Postcards from the Funny Farm

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This one is for my readers who blog and all those who take the time to comment. Comments are the vehicle of the future for blog communication, networking, and yes: making money. This is true because as more and more spam ensues, we will only be able to tell what is real from what is not by the manner of comments we read. You know those watches they try and sell you in front of the grocery store. You can probably tell they are fakes, but what about the guy who has the real Guess watches for dirt cheap? You want to recognize him as well. So is the way of comments. The comments we leave should show that we are indeed real readers/customers. I am very thankful for the amount of comments I receive here and I want to show respect by making sure they all make it to publishing and that they not get stuck in a spam quarantine. Akismet, the native WordPress comment spam protection plugin, spams a lot of good comments on my blog. I don’t always have the time to check it for false-negatives. As a result, I have probably missed at least several comments from many great writers, friends, and visitors. I’ve suffered with it long enough. Today I added a second tool to my arsenal. Now I’m using Recaptcha.

A couple synchronous things happened today that got me thinking about comments in the future of the blogosphere: 1) Wordpress came out with its latest update, 2.6 and 2) Entrecard sent me an email explaining they have teamed up with Sez Who to give their readers more credits when they have a Sez Who enabled blog. Lucky for me, I have been using Sez Who already for a while. It’s not too complicated, you just activate a Wordpress plugin (if you are like me and using Wordpress). It gives the author of a post a small icon that when rolled over shows her/his comment history on that blog. There are also rating features. It’s neat. Try it out.

As I was upgrading Wordpress I realized I had 77 comments in Akismet. I got that sinking feeling that maybe some of them were not spam (the term is “False Negatives”). Sure enough I found out that comments from some of my best friends, and most valuable networks, were NOT POSTED! As much as I love WordPress and see it as very good spam protection with Akismet, I had to activate Recaptcha as another layer of protection. Basically, it is better now because the reCaptcha keeps most spam out requiring a human typing code. Then, the Akismet is still necessary for the spam that can beat ReCaptcha. I still have to check my Akismet daily, but it is likely to be much less to pore through. This is a plugin/service I have always loved I just thought it was too cumbersome for you my readers. The commenter has to type the letters from a random image to make the comment go through. Akismet guesses whether a comment is spam which does not guarantee 100% true negatives (ie; only spam will be caught). It can and does often catch good comments. If I miss them, it has the potential of offending my commenters.

So … in a nutshell, I think the commenting revolution is about to begin and for me in my rocket ship, we’ll be flying with recaptcha. Does typing the ReCaptcha to comment bother you? I hope not … I want to make participating in discussions here as easy and trustworthy as possible. Nonetheless, I have tried both and I’m not disciplined enough to check the Akismet every day. Here’s to a great future of communication where the blog owners do everything they can to “keep it real” and so do the commenters. My apologies to those whose legit comments never showed up here. It wasn’t my doing and it won’t happen again.

I started webbing in about 1996 or so. I loved it then as much as I do now. I had a Geocities homepage and I joined a bunch of webrings I never really took full advantage of. Possibly that was because I had no concept of the value of backlinks. It is a lot like play if you do it right. Once you get beyond the rhetoric, it’s really about 70% game in this business anyway. I do remember back then though people would trade links and I had quite a few sites linking to my pathetic HTML mistake-ridden website.

Well, many years have passed now and I find myself seeking those precious backlinks more than I ever did then (though then I think I probably effortlessly had more). I wanted to just remind my blogging readers that there is a lot of value in including your blogroll favorites within the body of your posts. For example, I have a set of my 9 top backlink bloggers on my blogroll embedded in this post. While it is probably more ethical for the readers of the world to link them in a context that makes better sense, I put them here to make a point and show how simple it can be to do it. I save my top readers and linkers in a text file and when I sit down to blog, I make sure to link out to them. I think it’s an exciting way to get the old networking magic of 1999 back. What do you think?

In this post I discuss how valuable Twiter and you may have heard of Twitter is you are not already using it. It is an enigma to me still trying to understand it’s huge popularity. It IS popular though so that alone becomes the impetus to join. As you Twitter, you theoretically can gain reader for your site or blog. I might as well change those terms into your “online ego.” Twitter will feed it for sure. That little blue “t” ca do a lot for your online ego. Whether it’s going to build your traffic? Well, the jury is still out on that one.

Twitter is a simple time-line of messages that users assemble from all over the globe intermittently as they feel the inspiration to do so. It reminds me a lot of the way PHPbb forums used to be. I would post in the morning what I was doing that day and when I got home I would check for questions or responses and I would reply. Twitter gives the reply function but it doesn’t alert the writer that her/his Twitter message has been replied to. To be, this is a huge drawback since the only way to find replies is to go back and back and back into the message since your twitter post to find the reply. Many times after all that, you find no one replied.

So what is it good for? Twitter is good for connecting friends who are online. It is also good for posting sites your run across to recommend, like a tumblelog. You can get traffic this way, but for me it hasn’t brought much. The best part of Twittering for me has been seeing what my friends are doing and getting ideas for content from that. I haven’t had much referral traffic for Twitter.

My friend Chris Gray really likes Twitter and he has this to say about it:

1. Online diary — I like to send updates on various milestones that I would have never otherwise written down. For example, I can go back and now recall the date and time my wife and I took our youngest son to get his first haircut or when he took his first steps. It’s also fun to look back at various other moments, goals, frustration points, and see where I’m at right this moment. I use it as a kind of gauge (if that makes any sense).
2. I also use it as a quick way to communicate with my friends (since I have twitter hooked up to my cell phone I can send them tweets wherever I am). I also use Twadget (Vista sidebar gadget) to post/keep up with tweets.
3. Finally, I occasionally use Twitter to advertise new blog posts (while I haven’t had the chance to do this for some time now- since my posts have been sparse

Thanks to Chris for that helpful info!

My conclusion? Twitter is a luxury/fun item that you should play with to keep up with friends as well as make new ones but I don’t see it as a way to improve traffic.

The other service I want to look at in this article is IZEA. Now, IZEA is a larger company that produces several smaller ones. The most well known one is PayPerPost. This is a service you apply to and, once acceoted, may choose from a list of “Opps” from paying advertisers for varying amounts of money (usually at my level I see opps from 7-45 dollars). Izea also has a new PayPerPost social marketing site called “Social Spark.” It is currently in a invite-only beta phase but i have been told that very soon it will launch publicly. There isn’t much to review with regards to traffic but from what I can tell, this will become both a monster way to find paying ad sponsors, but also a way to network and increase your traffic. The one drawback I see is the fact that some people will perceive this as a competition and not linkback etc. I hope that is not the case and that IZEA creates incentives for referrals and links to other members. If that proves impossible with this business model, I hope they will seek out ways to make members friendly with each others and helpful toward one another.

So, those are the two social networking sites I wanted to write about tonight. I’m getting more and more into this online social marketing stuff. So much so that I have already purchased some patch panels for the computer room in our new home. But whatever I recommend and however much hardware you have in your home, you have to see what really works best for your needs. Use these services as much as you can before you take my review as gospel truth. For some, these may work better than for others. Enjoy.

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I made more money in March than I have made blogging to-date. In this post I show how. So, without any further ado, lets get to my March 2008 goals and results.

In February’s post, I broke down my March goals into three categories. This worked so well that I will be doing the same for April. You may recall the three categories are:

1. Traffic Goals,
2. My Web Publishing Goals, and
3. Monetization Goals.

First, let’s look at last month’s stats:

March 2008

1. Traffic Goals:
   3,532 Visits: Goal exceeded! (was 3500)
   114 Visit/Day avg.: Goal of 100 visits/day exceeded!
2. My Web Publishing Goals:
   Just to reiterate: One of my main goals with my blog is to establish more of a name and an online presence through multiple online locations. These also help with backlinks, Google PageRank and Technorati authority. I went on a publishing field-day to put it mildly! I hope to do even more next month.
   
3. Monetization Goals:
   Feeling a little jaded after Google smacked my page rank from a PR4 to a PR2 because I used IZEA, I decided to set my PayPerPost goal low in March at $30. I exceeded that goal with an income of $65 from PayPerPost in March. Also, I was able to make $20 from Loud Launch and an incredible first month of $70 with PayU2Blog. The PayPal payment just went into my bank account an hour ago. Can you say Sarah and I go to Chili’s for lunch today??? ;) Oh, one more money item: I gained 2 125×125 paying advertisers this month. It is a pleasure having them and I plan to do all I can to keep them happy.

Okay, now it is time to list my future goals for April:

1. Traffic:
   3750 Visits.
   175 Visits/Day (I know it is almost doubling last month’s goal, but I am networking through 9Rules and BlogCatalog much more as well as some sources I’m choosing to wait to mention in case they don’t work).
2. My Web Publishing Goals (10 published articles in April): Publish on …
   BlogCritics (2)
   Associated Content (1)
   FuelmyBlog (2)
   GuestBlogging as the coveted offers come in. I would anticipate a minimum of 5 offers, but we’ll see. If I don’t get that many, I may approach YOU! ;)
3. Monetization Goals: I’m making a goal to make $100 minmum on PayPerPost and PayU2Blog. We’ll see what the ads bring in as well but I am not setting an ads goal at this time.

Think I can pull it off? I am confident I can. You might consider subscribing to my feed so you don’t miss an update! This month should be an exciting month of meeting these new goals. Oh, and if you are interested in getting traffic from this blog, I would like to do a guestblog or interview for you on your blog. Let’s talk! Thanks for reading Postcards from the Funny Farm.

What a week! I had five articles published outside my blog! Most were guestblogs (which I hold in very high respect, thanks to all who hosted me last week). As my friends know, this is a serious goal for me right now. In between all that, and having a family of 5 and a full time job as a teacher, the jeep attacked a lot of rock mountains on the weekly Blog Safari. I dug into Blog Catalog discussions more than I ever have (see sidebar widget). Also, I started back into 9Rules which is amazing. Between that and my regular RSS reads, I found some amazing stuff and I’ll serve it up to you here. If you have an article you’d like to see featured here some week, please drop me a line and I will check it out. As always, the articles below all received a well-deserved Stumble. Enjoy the Safari this week!

Hand holding is so… yesterday
A short but great article about how a simple touch and a bit of extra effort can improve your love life and your sex life.

Lord Likely has Some Trouble with The Brown Mist
Speaking of sex, Lord Likely is at it again. His ridiculous shenanigans get him into all kinds of laugh-a-minute situations. Read this post and may it be the one that hooks you on this very entertaining columnist.

Fuelmyblog and other social networking sites, Walking the Stacks
I really like this blog. He’s written about stuff I am currently doing a series on: social networkin.... Check out this cool article and learn as I did from it.

Twitter: what are you doing right now?
I found Tyme’s blog through 9Rules. It’s a great piece of writing. I often wonder why the hell I am on Twitter. Is it ridiculous? Read her article and see what you think.

Got Traffic Blues? Remember Balance
Kimberly is my newest sponsor here at Postcards from the Funny Farm. I will be doing a full review of her site this month as well and linking her to you where I think her services can help. Watch for that, it will be valuable to your piggy bank. This article is an example of the kind of patient and yet effective money coach she is to people who want to make money online. She shows the many ways to make it: not just through ads or clicking. I endorse her stuff heartily. Go check it out, I think you will be both surprised and impressed.

Reaching Your Goals
My main man Derek wrote a great little post on reaching goals. This is like a staple to any form of success in my life. Derek is also one of my ads featured in the right hand upper area of the fold. As a side note, through using principles he has virtually learned through trial and error and through mentors, Derek manages to bring in a sizable chuck of change every month through blogging. Check out what he has to say about goals.

38 TV Themes Recorded by the Actors Themselves
Malcolm … I need to high five you for this one!!! Folks, go look at the pictures and imagine the songs he lists in this post. Creative, hard work, labor of love went into this post … that is undeniable. This is another must for every blogroll.

Scared Silly by the Faeries
My writing and academic colleague 1/2 way across the world in Scotland wrote an entry for Shelly Tucker’s contest (which I happen to be judging). This is a great story and it really gives you an idea what Shelly is looking for in the contest. I am the judge. How did I attain this lofty position you ask? Good God I have no freakin’ idea. Maybe it’s because I never write “sex” or “freagin” in my posts ;) Seriously though, if you have a scary story and a blog go to her details post through the button below and get your post done before the submission deadline!

Tiny Url: rurl.org/kpm

BoozeCruise
Jessica the Rock Chick is one of the coolest people I know. She is able to admit when her angelic guitar player from Bon Jovi make s a huge boo boo. Get a fans rant at this post. Also, I just want to say as I have in the past that you really need to be reading Jessica’s blog, it makes me a cooler person (and God knows I have miles to go there).

Things I’m Learning from Blogging
The master .. mistress? well … Shelly anyway :) This lady has been a reader of mine for a long time and we have sort of a reciprocal love of storytelling. One of these days I’ll get to see her live (she does it for a living!) Suffice it to say, if this lady has a post about blogging and what she is learning, boy I’ll tell ya what … I’m there ;)

Easily Organize Post Categories
Katy is a very astute, prolific blogger who offers very practical and helpful information to her readers regarding blogging. This is one of those posts! I would add that “Batch Categories” is another very helpful and easy to use plugin to add to the one she lists in her article.

This article is Part I of my series “Finest Hour of Social Networks” where I examine social networks and their effectiveness in raising real traffic (low bounce rate/readers who stay more than the duration of two ckicks!) This goal is important for monetization and for building a following to your blog. If these ideas are something you’re interested in, this series will help you achieve those goals.

It’s time for another series because I have a lot to say and I don’t want to burn out trying to say it all in one article. I hope you get something out of it. As always, your discussion is invaluable to the series’ evolution throughout. I really appreciate your comments. Ok, well here goes: One common thread that seems to run through every site I run across these days is the topic of building blog traffic. “How can I do it!” Whether you are growing your internet business or just trying to get more readers for your online publishing, it is the burning question in everyone’s mind. There are many ways published out there that you can take and use and make your own. Most of these ways really do work. Depending on how much a blogger puts into it, (including sometimes unholy amounts of time at the comp away from your family) they can work astoundingly well. At the same time, I myself have tried others of them only to come up exhausted and without a shard of new traffic. In the year and a half that I have been blogging, I’ve tried almost everything. I have tricks up my sleeve that I could share until the cows come home. I don’t get to them that often these days because there is other content I need to get to, content about psychology and inspiration and education. The stuff I am passionate about is my favorite stuff to share on here. At the same time, my primary audience here (as measured by visits and referrals) has always been innovative bloggers and noobs. Social networking can literally explode the traffic of my friends ad cohorts out there. It behooves me to share what I know about blogging. With content on this site it is a lot like my family and my work, I try to find a happy balance.
Because I have so much to share about social networking and traffic for bloggers, I am penning this series which will ultimately consist of IV parts as outlined below:

Series: Finest Hour of Social Networks
Part I
BlogCatalog
Entrecard

Part II
Facebook
Fuel My Blog

Part III
Twitter
Social Spark and other monetized social networks.

Part IV
Final Thoughts

Taking these on in ABC order, today’s part focuses on two powerful social networks: Blog Catalog and Entrecard. Join me as I analyze how these 2 services can increase your blog’s traffic no matter whether you are a noob or someone who’d been doing it so long you are starting to burn out … or maybe you are somewhere in the middle. I believe these services can revolutionize the traffic of your blog.

Blog Catalog has been around at least as long as 2005 when I first started checking them out. They have been through normal gradual changes for a company run by young guys and they have emerged in 2008 to be a daunting force for the Technoratis and MyBlogLogs of the world. Blog Catalog has stayed solid at listening to the customers and at innovating the marketplace as best they can. They have come up with some really fun widgets that I use along with so really helpful services in their site for bloggers. The end result is a giant set of tools to increase your blog’s traffic. Here is how I use Blog Catalog to reach out and increase my blog’s traffic:

1. Friend’s list - This is such a great feature. When someone decides they like my blog they add me as a friend on BlogCatalog. I get an email alter and I check their blog out. If I like their blog I can add them if not, they remain my one-way friend anyway. This is a great way to access networks of bloggers with your like-minded favorites etc.

2. Discussions - I hang around BC Discussions daily. It is an excellent way to promote your blog and get help or givehelp with blog issues. more important than anything, it’s a way to sample people and their blogs so you can develop relationships that last. I have commented on blogs through this service years ago and to this day they are still visiting my blog and I theirs.

3. Widgets - BC offers incredibly designed blog widgets. You have to try them all to see which work for you. For me, I like the discussion widget because it shows where I have been talking out in the sphere for those would be interested. I suppose it’s a status message kind of like Twitter or Facebook that way. The difference is that there is no limitation of characters and the thread can interact indefinitely (as many do!)

Through using these three facets of Blog Catalog I have met hundreds of people but just between 15-20 people who remain friends and/or fans of mine and who frequent my site. I get backlinks (this refers to when another site links to you) that bring in traffic perpetually and that increase your ranks with the search engines. I highly recommend you join Blog Catalog, pimp out your profile there and then take part in the three amazing service I listed above. You will see an increase in your traffic.

Now for the second and newer of the two in our discussion today: The sophisticated looking Entrecard.

Entrecard works like this: You create a 125×125 “Entrepeneur Card” or Entrecard for your site. Then you upload it to your profile and pimp out the other parts of the profile. At that point you need to do two things for the service to get you traffic: 1) You need to “drop” your Entrecard on other blogs, and

2) You need to advertise on other blogs. These two actions are theoretically harmonious because every time you visit another Entrecard site and drop your card on it, you get 1 “ec” point. The site you dropped on also gets 1 ec in the process. It is good etiquette to return the drop, but not everyone does it. In your profile, there is a section called “Drop Inbox.” This shows the last 80 or so drops on your site. Many people use that page as the way to “drop back.” The idea of dropping back on everyone is really a foolish idea. It can take hours sometimes to go through them all. I have developed a way to drop every day that takes me less than half-an-hour and I drop over 80 a day. If you are interested in hearing how, just look at the button below my Entrecard that contains the words about “Above the Fold.” It’s something I am trying to promote and hope it catches on.

You get ads on other sites by paying for them in “ec’s” In other words, the more dropping you do and selling of your own space, the more ec’s you have to buy ads.

My traffic has grown nearly 50% through Entrecard which has felt really good. On the other had, the bounce rate for those hits is remarkably low so. People click through like wildfire just to get ec’s. I must admit however that I have received some ad business through Entrecard and many comments by new readers. So I can’t say it’s just empty traffic. I guess the higher the numbers, the better the chance you have of gaining new fans. In the same way, how can anyone know if they like you if they never see you? Entrecard can be a little complicated and clicking through all those sites can be cumbersome. It works for me to raise traffic and to get my 125×125 “Messy Marvin” PostCards avatar out there. I’m not sure if one day’s link actually registers with the search engines, but that isn’t really why I do it.

Social networks like these are exploding traffic for many people I know. If you want more people coming to your site, to read the words you write or buy the things you sell, I doubly encourage you to start with these two. Get registered and begin to explore what works for you. If you have questions, contact me or leave a comment. I firmly believe these two social networks can and will revolutionize your traffic records. Let us know how it goes. I’ll leave you with this: We spend a lot of hours on the computer with internet businesses our and blogs: why not try and make each one our finest!

Next time in my series: Finest Hour of Social Networks

Part II
Facebook
Do people actually use this blue book? If so why? Can it help my traffic?

Fuel My Blog
Somethings Cooking! Will it help my traffic?
And much more to say on these two services I have used for some time now.

What do you think using Blog Catalog and Entrecard to build traffic?

photo credit: funny hub

Shelly Tucker wrote another great post today about the quandary of a blogroll. I think this is such an important subject to discuss. She raises and makes some very good points. I thought I’d link back to her and continue my thoughts on the same subject here.

At the beginning here, (this is only my opinion) I must say I firmly believe that most blogrolls are unkempt and unattended junk-drawers of random blogs that hold mixed levels of meaning to the blog owner. This is also true for most Technorati rolls I run across. It has become sort of an obligatory thing for many people to add and be added to each other’s blogrolls. I encourage every blogger to use the potential of a blogroll by going down their list and developing a criteria for deletion/retention. Regular maintenance of your blogroll helps you, it increases the value of a link on your site thereby helping your blogrolled folks, and it keeps your integrity high as a host of links on your blog. Your criteria should be based on what helps YOU! That may sound selfish but let’s face it, there are a bazillion blogs out there and you can’t be all things to all people. You can however, be something very helpful for networking to some people that belong on your specific blogroll.

1. If the blog belongs to a friend of mine or if I read the blog regularly they make the blogroll.
2. After that, some standards must come into play … here are mine:
3. A certain rating standard (I won’t reveal mine but it’s an either/or thing based on several measures … must be the assessment teacher in me coming out).
4. Even if 3 is true, if they consistently don’t communicate at least once every 6 months or so in at least a comment or 2, I usually will drop them. My blogroll is a valued spot and if a blogger doesn’t care to touch base with me, there are others who do to fill the space.
5. I have some more, but you tell me? What are your criteria?

The most important point here is that you develop a criteria. You can bend and break the rules anytime you choose but by choosing to have a criteria and “pruning” your blogroll you help your blog and the whole blogosphere.

Would you be likely to prune your blogroll?

This article attempts to relate how cool the new browser on the block is: Flock. Anyone who blogs should use all the major browsers. This helps you stay abreast of what your code looks like across the board. I have Firefox, IE, and now Flock all installed on my computer and while I use them all to some extent, the new “Social Web Browser” called Flock is my favorite. This is by no means a tutorial, I have much to learn about its many hidden features. Instead, it’s simply a review and a recommendation to you. I say everyone should go check this amazing browser out.

This feature is the reason I left Firefox. You can subscribe to feeds within Flock and the interface for doing so is so much simpler than anything I have used from Bloglines to Google Reader. You can auto subscribe with a click or just select the XML source and add it to your feed favorites.

It’s nice when you can have features in the browser rather than all over the places with shortcuts in your toolbar. Mine fills up fast! That’s why I like Flock. It has most the major social networks embedded as features and the ones that aren’t, you can access in Flock through the add-on “Shareaholic.”

All Firefox addons are compatible with Flock and it has features that Firefox does not yet have. I will always be a fan of Firefox but I think the current Flock is better.

This cut of the buttons and toolbar shows some of the groovy features of Flock. Don’t you want to see what each button does? Flock is so cool. How often in our blogging day to we come across truly new surfing and networking tools? Flock has a lot of them.

Flock can be downloaded here. What do you think of it?

I’ve been using a new social networking/marketing service called Entrecard and this post is a summary of my findings. By way of introduction, let me just tell you that this is one startup company that if they were handing out logo pens I would be eagerly taking several. This company is valuable and serves a viable purpose, unlike so many internet startups out there.

Entrecard is a service that allows you to drop your virtual card on blogs you visit as they leave theirs on yours. You both get “credits” for doing so and this allows you with time to purchase advertising on other blogs. This is not normal advertising, it is just exposure or advertising for your blog. Above in the screen shot you see the line of cards that were dropped on my site just today. It is good etiquette to visit each one and drop and comment back. In all honesty, I don’t always comment. There are some weak blogs on Entrecard. Besides that, sometimes I have 50 or more dropped on my blog and who has time to read and comment on that many blogs?

You see here one of the size choices for a widget. This is the size I have here on my blog. You can see it’s a simple pic with a link to the site along with a bar down below that allows you to drop your Entrecard.

This is a great day to find new blogs out there. It’s also a great way to get your blog noticed. One drawback is that the established Entrecard blogs are very expensive (in terms of credits, nothing costs anything in terms of dollars and cents) to advertise on and I have noticed this doesn’t necessarily correlate with quality.

At the same time, the “drops inbox” has a feed so you can subscribe to the feed that tells you who dropped at your blog. This makes “dropping back” really easy, well I won’t say easy, but it gets done!

People will request to advertise on your site. Once approved by you, their widget will appear for one day on your site. It’s a cool back to grassroots marketing for blogs.

There is a limited selection of blogs on Entrecard which I don’t know is a blessing or a curse. For example, I was looking for blogs on Fuel my Blog the other day and it was like sifting through hayseed. Entrecard is the opposite, there are only a handful to choose from in each category and that makes it easy to get familiar with the ones you frequent.

To conclude my very short review, I find Entrecard productive. I have gained a few new readers and some traffic as a result of using it. the drawbacks are that it is time consuming and limited in the blogs it exposes you to. If you try it out, make sure you drop on this site!

I’ve been reaching out in the past couple weeks to new blogs hoping to find some new connections.  My existing faves all rock and I enjoy reading them, but my goals for 2008 include getting more traffic and so far I have learned the best way to get traffic is through making connections and visiting and commenting on other blogs.  Here are some ways I am finding great new blogs currently that you may want to try if you’re not already:

1. The following widgets: MyBlogLog, BlogCatalog, Entrecard, Spottt, and BlogRush.

2. The Blogrolls of my favorite blogs and Bumpzee.

How do you find new blogs to read?