I was reading the comments of a fairly new blog today and one reader had asked the author how many RSS subscribers they currently had.
The author ignored that commenter but chose to respond to all of the other comments.
Personally, I think it’s kind of a rude question. Possibly along the same lines as “How much money do you make?” or “How old are you?”.
Some people don’t mind giving out that information because they either have numbers to respond with that are enviable to most people, or they just don’t care what other people think.
Others might be offended at having being asked that question because they’re ashamed of the numbers and don’t want to be somewhat forced into a situation where they have to give out that information.
If someone asked me that question in the comments of my blog, I would probably ignore them too. I’m not afraid of people knowing how many RSS subscribers I have (even though you’d probably laugh hysterically if you knew) but I think it’s a tad rude to ask questions like that - especially in such a public forum.
What do you think? I’d love to know your thoughts.
P.S. Feel free to sign up for my RSS feed by clicking on the orange button to the right 
June 10th, 2008
Writing and submitting articles to article directories is a great way to increase exposure to you and your site. If done properly, article marketing can help establish you as an expert in your field, generate tons of links to your website, and attract targeted traffic that can turn into subscribers and sales.
Before I sit down to write an article to submit to article directories, I do a search for my topic at EzineArticles.com to see what has already been submitted.
This may not be the case with every category, but 9 times out of 10, the articles that are already submitted in my niche are badly written pieces of crap.
Here are the main problems I see when reading other articles:
Horrible spelling, grammar and punctuation - I’m not perfect and I certainly make my share of mistakes, but making the same errors over and over again is unacceptable in my opinion. There is no reason why a person can’t do a simple spellcheck or proofread their articles before submitting them.
Rehashed information - Coming up with a completely unique idea is extremely difficult, but you can make an article unique by injecting your own personality or humour into it, or by adding your own comments, opinions and experiences. Don’t sound like a broken record by repeating what everyone else is already saying. Find a way to make it original, make it your own.
Boring as hell - If you can’t compel the reader to read past the headline, you’ve got problems. You have to draw people in with interesting content and keep them reading right to the end of your resource box. Be passionate. Be exciting. Don’t be repetitive and monotonous or your article will be a boring flop.
Inaccurate information - The main purpose of articles is to inform the reader. If you’re giving them bad information, your credibility will quickly go down the proverbial drain. If you’re not sure of something, do the research until you are sure. If you’re not willing to do the research, don’t write about it.
No structure - A structured article will help guide the reader from beginning to end. Generally, the reader will expect a title, introduction, body and conclusion, followed by the resource box. If your article is all over the place, chances are most people won’t read to the end.
Here’s a tip though. The main goal of submitting articles is to get people to click on your links in the resource box. If you end your article with a great conclusion, they may not think to continue reading your resource box because they got what they came there for.
However, if you leave them hanging a bit (by leaving your conclusion a little bit incomplete) then your reader will want to continue reading and clicking for more information.
Here’s a quick example:
Conclusion #1 - “Now that you’ve learned the 5 best tips for writing articles, it’s time for you to sit down and start writing.”
Conclusion #2 - “These are just a few ideas to help get you started with writing great articles.”
Followed by your resource box - “For more great tips on increasing the quality and effectiveness of your articles, visit Joe Blow’s website at blah-blah-blah.com”
And there you have it. Quality over quantity my friends.
I repeat, Quality (with a capital “Q”) over quantity.
You can write 100 crappy articles and get a few links and a trickle of traffic, or you can write 50 quality articles that will keep the links and traffic pouring in for years to come.
June 6th, 2008
I was reading Yaro’s blog today (he’s a total cutie!) over at Entrepreneurs-Journey.com and noticed that he offers a bonus copy of his book “How To Start An Internet Business & Make Your First $1,000 Online” for readers who subscribe to his RSS feed.
Now, I will freely admit that my RSS subscriber numbers are so embarrassingly low that I might as well say they’re nonexistent. For the longest time, it was a struggle just to manage one post a week (or a month!) to this blog. Now that I’m posting more frequently, I can focus more on increasing readership and RSS subscribers. That’s why I’ve been keeping my eye out for ideas like this.
Anyhoo, I just thought that Yaro’s bonus offer was an interesting and cool tactic to attract new RSS subscribers. It isn’t a new tactic, but it’s one of the few times I’ve seen it implemented.
If you’re looking for ways to increase your blog readership through RSS, this is one way to do it. BloggingTips.com has a post with a few more good ideas too.
June 3rd, 2008
I’m mad and I may be overreacting but I don’t care.
Some asswipe who’s name I won’t mention here stole my article almost word for word, including my lame joke, at EzineArticles. Mine is over a year older than his. I remember writing that particular article. I did a few minutes of research and then sat down and wrote it all out from my head, so I know it isn’t an issue of me copying from someone else, and then him copying from me. Or him copying from the same source that I got my information from.
Anyway, I clicked on the “report this article” link on his article page and am looking forward to a reply from EzineArticles. Until then, I’ll try not to be any more immature about it and keep quiet. I just had to rant a bit first.
But just so you know, you can’t steal other people’s content just because it’s on a free article directory. It’s still their content and there are restrictions as to how you can use it. Also, don’t forget that each article directory has their own policies and TOS. Blatantly ripping off someone’s content almost word for word and then submitting it as your own is obviously against any article directory’s policies.
Don’t do it, or you’ll pay for it later. Theft is theft.
June 2nd, 2008
I have no idea why yet but I lost all the formatting on my blog. I guess it’s going to look funny until I fix it and I’m not feeling so smart at the moment so that could take awhile.
Update: Never mind. It’s fixed. And I didn’t do it. Weird. But good.
June 2nd, 2008
Statcounter uses The Planet as their hosting partner, however, there was an explosion in one of The Planet’s data centers last night caused by an electrical short. 9,000 servers and 7,500 customers were (and still are being) affected, including Statcounter. There were no injuries.
This means that people using Statcounter (like me) will have limited access to their stats, and some stats will even be lost.
The staff at Statcounter are gracious enough to keep everyone updated through their forum. They also suggest that if you are on one of the affected partitions and you need to track your stats before the issue is resolved, that you can set up a new project in your Statcounter account and start tracking again.
I think the team at Statcounter are being great throughout this whole ordeal and I can only imagine how stressful it must be for them. It’s during times like this when you realize which businesses believe in operating with integrity, and which don’t.
I just hope that everyone understands that this was an accident and was not Statcounter’s fault. I know people like to get pissy without knowing all the facts, but even though I may have lost some of my traffic stats, I’m thankful that things weren’t any worse.
I’m glad nobody was injured in the explosion, and I look forward to compulsively checking my stats like the obsessive freak that I am. In the meantime, this is an important reminder for everyone to make sure they have their eggs in more than one basket.
And also, keep backups of all your stuff! Servers have been known to lose data. Especially when they blow up.
June 1st, 2008
I just tried to log in to Twitter and I saw this.
“Thanks for noticing”?
I couldn’t help NOT noticing! But thanks for making me smile.
And yes, I know that most of you have seen this page a million times (due to Twitter’s infamous reputation of being down all the time) but as you may well know, I’m extremely behind the times.
I wonder if Twitter’s demise is imminent.
May 30th, 2008
Are you using Google Calendar yet? (It’s free by the way.)
I tried it a year ago and quickly switched back to using my trusty paper organizer and post-it notes.
Then I read a post over at WAHM 2.0 by Kelly McCausey and figured I would give it another try since she was liking it so much.
I’m not sure how much Google Calendar has changed in the past year, but I’m sure loving it now!
I’m saving trees since I cut down my paper use by at least 75%. I’m also saving time because I’m not searching all over the place for things I’ve written down and then forgotten about. My kids aren’t ruining my lists and notes with their own crayon and marker masterpieces. And best of all, my crap is all in one place!
I’ve been trying for months to get more organized with my work, on my computer and my desk and I can honestly say that Google Calendar is the perfect solution. It’s really handy for those of us who work online because you can set a reminder to pop up each time an event is about to happen.
Here are some things I really love about it:
- Instead of bookmarking links to check out later, I copy and paste it into my calendar.
- You can create an “event” and choose how often you’d like it repeated. Once a day, once a week, etc.
- You can have multiple calendars and view them all at once or chose which ones you don’t want to see - all within one window. Super cool.
- You can share your calendars with others. Works great for projects you’re working on with a partner or Virtual Assistant.
- You can easily drag an event to a different time or day, or edit the settings of that event with one click.
- You can chose to view your calendar by day, week, month, next 4 days, or agenda view - or you can print the whole thing.
If you’re in need of a better way to organize yourself, Google Calendar could be a great option for you - especially if you’re a list-making freak like me.
May 22nd, 2008
Since I upgraded my Wordpress blogs to version 2.5 I’ve been having problems uploading images. I’d select the file to upload but when it went through the “crunching” process it would give me an HTTP error. Frustrating as hell!
I did a search on the Wordpress forum and on Google and came up with no solutions that worked for me until I found a post that mentioned the “Flexible-upload” plugin.
I’m super lazy when it comes to blogging (as you can probably tell if you’ve been a regular reader) so I haven’t done much with using plugins or additional features, but I’m kicking myself for not using this one earlier. Not only does it fix the http error for me, but you can add multiple images which is extremely handy if you use images a lot in your posts.
I know a lot of other people are having image uploading issues - even with version 2.5.1 - but hopefully this plugin will fix it for them as well.
May 6th, 2008
Today I’ve been spending a lot of time optimizing one of my websites. I’ve made my pages smaller so they load quicker and made some keyword changes and ad tweaks.
I don’t do this too often (I’m a naughty webmaster) but every time I do I always notice positive changes in rankings, traffic, opt-in subscribers and income. Not bad for spending a couple hours on a few changes.
I use SiteReportCard a lot when I do this. It checks for any broken links, how fast your site loads, link popularity, rankings for keywords, etc. It’s free and super easy. Just plug in the URL of the page you’re checking and voila. Pretty simple but it can sure make a big difference.
Checking stats like how fast your site loads is very important. Many website owners don’t realize that their pages are loading too slow for people to stay on their site. Optimizing images and getting rid of unnecessary code can really speed up your loading times and help you keep more of that hard earned traffic.
I also like to check my keywords and their density. You can even compare them to other competing pages. This can not only help you optimize your content better for search engines, but also gives you ideas for even more keywords. I’ve written whole articles and added new pages after discovering keywords and phrases I hadn’t already thought of myself.
If you’re not already using a similar tool to check statistics like these, bookmark this page and visit it regularly.
May 5th, 2008
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