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Does any who has a facebook page or twitter account for their blog have any suggestions about how to get a logo, or a picture for using? Is this pretty much something I am going to have to pay up for?
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Jul 30, 2013 13:59
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You could always find a creative commons photo that matches your topic and use that (make sure you give the photographer credit and thanks in a tweet!). Try searching at compfight.com - its not quite a logo but will look better than having no picture next to your name
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Jul 30, 2013 23:50
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SweatyE posted:You could always find a creative commons photo that matches your topic and use that (make sure you give the photographer credit and thanks in a tweet!). Try searching at compfight.com - its not quite a logo but will look better than having no picture next to your name This is what I did. I then used GIMP to add on my logo/name and it looks almost professional. Depending on your requirements you can sometimes grab OK stuff from fiverrr.
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Jul 31, 2013 01:10
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Doghouse posted:Does any who has a facebook page or twitter account for their blog have any suggestions about how to get a logo, or a picture for using? Is this pretty much something I am going to have to pay up for? If you're going to get a website with a logo that will probably go EVERYwhere (your website, social network sites, merchandise (if appropriate)) then at least be prepared to shell out at least $30 or $40 so it doesnt look like a complete pile of shite and by extension give people the impression your site is a complete joke. Quick check time: take a look at http://www.solidstudent.org and http://astronomyaggregator.com/ (Ignore the lack of updates for either, I havent had a great deal of free time this year working full time and studying on my days off). Both logos I got from goons in SA-mart for about $30 each. I dont think the sites would look anywhere near as professional if I'd just slapped a line of text as the title image.
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Jul 31, 2013 02:09
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Google Analytics question: my traffic is still pretty low as things are just getting posted and set up, but I have already implemented analytics and submitted my sitemap, all that basic starter stuff. But when I go under "Traffic Sources" - "Search Engine Optimization" - "Landing Pages" I assume what I'm seeing is a list of the pages that are showing up in various Google searches yes? However it lists a lot of URLs that simply don't exist, have never existed and are never mentioned on my site. For example one landing page that apparently has an average position of 34 is mysitename.com/tags/tag-that-doesnt-exist. I don't know how that's possible, and it's not the only example of this occurring. Anyone know what's up here, or whether I'm reading this data totally wrong?
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Jul 31, 2013 15:24
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The landing pages are the first pages visitors hit - so yes, it is likely the pages listed are showing up in search results, but the number is how many times that has been the first page visited, not how many times it has shown in search. Not too sure why the landing pages would be non existent tags, but this Might actually give you some ideas as to what type of content visitors are after 
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Aug 1, 2013 03:25
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Apparently there are two "Landing Page" sections in Analytics. The one under site content, where you can also see every page someone has visited, how many times, etc. Lists pretty much what I'd expect it to. It's actual pages, with the main homepage being the most visited, etc. The one giving me confusion is the "Landing Pages" section under "Search Engine Optimization," the area that couldn't be accessed until I linked it to my Webmaster Tools account. Don't know if that matters, but for the life of me I can't figure out 1. why this landing pages report would be different from the other and 2. why it shows almost entirely URL's of my site that don't exist nor ever have existed. Also I thought I knew at least a passable amount about Google Analytics, enough to figure my way around and read some data. But after getting an actual site set up in there and pouring through all the content, even with pretty low numbers still starting out, I really know gently caress all about it. It's quite a robust, intimidating place.
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Aug 1, 2013 05:21
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Have you checked your sitemap? Perhaps it is linking to the invalid tag pages? While I haven't used webmaster tools in a while I remember there was also a way to see who was linking to each page - who is linking to the invalid tags?
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Aug 1, 2013 06:48
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I've recently started blogging as a way of marketing my self-tracking site. I'd appreciate it any constructive feedback about my posts. https://www.tracktacular.com/blog I haven't been promoting much yet because I wanted to get some content up first, but is there a point where I should stop worrying about initial content and start working on getting traffic? Or should I be balancing the two?
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Aug 5, 2013 14:09
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FateFree posted:I've recently started blogging as a way of marketing my self-tracking site. I'd appreciate it any constructive feedback about my posts. https://www.tracktacular.com/blog Having a blog up on a site that isn't aiming to make money directly from the blog or advertising on it is a great idea for a few good reasons. You get the boost from search engine scrapers which pick up there is new, quality and regular content coming and you will be prioritised over similar sites without that. You also get a more professional looking site and it's good for keeping people on the site and more likely to purchase. On the content itself the blogs are pretty good, but the aim of the content really should be for getting people into buying your product if they haven't. Try and tie in links to the product or how it works in a relevant way to the content in each blog. In answer to your question, I would concentrate on writing a new quality blog every week ro two for now. Getting people to the blog is going to be a bit tricky, though not impossible. As the site is not mainly about the blog content, you'll have to advertise it separately. If the content is good(which is is), you should start pushing it to other sites, comment and provide a link on articles from similar motivation/time-saving/planning blogs. tl;dr: Concentrate on writing quality content, but spend probably about as much time promoting. I currently use twitter, facebook, google+ and tumblr, all mostly automated.
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Aug 6, 2013 14:33
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What is a good plugin or process for adding a "related posts" section to each post? For example I have a single product. That product has a big review post as well as other posts for things like "top add-on accessories" and "ways to use product xyz" etc. I want to add links to those posts at the bottoms to guide the reader to them a bit easier. Ideally there would be an easy way to add those links in a widget on the sidebar but as far as I know I can't find a way to add a different widget to every single page? I found this YARPP plugin which may be what I need but don't know if anyone has experience or knows anything similar/better?
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Aug 6, 2013 16:07
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I used to use YARPP but my host kept disabling my site when it got popular because the plugin kept doing multiple database requests on each page load. This was a few years ago though so it may have been fixed. I ended up going with a 3rd party site like nRelate or Taboola so I can monetize related posts as well.
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Aug 6, 2013 17:29
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When I got my degree in Film Criticism, basically a degree in how to write critically about film, I thought, "This is it, I can make it doing this as a job." I tried for almost a year with a review blog, going to festivals as press and whatnot, but I didn't see anything really coming out of it. I guess I wasn't trying to make money off the blog, but I was trying to somehow get a job with a publication or a newspaper or something as a critic. Do you think this is something I could actually monetize on a blog, or is there too much saturation in that industry?
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Aug 7, 2013 02:27
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the posted:When I got my degree in Film Criticism, basically a degree in how to write critically about film, I thought, "This is it, I can make it doing this as a job." The only way to make it work without a huge team of people would be to find a super specific film niche that isn't being written about much yet has really great search volume. Good luck, do your keyword reserach. You could, however, monetize it by using your blog as a personal branding and authority tool, to sell your writing to media outlets / get more traditional employment opportunities.
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Aug 7, 2013 03:42
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Use your blog to pitch The AV Club or The Dissolve? You'd have to cover some niche or particular topic in depth to really make it work or, alternately, have a really unique approach that people like or interesting gimmick.
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Aug 7, 2013 20:00
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the posted:When I got my degree in Film Criticism, basically a degree in how to write critically about film, I thought, "This is it, I can make it doing this as a job." I've done this for nine years now, my site breaks even at current (it used to pull a small profit before I had to move to a VPS) but I never expect it to make fat figures as there are just way too many movie sites, and the level of traffic required to qualify for the bigger ad networks is very hard to reach with just yourself writing. If you want to try to sell yourself to bigger sites you need to network more and start taking freelance gigs. A lot of sites will be like "I can't pay you except with exposure!" and then you check out their traffic and they maybe get their mom to read their site. There are a few bigger sites that have paying slots, but if you follow film writers you'll see that many write for 2-4 bigger sites (which sort of sucks as that makes every site sound the same, but I digress) and barely make ends meet. Newspaper slots are rare and often the first target of budget cuts, and you'll have to compete with thousands of people. Most of those also are people who have journalism experience (not that it helps their writing, I think it's more that they are better at networking) If you want more traffic, straight reviews is not the way to go. News, lists (especially lists designed for arguments in the comments), think pieces that get put on reddit, fantasy castings, rambling on about comic book heroes, all are better. Many movie sites are also becoming TV recap sites because that brings more traffic. Have you joined LAMB? Twitter? OFCS? Do you comment on other film blogs? I see from your post history you don't seem to even post in the film forum on this site. I barely do a lot of this stuff, but I have no real plans to break out and just do it for fun. If you really love writing about film, you can find ins. Maybe find semi-popular sites that don't really have anything film/media yet and write sample pieces that would work for them. Even if they aren't interested, you got stuff to showcase. Talk to critics and ask their advice and thoughts on your work. Be friendly and respectful and don't act entitled at all, and be thankful for their help if they give it. Things like that can go a long way.
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Aug 7, 2013 21:53
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I've recently launched https://www.financialindependence.org to keep me motivated paying off the mortgage and eventually building enough investments to retire on. Only been up a few weeks but I'm really enjoying sharing my thoughts (even if half the time they are just finance related as opposed to directly tracking my progress). Would greatly appreciate any feedback, or anyone with a related blog looking for a link exchange 
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Aug 9, 2013 12:19
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SweatyE posted:I've recently launched https://www.financialindependence.org to keep me motivated paying off the mortgage and eventually building enough investments to retire on. Speaking of sites with great names that you'd think were already taken, but we managed to score, I scored https://seoediting.com a couple of weeks ago. Looking forward to building that out.
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Aug 9, 2013 16:02
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Out of interest, how long should an ebook connected with your blog be, and how much should you charge for it? I'm starting to get a reasonable amount of interest on my Solidworks tutorial site and my brothers recommended that I make one but I'm damned if I know the price that I should be shooting at and what amount of work I'd need to put in to make it worth it.
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Aug 10, 2013 01:04
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Zero Gravitas posted:Out of interest, how long should an ebook connected with your blog be, and how much should you charge for it? I'm starting to get a reasonable amount of interest on my Solidworks tutorial site and my brothers recommended that I make one but I'm damned if I know the price that I should be shooting at and what amount of work I'd need to put in to make it worth it. You could offer the e-book for free in exchange for users signing up for your mail list. That way they give you access to them whenever you want which is priceless?
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Aug 10, 2013 01:14
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thanks Kenny, I'm hoping that having such a generic title (while still describing my content) will make it easier to get search traffic (as one would expect any backlinks to the homepage to have the anchor text 'Financial Independence'
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Aug 10, 2013 03:34
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So I wanted to start a blog about Google, but I don't know what to do about the domain name, because I don't think I should use the word "Google" for legal reasons - but how can I have a blog about a subject without mentioning that subject in the domain name? i saw that the only sucessful blog about this topic is a blogspot blog, so they get around that issue that way.
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Aug 14, 2013 15:21
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Does anyone have tips for improving my adsense revenue? My site isn't really "optimized" so I'm sure I could be making a little more from adsense.
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Aug 14, 2013 15:59
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You're probably taking about Google Operating System. They're pretty popular and break a lot of stories. Search Engine Land is another one that's been around for more than a decade now and 9to5Google is getting popular as well. You'll have some competition to deal with. I've seen people who want to write about Google just use "G" as a descriptive term (e.g. GBlog) so try looking at domains using that. You still might run afoul of Google since they own trademark on some G properties but that's where I would start at least.
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Aug 14, 2013 16:04
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Doghouse posted:So I wanted to start a blog about Google, but I don't know what to do about the domain name, because I don't think I should use the word "Google" for legal reasons - but how can I have a blog about a subject without mentioning that subject in the domain name? i saw that the only sucessful blog about this topic is a blogspot blog, so they get around that issue that way. How about : BigGandme.com Notjustsearch.com
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Aug 14, 2013 17:00
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Omits-Bagels posted:Does anyone have tips for improving my adsense revenue? My site isn't really "optimized" so I'm sure I could be making a little more from adsense. Adsense revenue is largely a factor traffic, but you can also multivariate test different adsense blocks to figure out what really works. Test things like: Turning on or off particular advertisers Changing Text Ad colors Running only Banner or Only Text blocks You should also multivariate test ad location. Typically the best spots are right after the title and right before the comments. The third location is typically embedded (float right) within the first content paragraph, but not everyone likes that location as it's pretty obtrusive. On most of my sites I put the third ad in the sidebar, but so that it's aligned with the first line of actual content. However what works for you should be tested, not assumed.
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Aug 14, 2013 17:15
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I'm looking for some more food/health/lifestyle/sports blogs for some clients of mine. If you have a site and aren't too worried about getting paid to post about specific topics, send me a shout: kennymarton@gmail.com
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Aug 14, 2013 18:50
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Omits-Bagels posted:Does anyone have tips for improving my adsense revenue? My site isn't really "optimized" so I'm sure I could be making a little more from adsense. I came across an official adsense video a few days back that suggested that wide ad units (leaderboard, large rectangle etc) perform better than tall ones due to the way we read horizontally opposed to vertically. Apparently some sites have had a massive profit increase (40%+) but switching to slightly wider ads - all of the ones they recommended show up in adsense as "recommended sizes" which makes sense. Not only are they more eyecatching, but as they are most commonly used there are more advertisers using those sizes so more competition!
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Aug 14, 2013 23:39
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SweatyE posted:I came across an official adsense video a few days back that suggested that wide ad units (leaderboard, large rectangle etc) perform better than tall ones due to the way we read horizontally opposed to vertically. Apparently some sites have had a massive profit increase (40%+) but switching to slightly wider ads - all of the ones they recommended show up in adsense as "recommended sizes" which makes sense. Not only are they more eyecatching, but as they are most commonly used there are more advertisers using those sizes so more competition! Yeah, google has been pushing me to use wider ads... unfortunately the main content area of my site isn't wide enough to fit the ad unit they're recommending.
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Aug 15, 2013 00:06
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mcsuede posted:Adsense revenue is largely a factor traffic, but you can also multivariate test different adsense blocks to figure out what really works. Is there a way I can automate this so I don't have to go through each page and change the ads?
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Aug 15, 2013 00:07
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Im wondering if theres a website or easy way to do the following: I'm looking to grow my followers on what I guess is the slightly less specialised site of mine about astronomy news. I've got an idea to drive this by offering a prize to whoever manages to spread links to my site that gets the most views - easy enough, I think, to do with G analytics- but how the hell do I do this? Is there a site that will throw out customised links to my site that keeps track of how many people click it? Or do I need to add a string to the end of my site url that analytics will recognise and count the people who click on links spread by the person "assigned" that string? Does this post make sense? Ive just come off work.
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Aug 15, 2013 00:44
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I just happened to run across something that said Amazon will be dropping affiliates in Missouri at the end of the month... which is where my main bank accounts are. Amazon accounts for about 90% of my blogs' income. Luckily I just moved states for school so I switched my amazon payment to my local bank but this sucks.
Omits-Bagels fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Aug 15, 2013 |
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Aug 15, 2013 01:16
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Zero Gravitas posted:Im wondering if theres a website or easy way to do the following: You could get a bunch of bit.ly links and use those. But then you would have to give each person a unique link to use, and that would be a hassle.
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Aug 15, 2013 02:59
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Omits-Bagels posted:I just happened to run across something that said Amazon will be dropping affiliates in Missouri at the end of the month... which is where my main bank accounts are. Amazon accounts for about 90% of my blogs' income. Luckily I just moved states for school so I switched my amazon payment to my local bank but this sucks. That sucks. There's link share and shareasale for affiliate marketing if you haven't checked them out.
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Aug 15, 2013 05:36
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Zero Gravitas posted:Im wondering if theres a website or easy way to do the following: There are a bunch of services to automate this process. http://www.rafflecopter.com/ ( http://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/run-giveaway-wordpress-rafflecopter/ ) http://contestdomination.com/ http://corp.wishpond.com/social-sweepstakes/ https://www.punchtab.com/ https://promosimple.com/ However, you can also do it yourself with careful campaign tagging. https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en
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Aug 15, 2013 15:01
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Omits-Bagels posted:I just happened to run across something that said Amazon will be dropping affiliates in Missouri at the end of the month... which is where my main bank accounts are. Amazon accounts for about 90% of my blogs' income. Luckily I just moved states for school so I switched my amazon payment to my local bank but this sucks. Some monetization sites that may come in handy: clickbank.com shareasale.com cj.com skimlinks.com linksynergy.com As for closer 'adsense replacements': http://www.adpushup.com/blog/google-adsense-alternatives-top-11/
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Aug 15, 2013 15:04
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Omits-Bagels posted:Is there a way I can automate this so I don't have to go through each page and change the ads? Manage your ad inventory with a system like ad injector, ad rotator, oio publisher, etc.
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Aug 15, 2013 15:05
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mcsuede posted:Manage your ad inventory with a system like ad injector, ad rotator, oio publisher, etc. Alternatively you could change your site code to use a php-include - see http://www.w3schools.com/php/php_includes.asp If you don't want to do that, you could always run all the pages through a "find and replace" tool?
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Aug 16, 2013 09:41
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mcsuede posted:Manage your ad inventory with a system like ad injector, ad rotator, oio publisher, etc. Thanks. Just set up ad injector so we'll see how it goes.
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Aug 16, 2013 17:32
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mcsuede posted:Some monetization sites that may come in handy: Thanks again. I've been using CJ.com for a few things that Amazon doesn't do well. I really like Amazon because of the random sales you get from it and it has relatively high commissions. I've switched my account over to my new state so it should all be fine. If not, I will have my wife sign up to be an affiliate and switch all my links over. It will be a pain in the rear end but should only take a few hours.
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Aug 16, 2013 17:43
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