Postcards from the Funny Farm

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This post is another (I hope the last) rant about Google so feel free to jump ship before you go one. I don’t usually like to whine about stuff, I like to change things or shut up generally. After this post I plan to pretty much shut up about Google PageRank but I will respond to comments of course ;)

I’ve been setting goals for my blog and recording them here since December of 2007. It has been gratifying in almost every respect but I still am not where I’d like to be in other ranking systems such as Google and Technorati. Instead of getting frustrated or trying to game the system, I’ve decided to make my own ranking system based on the things that I value in my blog. I’m calling it the CAN. system My hope is that you, the regular reader, and anyone else who wants to will follow my progress and learn that serious writers can make legitimate money on their blogs without PageRank. My goal since December of 2006 has been to create, innovate, and intergrate quality content. I haven’t lost this goal, I’ve simply defined it more clearly and added “money” as a goal element. This blog does NOT deserve to have a zero PageRank.

Google seems to be highly puritanical when it comes to paid-links on a blog. It’s actually worse than “highly puritanical ” it’s near obscenely puritanical … it makes no rational sense. Who are they serving really? Do you care if a helpful blog post was paid or not? I know I don’t.

I have examined Google’s criteria for PageRank and frankly, I don’t think they even know what they are doing with it. Nonetheless, we have to suck it up as bloggers. It’s the industry guideline that advertisers and publishers use when hiring and taking blogs seriously. Thank goodness many influential bloggers are starting to come out against Google. IZEA is leading an effort against PageRank “.... As for me, watch for my first CAN. update in August. You can see my goals for July here. Maybe it will give you something you’ll find engaging to read by your espresso machines.

One thing, I will give away right now as I close: To make my logo and button for the CAN, Rank System was to use a tutorial for Photoshop. If you’d like to try something similar, it’s a lot of fun. The Google logo itself contains a font that costs $99. But this tutorial shows you how to make it with Ti.... It is cool. There are also tutorials there for companies like Hooters and O’Reilly … a lot more fun stuff. Enjoy and remember in whatever it is you blog about you CAN.

Here in this post you find series links to 5 aspects of a valuable blog. I gave the blogosphere this post because the others sites and books I ran across failed to define. I also give you examples to make the abstract aspects apply a little more. This short series I have published over a few days will pack a powerful punch for your blog’s value and what will that mean for you? well … 1) Greater traffic, 2) longer bounce rate (people will stay longer to read your work), 3) More fans/readers, 4) Possibly higher rank and authority on the web. Let’s review what we’ve covered up to now and then I will close the series by discussing the last letter: “E.”

1. “V” stands for visceral
2. “A” stands for aphoristic
3. “L” stands for linkage
4. “U” stands for ubiquitous
5. “E” stands for extracurricular

Sometimes you have to walk away from your little world that is your blog. While away you will find out all kinds of new matierial for posts as well as a new appreciation for other types of blogging. A couple great places to “get away” are:

BlogCatalog.com

Chawlk.com

Twitter

Search out forums and social networks. These are great places that will add value to your post and your blog.

I’m closing this series but for me this concept is never ending. I am always asking myself: “What makes my blog valuable?” I hope I hit some of these ideas, but these are just what I do. My advice? Ignore what Google Page Rank and Technorati say is a valuable blog. Find your own purpose and goals and then measure your own “rank” based on what you set out to do. I feel like in the future, arbitrary measurements of a blog’s worth are going to fall by the wayside. In some people, they already have.

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.

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?

It’s the end of the month and time again to see how I did with my blogging goals. Setting goals is an effective way to improve a blog and feel a sense of accomplishment when you meet them. This month I will be placing less of an emphasis on money but I feel strongly this will only be a temporary change. The non-monetary goals I am focusing mostly on will translate into more income but it will probably take 2-3 months I predict. Developing an online voice and presence is a surefire way to gain an audience. And everyone knows that audience translates into advertising success. By summer I will hopefully be talking about money as the main thrust of this series, but first things first. I broke down my goals into three categories:

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

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

Feb 2008

1. Traffic Goals:
   3,028 Visits: Goal exceeded by over 1,000 visits!
   93 Visits/Day avg.: Goal of 70 visits/Day exceeded by 23/Day!
2. My Web Publishing Goals:
   One of my main goals with my blog is to establish more of a name and an online presence through multiple online locations. I set goals to guestblog, write for BlogCritics, and always be open to writing for other blogs and websites. Below are the external articles I had published. These also help with backlinks and Technorati authority.
   *Guest Blog at Dad Balance
   *Guest Blog at The Outboard Brain of a Geek
   *BlogCritics Review
3. Monetization Goals:
   PayPerPost $69
   Total earnings for February: $69. Exceeded goal by $39
   In every category I exceeded my goals in February! That is a great feeling. Now, my goals for March:

March 2008

1. Traffic Goals:
   3,500 Visits
   100 Visits/Day avg.
2. My Web Publishing Goals:
   *2 articles for BlogCritics
   *1 guestblog post. (HINT HINT, I am available!)
3. Monetization Goals:
   PayPerPost $30

Think I can pull it off? I am very confident I can. You might consider subscribing to my feed so you don’t miss an update! March 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 do you think of these 3 blogging goals?

(n) emancipation (freeing someone from the control of another; especially a parent’s relinquishing authority and control over a minor child)The advent of WordPress 2.3 brought a Google interplay that quite frankly, sucks. I’m not just saying that because I dislike Google’s ethics (I loathe them). It just isn’t as good as Technorati in my opinion. It used to be in the dashboard you saw Technorati incoming links. These were up to date and there was rarely ever any of those “copy/paste” back links where people just took your content and linked back to you. With Google, you get that stuff daily. In addition, they clip back the number of incoming links to your site. Reason? You have to ask God Google.
Anyway, for a refreshing return to the way it used to be and still is with your backlinks on Technorati, simply install this plugin linked below. This may very well complete my emancipation from Google.

Nusuni Technorati Links WordPress Plugin

Technorati is currently, without doubt providing fresher results than Google - refreshing a Google blog search page tracking results sorted by date was providing 10 results in the last 2 hours.
In contrast, Technorati is providing 10 results… in the last 10 minutes… and they are not spam.

-Andy Beard

I find it interesting to see that the almighty Google still hasn’t beat Technorati in freshness of blogsearches. Read the article, it’s very informative on which engines do what best for blog searching. Add another “upgrade” to my boycott Google adventures list.

Blogrolling.com has been down most of the last few days and I for one am about ready to toss out their service. I used Blogrolling because it’s easy to add and update blogs to it and it automatically updates all my blogs simultaneously.

I have other options: Wordpress’ native blogroll has its limitations but at least it stays on when your server is on. Technorati also has a similar code to Blogrolling.com. This is the problem with Blogrolling.com and other online services: when they go down you have no contact info or ability to complain. I can’t do my weekly Blog Safari until I get my blogroll going. Unfortunately, that means rebuilding it from scratch. I can guarantee you that unless they provide an explanation that is reasonable when back up, I will get my OPML downloaded safe and sound on my hard drive and get the hell outta dodge.

How long should you wait when online services are down?

This blog’s stats for the Month Ending December 31, 2007Traffic
Total Visits: 1,173
Average Daily Hits: 38
Average Daily RSS: 36

Ranking
Google Page Rank: 4
Technorati Authority: 92

Money
Commission Junction: $ 0
Adsense: $ 1.03
Pay Per Post: $70.00

Dollar Total: $71.03
__

Goals for January, 2007:

Traffic

1. 1500 total hits.
2. Post one or more relevant, seo friendly posts per day.
3. Daily average of 80 hits

Money

1. Continue to learn and use Adsense and PayPerPost.
2. Write a post for Smorty.
3. Break $100 in earnings for January 2008.

This is the first post in a monthly series I am calling: “Blog Traffic, Rank, and Money.” I invite you to watch the progress of my blog. I also hope you can take something from the data to help boost your traffic, ranking, and money. As far as December goes, all I want to say is this: The only way to go is up ;) As things rise, I vow to share what worked and, as Derek Semmler has pointed out to me, sometimes what didn’t!

I invite you to subscribe and keep up with the updates!

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