Content Writing & Copywriting Blog

Should You Purchase a Popular Blog Just Because It Is Popular?

Sep 28, 2007 2 Comments »

A popular blog — NorthxEast — is for sale and bidding is going on. I was just wondering if someone buys this blog finally, what benefits would it bring to the new owner. Currently its strengths are:

• An established brand
• Lots of RSS subscribers
• Some great posts by the likes of Leo Babauta.
• Steady traffic

A blog, especially of the NorthxEast kind, is an extension of the bloggers who write for the blog. For instance, it is not just a post, but a post by a blogger called Leo whom people adore, or at least have strong feelings for. Once with the new owner, will the content go through some change or will it have the same orientation? What about the writers; will the same writers still be writing the same kind of stuff.

And what about the monetary performance? I have no experience regarding this but with 75,000 unique visitors per month, $175 per month as revenue is a bit low I would say even by my own blogging standards. 75,000 visitors means on an average 2,450 visitors per day. Recently I started (due to a fluke of course) drawing around 1,000 visitors per day at Writing Cave and that started generating around $5-$10 everyday with just Google AdSense. Since I don’t write there regularly and promotion of any sort is non-existent the traffic has come back to 150-200 per day.

So given the high popularity and a bit low revenue generation of NorthxEast does it make sense to buy it just because it is very popular? It depends how you look at blogging.

If blogging is merely a business opportunity for you then you have a 50-50% chance of making NxE a success. You’ll need to keep the momentum and if your revenue sources remain the same then you’ll have to increase the traffic multiple times of its current number to make some decent money. You can also explore other revenue sources and you’ll need to sell your blog to the advertisers more aggressively. You can also change the nature of the content. Most of its content, although very well-written, I’m afraid, is not unique. For instance, Maki’s blog has very unique, useful content most of the time and people can implement his suggestions immediately and improve their blogging performance. By the time people — people who really click the ads — reach NxE they’ve already read the stuff and so go quickly through the post, comment if they want to, and move on.

If blogging is a passion for you and you want to leverage NxE’s popularity I think then too, if you have lots of disposable money ($5,000-$15,000 is lots of money for me) then you should go ahead and buy the blog. You’ll have a ready platform. Just be sure the quality doesn’t suffer. There will surely be a sudden drop in traffic but I don’t think the RSS subscribers will unsubscribe en masse just because the ownership has changed. Provide them good posts to read and they’ll keep on reading.

Apart from that, if you have money but no blogging passion, don’t buy it. You’ll just waste a nice blog, and the effort that has gone into it.

Technorati Tags: northxeast, blog selling, popular blogs

Why I Use a Desktop Blog Editor

Sep 25, 2007 4 Comments »

Simonne, a commenter on my blog, had recently asked:

Why do people need to use a blog editor? I usually write directly in the Wordpress editor, and I never felt the need to use something else. As I encountered a lot of bloggers who use editors, I’m sure I miss something here, and I’m curious to find out what.

I had told her that I’d share my thoughts on this topic in a blog post. OK, the desktop blog editor.

I think I’ve used almost all the blog editors available on the Internet, right from the editing windows of WordPress and MovableType to w.blogger to Qumana to ScribeFire some other vague editors to my current favorite, Windows Live Writer. I don’t even remember now when the last time I used the WordPress dashboard editor to create blog post.

There two reasons I shun using the default blogging editors:

• I feel claustrophobic
• I need to go online whenever I want to post

No matter how fast the Google apps are catching up, given the unpredictable surfing speed I have where I live, I prefer using things on my desktop. In Windows Live Writer it’s so easy to create a new post: launch it and start writing. You don’t need to be connected; you can maximize the window like any other word processor and you have the option to modify the source code as and when you feel like. Even if you want to edit the posts you’ve already created, Windows Live Writer keeps everything synchronized.

Another advantage is that I have all the posts with myself, on my laptop, so even if something goes wrong with my WordPress installation and the database gets spoiled, at any day I can re-post and the posts will appear in the chronological manner with the same dates.

Let me know why you prefer or hate to use desk top blog editors.

Technorati Tags: destop blog editors, windows live writer

Is Anchor Text For External Links Important?

Sep 24, 2007 1 Comment »

What is anchor text?

Anchor text is the text that comes between <a> and </a>; for instance, if you write <a href=”http://www.contentblog.net”>content writing blog</a> then content writing blog is your anchor text and it in the link it looks like content writing blog.

What is the importance of anchor text?

Anchor text helps people understand what the link signifies. In the above example the anchor text clearly says that the link takes you to a content writing blog. This helps both you, the reader, and the search engines. When the search engines are crawling your page and when they come across the link having a particular anchor text, they know what the link signifies. It also tells the search engines that your web page gives so much importance to the words appearing as anchor text that you are using another link to give more information. Anchor text is beneficial for internal linking because you are directing the search engines to other, more specialized parts of your website. They can certainly help you in your SEO efforts.

Talking about SEO, the anchor text is quite valuable when it is coming from external links. If someone links to my blog and as anchor text he or she uses some keywords or expressions relevant to my blog I get SEO benefits for my blog for that anchor text. That’s why you should have meaningful page or blog post titles because people generally use the same title when they are linking to your blog or website. So this leads us to asking

Is anchor text for external links good for your SEO?

Suppose I’m linking to another content writing blog from my blog and I use the same phrase as anchor text; does it contribute something towards my SEO efforts? It doesn’t. But it is surely helping the other content writing blog and in this way, I’m not helping myself but my competing blog. So no, the anchor text that I use for outgoing links doesn’t help me, it helps the website I’m linking to.

Does this mean you shouldn’t use anchor text for external links?

Depends. Personally I don’t mind giving some SEO benefit to a competing blog. If you start manipulating your anchor text such that it doesn’t benefit the external website, it may trigger, justifiably, a reciprocal reaction: everybody will start avoiding meaningful anchor texts. The criteria for using the anchor text shouldn’t depend on what benefit it brings you or the external website; it should depend on the criticality of usability and accessibility.

Technorati Tags: anchor text, external links, interlinking

How To Hold Attention Of Your Blog Readers

Sep 21, 2007 5 Comments »

There are two crucial factors that affect the success of your blog:

• Grab attention
• Hold attention

Grabbing attention is very easy actually. Create a sensational blog title and you’ll get many eyeballs, if not in the search engines, then surely on various social media websites. But getting loads of attention isn’t worth anything much if you cannot hold their attention.

How can you hold attention of your blog readers?

By giving them what they need exactly when they need it, and give them in a manner they cannot get anywhere else. You must write unique content, and your content should be written in a compelling manner.

To hold attention you must provide compelling content

Your content is the backbone of your blog. Nobody comes to your blog just to increase your visitors’ number; they come because they think you can provide some useful content to them. How do you create that content? By catering to some pressing need. That need by the way doesn’t need to be technical or professional. May be that need is emotional. If you run a humor blog your readers visit your blog get a healthy dose of laugh. If it is a life improvement blog then they are looking for a useful tip to spend their day more productively. The key is, provide them what they are looking for.

Strike up a personal rapport

Although having a personal rapport cannot help you much if you have lousy content, it does help your readers remember you when they are looking for something that you provide. To have a personal rapport you have to play a host they can trust and respect, and this brings us back to providing quality content. Once they trust you as an authority, they begin to interact with you and may even come up with their problems. I’m not saying become their agony aunt, but you can solve some problems related to the subject and theme of your blog.

Be more visible

You can also hold attention of your readers by being more visible on other blogs, online forums and social media websites. Constant visibility (positive visibility) makes you a familiar figure and familiarity keeps bringing them and reading your stuff even if you cannot come up with great blog posts everyday.

Create controversies on your blog

Creating controversies creates buzz and encourages your readers to participate on your blog proactively. By creating controversies I don’t mean be offensive, I just mean write something contrary to the prevalent belief and back up your argument with substantiated data. After that, encourage your readers to react. Encourage them to not just talk to you, but to fellow commenters too.

Once your are able to hold your readers’ attention it becomes easier to strike up new conversations with them and come up with creative blogging ideas.

Technorati Tags: blogging tips, blog publishing

Are You Running Out Of Blog Ideas? Here Are 100 Blog Topics

Sep 20, 2007 No Comments »

You can find these 100 Blog Topics at Chris Brogan’s blog. Now you are not going to run out of blogging topics.

One of the greatest hurdles in blogging is what to write about. Of late I’ve been maintaining an ideas list. I don’t refer to it regularly because I only want to use it when I REALLY cannot think up something. Great list Chris!

Technorati Tags: blogging tips, blogging ideas, blog topics