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Alfalfa posted:What type of blogs would benefit from this? I'm not very familiar with SU. I'm not overly familiar with SU either to be honest, but my impression is that it's more about the kind of content. So things like large lists, image rich content like slideshows, or anything sensational really. Content that is easily digestible and instantly grabs your attention. The small amount that I've used SU, I've just kept hitting the stumble button, loading a new page over and over again, and I imagine a lot of other SU users do the same. So what that means practically is that most people wont navigate away from the page that they land on, and if you lose their interest they can immediately find something new and interesting by hitting the stumble button. It also means that you wont get many subscribers / ad clickers / affiliate link clickers, but with enough traffic you do get a few that convert in whatever way you're looking for. SU has a category for just about anything though, and is easy enough to use, so if you want to know what works well in whatever niche, I'd say just sign up and test it out for an hour or so.
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Nov 26, 2012 08:05
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SU drives an insane amount of traffic to some of my blog clients. It works really well on image-heavy blogs in the niches that also do well on pinterest. Fashion, food, travel, home decor.
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Nov 26, 2012 17:06
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So just a status report. I started an entertainment blog back in January after seeing this thread, and decided "Hey, I'd like to work on my SEO skills and improve my HTML/CSS chops." I did the keyword research, found my keyword group and did all the background work (good markup, meaningful tags, etc). The best thing of all was the amount I learned about how much work goes into blogging. Going into this, I thought blogging was 95% writing, and 5% posting the content. It's actually closer to the opposite. You have to expend a lot of effort behind the scenes making sure your content is meaningful to the search engines. After many months of very little progress (I didn't bother with backlinks since I was really just focused on getting the markup right) I totally ignored the blog in order to work on a freelance gig that I got because of my newfound web skills. On a whim, I checked my analytics yesterday (3 months after abandoning it). I'm now #4 for my keyword group, and pulling in about 4k unique hits a month, just based on that keyword grouping. So if you're frustrated with your inability to make it to the front page, give it time, and stick to the fundamentals. Eventually it will pay off.
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Nov 26, 2012 19:12
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Does anybody here run blogs that are dedicated to: mobiles or iPhones, iPads or tablets, other consumer gadgets, eBay, selling consumer goods privately, or anything related to these?
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Dec 1, 2012 12:10
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I have a couple but they don't get much traffic anymore.
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Dec 1, 2012 22:43
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I have a few questions about setting up multiple different blogs - I suddenly have a stupid amount of time on my hands and want to try this. First, with domains - if I have multiple unrelated blogs, is it absolutely necessary to have each one have their own domain? Can I use the same adsense account for all of them, but just target based on sub-domain/directory what kinds of ads show up? If I do them this way will that basically be bad for my rankings for the various key-words since they're part of other sites? I know that getting a domain with my keywords in it is optimal, but I guess I'm asking if there are any kind of penalties for like 5-10 different blogs sharing a domain AND using the same Google adsense account if that's even possible without unique domains. Second, assuming Google adsense works like that - that I can set up different ads to run on different sections - what's the best way to set this up? Should I make different sub-domains or should I just use different directories. Simple version: Is there any reason to use a structure like: blog1.xyz.com, blog2.xyz.com, blog3.xyz.com over xyz.com/blog1, xyz.com/blog2, xyz.com/blog3 Third, my host lets me throw up a pretty much unlimited number of wordpress installs, so I can use different themes (or at least have each blog have different settings for their themes) - so I assume that, as long as my host is OK with it, my having 5-10 Wordpress installs isn't a problem yeah? Finally, on the main page for the base URL, would I be punished by Google in the rankings for simply having a description of my base URL as a kind of content aggregator with RSS feeds for each of the sub-blogs? Oh, also: I won't be doing a lot of incestuous linking - the ONLY links between any of these sites would come from the main page showing the RSS feed for each one and on each of the blog pages back to the main site (think "check out other bloggers on xyz.com"). That shouldn't cause fits right? I mean, Google indexes other sites where there are lots of blogs - I assume that's OK?
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Dec 2, 2012 17:22
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metztli posted:I have a few questions about setting up multiple different blogs - I suddenly have a stupid amount of time on my hands and want to try this. You got a lot of different questions here mixed in, so I'll do my best to answer with what I know. Others can chime in if I'm wrong. Subdomains: Don't bother. Technically, you can rank just as well on a subdomain as you can on a stand-alone domain, but you're putting yourself at a disadvantage right off the bat. If you want to start a new blog, buy a descriptive domain for it. If you want to write about best aftershave creams, what would be better? AftershaveCreamReviews.com or aftershave.DansSite.com? Domains are relatively cheap, around $9/yr, so spending $90 a year on having 10 independent sites is an investment. Just think of this; name a popular site that's hosted on a subdomain instead of a single domain. With the exception of About.com, custom blogging platforms like blogger.com and Tumblr and massive sites like Yahoo.com and Google.com, I really don't know any that does that. Adsense: You have a single Adsense account and all your sites' ads get pulled from there. Do no make a new Adsense account for every site. Adsense lets you setup "custom channels" to segregate your sites into specific groups and you can modify each ad to change the color, font and size and show either text or images. You don't seem to have a great grasp on how adsense works. Adsense will scan your site's content and show relevant ads that match your site. They will also poll your visitor's cookies and show tailored ads based on past browsing. This works on a page-by-page basis, so if on one page on your blog you're writing about toothpaste you'll get toothpaste ads, and if the next one is about mouthwash you'll get mouthwash ads. It's completely automated, there's very little in the way of manual targeting. You're only real options are to show text ads, image ads, or both. Wordpress installs: Having multiple blogs on the same host is fine. I have about 20 blogs on a hostgator account and the vast, vast majority of blogs are hosted on shared accounts. You're fine. Cross-linking: Linking to your blogs is fine, but make sure you link to other blogs and most importantly, get them to link to you.
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Dec 3, 2012 18:30
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Thanks for the response - it's extremely helpful! I think a couple of my questions weren't written properly so I will try to rephrase and separate them out: On subdomains: There are two issues I'm trying to get at: real people and search engines. For real people, my thought was that nobody will write in "worldsbestaftershave.com" or whatever as a direct URL - they would go to a search engine and type in whatever keywords they're looking for and then get sent to my site assuming I've ranked well for that search. If they like it, and find it useful, they'd either bookmark it or otherwise deal with a less than stellar domain, but I guess I just don't see people remembering "worldsbestaftershave.com" etc. So, that leaves search engines. What I'm reading here seems to indicate that unless I get an AMAZING domain name that really would get typed in directly, the only reason to get a keyword heavy domain name would be so that the search engines give it more priority over something like "somestupiddomainthathasnothingtodowiththis.com". So my question still is: Won't subdomains or pagenames with keywords in the actual page file name or sub-domain (e.g.: xyz.com/best-aftershave-for-gifts.htm or best.aftershave.for.gifts.xyz.com) be just as good as a dedicated URL as far as a search engine goes? They still have the keywords in the URL. Is it a matter of the xyz.com makes the URL slightly less keyword dense? I also read something a few pages back I think that said search engines are going to be less interested in the actual domain name. I agree that domain names are cheap if you can get them, but the problem is getting really good ones. I'm also trying to start up on the super cheap - I actually have 3 really good domain names that will lend themselves very well to having multiple semi-unrelated blogs on them in the same kind of way About.com would, each one could be used for a fairly specific niche (one for DIY stuff, one for webcam/chat stuff, and one for misc more personal type blogs). For the AdSense thing: Thanks - the toothpaste/mouthwash thing was exactly what I was fumbling at. I didn't know that it would really work on a page-by-page basis or if there might be some larger thing where it would look at the content of the entire site to pick ads, which would lead to weird results. Probably obvious, but yeah - never used AdSense before so good to have it confirmed! On links: Absolutely I'm planning on working my rear end off to establish linking from various places that are independent of me but have related content. What I was getting at was just making sure that reasonable links from blogs hosted on the same domain wouldn't be marked against me.
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Dec 3, 2012 20:53
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metztli posted:First, with domains - if I have multiple unrelated blogs, is it absolutely necessary to have each one have their own domain? Can I use the same adsense account for all of them, but just target based on sub-domain/directory what kinds of ads show up? If I do them this way will that basically be bad for my rankings for the various key-words since they're part of other sites? If you going to be using Adsense another benefit of having each site on its own domain is if your account gets flagged for breaking the terms of service they may (depending on the violation) only disable ad serving for that particular domain rather than your whole account.
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Dec 3, 2012 22:02
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bleh posted:If you going to be using Adsense another benefit of having each site on its own domain is if your account gets flagged for breaking the terms of service they may (depending on the violation) only disable ad serving for that particular domain rather than your whole account. Hm, interesting point - I was thinking though, that since I will be the only person putting up blogs on those accounts, I could keep extremely conscientious about sticking with the ToS. Is there a high rate of people being kicked out of AdSense despite scrupulously adhering to the ToS? Like, false positives or whatever? On the plus side, I've now figured out what my first blog will be - found an area I'm interested in that has a bunch of well searched keywords, low competition for those specific searches, and has a high CPC. Now to just crank on making content so I can get it up and running!
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Dec 3, 2012 22:22
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metztli posted:Thanks for the response - it's extremely helpful! I think a couple of my questions weren't written properly so I will try to rephrase and separate them out: Short answer: no. Last year Google flipped how it ranks a subdomain, from an external link to an internal link. Before, Google would treat a subdomain as a whole entity, now it just treats it as another section of your site. quote:Most people think of example.com and https://www.example.com as the same site these days, so we're changing it such that now, if you add either example.com or https://www.example.com as a site, links from both the www and non-www versions of the domain will be categorized as internal links. We've also extended this idea to include other subdomains, since many people who own a domain also own its subdomains-so links from cats.example.com or pets.example.com will also be categorized as internal links for https://www.example.com. In other words, your site' SEO will depends on your base url more than ever. Your subdomains will serve as narrow content sections for your base url and your SEO will rise and fall based on the content on the base url more than on the subdomains. Subdomains work well when you have multiple pages that are all related. Let's say you have a blog about oral care at betterteeth.com. You can start a few new blogs that are tailored to aspects of better teeth, such as toothpaste.betterteeth.com and mouthwash.betterteeth.com. This is all to grow better teeth.com, but it's very unlikely that your toothpaste blog will outrank your main url. In effect, you're building multiple blogs to rise up 1 site which is fine if that's your goal, but if you stare dogcollars.betterteeth.com that subdomain won't rank and will infact hurt your base url's rankings. Don't forget that Google has sitelink in their search engines now:  The most likely outcome of subdomains is that your site will end up in the sitelinks listing, not as a separate entry. All the sitelinks in the above image are on separate subdomains and used to be separate search rankings, now they've been consolidated into one ranking. So really, subdomains purpose, in Google's eyes, are to target similar content. If these blogs are going to be different, then subdomains will make a mess of what Google thinks your content is. One last thought; If you need to have an AMAZING domain name to get into a particular blogging niche, that niche is already too crowded (please don't tell me you're writing a video game blog). More reading: http://www.webseoanalytics.com/blog/multiple-domains-vs-subdomains-vs-folders-in-seo/ FCKGW fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Dec 3, 2012 |
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Dec 3, 2012 22:39
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More good info, thanks! It isn't so much that I need to have an amazing URL for my niche, it's just that the URLs for many of them would be so staggeringly cumbersome, but I guess that doesn't really matter either for reasons discussed above. On the plus side, the domains I have now look really solid for the way I'm planning at least a few of the first blogs. The domains are themselves broad enough but still contain keywords that are useful for the different blogs I would host on them. For the really niche sites that don't fit in with the domains I have now, now that I have a better understanding of how the search engines will treat domains, I'll definitely be buying individual domains.
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Dec 3, 2012 22:58
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metztli posted:Hm, interesting point - I was thinking though, that since I will be the only person putting up blogs on those accounts, I could keep extremely conscientious about sticking with the ToS. Is there a high rate of people being kicked out of AdSense despite scrupulously adhering to the ToS? Like, false positives or whatever? Well I have a search bar on my site and without even thinking about it I was displaying ads on the search results page even if the search returned no results. Somehow the URL for a search with a profanity (which returned no results) got cached and my ads got disabled for that one domain for low content and adult language. I was able to get reinstated once I made corrections and appealed but it took about a week and I lost revenue from that site. I was still able to earn on the other domains. If you search for "Adsense disabled" you will find it does happen to a lot of people and often you don't know exactly the reason because like the ToS the reasons they give for disabling the ads are very vague.
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Dec 4, 2012 06:08
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A reminder, irc.synirc.org #blogging
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Dec 4, 2012 06:32
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bleh posted:Well I have a search bar on my site and without even thinking about it I was displaying ads on the search results page even if the search returned no results. Somehow the URL for a search with a profanity (which returned no results) got cached and my ads got disabled for that one domain for low content and adult language. I was able to get reinstated once I made corrections and appealed but it took about a week and I lost revenue from that site. I was still able to earn on the other domains. If you search for "Adsense disabled" you will find it does happen to a lot of people and often you don't know exactly the reason because like the ToS the reasons they give for disabling the ads are very vague. Ouch - okay, that makes sense. Thanks for the warning. That also seems like a really good way to be unethical too - screw over the competition by searching their sites for freaky poo poo. (E: I am absolutely not advocating being unethical - seems like a really lovely policy is what I mean)
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Dec 4, 2012 17:33
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It's worth noting here that Google has de-emphasized EMDs (exact match domains) and they really aren't something to chase for SEO reasons anymore.
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Dec 4, 2012 22:38
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Do you guys have any preferred Amazon Affiliate plugins for Wordpress?
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Dec 12, 2012 03:35
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My search engine results are always hilarious. "veido of surtruce feir". I guess he was trying to type "video of structure fire". poor guy.
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Dec 12, 2012 05:56
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Sperg Victorious posted:Do you guys have any preferred Amazon Affiliate plugins for Wordpress? I like Amazon product-in-a-post plugin. I don't use the whole post/review feature, just the shortcode links. I think the default template creates the most appealing link code of the ones I've tried. Here's an example of a page I used it on.
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Dec 12, 2012 06:25
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I'm selling my bestmimosa.com site. It's #1 on google for "best mimosa".  Make me an offer. invision fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Dec 14, 2012 |
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Dec 14, 2012 01:37
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invision posted:I'm selling my bestmimosa.com site. It's #1 on google for "best mimosa". Average price is something like 8 months ad revenue, isn't it? What kind of money is the site bringing in?
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Dec 14, 2012 15:02
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Moniker posted:Average price is something like 8 months ad revenue, isn't it? What kind of money is the site bringing in? No idea what average price is, it's the first time I've ever even attempted anything like this. The site has made something like... 20cents in the past 2 months, but I'm almost positive thats because it's not monetized correctly. The keyword choice obviously isn't THAT great, but I honestly do believe it has potential. The only reason I'm selling it is because I'd like to dedicate all of my time to the other two I run. I understand that that means that I'm not going to make any money on this, I'm just looking to get out from under it.
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Dec 14, 2012 20:28
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invision posted:No idea what average price is, it's the first time I've ever even attempted anything like this. Sadly that keyword set has only 1,900 searches a month. I'm not sure you could sell it for much. It might be worth throwing some articles up and calling it a day. But also what do I know?
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Dec 15, 2012 06:34
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Organic Search Traffic are the numbers that matter and any serious buyer will want to be added to your google analytics to verify anything. Keyword rank means nothing unless the keyword actually moves traffic.
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Dec 15, 2012 20:32
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I've got a company wanting to buy a vertical ad on the right sidebar of 10seventyfive.com how much should I charge them? Actually, let me put the whole situation out there. I contacted a company a few weeks ago about doing a review of their helmet camera vs the gopro. they agreed and shipped me a camera and I shot the video today to test. Last night I saw that there was another firefighting helmet cam manufacturer and I sent them a message saying "hey I'm reviewing camera x against my gopro, would you be interested in shipping me a demo unit to do a 3-way comparison?" So the new guy calls me and says that they are in a legal battle with helmet cam manufacturer #1. I've built a good relationship with #1 and they're pretty ingrained in the niche im in. (i.e. they know everyone). #2 says that they own the copyright and that #1 is ripping people off with cheap stuff you can buy on ebay (and apparently has proof). #2 also said he would pay for ad space, while #1 just has affiliate links. Goons, what the gently caress do i do? invision fucked around with this message at 22:54 on Dec 15, 2012 |
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Dec 15, 2012 22:15
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FCKGW posted:I like Amazon product-in-a-post plugin. I don't use the whole post/review feature, just the shortcode links. I think the default template creates the most appealing link code of the ones I've tried. Starting to use this plugin for my website I am constructing - enrages me when it isn't able to list the prices of a product 
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Dec 17, 2012 06:37
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If you run a site that allows for it, don't be scared to contact companies asking to review their products. So far I've done (and received and are mine to to keep) a camera and a book, I have another camera, a set of extrication gloves, and a helmet light coming. Thats close to a grand worth of free stuff, and all I have to do is review them. Plus it opens the companies up allowing you to review more of their stuff, especially when they launch a new product.
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Dec 17, 2012 23:36
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invision posted:If you run a site that allows for it, don't be scared to contact companies asking to review their products. So far I've done (and received and are mine to to keep) a camera and a book, I have another camera, a set of extrication gloves, and a helmet light coming. Thats close to a grand worth of free stuff, and all I have to do is review them. Plus it opens the companies up allowing you to review more of their stuff, especially when they launch a new product. This is very true. I've gotten tons of free products, just by contacting companies telling them about my site and how I'd like to review their product. No matter what the value of the item, I find that about 1/3-1/2 end up sending you review products (more and more as the site becomes well established). I also recently went on a paid trip (flight + hotel) to Manhattan to cover a product launch event. The event ended up a bit of an organizational disaster, but I ended up spending a few days in Manhattan which was pretty cool.
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Dec 18, 2012 04:46
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Supersonic posted:This is very true. I've gotten tons of free products, just by contacting companies telling them about my site and how I'd like to review their product. No matter what the value of the item, I find that about 1/3-1/2 end up sending you review products (more and more as the site becomes well established). This is true. I'm actually getting TWO new cameras because they saw my review of another companies and liked it enough to give me all of their models to go through. Right now I'm attempting to get a press pass for a conference, so we'll see how that works out.
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Dec 18, 2012 06:01
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Have a quick question about an issue I'm having on one of my sites. I using the Amazon Product in a Post plugin which was recommended earlier. But the text that it generates under the amazon image is compressed, like so. The same thing effects a widget in the sidebar as well. I'm thinking I'll have to edit something but I'm not sure where to start.
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Dec 20, 2012 16:46
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Edit: Posted this in the wrong thread...
Omits-Bagels fucked around with this message at 18:57 on Dec 21, 2012 |
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Dec 20, 2012 23:10
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Just finished reading this thread which I found very timely as I've been thinking a lot about the affiliate marketing world this week. A friend of a friend did ridiculously well out of the affiliate marketing thing and is now in Brazil actually making diet pills to sell - has been to vegas as one of those guru super affiliate types speaking at conferences about how they went from sweet fa to a seven figure income. I've done a fair bit of reading about affiliate marketing and understand it a lot more now, and that sort of thing - suppliments, diet pills, dating websites etc - doesn't appeal to me in the slightest. But I have an idea for a niche blog and thanks to some of the tips here I think it's going to be workable, and I am going to get set up using lithium and some of the tips to get content written over the next few days, register the domains and get this poo poo on the road. The idea of having something that will encourage readership that wants to buy things from amazon and using that as a main affiliate ad partner for my blog looks like the way I want to go. Lots of good info, examples and stories from this thread - I look forward to contributing in some meaningful way soon!
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Dec 21, 2012 00:00
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Let us know how it goes!
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Dec 21, 2012 00:56
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diremonk posted:Have a quick question about an issue I'm having on one of my sites. I using the Amazon Product in a Post plugin which was recommended earlier. But the text that it generates under the amazon image is compressed, like so. Try Firebug browser plugin and see where that particular widget is pulling its css from.
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Dec 21, 2012 01:24
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Omits-Bagels posted:So I think I'm going to go ahead and apply for at the VCU Brandcenter for the copywriting track. This application is going to take forever. You write copy? I have a site that I need some done for.
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Dec 21, 2012 02:30
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Sancho posted:Try Firebug browser plugin and see where that particular widget is pulling its css from. Excellent, that solved it. Thanks so much.
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Dec 21, 2012 03:55
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invision posted:If you run a site that allows for it, don't be scared to contact companies asking to review their products. So far I've done (and received and are mine to to keep) a camera and a book, I have another camera, a set of extrication gloves, and a helmet light coming. Thats close to a grand worth of free stuff, and all I have to do is review them. Plus it opens the companies up allowing you to review more of their stuff, especially when they launch a new product. Whoa. This is pretty cool. How big of site do you have? Is it dedicated to reviews?
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Dec 21, 2012 04:58
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invision posted:This is true. I'm actually getting TWO new cameras because they saw my review of another companies and liked it enough to give me all of their models to go through. Right now I'm attempting to get a press pass for a conference, so we'll see how that works out. Do you have a specific letter you send them or what all do you include letting them know your site is worthwhile?
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Dec 23, 2012 16:48
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Alfalfa posted:Do you have a specific letter you send them or what all do you include letting them know your site is worthwhile? Realistically, I facebook or twitter stalk people from companies that I want products from, then send them a message saying "hey, my name is invision and I run /website/. I was wondering if you'd be interested in me doing a review of your /flagship product/. You can reach me either through here, /email/ or /phone number/. Look forward to speaking with you. invision /website/ /phone number/ I've yet to have anyone ask me about traffic stats. I think as long as your site looks well put together you'll be okay.
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Dec 23, 2012 17:36
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| # ? May 17, 2024 19:41 |
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Can I get a little more information about making stumbleupon work for me. I've got a few accounts I created awhile back and stumbled a bunch of stories (including the same ones). In addition to that I have stumbled other sites. The trouble is I've gotten a few hits from certain stories but nothing really to speak of outside of the odd 1-2 now and then. I've looked in the category where I place most of my stuff (britpop) and never see my site. Any tips? I feel like I'm doing something wrong. I would love to get some traffic - even if it's 5-10 a day from a site like that. Also, anyone using scoop.it? I've had some small luck with that site too.
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Dec 23, 2012 20:57
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