Postcards from the Funny Farm

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.

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The past 3 days and today (7/26/08) my Google Page Rank appears to be back. I tried playing aloof and I didn’t write a gushing post since I have been wrong before. Sometimes the toolbar malfunctions, this is something I have verified by many sites and blogs out there. More often than not though, it’s correct. The long story made short is that yes, indeed my PageRank has gone back to the PR4 it was when it got spanked months ago. In this post, I tell you in a few sentences exactly what I did to get it back (I’ve been keeping a careful journal on everything!)

Fearing I might be jumping the gun, I emailed one of my blog mentors and friend Derek Semmler yesterday and asked him to verify the PR4 change for me. He’s seen me go through the PR0 ordeal with this blog and even written a few really cool articles about PageRank hits on his blogs. He said that sadly my new rank wasn’t registering on his toolbar. (Thanks again for checkin’ Derek) So, I kind of gave up and forgot about it. That’s why today after seeing it still in my toolbar and verifying the change with some 3rd party sources, I was elated to see it was indeed a true PR4.

My understanding via Matt Cutts’ blog is that Google has “expired” some of the prior penalties. In addition to that, here is what I have done. It’s nothing mysterious but it takes some effort. My attitude toward success has always been that I don’t mind work when I know it’s worth something. Some of you may have seen my fave Woody Allen quote come up once in a while here, “80% of success is showing up.” If you are doing the right things by Google to get PageRank success, I’d even make that an 85 instead of an 80:

1) Guestblog monthly: Set a specific number as a goal. Ask higher ranked blogs if you can guestblog and link back to your index in the post (usually a signature looks the least pompous). I’ve been averaging 5 guestblogs a month in the last 6 months. All my guestblogs are represented by an intro here and you can read them through this link: Those backlinks affect PageRank. You can also invite bloggers to guestblog on yours. You usually get a link from their blog announcing their work. A classic example of this is Chelle’s recent PageRank post on mine:

2) Every sponsored post/link on your blog needs to have the attribute: rel=”nofollow” in its relative links. I won’t bother explaining, just do it. It took me 4 days in between work, wife, and screaming kids to change all mine to this. I pity anyone who has more than say 100. But if you make it a practice, you will never have a problem with this issue. I could say more on this, please ask questions if you have them. My assumption is that most people get this already. Obviously I recently learned it :)

3) Write quality posts to a niche audience (as much as possible) that people read, link to, and comment on. (Reading and inking to parts are way more important but comment have ripple effects for lnkage, traffic, etc.) I’ve written extensively on the value of a blog post but this subject is a bit subjective. I doubt any SEO writers will be subscribing as a result. However, if what you do is kind of like my writing, please check out the series, it was written with you in mind: V.A.L.U.E. of a Blog.

4) Show your indefinable magic as a blogger! How could I leave that one out. Don’t forget to be yourself. Remember that the dead splash page of Firefox, for example, is a 6/10! Who reads that? Blogs started out as WEBLOGS where interesting people shared their research, later their thoughts and quotes, and finally they are now a place where anyone can self-publish anything. Let your light shine.

Folks, it’s been a long rocky road since they spanked my PageRank (man that sounds bad doesn’t it ;). I am enjoying the smoothness now that it’s back. Like it or not, Google PageRank is an issue of economics and you should have it. So I am officially not a hater of Google PageRank, they have done right by me. It seems like there are as many ranks out there as there are acne treatments, but Google has the most clout.

If you want to know more regarding this topic, just ask. I think I’m done for now. This is meant to be in fact a psychology niche blog most the time. Maybe you can persuade me to write some other stuff I’ve done to improve my blog’s rank. Now go jump in the pool (that’s where I’m headed). I’ve also reignited my other two blogs and it’s time to rev some speed. You might say I’ve had 3 car covers on in my blog garage and now they are coming off. Thanks for being a part of this ride.

I’m published today in a post at the official FuelMyBlog Blog. The topic there is one you might do well to check out. It could be the cornerstone issue in the future of blogging. Here are some responses to that post on defining blog value over at the the FuelMyBlog Blog:

sylvied said: “You are totally right here we can rate our own blogs and add value to it.”

KevinD said: “I think a new wave of blogger is coming, the realists …”

Claire said: “I find this intriguing as my site visitor stats are actually quite low although feed subscribers stats are 6 times as high. As most of the requests are for text tag links, I’m assuming the attraction is ‘google juice’ rather than reaching my subscribers or readers …”

belinha said about my quote: “To define your own value is to declare independence from parent companies like Google that thrive by assigning value as they see it.”
Very good point!

If you get enough money through blogging, you can take amazing vacations (among other luxuries)  wouldn’t learning about those be more valuable than “bearing your soull” in a diary no one reads?  I am already looking into my favorite vacation fantasies:

The myrtle beach vacation packages are cheap and almost as good as san diego vacation packages. Still they are not the vacation packages that get sold the most. The most selling ones are the cancun vacation packages and the caribbean vacation packages.

These are great comments. Some really smart people hang out over there. Maybe one day we can all take one of these vacations together, sort of a blogfest!  I have a method that includes money tracking that seems to be improving my ability to buy things.  If you want to know about this self-made method for testing a blog’s value, check out my post (series of posts) called V.A.L.U.E.
It’s not perfect but it’s a start.

Now for your take on all this: Google thinks they know the value of a blog, and the world listens. Knowing how to measure your blog’s value can mean the difference between a shack and one of those Hilton Head rentals. What do you have to say about defining blog value?

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.

Okay, so I covered the first two letters of value: “V” for visceral and “A” for aphoristic. Now the third: “L” for linkage! Link love is the #1 way to make friends and influence people (namely bloggers you link to on the web. After you’ve written your visceral post of around 200 words and given it a catchy and creative title, it is important before you press the “publish” button to add 3 deeplinks (links to other posts on your blog) and 3 linkloves (links to other blogs). This can become a standard practice and you will find it easy then. IT IS VERY CUMBERSOME AT FIRST. You need to try and automate the process however you can. It should be like brushing your teeth every morning. Just to give you some of my tips:

1. For backlinks I have a shortcut to my most popular posts page. I open it in a new tab and getting relevant backlinks that are my most popular is as easy as copy/paste. This helps with rank and authrity. It also links your best stuff for people who are interested in it. REMEMBER: The best way to include links is within the context of your writing. Just inserting them random looks like spam and worse than that, it turns off your readers. You can automatically insert links in your blog (I recommend for a 200 word post 3 backlinks and 3 linkloves) and have it enhance your content.
2. For linklove: I use WordPress. As I add new faves to my blogroll, I can go to Manage / links in the admin section an choose the “blank” window feature. Then when I want to get a link open to check out or copy, all I need to do is click. I try to consistently link to my favorite blogs and I notice they really appreciate it. ONE NOTE: Chelle reminded me that the anchor text that the url is assigned to is important to rank, so choose appropriate words. For example: I really like this guy, if guy is the anchor text, then they only get juice for the word guy. If I says: “This guy knows music!” Then you link more effectively to his site about pop culture, music, and being a D.J..

Linkage of external sites along with the 2 types listed above is the third letter in blog value. Coming up tomorrow: The mysterious “U.” Keep following these guidelines and who knows, maybe you’ll be lookin’ into those las vegas hotels