Just some more thoughts on persistence in blogging: This blog has been going for a little over a year now. I certainly haven't busted my gut over it; just kept chipping away when I found time. I've now racked up just over 100 posts. I did a word count and there's close to 19000 words there, which is half the length of an average sized book.
Of course I couldn't put it into a book form as is. But there is quite a bit of good information in this blog - much of it stuff that I have learned from experience as opposed to ideas that I picked up and rehashed from other websites and blogs.
Still, the search engine traffic has been disappointing. At first I suspected that was due to the content scraper who was preying on this blog. But I don't think this was the main reason (and in any case his site has been taken offline - probably because of complaints by other bloggers he was plagiarizing). I think it's mainly to do with the fact that I'm in a highly saturated niche and the keywords I've been focusing on have been fought over for years.
I suspect that if I'd chosen a less competitive niche I would be bringing in solid traffic by now. Still, the traffic to this one has been slowly increasing. So it's definitely worth continuing with.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Sunday, January 17, 2010
New forums appearing in search engine results
I have done quite a bit of forum marketing in the past. But I did overdose on it a bit, so I haven't looked at any forums - let alone search for them - for the last few weeks.
But back then, while I was doing it, I found it quite difficult to find good new forums. (That's not the case with blogs, of course. There are just squillions of them on any subject you can think of.) I concluded that the reason for this is that forums do take a long time to get up and running, and a lot of them fall by the wayside before reaching critical mass. The big, established ones have managed to get past that point, of course, so they tend to stay at the top of the rankings.
For this reason I thought things wouldn't have changed much since I last did a search. But earlier today I Googled and Binged for new forums using terms like "seo forum" and "marketing forum". While the results hadn't altered hugely, they did contain a few good new ones that I'd never seen before.
So, the list is dynamic after all. If you are looking for new forums, you just have to give it a bit more time to let things change.
But back then, while I was doing it, I found it quite difficult to find good new forums. (That's not the case with blogs, of course. There are just squillions of them on any subject you can think of.) I concluded that the reason for this is that forums do take a long time to get up and running, and a lot of them fall by the wayside before reaching critical mass. The big, established ones have managed to get past that point, of course, so they tend to stay at the top of the rankings.
For this reason I thought things wouldn't have changed much since I last did a search. But earlier today I Googled and Binged for new forums using terms like "seo forum" and "marketing forum". While the results hadn't altered hugely, they did contain a few good new ones that I'd never seen before.
So, the list is dynamic after all. If you are looking for new forums, you just have to give it a bit more time to let things change.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Karmic justice for content thief?
Not long ago I was annoyed to discover that some sack o' suds had been scraping my RSS feeds to get content for his site. While I did send him an e-mail demanding that he stop doing this - which he ignored, of course - I didn't pursue it any further. I was very busy and just didn't have the time.
Curious as to whether he was still stealing my content, I typed the URL of his site into my browser and was taken to an "account suspended" page. So, it seems likely that someone else he'd been plagiarizing was a bit more assiduous than me, and sent an official complaint to his web host.
Curious as to whether he was still stealing my content, I typed the URL of his site into my browser and was taken to an "account suspended" page. So, it seems likely that someone else he'd been plagiarizing was a bit more assiduous than me, and sent an official complaint to his web host.
Shark attack described on Twitter
Recently a woman was lambasted for posting tweets while her son died from drowning. And now a South African man has tweeted immediately after watching a man being killed by a "dinosaur huge" shark.
Regardless of the moral ramifications of using Twitter at such times, these events certainly illustrate the massive reach of the micro-blogging site. No matter what happens nowadays, there's almost certain to be a Twitter user close by ready to tweet about it in real time.
Regardless of the moral ramifications of using Twitter at such times, these events certainly illustrate the massive reach of the micro-blogging site. No matter what happens nowadays, there's almost certain to be a Twitter user close by ready to tweet about it in real time.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Massive rise in eBook sales
For a long while it seemed that while ebooks could be a profitable option for writers, particularly when they were writing about niche subjects, the medium was still struggling to crack a really large audience and become "mainstream". But it looks like that barrier has been broken now. For the first time ebooks have out-sold traditional books at Amazon, with Kindles being purchased in huge numbers.
Of course this doesn't necessarily mean that the same thing will happen across all book retailing sites. However, it is highly significant. And I suspect it won't be long before the sight of people using e-readers will be as common as the sight of those listening to their beloved iPods.
Of course this doesn't necessarily mean that the same thing will happen across all book retailing sites. However, it is highly significant. And I suspect it won't be long before the sight of people using e-readers will be as common as the sight of those listening to their beloved iPods.
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