about that a few

weeks ago predicting what was going to happen and being picked up by the

search engines for those keywords.

16. Write for the Search Engines

Darren: Write for the search engines. You can spend your whole life thinking

about SEO search engine optimization but it is really important to understand

the basics of it at least and I’ve given you I think a couple of links there to some

pages which you might find useful.

We haven’t got time. We could probably run a whole ecourse on search engine

optimization.

Andy: Oh Yes.

Darren: But really I would say, “Don’t get overwhelmed by it but learn some of

the basic principles.” I’ve given you some links there. Basically you want keyword

rich content, you want to interlink within your sites so you are building up your

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Google juice from within your site but also you want links coming in from

outside as much as possible.

I’ll leave those articles for you to read yourself. If you got any questions about

them, I’m happy to answer them later on.

I think that is all I really have to say on writing for content. I’m glad we didn’t try

and fit all that into last week.

Andy: Yes, it would have been crazy. So that gets us through last week’s content.

I want to break for questions and see if there are any lingering questions from

the week five stuff which again was thinking about traffic, metrics, and measures,

getting content and writing content.

Topic: Content Appearing on Multiple Pages

Participant: I’ve got a question. A few minutes ago Darren, you’ve made a

comment that you said that you can use the same content on several different

posts if you’re creative.

Darren: Yes.

Participant: Would you elaborate on that?

Darren: Sure. What I am saying there is don’t, is not to just post the same thing

twice under different titles because that will come up as duplicate content in

Google. What I was meaning there is what I do is write the same, it is hard to

illustrate it but so I’ll write a post saying, “Steve Digicam has reviewed this

camera” and I’ll put a quote from that and then at the end of that I’ll write

another little link saying “Read more about this camera at” and then I’ll link to

another page on my site which has all collections of all the different reviews that

I’ve collected. I’ll also include that excerpt on that so the excerpt, the quote that

I’ve taken from Steve’s Digicam comes up on a post which is just about that

review and it will also come up on another page for that particular camera which

has a collection of quotes from different reviews.

http://www.steves-digicams.com/

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The quotes are appearing twice on my blog but the pages are very different from

one another because one has just that quote and a link and the other page has

lots of content on it.

I don’t know if I explained that very clearly but that is my strategy at the moment

and it seems to work really well.

Andy: Yes, let me try and pile in on that. Part of it too is when you add a post to

a blog, it shows up on the front page and then it also shows up at its own

particular page, where it is the permalink, the one page for that particular post.

You can also have that post show up on a category listing. So on the main page

the, where those keywords fall is going to be different than where they fall on the

individual post page versus the category post page versus the monthly archive.

So it is the same unit, the same piece of the post from the database but it is being

built four times, well five if you count the RSS feed. Again, it is all happening in

different parts of the HTML. It could be that the post title appears in a headline,

two tag on the front page, and the headline one tag on the individual page, and

the headline three tag over here and it is the same keywords and the same

content but is appearing in different string in the HTML.

Darren: Does that make sense?

Andy: So what Darren could be doing is he could make a category for just one of

the Canon cameras so that way all of the posts about Canon cameras appear on

one particular page. So he not only has the front page and the individual page but

then a page just for Canon cameras which probably has the title of ‘Canon

Camera Product Reviews’. So when people type that into Google, it is a powerful

page because it is connected into all these different models of the Canon camera.

Any other questions out there? Alright well do you want to launch into week six?

Darren: Yes, let’s do that.

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Andy: Yes, week six is a lot of tying up all these different ends that we’ve been

talking about over the past several weeks. We really want to be starting first with

the idea of using newsletters and ezines and all of that jazz.

Building Traffic with Newsletters and Ezines

Darren: That is right. So we’ve got a post there on your side bar, under week six

about newsletters. You might want to open that up.

Why use newsletters?

1. Know Why You Are Writing a Newsletter

Darren: Really there is a variety of different reasons and my first point there is

if you are thinking about a newsletter on your blog, then you want to think about

what is the reason for that? Why are you writing it? What is the purpose of that?

I’ve listed there a variety of different purposes that you might want to have as

your primary and secondary goals for using a newsletter. They are great for

driving traffic to your blogs. My Problogger newsletter each week, I’ll do a

summary of my hot posts for the week, the most popular posts which gives

people a snapshot view of the five or so most popular posts on my blog that week

which does drive significant traffic back to my blog.

2. Newsletter Generate Leads (and Sales)

Darren: They have the ability to generate sales and consulting leads. If you’ve

got a product that you are writing an ebook, for instance, this particular course, I

announced it on my newsletter. I announced it actually as an exclusive

announcement before I generated some sales and some leads. Some of you have

probably signed up for that after seeing that on my newsletter. It can generate

revenue.

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Topic: Figuring Out Your Most Popular Posts

Participant: Can I break in for just one moment?

Darren: Sure.

Participant: I want to go back to a question to a point you said, “The most

popular posts.” Do you have automated tools to do that?

Darren: No, I simply just check my stats for the week.

Participant: Does anybody know of any automated tools to do that?

Andy: WordPress has, I think, a link tracker that can track which posts are being

click on most often. But I don’t know if it is going to output something automated

that you can pop into your newsletter or not.

Participant: Ok. What I’d really love to have is something along the side of the

most popular post of the week, most frequent commenter, highest rate of posts,

those kinds of tool.

Andy: Right. Those can happen on the actual blog but I’m suspicious that can

happen in a newsletter because you send it out and it is in the inbox and you

can’t update it in real time.

Participant: Yes, I am just wondering if for the blog if those tools.

Andy: Yes, I would look under, if you look in the plugins for different, like

WordPress plugins or TypePad plugins, I know there is for at least the for most

popular posts it is out there.

Participant: Ok, right. Thank you.

Andy: Sure.

http://wp-plugins.net/plugin/top10/

http://wp-plugins.net/plugin/top10/

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3. Newsletters for Direct Income Through Affiliate

Programs and Advertising

Darren: Newsletters are great for direct income maker through advertising and

through affiliate programs so it is the same way of generating sales. Some people

use newsletter to actually generate a subscription revenue. It is not something

that I have ever done myself but I know that some people are experimenting with

charging for a newsletter.

4. Creating Community

Darren: Creating community among your readers. This is something that I try

and do on my Problogger site is to actually occasionally I’ll promote some of the

other blogs, some of my reader’s blogs and create a discussion.

They are great for making announcements, for boosting up your personal profile,

upwelling readers to other products and other things that you might be wanting

to sell.

So newsletters can be used for a variety of different purposes and it is worth

defining that upfront.

Andy: Yes, I was also going to say that I think newsletters are often overlooked

by bloggers. That they, I think a lot of bloggers say, “If you are not going to get it

through our feed then screw you.” Where people still think in terms of the inbox.

Yes, RSS is out there. It is going to be in the new Windows and it is already in the

Mac. We are trying to get people in there and it is a training hurdle but I find that

a newsletter, a weekly newsletter or biweekly or monthly is such a great way to

really build a relationship because again, it is a little more intimate than just

viewing it on a web page. When you are viewing your own email, it has a different

mindset that you are receiving one on one communication.

I find my newsletter really connects and builds that relationship over time. Along

with the blog but the newsletter does that I think on an even warmer level.

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Darren: That is right. You want to take into consideration that it does take time

and it does take effort. I find that I get a lot of emails straight after I sent my

newsletters out from readers giving feedback. You don’t want to do it if you think

it is going to be an easy thing. It takes time and effort but it is definitely worth

while I my mind. Really what you are doing is your are getting permission from

people to market to them.

Andy: Right. That is I think the missing piece of a lot of blogging traffic is that

people go in and you never get to talk to them again. Whereas if you can make

your blog geared towards either getting people on an ad or converting them into

a newsletter so you can then market to them overtime instead of just losing that

traffic.

Darren: That is right.

Newsletter and Ezine Q & A

Participant: A quick question. Do you do this automatically in terms of taking

your post or is the whole process manual for you?

Darren: On my one, it is quite a manual thing.

Participant: That is what it sounded like, ok.

Andy: You can do a slightly automatically process where depending on what

blog tool you are using, you could set up TypePad or Movable Type or WordPress

to make a separate template called, ‘Newsletter Cut and Paste’ and it is going to

pop in maybe the HTML for your last five posts and then you can throw that into

what you are using to edit your newsletter and chop it up. That is going to save

you a little time but I mean, it is still cutting and pasting.

Darren: I find that it takes me about a ten or fifteen minutes to write them now

and read them over. It is not massive time but it does take a little while to learn

how to do it.

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Andy: And after a while I really, when I’ve written my best newsletter is when I

am focusing on entertaining my audience. I start writing it a week in advanced

because I usually email practically stuff but then at the bottom, I have weird,

quirky stuff as well and I really enjoy writing it. It becomes less of a chore when

you know the people are going to be looking forward to it.

5. Choosing a Newsletter or Ezine Delivery System

Darren: That is right. So you really want to pick a system for your newsletter

that is an opt-in, opt-out system. I think in some parts of US now, that is law.

You actually have to give your readers, you can only really pile a list of people to

get your newsletters if they opt-into it. There are a variety of different systems

out there. I use the WordPress plugin.

So I use WordPress plugins for that which I find quite good. It is a very simple

tool to use but there are a variety of others out there which costs anything from a

couple of dollars per time right up to or free even right up to quite expensive

products. I encourage you to shop around. Perhaps we can have some discussion

at the end of some of the tools that people use. But opt-in and opt-out is essential

in my mind. You don’t want people getting your email who don’t want to get it

basically.

The subscription page I find is really important. I’ve given you an example there

of my Problogger one which isn’t probably the best example in the world. I

looked at it this morning I thought I could find lots of ways of improving it.

Really the elements that I try and putting into my subscription page is how to

make it as easy as possible for people to subscribe. I don’t actually ask them for

anymore information than the email address.

I know a lot of newsletters collect a whole bit of information, name, age, gender,

location, star sign, income and whatever it be. I actually find that I have a higher

success rate if people just give me perhaps their first name and their email

address so I can personalize the emails a little bit with their name. Different

http://codex.wordpress.org/Plugins/Mail

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people will have different standards on that. I don’t want to collect lots of data on

my readers at this point. I think there are other ways to do that.

So make it easy, make it clear upfront what the newsletters is about. There is

nothing worse than signing up for one thing and getting another. So you want to

tell your potential subscribers what they should expect and how they will benefit

from signing up for your email. I highlight that it is a free and useful thing that I

give tips and I’ll stick to that and I actually deliver on what I promised, I hope.

6. Where to Put Your Subscribe Form

Darren: Now position your invitations strategically. On my Problogger blog,

you’ll see at the top of my left hand menu there, there is a subscribe to

Problogger Newsletter and they can just simply put in their email address in

there or they can click on that and go to the subscription page. We talked about

last week and the week before about the heat map, Google’s heat map and the top

left hand corner is really important. So that is where I’ve put it.

I also put in an invitation to subscribe to my newsletter at the bottom of my

posts. That is the place where people looking for something else to do. I find that

that is quite an effective spot.

Andy: And with your subscription page, also don’t forget your success page.

Where something I started experimenting this week, I don’t have stats for it yet

but I just added the ‘Thanks for subscribing’ page, I’ve added the link so that

people can then add the blog to the My Yahoo! and MSN, Blog Line or Newsgator

accounts. So don’t forget, when you get a success page as a thank you, you can

then send them into the archives, you can then send them to your greatest hits of

posts, you can send them to something else.

Darren: Yes, that is great and that is something I need to work on obviously on

my thank you page as well. Some people are now offering incentives for

subscribers. I am having mixed thoughts about that. One it is a great way to get

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people in but I am not really sure I want people to sign up for my newsletter who

just want a prize.

So you may want to play with that. I prefer people signing up who actually want

the information because I know later on, I am going to have less headaches with

those sorts of people. But incentives for subscriptions might be something that

you might actually want to play around as well.

7. Use a Free Giveaway to Tease to Your Newsletter

Andy: And instead of a prize, it could be an excerpt of something that you’ve

done before. Like in my blog, I used an excerpt in my ebook which is now the

book that is going to be published so it is not necessarily a kewpie doll but it is an

extension of the knowledge that is already out there on the web blog.

Darren: Yes, that is actually very smart. I’ll use that myself.

Other Newsletter and Ezine Tips

Darren: Writing your email newsletters really, I’ve listed there a variety of

different hints for writing a newsletter. Most of them are actually quite similar to

the list we went through last week and this week on writing for blogs. You

establish a voice and a personality and stick to it. It is something we talked about

already. Make it scannable, get to the point. And remind people that they

subscribed. I actually find that overtime, people forget that they’ve subscribed to

your blog and they may actually begin to think that you are spamming them.

I occasionally get an email from a newsletter subscriber who I know has opted in

saying, “You are spamming me; Stop spamming me.” So I find occasionally in my

first paragraph I’ll say, “Thank you for subscribing to this blog. If you would like

to unsubscribe, if you are not finding it helpful, you can do so by clicking the link

at the bottom of the page.” Just that little reminder actually is enough for some

people just to get over the fact that maybe you are spamming them.

I think that is a courtesy that I give my readers.

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Andy: You might also want to check and see if like does the WordPress plugin

check the IP address, Darren?

Darren: No it doesn’t.

Andy: Even alerts? Does it send you an email when people subscribe?

Darren: Yes.

Andy: Ok so you’ve got the IP address and the date and time, right?

Darren: Yes, that is true, yes.

Andy: So then you can save those emails. So if you ever need an audit trail for

those people, you can say, “You subscribed on this date from this IP address with

this email address.”

Darren: That is useful information.

Andy: Yes.

Darren: Use your title and subject line really wisely. A lot of people, if you are

like me, you’ll see a lot of your emails will just go straight to the trash bin. So that

subject line becomes very important in intriguing people and peeking their

interest.

Be consistent with the frequency of your newsletters. If you promise a weekly

one, then send a weekly one. If you promise a monthly one, do that also.

Give subscribers value. This is something I really believe in. People love to get

something for nothing. They love to feel like they are getting something

exclusive. So I’ll often hold back tip bits from my blog and actually give them

away as free tips or as previews of something that I am doing. I’ll give

announcements of things I am going to do before I actually make them public on

the blog. That type of thing actually creates some value to your readers.

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Otherwise you are just telling them to come to your blog. It is actually not really

any use to them at all.

You want to be transparent. If you are getting something out of a

recommendation in your email, then it is probably best to be honest about that.

Don’t hype things up. I am anti hype. Emails that just hype things up, I tend to

unsubscribe from pretty quickly.

You want to track your results if possible. A lot of the newsletter software tools

that are out there will actually tell you how many people click-through in your

email, or what things they click-through. The WordPress plugin does nothing like

that, which is quite frustrating but it is easy to use in other ways. So tracking

your results as we suggest with everything is important.

Consider whether you send HTML or plain text newsletters. HTML ones are the

ones where you can make things bold and you can put pictures in and actually

make it look pretty. The downside of HTML emails is that they have some

incompatibility issues with some email, clients and they also tend to get blocked

by span filters a little bit more than the plain text ones.

I use plain text on one of my newsletters and HTML in another. I find that the

plain text is quite challenging because you need to think about your design and

you have to use asterisks or space or whatever to actually get people to look at

different parts but I actually enjoy that more. It is a bit of a challenge for me.

Andy: I added a link at the bottom to ezezine.com which is a service run by one

of my colleagues, Lisa Micklin. It is a spam free hosting of your newsletter and I

know that she has weathered the white listing process that you have to deal with

companies like AOL and all the other ips to get your particular newsletter white

listed.

So if you are interested and getting your ezines started on a small basis, I would

check out easyezine.com. I think it is free up to the first five hundred addresses.

She has also got a great ebook called, Start Your Ezine that takes what we’ve

http://www.ezezine.com/

http://startyourezine.com/

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talked about in the past twenty minutes and really expands it and makes it a

comprehensive view of how you can use a newsletter. It is not just for blogs but

for businesses in general.

Darren: That is great. I’ll check that out myself.

Andy: And Darren uses the plugin, I myself use a shopping cart to manage all of

my newsletters so that way when people purchase, products and services, they

are in the same database as the newsletters. You can go from a plugin, all the way

up to having it integrated into your ecommerce system. So it just depends on

how advanced your needs are right now.

Darren: That is great and there are a lot of systems in between. I think I used

one for a while called Opt In Pro which I know a lot of people use which is

specific but it is probably like the EZEzine system by the looks of things.

Andy: Yes, so any questions about the newsletters stuff or the experiences that

people have had. I know a lot of people out in the call tonight have newsletters. If

you have any advice to people that are starting newsletters, please let it roll.

Tips for Formatting Plain-Text Ezines

Maryam: I have a question. I’ve just switched from HTML to text using

shopping cart and you are right, Darren, it is horrible. Any clues, formatting? I’ve

gotten dropouts just because they are not receiving the pretty HTML anymore

but my HTML is only getting through to about forty percent of my list. So the

spam catchers got, you know, the greater proportion of it so I am getting more

flow through using text but I am also getting complaints and lacking the time to

do both. Any suggestions?

Darren: I find it really hard. I have been trying using asterisks around heading

and spaces between sections. I mean, it really is just challenging. I tend to sent it

to myself first to see how it looks. Probably for me, I am lucky in that I started

with a plain text one and so no one has that expectation of anything else. But I

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just say over time you got to maybe even ask for some feedback from your

readers as to which ones work. So I don’t really have too much advice on that

one.

Andy: Don’t forget about periods and colons. I find that if you have a lot of

asterisks, it can overwhelm the visual scheme of the email. But if you have a

headline and just put a period, space, a period, a space before each headline, it is

going to bump it out a little bit but it is not as heavy as an asterisk. I know that is

a total detail but that is something I found useful.

Maryam: Thanks, that is great.

Audri: This is Audri. I have a couple of points. We have a lot of newsletters.

Some of them very large. A service that we use that we’ve been using now for

about three years is wonderful is AWeber.

Andy: Oh yes.

Audri: They do all of the managing of everything and it just really works well.

We’ve done a lot of testing on whether HTML, we did this about two or three

years ago and the text just outperformed in anyway you want to look at it. We did

get some complaints about not doing HTML but we get complaints about

anything we do. If you have no subscribers, we published Scam Busters and we

get complaints when we tell people about scam so we don’t get really upset when

we get complains about some things sometimes because people will complain

about everything. Our experience with just text is so the winner even though it is

challenging.

Andy: Great, thank you. Darren lets talk about hiring bloggers which is what you

are doing right now.

Maryam: Andy, I have a question.

Andy: Yes?

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Maryam: I am sorry, this is Maryam again.

Andy: Hi

Maryam: I have a short question. Now you send out occasionally you send out a

text email but occasionally you have a HTML header. It is a nice graphic inserted

in there and there is obvious formatting. What is your send ratio? What are you

getting?

Andy: You know what, I’ll look it up while we are talking. I think it is pretty

good. I haven’t check in like two weeks.

Maryam: You compared your HTML versus your plain text send outs on deliver

rate?

Andy: I haven’t notice much of a difference.

Maryam: Ah.

Andy: I don’t know if that is because of the host I am using or part of it is I am

doing part of my HTML as a Cascading Style Sheet so it is not really weighting

the email down as much. So I really, I am not, I don’t have any stats. I am going

to check my stats right now while we are talking.

Participant: Thanks.

Andy: I’ll tell you in a couple of minutes.

Hiring Bloggers

Darren: Ok, so we are going to be talking about hiring bloggers now. I’ve found

in the last six months that I’ve got to a feeling as to much I can actually write on

my blogs myself. I’ve had exponential growth up until about the last six months

when things are still growing in my blogging but the traffic that I’m getting, the

amount of posts that I’ve done, really are slowing down now as I hit that feeling.

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So hiring bloggers, hiring others to do the work for you is actually something that

I’ve begun to consider for myself and also in starting B5 Media. It is something

that we’ve been working on a little bit recently as well. That advantages of

including others in your work obviously are that you increase the quantity of

contents that are going out there, you increase the variety of the expertise in the

pool that you have and the skills as well.

So now B5, we’ve got fifteen blogs running and I think they run by that ten

people that have an incredible variety of expertise that I would never be able to

blog on their topics. They have a really interesting skill base as well. Some of

them are designers and coders which give other skills to our network as well.

Also brings more people promoting your blog as well. So we’ve got ten people

now linking to our system and bringing in across readers from their own blogs

which is great.

Downsides to Hiring Bloggers

Darren: On the downside, there are also some obvious risks and cost that is

associated with bringing others into your system. You loose control a little bit

over the quality. The more bloggers you bring one, the harder it is to track how

everyone going. You can run into issues of bloggers grandstanding and getting off

track from what their view are from your blogging system. I know the Insta Blog

Network last week had problems with one of their bloggers plagiarizing so there

was some legal issues around that. You run the risk of that and one of their blogs

was found pretty earlier on just copying stuff and not giving links back which is

obviously was really bad for their PR in their first week or so.

As you add more authors, you increase also the managerial role that you have to

play. You need to be willing to become a manager and be willing to discipline

your bloggers from time to time as well.

So there are some costs and benefits associated with new readers but my

personal experience is that the benefits generally outweigh the cost of it.

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When you are considering who to hire and how to hire, there are rights and

wrongs but I’ve listed there a variety of different factors, that you want to keep in

mind as you think about hiring bloggers.

Selecting Bloggers to Hire

Darren: Selection, so who should be chosen? I tend to go for people that I have

a relationship with of some sort. Last June, or this June we went overseas for a

month and I got a whole heap of guest bloggers added on to my blog.

Trust and Relationship

Darren: Out of that emerged some relationship with people. Now I’ve just hired

someone in the last few weeks and that person is someone I’ve had blogging for

me for a couple of months at first for free and we’ve developed some trust and a

relationship. I would always recommend that you know the people at least at

some level that you are hiring.

Writing Ability

Darren: You want to check out their ability to write. B5 at the moment, we are

hiring bloggers. We actually look at the quality of their application as an

indication of whether they can write distinctly or not. I have just been amazed by

some of the terrible applications we’ve got that just show really poor writing

skills. You want to check out their ability to write, you want to check out their

longevity or their previous work, whether they’ve had blogs before or websites

before or whether they are stuck at them. A lot of people will reply to write for

you that have these huge ideas of making millions of dollars but they are not

willing to stick it out over the long term.

Time Commitment and Availability

Darren: Do they have time to write? Have a look at some of the examples of

their writing and their work. We ask the question, “Are these people

entrepreneurial type of people? Are they creative type of people?” We don’t want

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just people who are going to do links to other posts. We want people who have

the ability to write original content and what voice will they write in? They are

some of the questions we asked around selection. I’m sure there are a variety of

other ones that we could ask as well.

Content Ownership and Copyright

Darren: One of the factors you want to consider is ownership. Who owns the

content? This is something that all the networks are thinking through at the

moment. There are a variety of different answers on this depending on which

network you are talking to. Basically you want to establish with the bloggers that

you hire upfront who owns that content and what happens when the relationship

ends. Does the blogger own the content? Do you own their content outright?

Does the blogger own it and at the end of the relationship, they take that content

with them? Do you have some joint ownership system where perhaps you own

the online content but they can produce it in a book form or they can produce it

as an ebook?

You want to establish the parameters of ownership of content right upfront. It is

very important or else you might get yourself into all kinds of trouble later on.

Compensation and Payment

Darren: When it comes to payment options, again, there are so many different

ways that networks are approaching this. Weblogs, Inc. I think pay on a per post

basis. They have this fee but it is generally about four or five dollars per post is

what they are paying people at the moment. Different people have different

opinions on whether that is a lot or not much at all. If you look at a lot of their

posts they are very short posts so maybe it is ok.

If you are wanting people to write longer, original content, you might want to up

that a bit. Some people go with a flat free with goals attached. So we’ll pay you a

hundred dollars a month or a hundred dollars a week but you have to write x

amounts of posts which is similar to that first one.

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Some people are using incentives and bonuses. I think the Gawker Network do

this where if the blogger, the blog editor gets the blog to a certain traffic level,

then they get a bonus on top of whatever flat fee they’ve got.

Some blogs networks are going for a revenue share option. So at B5 we do that.

We give bloggers about forty percent of the income from the blog plus the first

one hundred dollars that the blog earns. So we’ve got a bit of a combination deal

there going.

Others contract people will write a certain amount of articles. Some people, I

know the Fine Fools Network gives one hundred percent of any AdSense ads on

the post that the person writes. So they got group blogs and a variety of different

bloggers earning money off their own posts.

Some people give a certain percent of the overall income of the blog depending

upon how many posts their blog has done. So there are a variety of different

options there. You really need to knock that out right upfront.

I would suggest that flat fees are good in that the bloggers like to have a regular

income but for your point of view, I would want to give them an incentive as well

to do better and to write quality posts. So my personal preference is some steady

income but also incentives or some combination of that.

Another thing you’d want to establish right upfront is what are the duty that you

are expecting of them? Blog networks just get the bloggers to post and that is all.

They are just posting articles. Others will include comment moderation in that.

Others will include publicity and some marketing. Others will even get their

bloggers to manage their own advertising.

You want to define right upfront what are you going to do and what is your

blogger going to do? That may vary from blogger to blogger depending upon

their skills.

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Exit Strategies

Darren: Lastly, you’ll want to think about your exit strategies. Know right

upfront who can end the relationship and how much notice they need to give and

what happens to revenue after the blogger stops blogging for you. There would be

nothing worse then actually a blogger leaving your blog on bad terms which

actually in turn reflects purely upon your blog.

I’ve seen a couple of examples of that. I think Peter Rojas from Engadget left

what is it, Gizmodo. He took a lot of readers with him over into Engadget because

things didn’t end very nicely there.

So you want to think about some of those factors. I’m sure there are other factors

as well. Do you have any others Andy to add to that list?

Andy: No, I was just going to, it was about the ending the relationship with

bloggers. I’ve just thought of a really good point and I just lost it. So keep talking,

I’ll remember it.

Non-Compete Agreements

Darren: That is alright. One of the other things that a lot of blog networks will

impose upon their bloggers is that they cannot write on the same topic

elsewhere.

Andy: That is what it was, a non-competing agreement. Thank you, that is what

I was going to ask about.

Darren: Yes, and that is something we are talking at the moment on B5 because

some of our bloggers do write on a similar topic but is slightly different so you’ll

want to think about that. There are some actual advantages of having them blog

on similar topics because they actually bring in traffic across with them. But

really it is a bit touch and go. I would say keep it as relational as possible. Make it

a win-win situation.

http://corporate.weblogsinc.com/entry/3633175752916264/

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Other Types of Compensation

Darren:One of the other things I will say is that a lot of bloggers will write for

you for free as well or for just for you giving them links or rating their profile on

your blog or giving them some free consulting or training in a particular area, or

whatever it might be. Some bloggers will just blog for you because they want

comradery and they actually want to connect with another blogger.

So it maybe that you can work on a variety of different factors of payment, to use

that term loosely.

You are going to talk about in building a team, Andy?

Andy: Yes, and we included examples of agreements at the end of that post as

well (here and here). I added in the Weblogs, Inc. agreement that got leaked. I

think it was a guy or gal that got all mad and posted the contract online and it

was on there for like four hours and people went crazy.

Other Team Members

Andy: We are speeding towards the end of the course but I wanted to make sure

we talked briefly about like Darren hiring bloggers is your are going to want to

think about yes, hiring bloggers but also if you need to be assembling a team. If

you are not a designer, you need to get a designer, system administrators, coders

if you want some custom coding or if you need help with plugins and templates

and all that jazz.

I feel like an adult. I finally hired an accountant this week. So as you get more

volume you are going to have to get staff to help you out. You may hire a

professional PR person that can help you with the traditional PR stuff while you

handle the online bloggy stuff.

Sources for that are of course, Elance, Guru and those are, along with

rentacoder.com are sources where you can post a project and then people bid on

it. I posted on Elance as well as Rent a Coder and you get people from all over the

http://www.b5media.com/b5medias-blogger-contracts/

http://finefools.com/fine-fools/members-agreement/

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world bidding on a certain project. Usually the people, it is very, very inexpensive

to get a project done as well as some of the people out there have been doing

these projects on these sites for two or three years. If you need something done

in php or if you need something done in a special language, there are people out

there who can do it for you. As well as Craig’s List is the catch all for anybody

needing anything will start a Craig’s List first. Don’t forget that you might need

help as you assemble your blog network and you’re emerging media empire.

Darren: Right. That is something I don’t really know any from those list so that

is really useful.

Ethics, Legal Matters and Free Speech

Andy: Yes and we also talked about some lose ends, we want to make sure we

talk about of course the grey area with liable in blogs and free speech. It is still

being hammered out in many different jurisdictions in many different countries

and Delaware, at court just ruled out that a anonymous commenter is protected

speech and a place to keep up with that stuff is the Electronic Frontier

Foundation at http://www.eff.org. They cover not just free speech issues but

privacy online. They just released a crazy report about how in the United States

printers, your color printer, prints out a code that people can track back to your

particular computer.

So it is a really great site to keep track of those particular around all the privacy,

free speech, and liable because as blogging becomes more a mesh in the

mainstream media, this is going to become more of an issue.

All bloggers, journalist is a protected speech, you know thank God Judy Miller

wasn’t a blogger or that would have been a whole ball of wax here in the States.

Further Diversification: Niches and Sub-Niches and Other Media Formats

Andy: Along with, Darren, you were talking about the niche, sub-niche thing

and diversification too.

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Darren: Yes, I was just thinking last night one of the things I am seeing that

some blog networks do now is rather than just developing a wide variety of

niches, that is one way to grow your blog network is to just start a blogs on a

variety of unconnected niches.

A lot of the networks now seem to be moving towards developing many networks

within a niche. So one way if you got a blog on scuba diving for instance, I’m not

sure why we keep using this scuba diving one, you may actually think about a

blog on scuba diving destinations or one on scuba diving equipment and actually

develop your expertise across the niche with a variety of different blogs within

that niche.

That is effectively what I have done with my digital camera one and printer one

and my camera phone one. They are all focusing on digital imaging rather than

growing a blog network that has all disconnected topics. I am trying to focusing

in on a larger one. So that may be another way to diversify.

Andy: And you also talked about diversification by media too.

Darren: Right.

Andy: That it wasn’t just niche and sub-niche but you could take your niche and

instead of diversifying the actual topic is diversify the media where the blog then

becomes a course or a seminar or a book or you know a movie or something like

that. It is a way of taking the content instead of broadening it past around niche

is having it vertically stretched with media.

Darren: That is right and I am seeing a lot of bloggers moving in that direction

at the moment. I suspect you’ll see a lot of books and a lot of ebook in the next

few months and years coming out of these particular niches that people are

blogging on.

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The Future of Problogging

Andy: And then finally we were talking about what we think is going to happen

with this problogger and stuff.

Darren: Yes in a year or two, I hesitate to predict what is going to happen. I

think one thing that we will see is mini networks within networks happening. I

know for a fact that that is coming on a few blog networks. The new advertising

systems that are out there, the Chitika. The guys behind the Qumana blogging

system came out with one last week call AdGenta. There are a variety of new

advertising providers coming out there which are going to change the landscape

quite a bit. Some of them have got some innovative things in the pipeline.

Of course there will be new blogging tools and platform and everything but yes it

is going to be a changing environment and I am really looking forward to see

what people come up with in the blogging.

Andy: Wow, I think we almost reached the end of the content Darren.

Darren: Who would have thought?

Remember: Keep it Fun

Andy: I just want to reiterate that please remember that this is suppose to be

fun stuff. I always tell people when they start blogging that if it is not fun, you are

not going to do it. If you are going to resent your job, you know, just stay in a

cubical. If you are going to do this and still resent your job, it is not going to be

any fun. Any other final words Darren?

Darren: Yes, I was commenting on Problogger this morning is one of the things

I am seeing is that people over-expand too quickly. One little lesson I’ll say on

blog is that they’ll start like fifty blogs and half of them haven’t been updated for

two weeks. So one of the temptations with this is just to go crazy and start blog

after blog after blog.

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My advice would be start one and as you have time and as the opportunity open

up, start another and continue to add new contents and new blogs to your

network but don’t go too quickly. Do the blogs that you are doing well and then

add to them in that way.

Topic: Seth Godin’s Squidoo

Andy: Great. So go ahead with your question Maryam?

Maryam: Yes a comment on Squidoo and what is going to happen out of this

lensing effect?

Andy: Yes, I am on the beta test for Squidoo right now.

Maryam: How do I know about that?

Andy: It is pretty darn slick. I am still trying to figure out, if you don’t know

what we are talking about, you can go to sethgoden.com and go to his blog and

he has released a new service called Squidoo and the whole idea. It is a blend of

about.com, a blog, and a social network. I am so curious to see how it all shapes

out. It is called Squidoo. It is in beta testing right now and it is the idea that

everybody is an expert in something and that people can become lens makers

and have lenses which are different views for blogs.

I was excited to hear about that because I wrote in my ebook two years ago but it

is really, I am curious to see how it all shapes out. It is really a pretty slick

interface and visually, I was really blown away by it. Darren, did you have any

input on Squidoo?

Darren: Not really. They haven’t except me into their beta program and so you

know, I don’t think it is much.

Andy: Right it is the whole idea is that people are going to be able to become,

register or show themselves as experts in a field and then somehow make money

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off that. That is where it falls apart for me. I don’t know how the heck an income

stream is going to be involved in this so I am curious to see how it all works out.

This is the guy that built the whole Yahoo marketing thing so I am sure it is going

to work somehow or another.

Darren: Yes, it would be very interesting to watch.

Maryam: Thanks Andy.

Andy: Sure, any other questions out there?

Topic: Choosing a Blog Platform

Participant: As you, as one builds a blog network, I am curious about what

tools you would recommend in terms of the blogging CMS platform?

Darren: You are the tools man, Andy.

Andy: Oh you mean which one to use?

Participant: Yes.

Andy: Oh yes, I suggest, I really am partial to WordPress simply because it is a

very easy; it is easy to install; it is a free tool. If you use a host like TextDrive or

Dreamhost, you can do a one click install. I’m actually working on a WordPress

course right now where you could have a domain up and then the next day have a

blog up in that domain.

Granted, WordPress does have some idiosyncrasies with how it lays out all the

templates. So it depends on how much, if you have access to a geek or are

married to one or dating one, I always say, date a geek and get them to install

that software for you and then dump them or if you are yourself a technically

inclined person. If you are not, you might want to stick with TypePad until you

develop things enough to hire some technicians to get in there but I am really

partial to WordPress. I believe in the whole free software thing. Darren?

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Participant: How much tie-in between your different blogs do you do?

Andy: Myself, I don’t do any because mine are all separate topics right now. I

got my personal blog which is all over the board. I’ve got the andywibbels.com

which is use to be the Easy Bake blog and that is really just the public face to my

business. I am working on two niche blogs right now but there are not going to

be related.

Participant: If you were doing related topics, what would you do?

Andy: I would, well, that is a toughie. Movable Type allows you to, well actually

WordPress does have what is called a multi user addition where you can manage

more than one blog through the same installation. So you might check that out

because then you can manage all of your five blogs from your network from one

WordPress installation. That becomes a headache. I use a WordPress installation

for every course that I do. I have some private blogs for part of what I am

working on and I’ve got public ones. So I’ve probably got about twelve different

WordPress installation across my server right now. They are all at different level

of being upgraded so that is going to be a headache. It is that an intimating thing.

As well as Movable Type, you can have multiple blogs quite easily. I work with

two coaching companies right now and they are having, I think Susan Austin has

probably about nine blogs across her entire network and it is managed with the

same Movable Type interface. Then Andrea J. Lee and Tina Forsyth have I think

six on their system. They are able to manage their empires through one tool.

Darren: Is that through one domain name?

Andy: The Movable Type installation is on one domain but it is building to

different domain names. So all the domains are all pointing to the same physical

machine but they are all being built in separate subfolders which then are

mapped to the domains.

Darren: Ok

http://coachinginnovation.com/

http://andreajlee.com/

http://www.onlinebusinessmanager.com/

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Andy: This may not make any sense at all. I am totally all over the place.

Participant: It makes sense to me because I’m good at technical discussion

here for just a minute more.

Andy: Yes.

Participant: How much, in week two we talked a little bit about whether you

should publicized your blog network or just quietly go develop it. And the point

was made well publicizing the fact that you are doing one creates all kinds of

incoming links which brings value yet I can see advantages to doing it quietly

also.

Andy: Right, you might consider keeping it under the hood for maybe the first

month while you build that couple weeks worth of content. It is like Darren was

saying, one network just blew up and it’s got fifty blogs but nobody is posting.

You may want to say, “We are going to take this first month, cultivate the

content, figure out what our keywords are.” Make sure everybody knows, you

know, you need to be in these categories this many times a week or this many

posts and build a content that way so that when people come to it, it is not like

walking into an empty house.

Participant: What about hosting on separate servers?

Andy: Yes, that is something I might explore in the long run. I know Darren, you

know that lady that has the finance, women’s finance site that it’s the same

blogger but it is on different servers?

Darren: Yes, that is right. The advantage of it is that it is search engine

optimization related. I personally have most of mine on two different servers

now. It is very hard to know what the difference is but most people would seem

to argue that if you’ve got them on different servers, it is going to look like

unconnected sites. So when you link between one to the other, it will be like any

other sites linking to you which has its benefits.

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Ideally, you want to move them on to different servers but practically that has a

higher logistical problems associated with it in keeping your head around

different servers.

Andy: Yes, I think it is more people who get hit to I can run twenty blogs from

one, from my dream host account. Google will make that a stronger element. The

whole, is it a diversification if IP addresses across the network of sites? Are these

really separate sites? Are they on the same machine which might mean, they are

from the same web host account.? So that I think it is going to become stronger.

That along with what you were talking about Darren with the people using

geographic location and the IP address too.

Darren: That is right.

Andy: So I don’t know if that answers the question but that is just a lot of talking

around it. I hope the helps.

Participant: Thank you.

Andy: Sure. Any other questions?

Darren: The time may have come Andy to say good-bye.

Feedback From Participants

Andy: Yes, well can we do some feedback real quick Darren?

Darren: Sure.

Andy: I want to take a maybe three or four minutes and just get some quick

feedback on the course from people. This is the first round of the course and we

are both stunned by the outcome and the response and it has been very, it has

been a ball to do this course.

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So I would like to get some feedback from the participants on what worked, what

didn’t, what would you suggest for the next round of the course, and that kind of

thing?

Participant: I would like to see in future seminars more interaction between

users so we can see what other people are doing. I just felt a little isolated, is

what I am saying.

Andy: Ok great.

Darren: So you think a discussion forum would be a better thing than a blog in

that regard? With the blog, it could be a bit harder to follow the conversations of

what was happening?

Participant: I don’t like the comment system on those blogs actually.

Andy: Great. Thank you.

Tara: This is Tara. I like having the notes available ahead of time. That really

helped a lot so I can put them in the word processor document and then add

other notes so it is very helpful. I do agree if you can have a discussion forum

where we could more easily write back and forth to folks. I think that would get

people more involved in putting information out there and then responding.

Also, there was a lot of information in this course and six weeks is definitely not

enough but I know you are trying to balance cost with time but it was really

comprehensive and outstanding and I really enjoyed it.

Andy: Great. Thank you.

Maryam: Hi, this is Maryam, piggy backing on to what Tara said, I think six

weeks isn’t enough and think there should probably be a beginning and an

advance and an maybe an intermediate course. So leveraging more level right

along the way.

Andy: That is right.

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Maryam: And also, I would really appreciate one of those, you know where they

have the Webmeeting and everyone can see your desktop and you know like for

instance, Darren could be showing us Chitika. I got a little lost in that discussion

and I was following links and going, “Where the hell am I and oh, that looks like

an interesting ad, Gee, do I need one of those?” And then I am off following

things and I lose the mainstream. It would really be cool if we all have that

capability. I don’t know if that is possible but for as many people as there are

here.

Andy: Yes, the probably would have been good to have a visual element that

would help anchor the discussion because I know that if you are at home

listening to a teleclass, your eyes can wonder all over the place. So if not having

desktop sharing maybe having screen shots and or slides as well would have been

helpful.

Maryam: It is a Camtasia away.

Andy: That is right. Thank you. Other feedback?

Tom: I have some positive feedback.

Andy: Fantastic, go for it.

Tom: This is Tom from Scared Monkeys. We implemented a couple of the things

you talked about in the early days and we paid for the course while the course

was going along was with the changes we made.

Andy: That is fantastic to hear.

Darren: Can you write that down for us?

Andy: Yes, we’ll start tomorrow on putting this together in a downloadable

course so we are going to need testimonial from people so we’ll be soliciting

those in the coming weeks. That is great.

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Participant: I want to second the point of having a beginner and an advanced

class because I think that is where there is a bit of a separation that happened

with some of the questions. I think, you know, with people who have been doing

this for a bit, there are some topics that we could have flushed out a little more

but than would have left a lot of people behind.

Andy: Yes, I am thinking maybe like the beginner course would be people that

haven’t made their blogs yet and the advanced would be you have active blog.

That was something that Darren and I talked about was well do you tailor the

course for people that are, some people take the course might not be building

blogs during the course. So maybe have a beginner flavor that is before you start

building it out and then the advanced flavor that is going to be people that are

actively doing it.

Participant: I agree with that.

Farewell

Andy: Great. And let’s take time for one more. We are about sixty minutes over

so thank you for staying with us. But let’s get one more feedback or a comment or

question? Great, let me open up the calls so we can all say good-bye. Hold on two

seconds. Alright, so we can all be heard now. Darren, can you hear me?

Darren: I can hear you.

Andy: Ok, great. Everybody, thank you so much for joining us these past six

weeks and again, we are going to get all this stuff out there. We’ve got learning

guides being made and all that fancy stuff so that will be showing up in the next

couple of weeks. Like I said, you are going to have access to this hopefully for the

rest of your lives. It has been such a great journey. Darren?

Darren: That is right. I would say anyone who is listening who is not live on the

call to feel free to shoot us an email with your feedback as well. I’ve love to hear

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that. Let’s keep the discussion going on the site if you’ve got more questions and

advice for each other then we’ll continue that discussion. So thanks very much.

Participant: Thank you very much.

Andy: Thank you. Everybody have a great night.

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Six Figure Blogging Class 6 Worksheets

(there were no worksheets for this session)

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Change Log A list of versions, changes and revisions to this document:

October 2005 Version 0.9 Released (Draft)

November 2005 Version 1.0 Released

6 figure blogging 6

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