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| Speed Posting - the Aftermath of Answering 19 Twitter Questions in a Weekend Posted: 28 Apr 2008 04:27 AM CDT This past few days have seen me experimenting with a new type of post here at ProBlogger - Speed Posting. I set myself the challenge to answer 20 or so questions from my Twitter followers in no more than 3 minutes per post. I then handed each post over to readers for them to continue to posts. The Results? Well I had a lot of fun, got some good feedback from those Twitter followers who asked the questions, and there were a lot of great comments left. Lastly - I wrote the following 19 posts. I hope you enjoyed them and will stop by those you feel you’ve got something to say on and add your thoughts.
Thanks to those on Twitter who asked the questions. Follow me on Twitter for next time I run something like this. |
| What Time of the Day is Best to Post to Your Blog Posted: 27 Apr 2008 07:59 PM CDT I certainly do! I not only set myself minimum post numbers each day but I’ve taken it a little further and narrowed down some daily posting windows that I aim for. Really it comes down to a bit of research and experimentation to work out when the best time to post is (and I suspect it’ll vary from blog to blog depending upon where their audience is situation and even depending upon topic). For me I attempt to have a fresh post go up on my blog in the morning US time. Here at ProBlogger my audience is fairly global but the majority of readers are in the Americas so I attempt to have something fresh for them for when they get to work, check their feeds over a morning coffee etc. I then also attempt to post something for the end of the day (US time). Then on days that I post a 3rd post per day (it’s usually more of a ‘newsy’ post) I attempt to put that up about 8 hours after the 2nd one just so that posts are evenly spread through the day. This the frequency that seems to work best for ProBlogger in my testing however it wouldn’t work for everyone. For example I have one friend who runs a sporting blog who posts once per day (around midday for his main audience) during the week but up to 5-6 times a day over the weekend as that’s a time his readers are thinking sports. I find that posts that go up on weekdays during the day in the US get more traffic and comments than other posts…. however…. Disclaimer - let me finish by saying that while I have obviously given this a little thought (or a little too much thought) that it’s not one of those major things that I’d suggest you invest a lot of time into thinking through. It can have an impact but in a time where a lot of blog readers are accessing blogs via RSS or email subscriptions the time you post may have less impact than you think. That’s my posting schedule - what’s yours? Do you find that the time you post impacts traffic and comment levels? |
| How Much Traffic Should a Blog Have Before Running Advertising Posted: 27 Apr 2008 03:36 PM CDT
“When should you put advertising on your blog?” Funnily enough I’ve been asked this question four times in the last 24 hours so it’s probably a good time to answer it. Before I answer the question though - let me say that there are numerous approaches to this question and if you ask a variety of ‘pros’ you’ll get a similar variety of responses. Here’s how I do it: I put ads on my blog from the day it launches (actually they go in before it launches). My reasons for doing this largely come down to two reasons: It’ll earn you a little bit from day 1 - even if it’s a dollar or two a day that does add up to a few hundred dollars a year and I don’t know about you but I don’t mind a few extra hundred in my mortgage at the end of the year. It gets readers used to ads - most people who don’t put ads on their blog early on tell me that they make this decision because they want to build readership and community first and add ads later. I understand this on some levels, they don’t want to put off new readers with advertising, however I’m a little skeptical how many people are put off by websites with advertising and wonder if there could actually be more problems when you change the rules later on and introduce ads onto a site that people have become used to being ad free. Further Reading: |
| 9 Essential Questions to Ask Yourself Before Posting to Your Blog Posted: 27 Apr 2008 12:32 PM CDT
Great question Harald - I actually think that most of us as bloggers could improve many of our posts by pausing before hitting ’submit/publish’ and asking a few basic questions about the post. Here are a few questions that I ask myself:
I only had 3 minutes to write this post as part of my SpeedPosting series - so I’m interested to hear what questions you’d add to the list? Update: Just before publishing this post I thought I’d take my own advice and search my archives to see what I’ve written on the topic before and found 13 Questions to Ask Before Publishing a Post on Your Blog which has even more questions to ask. |
| Posted: 27 Apr 2008 08:43 AM CDT
What a great question and one I never expected to write about here at ProBlogger - it’s a little off topic but as I was asked it - here goes. Firstly, I’m no expert on being positive. I’m a bit of an optimist (my wife complains that I can turn any situation into a positive one) though and like to be around other positive people. For me it comes down to a few things. The first is being intentional about finding the positive things in your life. My parents taught me to be thankful and when I don’t feel thankful to find things to be thankful for anyway and to ‘practice being thankful’. Just like you don’t become good at anything without practice, sometimes being positive is something you need to learn to do and practice. Start with the small things - tell others about the, pray about them (if that’s your thing) but look for them and celebrate them in some way. The second thing I’d say is to learn to turn problems into opportunities. My Marketing lecturer used to challenge us when we did projects to identify our weaknesses in business and turn them into strengths and to turn our threats into opportunities. This is somewhat counter intuitive but it’s a powerful thing when you do it right. What do you think? Positivity can be an great thing to have as a blogger - how do you keep yourself thinking positively? |
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