I’ve been contemplating a design change on my main blog. I usually hire that type of work out, not being able to make pretty images on my own (none I’m pleased with, anyway!) but I know I’m not ready to hire someone just yet. At any stage of the game, I’m a designers worst nightmare, nit picking over layouts and colors, but I don’t even know what *I* want yet. A three column Wordpress theme with soft muted colors, or something in a snazzy two column with colors that pop off your screen?

Until I decide where I’m going, and how to get there, I’m taking inspiration from places like this design blog. Billed as the blog where style and web design meet, you’ll find articles on web design as well as SEO tools and tips. The title “Web Designing - The Planning” just caught my eye, so I’m off to read and see if I can pick up a few ideas. This piece on the top three web design elements is interesting too - it puts into words what I like visually and explains why colors and contrast work together on a web page.

A while back, I posted about the new system to gauge blog rank available from Izea. I’ve got all of my blogs registered there, and in the past months, have seen quite a few advertisers willing to forgo pagerank in order to experiment with RealRank. Several of my blogs are at the top of the rankings, meaning that they rate highly as far as links and traffic, which translates to more opps for me. This blogs real rank is at 850 for today, which is another feature I like - ranks are updated daily, not every 3 months (or more) like pagerank.

To use RealRank, simply visit IZEARanks.com, install a snippet of code on your blog, and start getting ranked. Learn more about your traffic and how you stack up to other blogs, be they in your genre, or not. RealRank only allows blogs to be added, so you’re not competing against websites that don’t have personalized content added daily.

You can view the top 100 of all blogs on the site, or drill down into categories to see how you stack up against blogs with the same niche and focus. You’ll see that some bloggers chose to keep their stats private, while others publish them for the world to see. (Guess which one of those options I’ve chosen for my blogs?) The whole system, when used in conjunction with the PayPerPost marketplace, allows advertisers to select from blogs that are getting the traffic and pageviews they want, instead of blogs with a high pagerank assigned by Google that doesn’t equate to traffic or pageviews. Because really, what does a PR of 5 or a PR of 8 mean to the advertiser? Absolutely nothing. There’s no promise of pageviews, traffic, or great content, only the promise of a link weighted more by Google.

The more blogs added, the more weight your high rank can carry with advertisers!

Link baiting works. I just had to go about it the hard way, by purchasing pre-worn pants at Old Navy, and then blogging about it the mess I found in the crotch of said pants. From there, the story was picked up by The Consumerist, and now it’s linked on the front page of Fark.com:

The incredible traffic I’m seeing as a result on my main blog almost makes the whole experience worth it! Too bad I can’t come up with link bait like this on a regular basis!

I’ve had the code for IZEARanks.com installed on my blogs since the beginning, and I’ve been eagerly tracking the ebb and flow of the rankings for my various blogs. There are still kinks to be worked out, and improvements to be made, but overall, I think this “real rank” is much better than Google’s pagerank, which Google arbitrarily giveth and taketh away.

Here’s what I like about Real Rank:

• It’s a real number, based on real stats. Your traffic counts for 70% of your rank, and your inbound links account for 20%. Daily page views make up the final piece of the real rank pie, offering you a number that’s based on actual blog stats.
• Real rank is only for blogs - you’re not competing against non blogs.
• Real rank isn’t gamed as easily as Alexa can be.
• Real rank is based on REAL traffic, unlike Google’s pagerank. My main blog went from a 4, to a 5, to a 0, to a 3 with the most recent PR updates, my traffic increased. What does that say about Google’s pagerank as a measure of a blog’s worth?
• Real rank updates daily on IzeaRanks.com, and you can easily see how you stack up to other blogs, or just blogs in your genre.

Here’s a screenshot of the real rank for this blog. I’ve been holding steady all week, but if you look at my traffic for the whole month, you can see my traffic has dipped down, and really took a drop during the 3rd week of January. I was on vacation then, and not posting. It’s neat to see your rank change in response to how you’ve promoted (or not promoted) your blog.

This is huge for advertisers - when you buy based on pagerank, you really don’t know what you’re getting. That PR 7 blog could get 300 visitors a day, or 3,000. With Real Rank, you can see exactly what kind of traffic the blog you’re advertising on receives!

Tim never fails to start interesting discussions on the GeekySpeaky message boards, and this one is no exception. It centers on exchanging stumble and digg requests, and asks, are we marketing, or gaming a system?

My answer is on the thread linked above, but I’d like to add to it - only stumble the best of what you write or blog. You shouldn’t be stumbling every post. You shouldn’t be stumbling every other post. Once a week, at most! How do you know when you’re stumbling the right kinds of articles? When you see traffic increase, lots of reviews on the article, and increase comments on that entry - you’ve done it correctly.

A new ad service is launching in just a few weeks, and just like sponsored blogging shook up the blogosphere in 2006, this new service is bound to shake things up again. Pay-Per-Play will officially open on February 1st, 2008, but the site is accepting new user registrations right now. This new form of blog advertising adds a 5 second audio message to your blog - it’s a relatively unobtrusive form of blog advertising, and the pitch is over quickly, so you shouldn’t see a decline in visitors. The advertisers include national brands like Taco Bell, HBO, and Harley Davidson. Instead of leaving the work to the blogger, by inserting paid links on your site, or writing long posts extolling the virtues of one product or another, Pay-Per-Play does the work.

Unlike traditional blog advertising methods, this ad is only played once per visitor, so frequent visitors and supporters of your blog won’t hear the same ad repeatedly. Additionally, NO click through is required - you’re paid solely on the number of impressions, meaning the more new traffic you’ve got, the more money you stand to make.

Adding to the buzz for this new ad concept is that bloggers can sign up as affiliates, refer traffic, and make money off that, without displaying a single ad on site! To find out more about Pay-Per-Play, visit my Pay-Per-Play affiliate site.

The wonkiness I reported earlier with Izea Ranks seems to have leveled out a bit, and I’m not just saying that because my main blog is currently ranked #28 in the system. I’ve seen all of my blogs have their visitor counts adjusted to a number that more closely matches my stats. The Izea team has been quick to address concerns with stats and reporting, and is even working on a way to count RSS subscribers who may read your blog through a feed reader.

I saw a referral link in my dashboard over at Simple Kind Of Life, entitled Dofollow blogs complete list - of course, I clicked it to see what kind of list my blog was on for being a do-follow blog.

(A do follow blog is one that gives a “do follow” link to people who live a URL in the comments field. By leaving a comment on a do-follow blog, you’re getting another link to your site or blog counted by the search engines.)

The instructions on this forum for using this list were as follows:

well einstein it is very simple by posting your site name and keywords with some relevant text on all these pages and even more as you find them googling this is only a handfull , and then building some very easy google pages and throwing in an adsense advert a bit of text and link to my page and all these blogs , hope you get the idea , its a bit of work but it is solid

Sounds like a lot of work, and for practically NO reward. Do these people think bloggers are stupid? I moderate my comments, and if I don’t know you, and you haven’t commented before, I may or may not allow your comment. Most of the comments I get from people attempting to get a do follow link look something like this:

Name: Silly Keyword here
URL: http://www.KeywordsInYourURLhere.com
Comment: Ha, great post

(Or some variation of “great post” - like “nice blog”, “good idea”, etc, but usually, something completely lame, offering no opinion at all, and as easy to spot as an elephant sitting in the corner of my living room.

So you can comment all you want, attempting to get a do follow link from one of MY blogs, but it isn’t going to happen. If your comment is worthy, I’ll allow it and strip your URL from the comment. If it’s unworthy, I’ll mark it as spam, making it quite unlikely that your future comments will ever be seen again.

Do you really think bloggers are that stupid?

A few weeks ago, I was invited to preview the new Izea Ranks system, which I happily did. As of today, Izea Rank is available to all bloggers, not just those working with PayPerPost / Izea, and bloggers can now view their real rank and the ranks of other blogs in the system.

RealRank is the first site ranking service that focuses exclusively on measuring the traffic and influence of individual blogs throughout the blogosphere. RealRank aims to replace historically unreliable influence indicators such as Google PageRank, Alexa and Comscore by providing more accurate statistical data collected directly from the source.

Some bloggers, myself included, wonder how accurate the numbers are just set, since some of the metrics being shown seem off a bit. I’m sure there will be system tweaks in the weeks to come, and I’m confident that this new Izea product will serve to provide accurate states for bloggers.

If you haven’t been by my other blog recently, now is a good time to stop over, since I’m running a contest! You can enter to win great prizes (including a Travelocity gift card) in my Where In The World Is Colleen contest. A new clue will be posted daily, up to my departure date, and winners will be announced upon my return a week later.

10. You require me to register to leave a comment on your blog.
9. You require me to register to leave a comment on your blog.
8. You require me to register to leave a comment on your blog.
7. You require me to register to leave a comment on your blog.
6. You require me to register to leave a comment on your blog.
5. You require me to register to leave a comment on your blog.
4. You require me to register to leave a comment on your blog.
3. You require me to register to leave a comment on your blog.
2. You require me to register to leave a comment on your blog.

And the number one reason….

1. Did I mention that I don’t like being forced to register to comment on your blog?

I came across this post today while Stumbling: Top 10 Sites That Will Pay You To Blog!

I noticed right off the bat that the site that’s made me the most money, PayPerPost, wasn’t represented on this list. I also noticed the blogger’s invitation to comment and let him (?) know about any sites he missed.

(Side note: This blog is written by “admin”, which you may recall is another of my pet peeves.)

I would LOVE to post a comment and tell you about PayPerPost, but I refuse to register on your blog to leave a single comment. I don’t need another user name and password combination to remember. By forcing your visitors to log in and leave a comment, you run the risk of running your visitors off. I’d guess that probably only 10% of all visitors would register to comment, and most, like me, would simply leave your blog and not return.

If you’re afraid of getting comment spam, I recommend moderating all first time comments, or all comments for that matter, and using Akismet to catch suspected spam. It’ll require a little more work on your part, but less on the part of your readers. If you want to capture and engage people, you need to make leaving a comment as simple as possible.

For the record, I didn’t post this entry to call out the blogger, because I do think that this blog has GOOD content. It’s a shame that the required registration for comments is chasing people like me away. If you’re requiring visitors to register to comment on your blog, step back and think about it - you may just find that your readership increases by changing this simple thing.

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I’m in a mixed marriage.

My husband is a conservative Republican, right down to the core. He bleeds red, white, and blue. Ronald Regan is his hero. He votes Republican in each and every election. Me? I’m a pinko commie liberal bastard…of course, he doesn’t call me that. But I am a bleeding heart liberal, against the death penalty, and I voted for Bill Clinton. (And if he ran again, I’d vote for him again!)

Each election year we joke to each other that we shouldn’t even bother voting, since our votes cancel each other out, but we still vote. We tease each other from time to time about our views and our elected leaders, but it’s all out of love, baby. It’s the only way to make things work. I send him jokes poking fun at liberals, and he sends me jokes poking fun at liberals. (Hey, whataminute!) When I came across the formykountry blog, and saw this post outlining the so-called Conservative 10 Commandments, I knew I’d have to send it on to my own darling conservative. All in good fun, of course!

Among my favorites on this list was this gem:

Conservatives want to melt the polar ice caps and watch California fall into the Ocean.

Ha! The rest of the list is just as good, outlining a plan for a gun toting, Wal-Mart shopping, heterosexual, no Ozone layer version of the good old U.S.A. Toby Keith would approve!

I don’t agree with the opinions and viewpoints expressed in each and every post, given my liberal leanings, but the author makes great points and has a great deal of passion for his beliefs. And that’s easy to enjoy and respect!

Tim posted the results (so far) on his poll he started on our boards, asking experienced bloggers if they’d submit a blog with pagerank to PayPerPost. I have to say, I’m surprised that the no votes are outweighing the yes votes so far. Pagerank on it’s own isn’t good for much, but it has real value for advertising - why save it if you can’t use it for anything?

I found a blog today, written by a money making blogger after my own heart. The $10,000 Blog Experiment site was launched by Brian Longest in September of this year, with a goal of making $10,000 a month by September of 2008, AND letting others know how to do it. Brian is not only looking into every aspect of blog monetization out there, but he’s letting readers know what works, and what doesn’t via his blog. Everything is completely transparent - from the income he’s made each month ($2.36 in September, $6.60 in October, and $48.71 in November) to his rankings and the marketing tests he’s run on various affiliate programs and advertising networks.

First of all, two big thumbs up for Brian’s blog design. All of the pertinent information is displayed right at the top - mission statement, how his blog started, and most importantly - his income so far. Below that, you’ll find posts Brian has done on various money making opportunities and affiliate programs. The site is organized and laid out well, and although the theme is quite different from what most of us are used to seeing in a blog, I like it.

I mentioned that Brian’s money making progress is completely transparent, and his November marketing analysis illustrates that. At a glance you can view Brian’s blog stats, his income, and expenses. Brian’s goal isn’t just to make money for himself - he’s also trying to educate bloggers on what works and what doesn’t work. His reviews of affiliate programs and other methods of blog monetization are unbiased and clear. He’s saving people a lot of time and headache by sharing his success and failures so openly. Given that his income has started to increase exponentially (it’s doubled each month since his blog launched), I don’t think Brian will have any problem meeting his goal by next September.

There’s a new poll on our message board, and I’m interested in getting some feedback on it. Tim, one of our Florida members (who I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in person twice) asked:

If you had a non-monetized blog with PR greater than 0 as of TODAY, would you register it for PayPerPost?

I left my opinion on the thread Tim started, and I invite you to do the same. Right now the votes for yes and no are pretty much neck and neck.

As I was in bed last night, trying to drift off to sleep, I started thinking about the big Google smackdown on bloggers who have accepted money for paid posts. Since Google frowns on that practice, it bears to reason that they would have smacked down likes like PayPerPost.com and Text-Link-Ads.com, right? Why not punish all involve?

Google has punished Text Link Ads in the SERP’s. Go ahead - search for “text link ads” on Google. The site doesn’t appear until page 2, with sites like Matt Cutt’s personal blog appearing before them in the results!) They haven’t done the same to PayPerPost though, as the site still appears first when you search “pay per post” at Google. They have struck down blogs by PayPerPost staffers though, who haven’t sold any PR juice links. Text Link Ads has a PR 7, and PayPerPost has a PR 6.

Now, if you’re with me so far, the reason that PayPerPost has such a huge pagerank is in part to the viral marketing the company has paid most of us to do. In essence, PayPerPost is one of their own biggest customers. If they’re not smacked down as the ball that got all of this rolling, will they be smacked down for buying PR juice links, or is Google only going to screw the little guys on that too, like the advertisers who ran a small, $500 campaign to give a brand new internet business a boost? Or will they go after the big movie companies who have paid us to blog about new releases?

Don’t get me wrong - I love PayPerPost. I’d prefer for Google to leave them alone, but at the very least, I’d like to know how Google is picking their victims in this mess. The only victims in this so far seem to be the bloggers, and we’re the people who support Google each day, by clicking on AdSense ads, by publishing blogs on Blogspot.com, by using their search engine…

I’d just like to know the method to the Google madness.

The powers that be at Google posted two interesting blog entries this week about their official stance on paid links, or links that pass pagerank. The first contains details about buying and selling links, and the second is a follow up by Matt Cutts on selling links that pass Google juice. With the new platform from IZEA / PayPerPost, dubbed SocialSpark, not set to debut until at least January, this leaves bloggers who have accepted payment for posts in a pickle.

The way I see it, we’ve got two options, if we wish to continue blogging for money:

• Change nothing. Continue to accept money for links, and accept that your pagerank will continue to be low, or zero. Blogging income will be drastically reduced, as the majority of advertisers on PayPerPost / IZEA right now are still buying pagerank. (I’d like to note that while IZEA did introduce “RealRank” this week, and advertisers ARE using it, most are using a RealRank / Pagerank combo that leaves a lot of people out in the cold.)
• Change all of the links you’ve posted for $$ to rel=”nofollow” and request reinclusion from Google. Get your PR back. But wait! You’ve basically agreed with Google that you won’t sell any more pagerank, so you can’t take any opps in the PayPerPost marketplace. You’ve got to wait until SocialSpark comes out, and only accept links for money that allow you to do “no follow”. (SocialSpark will offer advertisers two choices - a required “no follow” link, or optional links that must pass pagerank.)

The other side of this coin is that if you decide to add no follow to your old posts, and you’ve worked with other paid blogging companies, you may be violating their terms of service. PayPerPost pays you based on 30 days, and after that, you are free to edit, or even delete the paid links. Doing so may get you banned or benched by an advertiser, but you’re not violating the TOS for PayPerPost. Other companies are not as flexible, and expect that the links will stay up, passing PR, for the life of your blog.

So what’s it going to be for you - grovel to Google for the sake of your PR, or continue making money with the limited pagerank you’ve got now, in hopes that SocialSpark will fix what ails you?

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Ever wondered what Mike Arrington would look like if his picture was put on LOLCats or I Can Haz Cheeseburger?

Your days of wondering are over…I’ve done all of the work for you, and you can see it for yourself at my most recent post on Simple Kind Of Life, entitled “How Low Can He Go?” I’ve taken a lesson from Mr. Assington’s…opps, ARRINGTON’s book…and figured out that by insulting him, I can increase my blog’s traffic. After all, that’s why he goes after PayPerPost so often…right? It’s certainly not because he’s trying to report on NEWS and newsworthy happenings in the blogosphere.

My friend Ang had an article written about her that’s gaining quite a few Diggs. The piece was originally published on CNET News.com, and was republished by a blogger who got it on Digg.

Aside from the asinine comments a few assclowns have left on the Digg.com link, it’s a nice little piece, and highlights the fact that it’s not just A-list bloggers making cash online. Many people are paying their mortgage, or enjoying vacations, or having a debt free Christmas, thanks to this relatively new found blogging income!

I’ve discovered Twitter.

When I met with Ted and Ashley and Travis last week, as part of Blog America Tour, I noticed that Ted kept typing what he was doing into his cell phone. It looked like he was texting someone? After throwing him onto the ground and threatening him with his life, he filled me in about Twitter. I went home that night and jumped onto the bandwagon.

I’m trying to keep it real. I know that no one out there wants to read my Twitter and know when I’m going to the bathroom, or to get a drink. I don’t want to read that boring nonsense either. It’s a downer! But for a trip like Blog Tour America, or even MY trip to Las Vegas this week, Twitter is a neat way to keep people up to speed on what you’re doing, without needing to blog.

So yes, you can follow my Tweets on Twitter now. Bow down and follow me!