Postcards from the Funny Farm

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Over the past year or so, I’ve met several excellent bloggers who really know their stuff. One in particular is Jacob Share who authors a few really “top-shelf” blogs. I call them that because their circulation is high along with their analytics. However, In addition to that, they have subjects relevant and helpful to me as a blogger. Group Writing Projects, is one of those excellent blogs. If you have a blog to promote or if you enjoy reading blogs, I want you to know about this resource. Getting into one of these things can explode a post. One of mine went from 27 views to nearly 3,000 as a result of a group writing project. Every little strategy helps, they are like seeds. After all, most of us internet writers secretly hope to be more popular in searches than stuff like women’s lingerie, do we not ;)

Jacob was kind enough to let me interview him and share it with you all. Please visit Group Writing Projects after reading, it’s an excellent resource. Here it is:

1. Who should use Group Writing Projects.

By announcing their group writing projects on my site, creators get more exposure for their group writing project and their blog, which in turn drives more traffic, participants and potential subscribers. Plus they earn more links for their project and its participants, which they can use to attract even more of the above. Finally, creators will also be able to share and learn best practices to make their projects even better next time.

Every creator is also a potential participant and participants have it good on Group Writing Projects, the only place they need to subscribe to stay updated on where the latest group writing projects are happening. It’s a great way to get blog post suggestions regularly, with the additional benefit of guaranteed links and attention to your article AND blog. The “random” appearance of gwps also helps bring your blog to readers that have probably never seen it before.

It’s win-win.

2. What is the benefit to your visitors?

Very few blogs can keep up a high rate of quality unless they’re making enough money to support themselves full-time or the blogger doesn’t post very often. For other blogs to have success, even their “lower quality” posts need to have value for their readers, and that’s the tack I’ve been taking with Group Writing Projects. Most of the posts on the site are newsworthy project announcements and results roundups that will only pull you in when you need them but that you’re nevertheless happy to see. Otherwise, higher quality, instructional and opinion articles come out appear every few weeks but my goal is to increase that frequency to once a week.

Taking a different angle with your question, Group Writing Projects doesn’t filter. The site will announce any gwp that comes to my attention, but I will not hesitate to recommend against participating if it’s justified. I have an article coming out soon with more on that, it will surprise some people.

3. What was your motivation to start this?

Very simple. When I first discovered and fell in love with gwps while blogging on JobMob, my reflex was to search for more and I quickly realized that there was no centralized resource bringing them all together. I decided almost right away that I would take on the project but I actually put it off for almost 6 months before getting down to work on it. Both my blogs started to take shape in November, and both were launched a few months later. I may do that again this year as well with yet another :)

4. When did you start?

Group Writing Projects was semi-officially launched in February 2008. I say ’semi’ because I had a whole launch planned but I froze the launch halfway along the plan. That’s the topic of a whole blog post in itself that I’ve promised my readers so I won’t go further here. As for traffic, it varies, by design. The announcement and results posts were designed to be easy for subscribers- quick to scan in your feed reader, with links to creators’ sites if you decide to participate. They also don’t have much interest for search engines, and so they don’t bring many people to the site but that’s fine. The “higher quality” articles tend to do well for the opposite reasons.

5. What is your defining objective with Group Writing Projects?

I make websites that help people. JobMob is about helping people find jobs, and Group Writing Projects is about helping bloggers to achieve their blogging goals. For example my recent Building RSS group writing project has only begun to help bloggers with tips about how to get more subscribers, and the upcoming free e-book for my readers will be so handy that every blogger will want it.

As for an objective, I will only be satisfied when I see gwps as a regular blogging device appearing on blogs of all sizes, in all industries and niches. That’s when I’ll feel that my work is done ;)

Thanks for the interview, Damien. If anyone has questions, they should just come over to Group Writing Projects and ask in the comments or contact form.

It has been said: “If you aim at nothing, you will surely hit it.”

That’s why I rate my own blog.

About the CAN. rating:
I created this system as a way to know if I am meeting the goals I set. My motive for making it up is fairly simple, I got tired of relying on Google to judge my site’s worth so I use my own rating system called CAN.

No, it doesn’t stand for Canada. It is an acronym for three criteria I use to measure success on the blog:

1. Circulation (external references linking back),
2. Analytics (Daily unique traffic), and
3. Net (Money made through my blog).

Each month I set new goals and record the results publicly.

Add them together and divide by 300 to get the final rating

That’s the basic overview of the CAN.ratings. I assign my monthly rank value according to this scale:

• 90-100%=
• 75-89%=
• 51-74%=
• 30-50%=
• 11-30%=
• 0-10%=

You can read a more detailed explanation of CAN. in this post.

Current and Past monthly CAN. updates can be found here. I enjoy your comments on this topic.

Ever since I was a kid I have enjoyed spotting the fake in a picture. Whether it was looking for “Where’s Waldo” or better yet an optical illusion. For example, does anyone remember those MAD Magazine “Fold-In” features on the back cover? They were so awesome. When you looked at the picture it looked like something normal and harmless like the Statue of liberty, but after you followed the “fold-in” directions, you were shocked to see something different altogether.

Well, that’s what this post is about: looking at traffic on your blog in a whole new way. Since
analyzing data is a big part of what I do for a living, I am an elementary school teacher, I have a lot of experience with averages, means, outliers, irrelevant data, and anomalies (note that word, it is verrrrrry important to blog analysis). What I set out to do here is show the stuff that counts in your stats and not just high numbers. It has been said that higher numbers will get your ads clicked more … in my experience? No. (I have had stretches where my blog was averaging 800 visits a day and still only minimal clicks on Adsense). And, from the people I talk to, I am not alone in this knowledge. SO … what does it all mean and how can I use my traffic stats to help me earn money and real, “staying,” subscribers? These things take time like muscle growth for the body. After more than a year at this stuff, here’s my fifty cents (scroll past the computer):

1. Pamphlet services only drive-by, or click-by, traffic. Let me explain. A real estate agent is new to a neighborhood. He has no leads because no one knows him. He makes pamphlets with his best picture, offers free stuff, and he follows up. Is there anyone who hasn’t received this stuff on her/his doorstep? This creates interest and what I call “pamphlet traffic.” Nonetheless, the potential client will not be hooked in unless he/she makes a positive connection and like the person. Put this in the perspective of “pamphlet traffic” generating services like Entrecard … etc. These are not good or bad for a blog but they will only produce a lasting reader if the reader does more than click on the Entrecard E. Because this sort of marketing takes a long time, is it your best time spent looking for subscribers? and/or readers? The 20-30 minutes (or even hours sometimes) I have spent dropping Entrecards could have been better spent I think. Let me go on to show how.
2. Knowing your stats is helpful. Watching your analytics helps you gauge your progress as a blogger. Get a good stats provider and set monthly goals for your blog. The can be as big as or as small as you hope to achieve. You can get progress meters to show off your goals publicly and you can do periodic series to share with your readers what is working for you. Through time, I have narrowed my three priorities for Postcards from the Funny Farm down to:
   a. Traffic
   b. Publishing -and-
   c. money. Every month you’ll find me reflecting on my goals and setting new ones.
3. Spend the most time of your day on your own blog, but THEN Bloghopping. Use your own favorites and blogroll to get out there and really read with a cup of coffee. Dialog between blogger is what makes it an amazing viral writing phenomena. If people like your writing they will return but if they like your writing AND they feel a connection to you as the writer, they will never leave!

On a very reduced scale, I have become famous and “hit it big” with my blog finally. I set a gaol last month to make $100 and I surpassed it (it is still surpassing). I set a goal for a certain amount of visitors and so far I am set to surpass it. I set a goal to guest blog on 5 blogs this month and I have surpassed it. So, … in my eyes, the only eyes that can matter to a serious blogger, I am the big time baby! Of course I am being glib, but you should be excited when you meet your own goals, otherwise you’ll never know what to measure success by! Last: remember that a lot of traffic or rank doesn’t always mean people are reading and retunring. That is what it takes to make money. Kep that in the back of your mind when you have a really high traffic day … or DESOLATELY LOW ONE! On those days just imagine that each of your “80″ for example uniques could end up being your subscriber/reader for life ;)

Any questions? I promise to answer them all.