Zen Zoomie’s Place: Chronicles of a (Wannabe) Pro Blogger

While researching what has made JohnChow.com so successful, I came across an interesting question on a recent post. John Chow accepted a ReviewMe offer. That, in and of itself, is nothing new. Chow frequently reviews and promotes websites for a flat $400 fee. The thing is, it turns out that this particular site was actually scraping content from John Chow’s blog (among others). The recipient of John’s review, "Andrew", is not too bright it seems. John happily took the $400 and proceeded to rip "Andrew" a new one.

In response to John’s review, a number of comments came up questioning John’s morals for taking poor Andrew’s $400 while raking him over the coals for his complete and utter lack of common sense. The root of the question is:

Is it immoral to accept money for a paid review
and then give a negative review?

"Paid Review" Programs

If you aren’t already familiar with paid review programs, here’s the quick and dirty:

A paid review site arranges for someone to write about a product, website, service or company in exchange for money.

There are a number of paid review programs out there. Two of the more popular sites are PayPerPost.com and ReviewMe.com. All of these sites are commonly touted as good ways to make extra money online. In essence, paid reviews are the antithesis of Consumer Reports. They are, frequently, completely biased in favor of the review recipient.

Morality and Paid Reviews

The problem with paid reviews is that consumers often don’t know that the content they’re reading was sponsored. Bloggers frequently don’t disclose when they’re being paid to write about products. Everywhere you go, you must be constantly wary of tainted endorsements because whoever is writing the review is either being paid directly, or is writing a positive review in hopes that you’ll purchase the product using their affiliate link—earning a fat profit. It drives me crazy!

But back to the question at hand. Is it immoral to accept payment for a "paid review" and then give a negative review?

My personal opinion is that consumers deserve an honest representation of the products they’re being presented with. So no, I don’t think John’s negative review of Andrew’s blog was immoral in any way. I believe it’s far worse to take someone’s money and then give a falsely positive review. I’ll tell you this much. If you ever see a paid review on this site, you can count on two things:

1. There will be a prominent disclaimer that the post is a paid review, and
2. The review will be my honest opinion–no punches pulled.

P.S.

It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if this was just a John Chow publicity stunt for a new blog. It might even be his new "Nobody" blog. At any rate, the stunt hasn’t been a complete flop, and "Andrew" has received a lot of traffic for his $400.

Note to self. Add the following plan to my bag of tricks:

1. Create a blog that is sure to completely piss off the owner of another extremely popular blog.
   
2. Pay the owner of that blog to review my new blog
   
3. Move on to phase 2 of my marketing plan

If you read the last three articles in the How the Great Blogs Began: The First Posts series, you probably noticed that most of the 15 blogs profiled had significant "spikes" in their Alexa traffic ranking at various points in their life. In most cases, traffic drops back off after the initial spike, but it normally levels off higher than it was before the spike. If you guessed that those spikes were frequently caused by the Digg effect, you’re right!

One case that really jumped out at me was JohnChow.com. Let’s take a look at a graph of JohnChow.com’s Alexa daily reach again:

This looks like a pretty good place to start "digging" for gold. Alexa has been kind enough to tip us off that John Chow obviously did something very, very right in September, 2006. Before that, his blog had plugged along with only moderate increases in traffic. In September 2006, his blog’s popularity shot up like a rocket. At the peak, he was able to increase his daily reach by nearly 1600% in one week! Even more importantly, when the dust settled after traffic died off a bit, John was able to maintain the majority of his momentum and continue increasing his traffic.

John Chow’s monster boost in traffic came from doing one little thing—he got Dugg. Not once. Not twice. John got Dugg six times in one week. How on earth do you get Dugg six times in a week?? Here are John’s posts that got Dugg that week:

1. Sep 18, 2006: Great Parking Job! Did You Do It? (509 Diggs)
2. Sep 18, 2006: You Know You’ve Been Dugg When (19 Diggs)
3. Sep 19, 2006: Making Money With Your Mortgage (276 Diggs)
4. Sep 21, 2006: Using Life Insurance to Shelter Income (185 Diggs)
5. Sep 22, 2006: Trading Hours for Dollars (433 Diggs)
6. Sep 25, 2006: The Internet’s Biggest Google Whores (1,602 Diggs)
   (Note: Dates are dates that the posts were Dugg, not originally posted)

The post that started it all for John Chow? It’s a commentary on the auto-parallel parking system of the Lexus LX460. A random musing turned gold. And John was ready to pounce and take full advantage of the situation…leveraging the massive traffic to get even more Diggs in the next few days. By the middle of this week, JohnChow.com was getting more traffic every day than the entire prior month!

Party’s Over

The Digg party didn’t last forever for John, as he soon attracted the unwanted attention of some diehard Diggers that didn’t think he belonged there. On November 24th, 2006, he got himself banned by Digg after having his site’s posts reported as spam one too many times. Although the ban was removed in February, John hasn’t had much luck with Digg since due to changes in the way Digg automatically kills posts that it thinks are being promoted by groups of people (like JohnChow.com readers).

The lack of the Digg Effect since December, 2006 makes it even more interesting that John has steadily increased his traffic through most of 2007. I can’t wait to explore some more.

Until next time,

ZZ

You already know blogging can be hard work! When you throw a full-time job (and then some), family responsibilities, and the unavoidable hiccups of life into the mix…it’s no walk in the park. So if you’re going to create a successful and profitable blogging business in the spare time that remains, it makes a whole lot of sense to go about it in the most efficient way possible.

Enter the 80/20 Principle

You may have heard of the 80/20 Principle before in various forms. I most recently saw it applied in Tim Ferris’ Book: The Four Hour Work Week. The basic gist is this:

80% of Your Results Come From 20% of Your Efforts

Tim uses the principle to illustrate how in one month he was able to increase online affiliate income for his business by 50%, while actually decreaseing his weekly management time by 80-90%.

Think about it for a while. Odds are pretty good that the 80/20 principle applies to whatever you do on a daily basis. 20% is just an estimate—the point is, there’s probably a small subset of the tasks you accomplish each day that has a disproportionate impact on your bottom line. It’s your mission to identify those golden nuggets and focus on them while eliminating as much of the remaining work as possible.

Blogging is no exception to the rule. Here are my 20% and 80% tasks, as they apply to my situation as a relatively new blog that’s trying to establish itself:

It’s no mystery where I need to be concentrating my effort. Less time checking stats, reading unrelated websites, and tweaking things that don’t need tweaked at this point in my blogs life cycle. More time writing pillar content, and building a strong foundation of traffic. Easy to say–we’ll see how easy it is to put into practice.

What are your 80/20 tasks?

Something’s been nagging at me for a while, and today I finally realized what it was.

Opinions, random musings, reporting, and advice are everywhere in the blogging world (as it should be). But with few exceptions, there’s no supporting material behind the posts other than the author’s experience and creative license.

For most blog posts, it doesn’t matter if what the author is saying is supported by facts. After all, you’re reading to get their opinion on something.

I have a completely different expectation when it comes to how-to articles, or when someone claims that they know the best ways to achieve a specific effect. When I’m reading those types of articles, I WANT PROOF before I send my valuable time and resources chasing down a hundred different paths!

Analysis Please? Where’s the PROOF?

There are thousands upon thousands of articles full of off-the-cuff thoughts about what’s effective and what’s not. But the fact that something appears in a hundred different "Top 10 Ways to ______" lists doesn’t make it true. Just as the fact that a post appeared on a highly successful blog doesn’t necessarily make it credible.

Try finding someone that’s really studied the effectiveness of different techniques and documented what really works. The internet seems to go dead silent. I get the distinct impression that, more often than not, Bloggers are just making this stuff up as they go along (say it ain’t so!).

There are exceptions, like a recent article from Clickalite.com about Digg’s effect on Technorati rank. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find more than a handful of other articles like this.

Free the Knowledge

Maybe the smartest bloggers are just keeping the knowledge to themselves? Or maybe the best SEO and SEM companies are hoarding all the good stuff.

If there are some really good resources out there with more content like Clickalite’s Digg study, I’d love to hear about them. Until then, I’ll continue the mission I started with my series on How the Great Blogs Began.

Keep watching here at Zen Zoomie’s place and you’ll soon find the proof you’re looking for.

It’s a question that this blog set out to answer, and based on the sheer number of "make money online" blogs out there, it’s on a lot of your minds as well. Can any John Doe start a new blog and turn it into a profitable and successful blogging business in a relatively short period of time? Is that something that’s within the reach of the average netizen?

John Chow’s Challenge

John Chow has set out to prove that you don’t need a big name behind you, or tons of existing connections, to create a successful blog. He’s taken a challenge to anonymously start a new blog with a $100 budget and turn it into a "somebody" blog. The definition of what makes him "successful" is under debate at JohnChow.com right now: $100 a month? $1000 a month? $10,000 a month??

This particular John has a big advantage when it comes to experience, so I don’t think it’s a question of if—but rather when—he’ll meet his goal (whatever it ends up being set at).

This should be fun to watch!

With Round 3 of "The First Posts", it’s time to broaden our horizons a bit (read The First Posts Round 1 and Round 2).

So far, the blogs I’ve profiled in this series have focused on the Blogging Blogs..blogs that are focused on providing advice and resources about creating a successful blog, making money online, search engine optimization, etc. I’ve focused on those blogs so far because that’s what I’ve been targeting as a niche for Chronicles of a (Wannabe) Pro Blogger. A recent Business Week article about How Top Bloggers Earn Money makes it very clear that if your objective is to create a profitable blog, the meta-blogging or "blogging about blogging" niche is probably not your best bet. So to provide a more rounded perspective, today we’ll take a look at how five of the more mainstream blogs got their start.

DailyKos.com

Birth Date: May 26, 2002 Age: 5 years
Google PageRank: 7
Technorati Rank: 8
Alexa Traffic Rank: 4,878
First Post Title: Day 1
First Blog Subject: Markos Moulitsas’ started things out with a personal blog (fishyshark.com) to express his political views. Things quickly evolved, and within a month he was ready to move to his current domain at www.dailykos.com. Markos still owns fishyshark.com which has been converted to a photo-journal of his wife’s pregnancies. He’s never purported to provide a balanced view, but his strong liberal opinions have gotten him noticed by popular right-wing bloggers and journalists as well..which really hasn’t hurt his popularity in the least. He grew his traffic consistently for the first three years before reaching his peak popularity.
Historical Alexa Daily Reach:

LifeHacker.com

Birth Date: Jan 31, 2005 Age: 32 months
Google PageRank: 7
Technorati Rank: 6
Alexa Traffic Rank: 1,050
First Post Title: Lifehacker launches
First Blog Subject: It’s beginning to get old at this point, but LifeHacker started out like many of the more successful blogs profiled so far. They chose a well-defined niche, and have stuck to it. If you’re look for a model of how to execute a new website launch, look no further. Good domain name, clearly defined niche that addresses a need of almost everyone that accesses the internet, and solid execution from the beginning.
Historical Alexa Daily Reach:

ICanHasCheezburger.com

Birth Date: Jan 11, 2007 Age: 8 months
Google PageRank: 3
Technorati Rank: 16
Alexa Traffic Rank: 211
First Post Title: I Can Has Cheezburger?
First Blog Subject: Hmm…how to describe this one? In one word..viral. I’m not sure ICanHasCheezburger has the legs for long-term success, but it’s a killer example of a blog that stumbled into fame. The first post, shown above, was reportedly supposed to be a joke. Read more about how Erick Nakagawa and his partner "Tofuburger" got their start in this Business Week article.
Historical Alexa Daily Reach:

Blog.GuyKawasaki.com

Birth Date: Dec 30, 2005 Age: 20 months
Google PageRank: 7
Technorati Rank: 18
Alexa Traffic Rank: 9,739
First Post Title: Better Late Than Arrogant
First Blog Subject: There aren’t many people that can kick off a blog one day and within a week spike to an Alexa daily reach of .02. Guy Kawasaki’s blog is an example of what pre-existing relationships and reputation can do for you if you’re launching a new blog. Being a bestselling author certainly gives you a head-start..not to mention the years of writing and well-developed ideas to draw from. Most of us aren’t currently in a position to mimic Guy’s launch today, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be in the future!
Historical Alexa Daily Reach:

Scobleizer.com

Birth Date: Oct 13, 2005 (scobleizer.com), Dec 15, 2000 (scobleizer.manilasites.com)
Age: 2-7 years
Google PageRank: 7
Technorati Rank: 32
Alexa Traffic Rank: 11,729
First Post Title: Oh no, not another BLOG (scobleizer.manilasites.com), Time to switch to WordPress (scobleizer.com)
First Blog Subject: That depends which of Robert Scoble’s multiple blogs you’re talking about. Above, you’ll find his first posts from two of his blogs over the years: scobleizer.manilasites.com (circa Dec 2000) and scobleizer.com (Aug, 2007). For a period Robert moved his blog to UserLand, where it stayed for about four years before landing at its current home. He dabbled at other sites as well along the way. Robert is unique among the Bloggers we’ve profiled because he’s stuck with the "personal" blog branding, while moving the blog multiple times and completely changing its purpose. You can see from Robert’s very first post that he actually started the blog to thank the organizers and participants of two technology conferences he was involved in and to get some feedback to improve it in the future. It has morphed over the years into what it is today (from his Technorati blurb): "…a geek that writes about the technology industry and especially Silicon Valley’s Web, consumer electronics, computer, and other high tech companies."
Historical Alexa Daily Reach:

What Now?

This will be the last post in this initial series, but we’re just getting started.

Now it’s time to really dig in and get our hands dirty.

What did these bloggers do that was so right? Where could they have done better? Where did they get their first big breaks, and what did they do to keep going after that first break? Where did they falter and why? And what lessons can you learn if you want to follow in their footsteps? The answers to all these questions are just waiting to be discovered. So let’s discover them!

Have you upgraded your WordPress blog to v2.2.2 yet? If not, you should. And if you’re not keeping an eye on the latest announcements from the WordPress Development Blog (which show up on your Control Panel Home Page), START.

From the WordPress error tracker, here are the bugs fixed in this release:

Highest OMG BBQ doesn’t sound very good to me..how about you?

If you need further motivation, here’s what can happen to you if you don’t upgrade…courtesy of mybeNi, who originally found the vulnerability:

Luckily, upgrading is easy and this upgrade shouldn’t (emphasis on shouldn’t) break any of your widgets or plug-ins.

This week’s report covers two weeks (last update was July 21^st).

Google PageRank: N/A

(Google should be recalculating PageRank soon, so I hope that this will change during the next update!)

Alexa Traffic Rank: 497,601
(Improved from ‘No Data’ on July 1^st, 8,000,000+ on July 7^th, 1,336,647 on July 14^th, 557,205 on July 21^st)

Yahoo Inlinks: 1,566
(up from 80 on July 7th, 271
on July 14th, 808 on July 21st)

One Week Incoming Traffic from Search Engine Queries: 42
(up from none from July 1-7th, 5 from July 8^th – 14^th, 20 from July 15^th – 20^th)

Technorati Rank: 280,190
(up from 1,352,025 on July 14^th, 465,071 on July 21st)

Considering I didn’t make any updates to the site or do any marketing from July 21^st – July 29^th, I’m very happy with how things have improved over the last week. I’d expected traffic and readership to slow to a crawl during my week away, but things seem to have kept moving. Visitors did slow down quite a bit during the week off, but picked right back up when I began posting content again.

Over the last week, I’ve really concentrated on one thing: generating some good solid content that will keep readers coming back, and it’s paying off. Reader feedback to my current series about How the Great Blogs Began has been very positive. Visitors that find those articles are staying for several minutes on average—longer than any of the content I’ve written previously—which means more people are really reading them. During the next week, I’ll continue to focus on that series. I’ll also get back to doing some social marketing and link-building, which I’ve neglected completely this week.

If you haven’t read the How the Great Blogs Began series yet, you should! Check it out for a unique look at how some of the most successful bloggers today got their start.

• How the Great Blogs Began
  
• Great Blogs: The First Posts
  
• Great Blogs: The First Posts (Round 2)
  

While writing my weekly Saturday stats update, imagine my surprise to find that I’ve jumped from a rank of 465,071 two weeks ago to #1 in the world today! Talk about progress!

Ok, after checking the stats at a couple of other blogs, it appears that I’m not alone in this honor. Every blog I checked is sharing the coveted #1 rank for now. Until they get things straightened out, I’ll bask in my short-lived success. Zen Zoomie’s weekly Saturday stats report will be posted as soon as we can get the real rank for this week.

Cheers,

ZZ

I was pleasantly surprised to find that three of the comments to my How the Great Blogs Began: The First Posts and Round 2 posts came from the profiled bloggers themselves! A special thanks to Jeremy Shoemaker (ShoeMoney.com), Lorelle (Lorelle.WordPress.com), and Brian Clark (CopyBlogger.Com) for stopping by and taking the time to comment so far!

Lorelle left a thought-provoking comment, with a lot of great points:

Very interesting and some great insights, however, the stats you have uncovered for Lorelle on WordPress are influenced by WordPress.com on Alexa and originally by Google, though that seems to be sorta cleared up lately. The issue is that Lorelle on WordPress is a subdomain of WordPress.com. Maybe the services have cleaned up the difference, but early on, before I stopped paying attention to stats, they hadn’t.

I don’t think that stats really speak well for a truly good analysis of what makes a successful blog. Your descriptions of why they are “successful”, though I’m not clear about your definition of success, is good, and the most valuable part. Online numbers have long been easily manipulated and screwy. Hopefully they’ll come up with better stats somewhere in time.

If I were to sum up all the years of experience blogging (and before blogging was blogging), I would say that the number one influencing factor in the “success” of a blog is its ability to create LINKABLE content, content worth linking to.

Goes back to the cave days when the story that became a legend was the one most entertaining to be told and thus, told many times, often beginning with the phrase, “Did you heard about…”

All great points, and I couldn’t agree more..stats like Alexa traffic and Techorati rank have severe shortcomings as measures of "success"! Lorelle actually had a recent post on her blog about what makes a blog post a success. There were some very interesting comments as part of the interchange that are worth checking out. My personal view is that if you’re talking about individual posts, there are two key things that let you know you were successful:

1. The number of readers that stick around to actually read the post (you can determine this using stats packages like pMetrics or Google Analytics), and
2. The number of long-term links your receive back to your post.

For the success of a blog, it’s a little more complex. If there was a good way to wrap up the above two metrics from all of the posts across a number of blogs, it would be great (please let me know if you know of any better way to do this!). Technorati rank does account for a particular blog’s "authority", reactions and number of times it was "favorited", which provides a reasonable metric for a blog’s long-term success.

Alexa traffic obviously has problems (poor ability to deal with subdomains, biased towards certain types of users, etc).. But the bottom line for this series is, it’s a great, easily accessible tool if you’re trying to make some high-level, macro comparisons of what types of behaviors or blog posts led to significant, sustained increases or decreases in a website’s traffic. If you’re the site owner, it’s easy to collect the metrics to do a detailed analysis on your own site–but from the outside in, I couldn’t think of a better way to approach it.

My hope is that Alexa, in particular, will highlight the points in each blog’s life where key events took place that really effected the long-term "success" (in this case I’m really talking about snapshot in time popularity / readership) of the blog. As I go along, I’ll attempt to highlight where tools like Alexa and Technorati rank are useful for evaluating a website or blog’s success, and where they should be avoided in favor of using your cranium.