Add Music to Blogspot blog

This article is updated to address the difference in the way the code is interpreted by the different browsers, namely Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox. We have also included a sample music file which you can use to test the effects of adding the sound file to your Blog. As well, read our article on Flash Music Player and Music Playlists to add a playlist of several musical pieces or songs.

“Music, the greatest good that mortals know,
And all of heaven we have below.” ... Joseph Addison

Depending on the subject matter of your blog, having music played in the background may either enhance the pleasure of reading or annoy your visitor. Imagine the agony of surfing the web in discreet, only to catch the attention of your office colleagues or parents when the music automatically blasts off in the background. Not to mention, a big music file may cause a slower page download. Nevertheless, the solution, as shall be explained later, is simple - have an option for the reader to play or stop the music.

To begin, you will need to have a music file uploaded onto a server. You can read about using free hosts like Google Page Creator and Google Groups. We have also a rather comprehensive list of free Image Hosts and File Hosting Services in our article on Manage Blogger Image Storage Space. Check out those sites and choose one that is fast, reliable and enables hotlinking to the uploaded files. Upon uploading, note down the URL of the file.

Alternatively, there are several sites that offer free download of their music files. You can enter search words like “free music download” or search for a popular artist name in the Google search
box. Most of the sites that offer free download will lead you to the file location stored in their servers. Copy the URL of the music file that you have chosen.

If you would like to hear how the music works on your Blog, you can also use this music file which we have uploaded onto Google Pages - http://ownlblog.googlepages.com/BalladePourAdeline.mid - whenever you are prompted to enter the “URL of music file”. This file is for testing purposes only. Please do not link permanently to this file as it may be changed or deleted in due course.

Next, you would have to decide how you want the music to be played.

Link for reader to click

This is a text link. Your visitor can click the link if he wants to hear the music.

URL of music file">Click to hear music file

Remember to enter the URL of music file into the above code. This code can be inserted into your Blog post. If you want to put it in your sidebar, you can go to Template -> Page Elements -> Add a Page Element, select HTML/JavaScript and insert the code. Whatever words you type into the “Click to hear music file” will appear as the text link.

Music with a console

A music player console with controls of the volume, on and off buttons, would give your visitors a choice on how he wants the music played. With the code stated below, the music will not play unless the visitor clicks the play button.

You can either insert the music console into your Blog post or your sidebar. If you want it in the sidebar, go to Template -> Page Elements -> Add a Page Element, select HTML/JavaScript.

The code to insert is this:-

autostart="false" height="40" loop="true" playcount="2" src="URL of music file" width="300"/>

Note the following attributes and how they work on different browsers:-

1. Insert your URL of music file into the code.

2. The width of the example you see above is "300". If you want it to be embedded neatly into your sidebar, the width should not be greater than the sidebar width. For example, if your sidebar width is 150px, the width of your console should be about 140px.

3. The height would depend on your preference and space constraints.

4. The autostart attribute has two options. If you choose "true", the music will automatically play when your page is loaded. As I have mentioned earlier, this is not a good option unless you are absolutely sure all your visitors would not mind the music. The better option is to state it as "false". If the visitor wishes to hear the music, he can click the play button to start the music.

Note, however, that while it works fine in Internet Explorer, it may not be so in Mozilla Firefox. The default setting for IE is "false" which means the music will not play automatically. The default setting for Firefox is "true", and when we experimented with .wma and .wav files, they automatically played even when we set the autostart to "false". If you are working on the Mac, the default setting for both browsers is "false".

5. The loop attribute indicates whether the music should stop once that particular tune ends. The common attributes are "false" or "true". If the attribute is "false", the music ends after it is played once. If it is "true", the music will automatically loop and continue playing until the visitor clicks the stop button or leaves your site. For short music pieces, you may want it to repeat and choose "true".

For certain versions of Netscape browsers, another attribute that might work is loop="n" where n is a number. If n is 2 for example, the music will play twice and stop. The similar attribute in Internet Explorer is playcount.

6. You can specify the number of times the music is to be played. In the above example, where playcount="2", the same piece of music is played twice before it stops. If you want the music to be played once, you can delete playcount altogether. Note that this only works in Internet Explorer.

Background music to play automatically

For the music to play the moment your page is loaded, the code will have to appear in the HTML document of your site. Note that in so doing, there are no controls for the visitor to choose whether or not to listen to the music, nor options to turn it off. Login to your Dashboard and under “Template”, click “Edit HTML”. Somewhere near the top, after the word , insert this code:-

URL of music file" width="0"/>

Remember to insert the URL of music file into the code. There is no image of a console and readers cannot choose to turn off the music. Use this option with discretion.

Adsense Tips for Bloggers - Relevant Ads

Revenue = high readership + high paying ads + relevant ads + well placed and designed ads

The third element of our Adsense equation is that of relevant Adsense ads. It is all very well to rank high in search engines to generate high levels of traffic, but without relevant ads that relate to the content of your blog you are not likely to generate much in the way of click throughs.

Let me give you an example. Recently I was asked to help a fellow blogger who has struggling with his Adsense ads because whilst his content largely focused upon the topic of ‘health care’ - most of the ads being served to his blog were focused upon ‘blogging’. He was getting quite reasonable traffic levels and had a reasonably high paying topic (there are some good health care ads out there) but as you’d expect, people coming to a blog about health care did not click on ads for blogging software and services at a very high rate. The challenge was to get his ads reflecting the content of his blog.

Another fellow blogger had the problem of not getting ANY ads being served to his site. Instead of paying ads all he was getting was the public service ads that Adsense serves when they couldn’t find any relevant paying ads (these pay nothing).

How do you get relevant ads? Here are a few things to try.

Make sure there are ads available - My friend who didn’t get any paying ads served was focusing on a key word for which there was no or very few ads. A simple way of checking this is to do a search on Google for the key word you are targeting. If they don’t serve ads on their own search results page its an indication that such ads are scarce - if not non existent. They way we got ads on my friends blog was to experiment with other related keywords. He didn’t have to change the focus of his blog - just the way he described his topics. For example if there are no ads for ‘bed linen’ try ‘blankets’, ’sheets’, ‘quilts’ etc. Experiment with different combinations until you find something that works.

Increase your Keyword density - The more you use your keywords the more likely you are to get ads on those topics. Its not common knowledge exactly how the Adsense bot decides what ads suit your content best (if someone knows feel free to post it in comments below) but it’s a pretty safe bet that if you put you keyword in your title, at least once in your first paragraph and then scatter it throughout the rest of your page that you’ll convince the Adsense bot of what your topic is. It MAY also be helpful to include your keywords in the URL of your page (Moveable type can let you do this - ie look at the URL of this page - it incorporates my title and therefore some keywords). It MAY also be worth putting your keywords in outward links, bold, italics etc. All of these strategies also help optimise yor blog for search engines which won’t hurt either.

Examine your Sidebars, menus, header and footer - It is not just your main content that the Adsense bot searches to find the topic of your page, but also your other areas. When I looked at the healthcare blog that was getting ‘blogging’ ads I noticed that he had the word ‘blog’ in his title, three times on his sidebar and once in his footer. It was also in his URL and he also used the word quite often in his content. My recommendation was to remove the word from as many of those places as possible and to increase his health care keywords. The ads improved their relevancy almost immediately.

Stick to one topic per page - Obviously this may not be feasible on your front page - but attempt to keep each individual blog entry/post as highly targeted as possible. I’ve noticed that some people often include two or three topics in one entry - this will confuse Adsense’s bot so split them up into two entries.

Block irrelevant Ads - Sometimes despite your best intentions Google just gets it wrong and serves your ads that have nothing to do with what you write. If you’re getting some repeating irrelevant ads block them. Adsense lets you do this to quite a few sites and its easy to do. I have a number of ads blocked, some because they are philosophically not consistent with what I write about, but mainly because they just are not relevant to the topic of my blogs.

Ask Adsense - If all else fails notify Google Adsense of your issue. Of course they are busy people - but Google prides itself on being responsive to its users. I’ve emailed with queries a number of times, once on an issue of irrelevant ads, and every time I’ve had positive results from my query. You’ve got nothing to loose - shoot them an email!

by Darren Rowse

Adsense Tips for Bloggers - High Paying Ads

Adsense Revenue = Traffic Levels + High Paying Ads + Relevant Ads + Optimally Positioned and Designed Ads

The next element of this Adsense equation to be examined is how to get high paying Adsense Ads running on your site. Obviously in any business one way to get higher profits is to charge more for your product - whilst you have no direct say in how much is charged for ads run on your site - there are ways of targeting types of ads that might bring in a higher return than others.

As we mentioned in our initial explanation of the equation, the PVR Blog is one example of a blog that targets a well paying ad type - ads for PVR technology. Whilst I do not know specifics of earnings I would suspect blogs like Gizmodo who run Adsense ads would also be generating a higher paying ad, due to their focus on technology.

The lesson we can learn from blogs such as these is that they attract specific ads (that presumably are well paying) by keeping their content targeted on the same topics. To over simplify what we’re saying - if you want ads about Camera Phones blog about Camera Phones.

Finding High Paying Ads is not as easy as it sounds (is anything?). Do a search for Google on High Paying Adsense Ads and you won’t find too many sites listing the best keywords for Adsense. The top Adsense users in Adsense discussion forums tend to be pretty secretive about not only what keywords they focus on, but also what sites they run. I don’t blame them either - its good business sense really.

Having said this there are a number of strategies and tools that you might like to employ to help find high paying keywords.

* Buy them - Finding high paying keywords for your blog is possible by yourself for free - but as with everything a few entrepreneurial types are willing to do the leg work for you to save you some time and give you a comprehensive result. One service that you might like to try to find good keywords is Top Paying Keywords.
* Trial and Error - I know this will frustrate some of you who want a nice and easy quick fix but overall it is one of the best pieces of advice I can give. Try writing on a topic - track the results - if it pays off do it again….lots. Adsense allows you to track specific pages or sections of your blog using its ‘channels’ feature - if you’re smart you’ll watch which sections of your blog are generating the highest ads by dividing your overall earnings by the number of clicks and comparing it to other channels. Keep trying new topics until you strike gold and then dig in like crazy!
* Are there Any Ads? - This is a good first question. Despite the many thousands of advertisers using Adsense there are some topics where the answer to this question is no. A simple way to check is to head to Google and do a search for the key words you’re wanting to blog about. The results page will bring up not only a list of other sites writing about that key word (they are you competitors) but on the right hand side there will be a list of ads - these are the same sorts of ads you’ll get on your site if you write on the topic. If there are ads there, it is a good sign. If there are not - maybe its worth finding another topic to write on if you’re hoping to attract ads.
* 7 Search has a list of the 100 of the top paying keywords (in their advertising program - not Adsense) at the moment. Its a bit depressing actually to see a list like this because you’d have to sell your soul somewhat in order to go with many of them. Its an interesting site to check out though.
* Also from 7 Search (and more useful) is their Keyword Suggestion Tool which gives you an idea of what people are paying per click on different tools (again this is not specifically for Adsense but it will give you an idea of what the going rates are). Find What also has a similar service.
* Google Adsense’s biggest competitor are Overture (they run the ads on Yahoo) - they offer a service where you can enter your keywords and they will not only tell you how much advertisers are paying for the words but also how many people are searching for the term. This is a very useful tool.
* Sign up for Adwords - One way of getting a feel for how much people are willing to pay per click is to sign up with Google as an advertiser yourself. It doesn’t cost much to start a mini campaign and do some research this way. You’ll get a feel for what people are bidding on different words very quickly this way.
* Word Tracker is the best tool I’ve seen to help in finding keywords that people are searching for in the major search engines. The excellent thing about Word Tracker is that they also tell you how many other sites out there are targeting the same words! This is very handy as it will stop you targeting ‘Britney Spears’ as a Keyword phrase even though its one of the most searched for keywords on the web because literally hundreds of thousands of other sites have beaten you to the punch. Word Tracker has a free version to trial it and their paying version is even better - well worth the investment.
* I’m told Keyword Sleuth is a similar program to Word Tracker however I am yet to trial it.

Targeting High Paying Adsense Ads is an important aspect of generating an income from Adsense. It is not enough in and of itself however. You can have $10 per click ads (I’ve not found any of these yet) but without generating any traffic your research into the right ads will be useless.

by Darren Rowse

Adsense Tips for Bloggers - Increasing Traffic

Adsense Revenue = Traffic Levels + High Paying Ads + Relevant Ads + Optimally Positioned and Designed Ads

I now will turn my attention to each of the four elements of good Adsense revenue in turn and give some practical easy to implement tips to improve each from my experience.

Increasing Traffic Levels is a key component to increasing Adsense revenue. As I wrote previously, ‘The more people that see you Adsense Ads, the more likelihood there is that someone will click on them.’

Increasing the readership of your blog is not as simple as it sounds, it takes time, patience and hard work (and sometimes a bit of luck) Having said that there are many things you can do to get your blog in front of a wider audience and there exposing the adsense messages on your site to more potential ‘clickers’. Here are a few tips…

* Quality, Interesting, Useful and Original Content - What are the blogs that you read the most? If you’re anything like me they are blogs that have quality content that ’scratches me where I itch’. This is essential to increasing your readership unless you have a pretty amazing ‘gimmick’ to bring readers in.
* Good Blog Design is really important if you want your blog to create a good first impression. With millions of other blogs and sites out there its worth some effort to make yours stand out. Also worth a read is Good Weblog Design and Layout.
* Link to others - be generous with your links to other bloggers big and small. You’ll be surprised how many links come back your way. This not only brings traffic from their sites but doesn’t hurt your ranking in Google.
* Comment on others blogs - Some of my most loyal readers came to my blog because I genuinely interacted with them on their blogs through comments. Hear me now, I say genuinely because its easy to spam in comments, but this will have the opposite effect of generating readers to your blog.
* Update Frequently - There is nothing that turns me off a blog faster than seeing that it hasn’t been updated for a month or more. Keep it rolling over with interesting content.
* Interact with Readers - Having an interactive blog that invites the involvement of readers is one way of generating repeat visitors. I’ve written a tip on Interactive Blogging including a number of interactive tools that you can use on your blog. Also check out this tip on using comments effectively to increase interactivity on your blog.
* Optimise for Search Engines - I can’t stress enough how important Search Engines are to increasing traffic, especially traffic that will click on your ads. I find that 95% of my traffic comes from Google and have found that anecdotal evidence suggests this traffic clicks through on Adsense ads at a higher rate than traffic from links on other blogs and sites. So work hard at getting listed and highly ranked on Search Engines.
* Add a signature to your outgoing email - Learn a lesson from Hotmail who have used signatures on the bottom of their users emails for years to promote their home page and generate interest in their product. Be careful though if you don’t want your worlds to collide!
* Web Rings - There are literally thousands of webrings that you can sign up for. I’m not sure how effective they are these days, but some people still swear by them.
* Add an RSS feed to your blog - more and more people are reading blogs without ever visiting them through News Aggregators that pick up information using RSS. Whilst this does not guarantee those reading through aggregators will visit your blog (and therefore see your Adsense Ads) it certainly increases the chances of them dropping by, especially if you invite comments and have internal links on your posts.
* List your site on Portals - There are a growing number of sites which exclusively list blogs. If you want people to find you its worth submitting your blog to be listed on them. Some focus on specific topics while others list blogs on a wide variety of topics (like Eaton Web and Globe of Blogs). Other portals like BlogShares and Blog Street also list a lot of blogs in different ways which might increase your blogs profile.
* Blog Search Engines and Indexes - Get yourself registered on sites like Blogdex, Technorati, Popdex and Daypop (they require RSS I think). These sites have features that allow people to search for blog entries via topic and keywords. They also list the most popular recent topics and each have other interesting features which can enhance your blogging experience.
* Start a Newsletter - Offer your readers a newsletter service to keep them up to date with your latest posts. I’ve found since adding a free weekly newsletter to my digicam blog that hundreds of readers have signed up for regular updates of my latest posts. Think about this - hundreds of people have given me permission to invite them to come back to my blog - every week!
* Get Involved in Blog Projects and Memes - From time to time other bloggers will invite your participation in a blog project of theirs. Get involved, support their project and you might find it pays off. On the flip side start your own blogging project or meme. Do something that is of service to other bloggers. I tried something like this with Underblogs and Blogger Idol.
* Get involved in other web forums - Genuinely participate in web forums and discussion pages on topics related to your blog. Many of these allow you to add a signature to your posts which raise your blogs profile.
* Promote your Posts - If you think you’ve written something worthwhile spend a few minutes letting others know about it. I regularly shoot other bloggers to notify them of what I’ve written if I think it will interest them. Think about it before you send the email and don’t bombard the same people constantly with every topic you write on - be selective, concise, polite and helpful with your emails but don’t be afraid to promote yourself.
* Add a ‘Email a Friend’ Option to your posts - make it easy for your readers to tell others about what you’ve written. I know this function gets used regularly on my blog and brings in new readers that I would never otherwise have been able to reach.

by Darren Rowse

Adsense Tips for Bloggers - An Equation for Success

Adsense Revenue = Traffic Levels + High Paying Ads + Relevant Ads + Optimally Positioned and Designed Ads

Its not Rocket Science. Each of the above four elements contribute directly to the total revenue that your Adsense Ads will produce. Don’t just work on one of them though because if any one is weak it will hold your potential earnings back. Lets break each factor down….

Traffic Levels - The more people that see you Adsense Ads, the more likelihood there is that someone will click on them. As I examine the statistics provided by Adsense that report my daily earnings I notice that my earnings in the past 8 months have increased considerably as my total page impressions have increased. For example earlier in the week when Slashdot linked up to this post I had an influx of 50,000 visitors in 24 hours to my blog - it doesn’t take a genius to work out what this did to my Adsense earnings that day! Work on increasing your traffic levels and you should see an increase in your Adsense Revenue.

High Paying Ads - Once again I’m stating the obvious, but if the content you provide on your blog attracts high paying ads you’re going to do significantly better. For example it has been documented that the PVR Blog is doing pretty well when it comes to high Adsense earnings - the secret of its success is partly due to it being served with ads that are high paying. The topic of the PVR blog is, as you’d expect, PVR technology including TiVo, Replay TV etc. This is cutting edge technology and therefore advertisers are willing to pay top dollar to get their products and services out there! In comparison if a person was to start a blog on ‘toothpicks’ I suspect the ads are not likely to pay very much. It would take very high traffic levels to earn as much from a toothpick blog as it would the PVR blog.

Relevant Ads - A second reason the PVR Blog is successful is that it servers relevant ads. To put it simply people looking for information on PVR technology are confronted by Adsense ads for PVR technology. I recently visited a blog that was having trouble getting relevant ads - they had a blog on Tourist destinations in Australia - but unfortunately they were getting Adsense ads for remote control cars. You can guess what their revenue was like. Increase the relevancy of your Ads to your content and you are one step closer to increasing your Adsense revenue.

Optimally Positioned and Designed Ads - One of the coolest things about the Adsense program is that they give you freedom in choosing the best position and color scheme for your ads. Just like in the wider world of advertising - positioning is a key element to an ads success. A Billboard positioned on a road where no one drives is not likely to get the same results as one positioned on a busy intersection. The position and design of your Adsense Ads is critical - if they are out of site they’ll never get clicked on.

Bringing them Together - The above four elements are in many ways pretty obvious when spelt out like this - the challenge comes to improving each to optimize Adsense revenue.

Your revenue will only grow as high as the weakest one of these factors on your blog. For example if you have high paying, relevant, well designed and positioned ads but no traffic you’ll not do well. Likewise if you have high traffic, high paying and relevant ads but they are poorly designed an in a position where they’ll never be seen - you’ll waste all your other hard work. Its not enough to work on one element.

by Darren Rowse

Adsense Tips for Bloggers - Is Your Blog Suitable for Adsense

Google does not accept every site that applies to the Adsense program

* Google Adsense Program Policies indicate that the content of sites must not contain things like excessive profanity, pornography, illicit drugs etc. Basically your blog needs to have content that is reasonably ‘family friendly’.
* Also in their policy document is a reference to them not normally accepting pages of a personal nature. This is the topic of discussion in many Adsense forums and is obviously open to different interpretations. Many (if not most) blogs are personal in nature - however to maximize your chances of approval by Adsense a blog should be targeted on a particular topic/s. For example whilst this blog is often personal in nature - most of my individual posts (pages) focus on very specific themes which are repeated throughout the blog. update - this may have changed recently with Blogger now allowing blogger blogs to use Adsense.
* Sites accepted into the Adsense program are also required to be easily navigable, have an adequate quantity of text based content (don’t apply if you’ve been blogging a week) and be written in English, French, German, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Japanese, or Spanish. They may not to have excessive advertising or other contextual/competing advertising.
* Whilst not stated in the Adsense Policy document, many also believe that sites accepted into the program also need to have reasonable levels of traffic. If your blog is new, it may be worth waiting a few weeks or months before applying to build up traffic and content levels. Others speculate that a professionally designed, well-organized and privately hosted blog has a better chance of being accepted. The more professional and successful your blog appears the more likely it is to be accepted by Adsense.

If still in doubt after reading Google Adsense Program Policies you can email Google for clarification or just apply and see how you go.

Of course, acceptance by Google into the Adsense program does not guarantee your success. The fact remains that certain blogs will always be more successful than others at generating income.

Future posts in this series will focus upon strategies and tips for increasing your revenue but it should be stated here that the most successful sites are generally sites with very high traffic levels and/or content that is directly related to a particular product or service (the more targeted and niche-like the better).

It is also worth saying that Adsense works best on pages with lots of text content. It only reads text in determining ads, not images so make sure you have enough relevant content.

by Darren Rowse

Three simple actions that doubled my website traffic in 30 days

he following post on how to increase website traffic was submitted by Adrian W Kingsley-Hughes.

Get more tips on increasing website and blog traffic by subscribing to our RSS Feed.

I started the PC Doctor blog in May of 2005 and for the first few months my traffic was really low - down in the few hundreds of visitors a day. It was pretty depressing I can tell you and there were times when I thought about quitting. I knew that the site was in the Google ’sandbox’ and so I either had to keep on plugging at it until it was out or I had to give up.

Fortunately, I decided to keep on posting but in the interim I decided that I was also going to do my utmost to drive traffic to my site manually until Google kicked in. I took a look around at what some of the successful blogs were doing and came up with three tactics that helped to double my website traffic in a month.

1. First, I made the most of Technorati tags. I tagged every key word in each of my posts. Initially I did this manually but them I discovered a WordPress plugin called SimpleTags that made the job a whole lot easier.

I found that by tagging my post effectively they were getting a lot more attention then their untagged counterparts, and as an added advantage I was getting focused, quality traffic to the site!
2. I leveraged my existing website. I’ve been running my business website for a few years and that was getting modest levels of traffic that was relevant to my blog - so why not try to drive some of that to my new blog! I placed a few FeedBurner headline animator blocks on some of my most popular pages and after a day or so I noticed a significant increase in traffic for 5 minutes worth of work on my part.
3. Finally, I made effective use of trackback links to popular sites. If I commented on a post on another site I would make sure that I set up the appropriate trackback for it. The results from this are varied depending on the site and post that you are linking to but since I liked to comment and interact with the wider blogosphere anyway, it was free traffic!

Using these three simple techniques, I took The PC Doctor blog from a few hundred hits a day into the thousands in less than 30 days. This kept my interest in the site until it came out of the Google sandbox and I started to receiver some serious traffic. However, I’m convinced that these actions I took at the early stages have helped me create a loyal and targeted readership that continues to benefit my blog today.

by Darren Rowse

How Much Money Can a Blog Earn?

“If my blog has ((insert daily number of impressions or page views of your blog here)) how much should it be earning?”

This is one of the more common questions I get asked by bloggers just starting out with making money from their blogs.

On one level it’s a valid question to ask - after all if you’re going to put time and energy into building something it’d be great to know up front what rewards might be awaiting you.

On another level - it’s an almost impossible question to answer because there are so many factors to take into consideration.

As I look across the blogs that I am involved with (around 100 in number if you count b5media’s 80+ blogs) there is a massive variation in the earnings that blogs are pulling in. It is very difficult to make sense of it as it not just a matter of traffic levels.

For example - As I write this I’m looking at the earnings for January of three blogs that I have some involvement with (I don’t get into what specific blogs earn so don’t ask) and here’s what I see:

Blog A: For the month this blog had a total of around 20,000 page views from about half that number of visitors (ie they viewed 2 pages each. The Total earnings of this blog (all from contextual advertising) was $790.91 (USD).

Blog B: This blog had just over 40,000 page views over the month, this time from about 13,000 visitors. It’s total earnings from contextual advertising (same amount of ad units per pages as the other) was $99.08 (USD). it also earned around $35 from an affiliate program.

Blog C: Our last example is a blog that had around 160,000 page views over the month from around 80,000 visitors. It earned $515.12 from contextual ads and somewhere in the vicinity of $2,500 from affiliate programs.

Factors to Contribute to a Blog’s Earnings…

It’s pretty obvious from those figures that there is no ‘normal’ earnings based upon traffic alone. Many factors are obviously at play. Let me unpack a few:

1. Traffic Levels: While the above examples show that traffic is not the only factor at play in determining the earning capacity of a blog - it is a significant one. Whether you’re earning money from your blog directly or indirectly you are almost always going to increase your earning potential by increasing your readership.

2. Source of Traffic: Of course all not all traffic is equal when it comes to earning an income online. As I mentioned in this earlier post, blog traffic largely comes from a three sources - Loyal Readers (including RSS), Search Engines and Referral Traffic (from other sites).

Each type of traffic will have a different impact upon your earning potential depending upon your earning strategies. Lets look at each in turn:

* Loyal Readers - loyal readers are a wonderful thing to have on a blog because they can add a sense of community and participation. In terms of income generation they are often good if you’re attempting to earn income from your blog via indirect methods. In my experience of picking up consulting and speaking work and even in developing products for sale - most the the opportunities have only come from established relationships that I’ve managed to build with readers.

Loyal Readers have also been known to respond to affiliate programs as a result of the trust and relationship that you might have built up with them over time. The longer term and more loyal your reader is the more weight your recommendation is likely to carry. Of course you won’t keep readers loyal for long if your recommendations are not on the money so be careful with that.

On the downside - loyal readers are generally not good for advertising in most forms. When a reader sees your blog every day Ad-blindness tends to kick in pretty quickly unless you’re pretty creative with your ads they often go unseen.

RSS readers are particularly difficult to monetize with ads on your blog as so many of them rarely see your blog if you publish full feeds rather than excerpts.

* Search Engine Readers - readers coming to your blog after searching for a keyword you have used are a very different type of reader to the ‘loyal variety’ when it comes to what they respond to. Anecdotal evidence seems to indicate that visitors from SE’s quite often only stay on sites fleetingly. The typical SE users is in search of specific information and if they find it quickly they might stay for a little while but if they don’t they are likely to click on link to something else that might be a better source of information or hit their back button to return to the search engine.

This makes them almost the opposite of loyal readers in terms of indirect income earning methods. It’s very difficult to build your profile if people are one off 10 second readers (unless you’re good at making them come back).

When it comes to more direct income earning methods SE traffic is traditionally more responsive as they tend to be more aware of your ads (if they are well placed and designed) and they are actively looking for information and things to click on that might give them the info they are searching for. This is especially true for contextual advertising like AdSense which can show ads on your site that are triggered not only by what your content is about but on what people came to your blog searching for in Google (or so some people believe).

In terms of affiliate links - SE traffic is less likely to click them as a result of your profile but could be open to them more just because they are there. They can be hit and miss depending upon your topic
* Referral Traffic - It is difficult to make generalizations about this category of traffic because it depends a lot on the type of site that is linking to you and the way in which they do it.

For example the last two times I’ve been linked to from Slashdot brought incredibly different results in terms of the money earned from the traffic. On one occasion there was barely any discernible difference in my AdSense earnings despite having 10 times the traffic I normally would get in a day. On the next link up earnings increased proportionally with the increase in traffic (it was and probably still is my best earning day ever). I can only really put this down to the difference in tone of the linking post at Slashdot and the type of post that I’d written (which in the later case probably triggered more relevant ads).

In general, traffic from larger sites like Digg and Slashdot don’t convert too well with advertising and affiliate programs. There is an opportunity however for capturing these first time readers and converting them into loyal ones which as we’ve said above is good for indirect income earning down the track.

4. Income Stream:The actual method you use to monetize your blog impacts the amount you might earn. This is pretty obvious so I won’t go on about it too much but it’s worth saying here as it’s a definite factor in mix when looking at other factors.

5. Topic: In the three blogs that I mention above I would say the major difference in their earning capacity was their topic.

* Blog A has a pretty specialized topic that not many would be too interested in (hence it’s lower traffic). On the other side of things it has well paying ads in YPN on a per click basis and triggers ads that are very relevant to the topic. As a result despite it’s low traffic it earns quite well.
* Blog B has a very popular topic but there are very few advertisers interested in buying ads with those keywords in contextual ad systems. As a result it’s Click Through Rate (CTR) is very low and click values are low also. It’s also yet to generate enough traffic to make much from impression based ads (although there is potential here - it’s a reasonably newish blog). As a result while it has more traffic than Blog A it’s earning considerably less.
* Blog C is again on a popular topic which doesn’t convert brilliantly in contextual ads in terms of CTR and ad value. It does have a reasonable reputation in it’s niche and affiliate recommendations are responded to well by readers (and they have a good value per sale also which doesn’t hurt).

Why Topic Matters

* Contextual Ads - Different topics and keywords within topics will trigger different ads in contextual ad programs and as a result will earn different levels ‘per click’ (I write about finding high paying ads in AdSense here).
* Affiliate Programs - Similarly, different topics will open up different levels of earnings when it comes to affiliate programs. For example a blog about books that uses the Amazon program is only ever likely to make small commissions per sale as the average book might only be worth $20 and the commission with Amazon is generally in the 5-8% range. On the other hand I know of publishers in the financial website game who use affiliate programs that can pay out at $100 per sale.
* Indirect Methods - Obviously different opportunities (with different income earning potential) arise for bloggers with a profile in different niches. For example a blogger known for his movie review blog might not have much demand for consulting work but could find a way to syndicate his blog to magazines or newspapers. A blogger with a good profile in the PR industry might not get picked up as a writer in magazines but could land himself a well paying job or some consulting work.

6. Age of Blog: - a good wine matures with age - as do many profitable blogs (and most profitable businesses for that matter). There are many reasons why this is the case and while some blogs do seem to rise from nowhere to dominate the blogosphere - most do not. Here’s a few reasons why blogs tend to get better with age:

* Quantity of content - I find myself saying this to new bloggers repeatedly but don’t expect to get a lot of traffic to your blog until you have a substantial level of content in your archives. Of course quality of content is vital, but at least at some level numbers of posts do count and unless you’re going sell your soul and to get into splogging quantities of content take time. I’ve written more on this here and here (series).
* Search Engine Optimization - While some SEO experts claim they can have you at the top of Search Engines quickly (and some can), sustaining high rankings through legitimate (white hat) methods means building a site over time. Climbing the rankings in SE’s is the result of many things including good content (lots of it) that gets links from others - both things that take time.
* Reputation - Building an online profile and presence takes time n the same way that it takes time in real life. People look for consistency in your blogging overtime and will want to see that you not only talk the talk but walk the walk. As you do this you’ll find your readership grows.
* Network - Connected with a good reputation comes networking opportunities. Two years ago if I had wanted to start a new blogging project with someone else I would have had little chance of convincing anyone to join me - but since that time I’ve worked hard at my relationships with fellow bloggers (and other online and offline contacts) to the point now where my problem is becoming too many opportunities to collaborate.
* Web Smarts - I shudder when I look back at my first blogging efforts and how naive, ill-informed and poorly run they were. I have a long way to go when it comes to learning about the web, blogs, design, writing etc - but over time my own skills and knowledge in these areas have grown. You can read all the books, blogs and articles you want on blogging (and I’d encourage you to do so) - but so much of what you can learn about blogging for money has to come from on the job experience - which again only comes with time.

7. Time Invested: Lastly I’ll add that the time a blogger is willing and able to invest into their blog is a factor worth considering. I’m fortunate enough to have been able to work myself into a position where I can blog full time. This didn’t just happen overnight (I attempted to describe the process here) but as I was able to put more time into it the rewards increased. This is a bit of a catch 22 situation of course (the more you earn the more time you can put in and the more time you put in the more you can earn) but it’s a principle I’ve discovered that is worth adding into the mix.

So How Much Can a Blog Earn?

I’ve been avoiding the question for over 2000 words now and I’m not about to put a definitive answer on it except to say that every blog is different and the evidence that I’ve seen from interacting with thousands of bloggers and their blogs over the past year is that bloggers are earning anything between nothing at all and millions of dollars. The upper end of the spectrum is of course rare and those earning very little are in the majority, but bloggers earning decent income is becoming increasingly common. Here’s a couple of recent ProBlogger polls that might illustrate how the spectrum is spread in their earnings of AdSense and Chitika.

I’ll finish with this:

Probably the best way to find out what you can earn from a particular blog is to start that blog and test the waters.

Give yourself a time limit of a few months to get a feel for the topic and see how it goes. While it’s important to realize that a few months is not really enough - it is enough to get an understanding for whether it’s a topic you feel you can sustain, what the click values and CTR might be in contextual ads and even to get a feel for what type of readers you’ll attract. If the signs are good - invest more time into it - if they are not, consider trying something else.

That’s my 2 (or 2000) cents worth on the topic of how much blogs can earn. What’s yours?

by Darren Rowse

Choosing the Domain Name for your Blog

Last night my wife came home with a book and started a conversation on a topic which I’d been dreading a little since the time we first found out that we were expecting a baby later in the year. The book was called something along the line of ‘Names for your Baby’.

The thought of giving another human being a name is a task that can be fun but at the same time a little (or a lot) daunting. There are many factors to consider (what could the name be shortened to, who else has that name, what memories does it evoke, is it easy for a child to say, should you name them after someone, etc etc etc) and so many ways to make the decision. What’s more, it’s a task that has some level of responsibility attached to it as a person’s name is something that has an impact upon them for a lifetime.

Choosing a name (and domain name) for your blog might not be quite as important a decision as naming your firstborn child but it is something to consider carefully and is therefore something I’d like to flesh out a little in this post.

For the purposes of this post I’m assuming that you have chosen to go with a stand alone blog (see previous post on blog platforms) and will not be relying upon a URL supplied by a blog hosting company AND that your domain name will be the name of your blog (not always the case but usually the case and usually a recommended practice).

Why would you want your own Domain Name?

Having your own domain name is desirable for many bloggers for numerous reasons. For a start if you’re wanting to build credibility and a sense of professionalism around your blog a domain that reflects this can help. Similarly a carefully selected domain name has the ability to enhance the branding of a product, service, business or even person. Domain purchases give the added bonus of email addresses with the same domain (adding to both professionalism and branding) and can enhance your Search Engine Ranking.
Factors to Consider when Choosing a Domain Name

Just as there are many factors to consider in choosing the name of a person there are many implications of choosing names for a website. What follows is a list of factors to keep in mind as you make the decision. Keep in mind that there are many theories about what is right and wrong in this area and that despite all the rules that people have there are some very successful sites that ignore them all! Also worth remembering is that personal taste comes into decisions like this - what’s a good name will mean different things to different people. With those disclaimers in mind - let’s take a look at a few areas to consider:

Goals and Objectives - I constantly come back to this point in most of my tips posts on a variety of aspects of blogging - but it’s so important to be thinking of the long term vision that you have for a blog when you’re making decisions like those about domain names.

* What is the topic of the blog? - an obvious starting point - most blog names reflect their topic
* What do you hope to achieve with your blog? - is it about having a hobby, is it about building your profile/expertise, is it about earning an income via ads, is it to support an existing business
* What style will it be? - is it a blog with one or many authors? What length of posts will it have?
* What tone and voice will it be written in? - Will it be conversational, newsy, rant-ish, humorous?
* Who is the intended audience? - Are you wanting to appeal to professionals, young people, cool people, geeks?

You get the picture. Just like naming a business you need to consider overall strategy.

Source of Traffic - I’ve seen many articles on how to choose a domain name written but in very few of them (if any) have I see a discussion on the type of traffic that you will be wanting to build your website/blog around. To me this is a crucial question (that emerges out of your overall strategy) and one that will help you answer some of the important questions that we’ll discuss below. Let me flesh this out a little:

Traffic to a blog generally comes from three main sources:

* Loyal Readers
* Search Engines
* Referral Traffic (from other sites)

I’ve talked a little about each of these types of traffic in this previous post - they each have their own distinct advantages and disadvantages and can be the result of different strategies. One of the many things that can impact the source of your traffic is your domain name. I’ll explain this more below but think it’s worth naming what type of blog and traffic you’re after up front. If you want a blog that is high on SE traffic you might well end up selecting a name that is different to a blog with traffic based upon repeat readers. As I say - I’ll expand on this below.

Keywords and Branding - Many discussions on domain name decisions talk about a choice between choosing a domain name with keywords in them to domain names that are more brandable or generic. It’s worth stating up front that it is possible to achieve both (I guess anything is brandable to some extent) - but that this type of choice often comes into play. In my opinion comes at least partly back to the type of traffic you’re hoping to attract to your blog. Let’s look at each in turn:

1. Keyword Based Domains - these domains, as the name suggests, incorporate keywords that your blog is about in them. This is good for a number of reasons. Firstly it communicates something to your readers very quickly with regards to what your blog is about. The other positive is that Search Engines take a good look at the words in your domain name when deciding what your blog is about and how to rank it. As a result if you’re after SE traffic then these types of names can be worth looking at. Examples of blogs with keyword based domains are Cellphone9, the Movie Blog, Sims Gamer and Digital Photography School.
2. Brandable Domains - these domains might often have some relation to their topic in terms of their feel or sound but are much more about creating something memorable that can become an identity in and of itself. In terms of traffic strategy - these blogs would be suited ideally to developing a blog that is aiming to build a community of loyal readers. Of course these blogs can also do very well in search engines but this is usually for other reasons (keywords in URLs are just one of many factors). Blogs that have these types of domains include Boing Boing, Gizmodo and Dooce. In fact if you look at Technorati’s Top 100 blogs - you’ll see that most of them have brandable names and not Keyword based ones.

Like I have mentioned above, these two options are no mutually exclusive. One example that comes to mind is Engadget which has become a memorable and well branded name that incorporates ‘gadget’ into it.

There are good arguments for and against both types of domain name which we could talk about for some time and it’s quite common to feel torn when making this type of decision between the two options.

Thinking of the Future - another factor to consider that is related to my first point of goals and objectives is to consider what your blog might look like in the future. I’ve seen a number of bloggers start up blogs with domains that fit with the topic of the blog initially but which outgrow the domain down the track. In one instance the problem was that the blog started on a fairly narrow topic (a sub-niche) and on a domain that reflected this but that in time it expanded it’s topic as the industry changed. In the end the topic and name just didn’t fit.

Another ‘future factor’ to consider is how many blogs you’re thinking of starting on your domain. Take a look at About.com for an example of how it’s possible to have one domain with many blogs running off it. They blog (yes they are blogs - run by MovableType) ‘about’ hundreds of topics and have a domain name that suits this perfectly. I myself have fallen into the trap of not thinking ahead in this way with my livingroom.org.au domain where I currently have a blog on Digital Cameras. I guess this is an example of how ultimately it doesn’t matter what domain you start blogs on as it’s a blog that does pretty well - however I often wonder how much better if could have done if I’d just thought ahead a little more!

Lastly on the ‘future front’ - don’t pick a name that you suspect might date quickly. Picking a name that is time specific in any way might find you searching for a new domain when it is no longer relevant at some future time.

Name Length - there are a range of opinions on what the ideal length of a domain name is. Technically you can have one with up to 67 characters in it but it is generally accepted that short ones are better for a number of reasons including that they are easier to remember, that they leave less room for making mistakes when typing them in, they are good for word of mouth (online or offline) marketing, that they are more visually pleasing (eg on your business card) etc.

The other argument is that if you are looking for SE traffic that you might like to consider a longer domain name with a number of the keywords that you’re looking for traffic on.

My personal preference these days is for shorter domains if possible, but not just for the sake of being short. Plus short names are very popular and hard to find these days so you might be forced to consider something a little longer anyway.

Dot What? - Along with the debates over domain name length comes many different opinions over what is the best to have at the end of your domain after the ‘dot’. These letters (ie .com, .net, .org etc) are technically called the Top Level Domain (TLD) and are divided into two types. Firstly there are country code TLD’s and secondly there are ‘generic’ TLDs which signify different types of organizations (in theory at least).

As I say there are a variety of approaches to selecting which TLD to go for:

* Legalities - The first consideration is the legalities of your choice as different countries and generic TLDs have different requirements but the
* SEO - This is where many of the arguements over TLD’s come in. I’m not going to get into it in much depth except to say that most people believe .com to be most powerful and that .net and .org are also good. Also if you are starting a blog with a localized focus it is well worth considering a country code on your TLD as it will help you get indexed in local search engines (I get a lot of traffic on my .au domains from Google Australia). If you’re going for a more global audience try for .com or .net.
* Memorability - One of the frustrations I have with ProBlogger.net is simply that people assume that it can be found at ProBlogger.com. Of course when I came to register this domain I tried to get the .com but it was unavailable so I decided that .net would serve my purposes (which it has). The only cost is that .com is so ‘normal’ that many people make the assumption that yourblog’sname.com will always be your address.

Hyphens? - Another eternal debate with domain names is over the value of hyphenated names. For example a hyphenated version of this blog might be Pro-Blogger.net. There are a two main reasons that some people prefer hyphenated names:

* Availability - one of the main reasons for going with hyphens is that ‘all the good names are taken’ (or at least it can seem this way). Adding hyphens to names definitely gives more options.
* SEO - hyphens are said to identify keywords to search engines more clearly (once again there is some debate over this).

Of course for every positive there is a negative and the arguments against keywords include:

* Memorability - adding hyphens can make it tricky for readers to remember your name
* Difficult to Communicate - have you ever tried to tell someone a domain name with a hyphen between each word? It can be quite an annoying process
* Increased Margin for Error - the more characters in your domain the more chance of a mistaken keystroke
* Cheap and Nasty Factor - there is a perception among many web-masters that domains with lots of keywords and hyphens are spammy. I personally don’t mind a domain with one (maybe two) hyphens in them but domains-that-have-lots-of-them-frustrate-me-and-turn-me-off.

Numbers? - Another option to consider when choosing a domain on a topic that is quite crowded is to include a number at the beginning or end of it. Once again this increases your chances of finding a domain with your keyword in it but could ‘cheapen’ the sound of your domain (a matter of personal opinion of course).

‘Easy’ Names - Most ‘experts’ in this area argue that a domain name should be easy to spell, pronounce, remember and type. Web users are notoriously lazy and if your site is not easy to find then they might just quickly give up trying to find it. As a result the easier you can make your domain to remember and access the more chance you have of traffic to it from repeat readers.

Keeping it Legal - it is highly recommendable to think seriously about the legal implications of the words you use in your domain name. Avoid trademarked names especially. I know of a couple of instances where bloggers were forced into making changes months into new blogs because of legal threats. Whether these laws vary from country to country I’m unsure - but it’s worth considering if you’re picking a domain that might clash in this way.

The ‘Blog’ Word - One temptations for many bloggers is to use the word ‘blog’ in the name and URL of their blog. This has the advantage of opening up new options for domain names but can also have some costs. For starters it could see the possibilities for expanding your site down the track limited. If one day you don’t want to run your site in a blog format you might feel a bit trapped. The other reason is that if you are wanting to use AdSense as an income stream for your blog down the track, it has a problem of serving ads about blogging when the word ‘blog’ appears too prominently on a site. This is ok when your blog is about blogging - but isn’t too conducive to high ad relevancy if you’re writing on a different topic.

Secure Multiple Domains - One piece of advice that many experienced web-masters recommend is making sure that you secure other similar domain names to the one you eventually choose. For example, if you choose a .com domain name it might be worth getting the .net and .org ones if you can, or perhaps even getting plurals or other logical similar ones. This is not essential but might help you protect your niche in some circumstances.

Opinions of Others - Before you buy that domain you’ve been eyeing off - it might be worthwhile running it by one or two other trusted friends (who won’t run off and buy it themselves). It’s amazing how focused you can become on finding the right name and how that can cloud your judgement. It’s also interesting to see how a name might sound to a person of a different culture to your own. Words mean different things in different part of the world and it could help you avoid an embarrassing mistake or just a dorky blog name.

Previously used Domain Names - It’s worth checking to see if a domain has been previously registered. Spammers often buy up domain names and then abandon them later once they’ve used them up. This can leave these domains banned by Google which gets you off to a pretty poor start.

Of course the above points are not hard and fast rules. As I’ve mentioned many times before - some of the worse domain names on sites have ended up being quite successful. I have blogs trapped on domains that were not thought through very well (largely because I didn’t know any better and thats the way things evolved) - some of them do poorly and others do very well.

There’s more to a blog’s success or failure than it’s name or URL - all I’m arguing is that a wise choice in this can better your chances in the long term.

Some tools you might like to use in selecting a domain name include:

NameBoy
DomainsBot
Whois Source

Feel free to add your own tips, suggestions and experiences in comments.

For more instruction on registering domains, setting up hosting and setting up WordPress you might also find Jon Symon’s video series on the topic worthwhile.

by Darren Rowse

Choosing a Blog Platform

This post talks readers through some of the issues that they need to think through regarding choosing a blog platform.

* ‘Which Blog Platform Should I use?’
* ‘Should I use a free Blogger.com blog or get my own hosted blog on my own Domain? Which Blog Platform is best?’
* ‘What are the Pros and Cons of going with Typepad instead of WordPress as a blog platform?’
* ‘Should I start out on a free Blogging Platform and Upgrade later?’

These are just some of the typical questions that I get asked each day from bloggers starting out and attempting to make a decision on which blogging platform or tool they should choose.

I’m not going to tell you which blog platform you should use because, as you will see, there are good reasons for choosing most of the available platforms depending upon the goals of your blog.

What follows is my attempt to flesh out some of the factors a new bloggers might like to consider in deciding on a blog platform. It is probably impacted by own experience of blogging over the last three years and the preferences I’ve accumulated in this time. I invite readers to add to this post in comments below with their own ideas and experiences so we can have a more balanced and useful collection of tips for readers considering such a choice.

Some Questions to Ponder Before Deciding on a Blog Platform

As with making any important decision it is worthwhile to take your time with this decision. There are MANY competing blog platforms on the market (check out the results of a poll I did on the platforms ProBlogger readers use to see just some of them). While you can change your blog platform at a later time (many of them have ways of importing and exporting your content later) there are usually some costs associated with such transfers (and I’m not just talking money - ie changing from a free hosted blog service to a self hosted one means changing your domain which has implications on Search Engine traffic etc). I guess all I’m saying is that it’s best not to rush into the first option you find - take your time, do your research and you might find a blog platform that will last you for a long time. Start by answering some of the following questions and you’ll have every chance of getting on the right track:

What are Your Goals - Probably the most important thing to do when starting the process of choosing a blog platform is to consider your aspirations for your blog. Of course complete first timers might struggle a little with seeing the future of their blogging, but to the best of your ability attempt to answer some of these questions:

* Is blogging something I see myself doing long term?
* What will the main purpose of my blog be?
* Is my blogging more of a hobby or does it have some professional application?
* Do I foresee putting ads on my blog?

Of course there are many other questions you’ll want to ask (I’ve written a series of posts on thinking through blog strategy here) but the answers to these sorts of questions are worth keeping mind as you research blog platforms as some platforms are much more suited to the hobby blogger and others to more professional blogging applications.

What is Your Budget? - As with most things in life, blog platforms come with a variety of price points ranging from free through to more expensive options. There are three main things that you might pay for:

* The blog platform itself
* Hosting for your blog
* Domain Name

Different blogging platforms offer different levels of service. Some like Blogger.com and WordPress.com offer both the platform, domain name and hosting for free. Others like Wordpress.org (note this is different to WordPress.com) offer the platform for free but you then need to find and pay for your own hosting and domain name. Others still, like MovableType charge for a license for the platform (depending how many blogs you have and whether they will have a commercial, personal, educational or not-for-profit use - they do also have a free version) and then you need to arrange and pay for your own domain name and hosting.

Other costs you might like to factor in at an early stage include:

* design - all platforms come with free templates (some more professional looking than others) but if you want a more individual look you’ll either need to have some design skills, know someone who does or be willing to pay for a design.
* blog tools/metrics - there are any number of tools you can pay for to help you in your blogging. These might include stats packages (again you can get free ones but can also pay for more features), offline blog posting tools etc. If you’re a beginner you might not need any of these - but down the track you might find them useful.

How Technologically able are you? - This is a crucial factor to consider when choosing a blog platform. If you’ve never had any experience in creating a blog or website before and are not a technologically minded person then there are some blog platforms and set ups that will be much more suited to your needs than if you know a few of the basics, or at least are willing to learn them.

The other option of course is to find someone who is a techie to help you out (either paid or as a friend). One of the great things about blogging and most of the platforms out there is that there is a wonderful communal knowledge out there and many forums dedicated to helping people get the most out of their chosen platforms.

What Blog Platforms are Others Using? - While I am always advising bloggers to make their blog their own - when it comes to choosing a platform it might be worth finding out what others are into. Over the last few years different platforms have come and gone and I suspect they will in the years ahead also. My recent poll on the topic might be helpful to get a handle on recent trends - but as this post gets a little older you might like to do some research of your own.

Hosted vs Stand Alone Blogging Platforms

With the above questions in mind it’s time to consider your options and ask yourself one of the key questions that you’ll ask in this process.

Will you go with a Hosted Platform or a Stand Alone Platform?

I’ve already mentioned above when talking about budgets that there are a few options with what platforms offer but there are two main camps of blog platforms (and a few that offer a combination of the two - just to make things confusing).

Hosted Blog Platforms

This is the type of blog that many bloggers start out with, simply because they are easy and usually quite cheap (if not free). Probably the most popular of these systems is Blogger.com - but there are others like WordPress.com and MSN Spaces. TypePad also runs hosted blogs - although have the option to go with a type of standalone option also through remote hosting..

These systems are ‘hosted’ blog platforms because they ‘host’ your blog on their own domain. After what is usually a pretty easy set up process they will give you a web address (URL) that will usually be some combination of their own URL and the name of your blog. For example a popular WordPress.com blog is AtariBoy - who’s web address is www.atariboy.wordpress.com. You can see the structure of that address has two elements, his blog’s name first and then the wordpress.com extension. This means that this blog is being ‘hosted’ by WordPress as opposed to the blogger having to organize and pay for that himself.

Pros and Cons of Hosted Blog Platforms

Pros:

* Cheap or Free to run - most hosted options are free (of the four I mentioned above, only TypePad charges).
* Relatively easy to set up - most of these types of blogs can be set up with a basic default template within minutes. The set up is usually just a matter of filling in a few fields with your options and choosing a template design.They are ideal if you know nothing or very little about the technological side of blogging.
* Simple to Run - Once you’re through the easy set up process hosted blogs are usually pretty simple to run. You will obviously need to learn some basics, but these days most blog platforms come with very user friendly features. Posting is as simple as filling in a few fields and hitting publish.
* Updated Automatically - if the blog platform updates it will automatically do so for you. Instead of having to upload new software onto a server, these updates happen much more seamlessly.
* Indexed in Search Engines Quickly - one of the advantages of many hosted blog platforms is that they are put onto domains that have good page ranks already. While your blog won’t be indexed in search engines when you start, most bloggers notice that their blogs get picked up and ranked pretty quickly. In the long run they probably don’t rank much higher than other blogs on stand alone hosting - but they are a quick way to get into SE’s.

Cons:

* Less Configurable - My first blog was on a Blogger.com blog - the reason I moved from it within months was that it was so limited in terms of features and ability to design a professional running blog. Of course this was 3 years ago and Blogger.com has improved - but one of the biggest frustrations with hosted blog owners are their limited options for customization. This does vary from platform to platform within the hosted options. For example WordPress.com has quite limited design options (for instance you can’t ad ads to templates making it a poor choice to make money with), Blogger.com doesn’t give the option for categories and TypePad has different options depending upon which level you buy in at.
* Default Design Limitations - While this can be true for standalone blogging systems also I find that many hosted blogs end up looking very similar to one another. This is because the default templates get used over and over again and if you’re a beginner they can be difficult to adapt. For instance with Blogger.com to make changes (and you can make your blog look quite unique) you need to know CSS and HTML to edit your templates (something you need to know with other platforms also it’s worth mentioning).
* Less Control - Another common complaint I hear regularly from hosted blog owners is that they are frustrated by not having ultimate control over their blog. While they do own the content, the URL is not technically their own and they are somewhat at the mercy of their platform in terms of whether their blog is working or not. For example there have been times in the last few months when TypePad bloggers have been frustrated by their blogs being down for periods of time (something Blogger.com struggles with from time to time also). To be fair on TypePad - they did compensate their bloggers for this down time.
* Generic URL - having your own URL can give a sense of professionalism and memorability to a blog that hosted options might well go without. While there are some very successful blogs on hosted platforms some bloggers believe that having your own URL is much more professional if you are using your blog in a professional way.
* Upgrading to Standalone can be Tricky - Probably the question worth asking before you go with a hosted option is what you’ll do if your blog gets big or you get the blogging bug in a way that won’t let you go? One of the issues of starting out with a hosted platform is that if there comes a day when you want to go with a standalone one that you have some work cut out for you in retaining any traffic that you’ve built up. I’m not saying it’s impossible to do (I’ve done it myself) but there are implications of changing domains later in terms of taking regular readers with you, having to climb the search engine rankings all over again and redirecting traffic from one blog to another.

Who would use Hosted Blog Platforms?

If you just want a blog and don’t care much about having your own unique domain, are not too interested in tweaking your blog or getting all the latest and greatest features then hosted options are a completely valid choice. In fact it’s worth keeping in mind that while some may scoff at hosted blog platforms and say that serious bloggers don’t use them - there are some popular bloggers who use them very successfully. For example one of my daily reads is Robert Scoble has a WordPress.com blog, Post Secret is on a Blogspot blog (blogger.com) and Hack MSN Spaces is obviously an MSN spaces blog (all of these and others are highly ranked blogs in the Top 500 at Feedster).

Stand Alone Blog Platforms

The other type of blog platform is that which is hosted under your own steam on your own domain/URL. This is what I do with all of my blogs these days (apart from one or two which I started just to see how the hosted platforms work). So you’ll see that ProBlogger is hosted at ProBlogger.net and is powered by WordPress.org. I also use MovableType, for a number of my blogs. Other Stand alone blog platforms that many use include PMachine, Greymatter, B2Evolution, TextPattern and Expression Engine (to name just a few).

Pros and Cons of Stand Alone Blog Platforms

Pros:

* Full Control of Design - Depending upon your ability with web design standalone blogs generally are very adaptable. I am not strong in this area personally but am constantly amazed by some of my colleague’s abilities to create incredibly diverse and clever designs. Of course those bloggers with little ability in this area may either need to use default templates (with the same limitations as default templates of hosted blogs) or get others to help with this.
* Adaptability - One of the things I enjoy about WordPress here at ProBlogger is the vast array of developers who are coming up with all manner of ‘plugins’ which extend the ability of the basic WP installation. Similarly many of the other standalone platforms have communities of developers producing similar arrays of plugins (check out the plugins that ProBlogger readers use here for some examples of what is being developed).
* Free Platforms - while you end up paying for your domain name and hosting systems like these are usually free to run. Some do have license fees if you’re having multiple blogs or using them for commercial purposes - but many are open source.
* URL - Having your own domain name is great for many reasons. For one it’s easier to remember, secondly it’s more professional and hirdly it is more easily brand-able.

Cons:

* Complicated Set Up - once again this depends upon your technical abilities and web savvy but when you move into stand alone platforms the complexity of set up tends to increase. It often involves arranging hosting, setting up databases and then downloading the platform onto you own computer and then uploading it via ftp onto your web hosting server. There are good tutorials around for most of the platforms to help with this process but for many it is a daunting thing. Once again it’s not my strength so I generally get by blogs set up and designed by a professional designer (although recently have been learning to do it a little more myself). NB: one way around this is to find a web host that will install your blog platform for you. This is becoming increasingly popular. Some platforms even recommend hosts that will do it for you (eg see MT’s recommendations and WP’s recommendations).
* Cost - While the blog platform itself might be free you need to factor in the ongoing costs of having your own domain name (a yearly fee plus a one off registration fee) and hosting fees (again yearly). There are many great deals out on these so it need not cost the world - although if your blog gets a lot of traffic the costs do go up and you might want to consider going onto a more professional and expensive plan.
* Updates - Most blog platforms go through different and versions over time. Updating from one to another can be complicated if you don’t know what you’re doing.
* Hosting Issues - I mentioned in the cons of the hosted platforms that you have ‘less control’ over your blog and are at the whims of your platform’s hosting being up or down. Of course this is also true for any hosting as from time to time different hosting solutions can have their own problems. Whether you use a hosted solution or a stand alone solution it’s important to back up and be aware that from time to time things do go down. Choose a reputable host if you go the stand alone route to ensure maximum uptime.

Who would use Stand Alone Blog Platforms?

Stand alone blog platforms are ideal if you want a little more control or flexibility with your blogging. They can be configured to look and run very professionally and to be adapted into configurations that are limited only by your imagination. Of course just because you go with a stand alone blog doesn’t ensure you will have the perfect professionally looking blog. In fact if you don’t have the ability to set these blogs up correctly (or know someone who can) standalone blogs can be messy and non-professional looking blogs.

Examples of these types of blogs are many - The vast majority of the top 50 or so blogs at Feedster are stand alone blogs.

A Word About Remote Hosting Options

Some blog platforms allow a combination of hosted and stand alone blogs via remote hosting. TypePad and Blogger.com are two examples of this. They allow you to run your blog on your own domain and hosting but still using their system to publish your blog. I’m not too familiar with how Blogger.com does it but have seen it used effectively with TypePad. The beauty of doing this with TypePad is that if you are a beginner blogger and are not too confident with running your blog it gives you the ability to set up a blog without too much trouble but on your own domain name from the very beginning. This will make swapping platforms later a lot easier.

Summing it all up

This has been a fairly long post and I hope I haven’t lost or bored you along the way but it’s an important topic for new bloggers to think through.

To sum it all up I generally advise this. If you’re wanting to develop serious blog and have aspirations for it to be used on a professional sort of level (whether as a business or corporate blog, as a blog to build your own profile or a blog to earn income from advertising) I’d recommend you go in the direction of a stand alone blog. Even if you are not highly skilled in this area it’s worth spending a little money to get it set up with a designer or even better still, to learn how to do it yourself.

If you just want a blog for fun and to keep a record of your life for your friends and family and you don’t have the time, money or patience to put into it then a hosted option might work well for you too. They are instant (it’ll take 5-10 minutes to set up) and while they might not have quite the same level of features, in effect they may well suit you every need. Of course many hobbyists also go the stand alone option because tweaking their blog is part of their interest.

Further Reading on Choosing a Blog Platform

If you choose to use WordPress.com as a platform you might find Jon Symon’s video series on how to set it up on a domain and hosting worthwhile.

Macworld - The best Blogging Tools for the Mac - features a useful comparative table
Are you using the right blogging tool - Contains a helpful glossary and reviews of a few of the more popular blogging tools
Blog software Comparison Chart - a companion chart to the above article
Blog Software Reviews at a Glance - a page that links to a variety of in depth reviews of Blog Software packages at the Performancing Blog
Blog software Smackdown: The big 3 Reviewed - review of Movable Type, WordPress.org and Textpattern
Blogger.com vs WordPress.com - a review of these two hosted options
Blogger.com Review - review of blogger.com

by Darren Rowse

How to Choose a Niche Topic for your Blog

The approach I’ve taken to build a business around blogging has been to build multiple blogs around niche topics. I describe the reasons for this in my post One Blog Many Categories or Many Blogs? but I regularly am asked about how I choose my niche topics to blog about. In this post I’d like to outline a few questions that I tend to ask myself when considering a new topic. I hope it helps:

Are You Interested in the Topic?

A friend of mine explained it this way recently:

“Probably the best place to start thinking about what your blog should be about is to consider what YOU are about.”

Perhaps that’s a slightly awkward way of saying start by identifying your own interests, passions and energy levels for topics. While it might be tempting to start blogs based on what other people are interested in or what makes commercial sense there is little logic in starting a blog on a topic that you have no interest in. There are two main reasons for this.

Firstly if you want to grow a popular and well respected blog it can take considerable time and you’ll be needing to take a long term approach to building it up. As a result it’s well worth asking yourself ‘can I see myself still writing on this topic in 12 months time?’ If you can’t I’d suggest finding another topic.

The second reason is that you readers will quickly discern if you are passionate about your topic or not. Blogs that are dry and passionless don’t tend to grow - it makes sense really as no one wants to read something that the author doesn’t really believe in.


Is the Topic Popular?

While the blogger’s interest is important it’s not enough on it’s own to build a popular blog. Another crucial ingredient is that people WANT to read information on the topic you’re writing on. The law of Supply and Demand is what most business students are taught in their first semester of of studying economics and it comes into play here also. You might be interested in your topic but unless others are also you’ll always have an uphill battle in building a highly read blog.

Of course keep in mind that you are writing in a medium with a global audience of many millions and as a result you don’t need a topic that everyone is searching, just one that some people are searching for because even it’s something that even a small percentage of people have an active interest in it can be a lucrative area.

Is the Topic one that is growing or shrinking?

Also keep in mind that popular topics change over time. Obviously it’s great to get on a topic before it becomes big rather than when it’s on the decline. This is not easy to do of course but predict the next big thing that people will be searching for and you could be onto a winner.

Get in the habit of being on the lookout for what people are into. I constantly ask myself ‘what will people be searching the web for in 6 to 12 months?’

Keep an eye on what people are into and what the latest trends are. Do this online but also keep an eye on TV, magazines, the papers and even the conversations you have with friends.

What competition is there?

One of the traps that some bloggers get sucked into when choosing a topic is to go for the most popular topics with no regard for the competition that they might face in those markets. The chances are if you have identified a niche that you think is ‘hot’ at the moment that someone else will have also. It’s demand and supply coming into play again - for any level of demand for information on a topic there will only be a certain number of sources of that information that will be needed on that topic.

The web is becoming a more and more cluttered place and sometimes it feels that there are no niches that are left open to blog about. While this is true in some of the more popular topics - remember that you don’t have to go for the topic that everyone is searching for. In fact sometimes it’s some of the less popular topics that have little or no competition that are the best earners.

I have one friend who after years of attempting to do well writing about gadgets swapped to ‘ride on lawn mowers’ (a topic he’d been researching for a purchase he was making). He was amazed to find that after just a couple of months of writing on his new topic that it was doing significantly more traffic (and making quite a bit more) than his gadget websites ever had.

As I’ve said many times before on this blog - become a big fish in a small pond rather than a small fish in a big pond.

What is the competition neglecting?

This is a great question that is obviously related to the last one on number of competition. It attempts to find ‘gaps’ that are not yet filled. While your competition might have the advantage of an established audience, you have the advantage of flexibility and can position your blog very quickly to fill a gap in the niche that you might observe - in doing so you create a sub-niche within the larger topic.

Will you have enough Content?

One of the key features of successful blogs is that have the ability to continue to come up with fresh content on their topic for long periods of time. Conversely, one of the things that kills many blogs is that their authors run out of things to say.

Answering the question regarding whether there is enough content can be done on two levels:

* 1. Do YOU have enough content within YOU as an author? This really comes back to the question we asked above about your passion, interests and energy for the topic (so I’ll leave it at that).
* 2. Do you have access to enough other sources of content and inspiration? There are many web based tools around these days that can help you in coming up with content. Some places to check out on your topic to see what news is about include Google News, Topix, Yahoo! News, Bloglines, Technorati and Blog Pulse (among others).

Are there Income Streams on the Topic?

Not everyone will need to ask this question if their intention is not to build a blog that has an entrepreneurial edge to it but as this blog is on the topic of making money from blogs I’ll address it.

If you are interested in earning an income from blogging you will need to also factor in some investigation of whether the topic that you’ve chosen has any obvious potential income streams. As I’ve written previously, there are many ways of earning money from blogs - however the problem is that not every topic is going to be suitable for every potential income stream. For example, contextual ad programs like AdSense and YPN work really well for some topics but hardly earn anything from others (you might like to read my post on finding high paying ads on AdSense to explore this topic). Similarly some blogs do fantastically out of affiliate programs (the key is to find affiliate programs that match your topic closely) and others are better suited to impression based ads (those with high traffic levels).

Choose a Niche

At this point it’s time to choose a topic for your blog. It’s probably unlikely that you’ll find the perfect topic on all of the fronts above. While it’d be great to find a topic that you’re passionate about that just happens to have massive demand and no competition - but the reality is that most topics topics that you come up with will have at least one weakness to them. Don’t let this get you down - there comes a time when you just need to make a decision and start blogging. The key is being aware of what the weakness is so that you can work to overcome it.

PS: An Example

ProBlogger.net itself is an example of the process I’ve outlined above. While blogging is a topic I had (have) a real interest in and which is quite popular the weakest link of this blog is the fact that so many other blogs write on the topic of how to blog better. The other problem was that there were not too many lucrative income streams on the general topic of blogging. There are lots of AdSense ads for different blog tools, but they pay very little.

As a result of this I narrowed my niche slightly to focus upon making money from blogs (something I didn’t see many others writing about a year ago). This narrowed my potential market slightly but meant I could carve out a niche and potentially make a name for myself in the area. The other side benefit of narrowing the topic was that it also increased the income potential of this blog. Contextual ads on this topic pay a little more and there are other potential income streams (like consulting work) that a more general topic of blogging might bring.

by Darren Rowse