January 2, 2008

How To Market Your Blog in 2008

There are over 600 Black blogs included in the Black Blog Rankings this month. We share the list of the Top 10 Black Blogs on the 1st day of each month. However, there are many blogs with great content that are not being widely recognized. They aren't getting comments ... they don't have high traffic rankings ... and their pagerank is low.

I read an article written last year by Tony Hung that I found quite inspiring. It helped me a lot, so I thought I'd share its main points here with you. Below you'll find tips from Tony with a few of my own comments attatched. I hope it will help you improve your blog's rankings and blogosphere influence in 2008.


  1. Persistence: All the marketing in the world won’t help you if you have a lame-duck blog. You must write well and write consistently. You can never give up! In your search for more traffic, more promotion, and more publicity, never forget it starts with great content — and needs to continue with great content on a regular schedule. There’s no question that maintaining quality and regularity is difficult while you’re starting out, particularly if you’re time strapped … but hang in there, because if you sacrifice this, all of your marketing efforts will be for naught.

  2. Become an expert on something: It's my view that if you read one book per week on a given subject ... you will be a world-class expert on that subject within a year. Most people don't read regularly. You can develop a keen interest, continue to read and write intelligently, and after a while, your experience will make you an expert. Bloggers will seek out your expertise, your reknown will grow, and it will be easier to be noticed, linked to, and get cross promoted.

  3. Design is more important than you think: You can only make a first impression once — first impressions count, and they can count for cash money. If you’re serious about blogging, you need to separate and elevate yourself from the blogging masses, and its impossible to do if you look exactly the same as them. Easy to say, hard to do, but absolutely necessary. I redesigned my blog using the services of someone who's work I kept seeing as I surfed the Internet. Do what you have to do to ensure that your blog looks professional, stands out, and screams "yes, I am worthy of your attention!".

  4. Get Your SEO On: SEO = Search Engine Optimization — get your own domain name, host your own blogging software, enable permalinks, create keyword rich headlines, create unique title tags, enable trackback and ping functionality, ensure your blog pings pinging-services.

  5. Publish full feeds: Publishing full feeds can increase your traffic. Feed subscriptions are critical; get your feeds burned through Feedburner so you can track how many are subscribing. People who subscribe to feeds rarely unsubscribe, and every single feed subscriber is a potential source of traffic to your blog.

  6. Do interviews with other bloggers: Score interviews with newsworthy individuals (who may be linked to newsworthy content), to create link worthy content, but more importantly, create news on THEIR blog to get back to YOUR blog.

  7. Break important stories: If you have an interest in an area, it is possible to break important stories as long as you’re willing to put in the time and energy to find stuff. Benefit: being picked up by A-list blogs, mainstream news outlets and more.

  8. Have a contest: Or, have regular contests, which encourage participation and buzz in your corner of the blogosphere.

  9. Publish original research: If you’ve got the time, start with a question, try and figure it out with the data available, and "publish it". My fledgling efforts at researching and publishing the Black Blog Rankings is an example.

  10. Put out Press Releases: Particularly if you have something new, unique, or particularly important to say (such as an important story, or research)

  11. Work your long tail: A tip based on your SEO efforts; there is a free service called Hit Tail that will analyze the search terms leading to your blog traffic, and yank out high quality key words you should be focusing on that you might not immediately think of. This can help you focus your future posts as you are already getting traffic for those key words.

  12. Answer your comments, in your comments, and off blog: - When you do get comments, answer as many as humanly possible, and if its an interesting enough issue or question, contact the poster directly for a friendly follow up. Treat every potential poster as a potential subscriber to your feed, and a future friend (we call them villagers) and contact.

  13. Spend time to create links and trackbacks: In every post spend as much time as you can to create outbound links to relevant and high linking blogs; many blogs automatically have trackbacks enabled, so in their comments section they will have a link back to your blog. If its a highly trafficked and ranked blog, this can mean traffic BACK to your blog, and it can draw notice from the author themselves — because, let’s face it, we’re all vain ... even the big bloggers ... and we’re all interested in who is linking to us.

  14. MyBlogLog My traffic on this blog tripled last year when I subscribed to MyBlogLog — I encourage you to know it, love it, and embrace it. Since its been acquired by Yahoo, it has exploded all over the blogosphere. MyBlogLog offers a free widget that enables you to build a free community around your blog, and to easily see which other bloggers have been to your blog. You can "add" friends, and generate traffic, but more importantly, your own network of like-minded blogging colleagues in a way that is relatively easy and efficient. Just go easy on the unsolicited messages.

  15. Join a blog carnival: Where every blogger who joins one blogs about a topic, then each blog gets promoted. Here’s an index of blog carnivals to get you started.

  16. Join blog network: Between Afrosphere Bloggers Association, The AfroSpear and others, there is networking potential, income potential, and a link-a-palooza waiting for you (through the linkroll as every member may have to link to every other member) if you’re able to get into one.

  17. Participate in forums: Forums with tons of pages, huge lists of members, and a responsive community are an easy way to not only connect with other individuals, but an opportunity to tastefully demonstrate your expertise and a link back to your blog. I recently created a forum for Black IT professionals.

  18. Participate on larger blogs in comments: By participating directly in another blogger’s comments you a) get their recognition and b) get the recognition of the blogging community. Also, here’s a tip: try and be one of the first few commenters on heavily trafficked sites to get recognized — most people won’t read past the first 10-20 comments. Here’s another tip for traffic: IF (and ONLY IF) you have posted something relevant that is pursuant to the ongoing conversation and IF the blog has a commenting policy that will allow you to do so, post a link back to a post on your own site ("hey guys, I wrote about how we can solve this problem! — check out the link over here, but let me summarize it for you … "). Sometimes you’ll be surprised at how much traffic comes back.

  19. Join Blogburst: Blogburst is a type of "blog network" (see #16), that syndicates content across American newspaper’s websites, such as USA Today and Reuters. Highly ranked inbound links + traffic + bragging rights to your crew that your post got featured in a newspaper. Not too shabby. Also on the upside, they have a new revenue sharing scheme. The bad: read their terms of service carefully — you give up certain rights when they republish your content, and the revenue sharing works on the top 100 publishers only.

  20. Participate in Wordless Wednesday meme: They publish links to all of the participants.

  21. Submit to blog directories: So people can find your blog.

  22. Submit to Google sitemaps: Google will be able to find you so much easier when you use Google sitemaps. As you gain more Google juice, you'll get more traffic, resulting in higher rankings faster.

  23. Submit to article directories: You might want to submit your favourite posts to article directories, where they will enable you to have a biobox / blurb with a link back to your own blog. Again, demonstrating your expertise, and moreover, the article might get picked up in a ezine or another blog, leading to more traffic and more inbound links.

  24. Get interviewed: If you’ve demonstrated your expertise, or have done something newsworthy, or reported on something newsworthy, try and get interviewed. As long as its done in a fair way (doesn’t need to be a completely puffpiece) by a site or blogger with some reknown, its more traffic for you.

  25. Get listed on a news aggregator, or blog aggregator: Like Techmeme for technews, or Tailrank for blogging news.

  26. Create free stuff for yourself and give it away: Like ebooks, digests of your favourite posts, pdfs, and so on. Make sure to include a link back in the document, back to your site.

  27. Create free stuff for other people: the same, let them distribute it, get a link back.

  28. Pay for pub: Efficient means of using your cash is to buy targeted Adwords, or keywords in Yahoo’s advertising network; you could get other bloggers to write about you using PayPerPost or ReviewMe; or you purchase text link ads through Text-Link-Ads.com

  29. Make friends with other bloggers: Ridiculously simple, but its true. Benefits of "networking" (making friends) include more mentions on other blogs, more requests for interviews, more partnerships in future deals, more "ads" into their MyBlogLog network, more "ads" into someone else’s blogroll (and therefore links back to your blog) — it goes on and on.

  30. Guest blog: Offer to do it for free, and you’ll be able to demonstrate what you know to an entirely new audience. Gives you great credibility, and of course, most will allow a courtesy link back to your own blog. A free foot-in-the-door to some communities as well.

  31. Volunteer, intern, scut-monkey your way into a blogger’s graces: Maintaining a highly trafficked site is a lot of work. Offer to volunteer your time with menial behind the scenes stuff (moderating posts, acting as a bird dog for news) for free and with a smile, and you’ll get a foot-in-the-door with the blogger, their network, and future opportunities.

  32. Get hired: You never know which blog organizations are looking to hire new bloggers; again, an opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge, meet new bloggers, and open tons of professional "doors" … because now that you’re getting paid ... you’re a "pro-blogger"

  33. Network in person: Find other local bloggers using services like Meetup, and see if they’re literally getting together to commiserate about blogging or their topic of blogging. If you’ve got the time, there’s nothing that makes an impression as actually meeting someone in person. Tip: bring a business card; Another tip: if you don’t have any, make some; yet another tip: if important people are going to be there, really — try and go. A great opportunity is coming up later this year at the Blogging While Brown conference!

  34. Join virtual groups: Through Yahoo Groups, Google Groups, CollectiveX, and more; then bring the conversation off the group with emails and instant messages. Be friendly, be helpful, and it will pay dividends.

  35. Cross promote: Once you’ve gotten to know people, you can kindly remind them to promote posts that you’re particularly proud of; or, vote for your submissions on Digg or your social bookmarking site of choice. Reciprocate.

  36. Facebook: Its a social network that has opened its doors behind its college beginnings. Anyone can sign up. Start connecting with old friends and colleagues, like any other social network. You can import your own blog’s RSS feed, so that your connections can see what you’re blogging. Who knows where that might lead?

  37. Join Helium: Helium actively looks for people to head new categories of content. Think a paid "about.com" — for its authors. If you have a particular interest that isn’t yet served on Helium you might want to check it out; besides giving you cash for content, it’ll also demonstrate your authority in a topic, and you’ll be able to leverage Helium’s own traffic for your own blog through a linkback on your profile.

  38. Yahoo Answers! A similar idea; but this time, you’re answering questions that people are posting. Yahoo! is quite careful about spam, however, and including a "signature" is a dicey proposition at times. There is a fairly sophisticated registry and voting system that tries to prevent "gaming", but given how much traffic yahoo! answers gets, AND its inclusion as a separate result area in Yahoo SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages) it might be something worth looking into.

  39. Join LinkedIn Network: More of a professional network that is an important part of any blogger's toolkit. Here is my Linkedin Profile.

  40. Create a Squidoo Page Lens: On a given related topic to your blog; participate in the Squidoo community; Squidoo has a ton of traffic, and you could funnel traffic and tastefully include links to other relevant sites and perhaps your own blog.

  41. Use MySpace Marketing: The idea is to capitalize on the HUGE amount of traffic MySpace gets (some interesting thoughts over here). Create a profile, create relevant content and links back. Start adding friends. Comment on your friends space. Join groups. Start enjoying the trickle back traffic. Here is my profile on MySpace.

  42. Get Dugg / Netscaped / Reddited / Stumbled upon: Whole articles (and sites) are written about the intricacies of socially bookmarking. Here’s a tip: focus on creating great content, make friends on these sites if they allow you to, and submit your stories judiciously.


Do you have other marketing ideas for bloggers that aren't included in this list? Villagers, I'm going to redouble my efforts in 2008 to implement many of these 42 ideas in the coming days and weeks. How about you?

48 comments:

Unknown said...

Thats an awesome work...All good tips gathered at one place..Thanks for the work

Ashish
cooladvertisements.blogspot.com

Unknown said...

Ashish - Thank you for the kind words. Goes without saying that you have permission to link to it from your blog (smile)!

I hope you will come back and visit with our village often in 2008.

ListenToLeon.net said...

This entry is an UNBELIEVABLE resource! Thanks for putting all of these great tips in one place! I will be sure to pass this along to all of the bloggers that I interact with at DCBlogs.com as well as my readers.

One question though...Does publishing an entire feed, instead of just the first couple of paragraphs, potentially keep people from coming to the blog? I started breaking them up the way that I do, so that the titles to all of my entries from the week could be easily visible on the main page. If you have time to answer this, let me know. My site is www.listentoleon.net, just in case my old blogger profile doesn't display it.

Unknown said...

Leon - I'm not an expert on RSS feeds. However, I think you may find some answers to your question in this article.

peace, Villager

Unknown said...

Leon - By the way, your blog is BBR #83 (out of 615)

Unknown said...

Pam Spaulding visited my other blog and left some comments on marketing your blog. Pam's House Blend is BBR #2 on the list this month. Her feedback is worthy.

peace, Villager

Mz.Bria2U said...

I'm not sure how you put all of this incredible information together Villager, but I believe I can speak on behalf of most us in the afrosphere, we're eternally grateful.

We all should take up the mantle to 'each one, reach one & teach one.'

This information is absolutely priceless and I thank u from the bottom of my heart. :)

Unknown said...

Happy New Year!
Wow! This is awsome! I am so grateful for the great information. Being so new to blogging (October) this is extremely useful to me!
I have picked up a few bits and pieces here and there but all this , in one spot! Again, WOW!

Blessings to you & yours!
Regina

Unknown said...

Bria & Regina - I'm glad that the information is useful. I find that there are still many of the 42 ideas that I have yet to implement here on my own blog. Hopefully, we can each help one another grow our blog's reach and influence over the coming weeks and months.

Anonymous said...

i know this is a great list, and have do some of them. it not easy to do all things you have listed. time consuming

thanks for the information.

Unknown said...

Webring.net - Don't try to do them all at once. Journey of 1,000 miles begins with the first step. Pick one of the 42. Which one do you want to implement this month (Jan 2008)?

Gale Rainwater said...

Wow those are some great appreciate it.

Unknown said...

Gail - I'm glad you find the information useful. Tell a friend. Add our village to your blogroll. Anything you think appropriate!

Anonymous said...

thanks for your link at the start of this. I was a little shocked to see every point in the original article made again - some copied and pasted.

While I'm sort of flattered - I'm also a little sad that you didn't put some of your own points into the post too.

I'm all for the information being shared but you probably should know that I've had a number of people email me to tell me about the post and the comments that they've made are not that positive. Perhaps a little more original thought would have helped.

Anyway - good luck with Marketing your blog in 2008 - you've obviously got a great community going here.

PS: stay tuned at ProBlogger for an article by the same title of this next week as I do my new year's blog marketing suggestions.

Mz.Bria2U said...

Jambo, Fam! I'm passin' thru and showering love upon the Village!

blessings Villager :)

Unknown said...

Darren - I appreciate your feedback and I'm glad that you took time to share your thoughts directly. I wish that your fans who reported to you would have had the character to share their thoughts directly. I was unable to access my blog for a few days as someone reported the Electronic Village to www.blogger.com as a "spam blog". I imagine it was one of those folks who emailed you about this post on marketing.

Anyhow, as you stated ... I clearly gave credit to you/your blog for inspiring this post. Hopefully, the 42 points that I've shared with my readers are helpful to them as they try to grow.

Darren, I'm not a pro-blogger. I'm just a hobbyist trying to share information that is uplifting to my peeps.

peace, Villager

msladyDeborah said...

Thanks for this post.

I am learning how to develop a good blog. It is nice to have the tips in one place. It saves a lot of time that is used for looking the information up. Hopefully in the upcoming months, I will be able to help my blog to grow into a good piece of written work.

thanks again!
msladydeborah.blogspot.com

Unknown said...

Lady Deborah - I'm glad that you found the information helpful. Your blog continues to rise up the BBR. You are currently BBR #501 (out of 623).

Eb the Celeb said...

Thanks for the advice!!!

♥ Eb

www.jonesin-eb-style.blogspot.com
www.renaissanceblackwoman.blogspot.com
www.sportz-n-albumcutz.blogspot.com

Unknown said...

Eb the Celeb - Not a problem. Which of the 42 ideas do you plan to implement this month?

bwdb said...

Great Tips!

A lot of these suggestions can apply to any marketing strategy IMO


BWDB http://www.enoughisenoughcampaign.com/

Unknown said...

CW - You're right about these tips being useful in variety of marketing plans for more than just blogs. However, let's use them for our blogs for now. Which one do you want to implement in January for your blog?

Deidra said...

Thanks for this important resource! In the last couple of months I noticed a decline in the # of readers on my page [maybe it was because of my absence from posting due to school and work] but at the same time there was in increase in support for my work [people wanting me to write about things - either on my blog or theirs, praises, etc]. I was thinking about what I could do to balance this all out and keep people on my page for days at a time and not just a couple hours.

I guess God heard my prayer because the minute I was wondering what was going on - I saw that you made this post. I realized that there are several things I still need to do to gain and keep my readers.

I'm probably going to do all of them eventually but the two things I'm going to focus on the most is redesign and blogging for others.

Question: How do you make comments on your blog AND keep from having a biased or unpopular opinion that may potentially cause you to lose readers? I love the suggestion about getting involved with the readers of the blog but I'd hate to say something that will cause me to lose my readers.

I'm a VERY blunt person [so I've been told] and I try to comment more but I almost always end up erasing everything that I want to say because it might be offensive to some people. I wonder if commenting will hurt you or help you in the long run. It work for a lot of bloggers I know but I'm VERY blunt lol - I don't know how to hide that.

Unknown said...

Deidra - Your willingness to review your blog metrics and to do self-analysis is important!

You asked How do you make comments on your blog AND keep from having a biased or unpopular opinion that may potentially cause you to lose readers?

One of the top Black bloggers in the world is Pam Spaulding. She noted that it is critical for bloggers to find their authentic voice. As such, I would encourage you *not* to worry about offending your readers ... rather speak your mind; find your passion; use your authentic voice ... your readers will feel you if they know it is you. At the same time, you will receive comments ... and you can determine from the comments if your bold statements are being heard.

Go for it young sista!

Anonymous said...

@Villager - you did give some credit on some level - but to be honest I'm not sure you were terribly explicit.

You write:

"I read an article last year that inspired me to share similiar information with villagers in 2008."

Ok - you did read the article on ProBlogger and it might have inpired you - but it does come across as though it inspired you to come up with the following 42 points. You don't say anywhere in the post that every idea in your post was inspired by the post on ProBlogger, that you copied and pasted parts of the article etc.

Looking at the comments of this post it seems like the vast majority of those who've left comments see this post as your work.

"Thats an awesome work...All good tips gathered at one place..Thanks for the work"

"This entry is an UNBELIEVABLE resource! Thanks for putting all of these great tips in one place!"

"I'm not sure how you put all of this incredible information together Villager, but I believe I can speak on behalf of most us in the afrosphere, we're eternally grateful."

These are just three of the first few commenters that all seem to be under the impression that you put a lot of work into this, gathered tips.....

This would have been a good time to clarify with your readers that perhaps it wasn't as much work as they might have thought and that someone else actually gathered the tips and put significant work into the post - but you neglect to do so.

While I don't really want to get too worked up about it I guess I wanted to clarify why I left my last comment and why others have not reacted so well to it.

Anonymous said...

Wikipedia defines plagiarism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism) as "the practice of claiming or implying original authorship of (or incorporating material from) someone else's written or creative work, in whole or in part, into one's own without adequate acknowledgement." This is clearly the case in this case. Most of this has been copied from http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/01/11/how-to-market-your-blog-in-2007/.

To avoid plagiarism in future, you need to make it clear what is yours and what has been copied from somebody else.

Trula said...

Electronic Village, you did yourself and your readers a big disservice by the way you copied and posted Darren Rowse's article. It really does read as if you wrote it yourself. The entire thing is copied. I get that your intention was genuine though. A simple way to avoid confusion is, you could have pasted a paragraph from his article with a 'Read More at Problogger.net' link rather than copy and past the whole thing.

I have visited your site often and know you are able to write compelling content without copying.

Anonymous said...

Extremely disheartening when someone proclaims they are innocent in behavior that is clearly fraudulent like copying and pasting and calling it inspiration and original.

Darren is original and inspiring. You are thoughtless and greedy, using another person's time and hard work for your own benefit. It's sickening, and I'm glad someone reported you as a spam blog, because this post is a clear representation of what a spam blog is all about.

You should truly be ashamed of yourself. Especially for trying to defend your actions after you've been so vividly called on the carpet.

Why not be a man and own up to your mistakes, and make a promise to yourself and your readers that you'll not be so disrespectful (to them, and those you steal content from) in the future?

Deidra said...

You know what? I don't care if Electronic Village redid the whole article, post a paragraph and linked back to the article, or post the article and provided a link to it - it's still a great resource.

He could've very well rewritten the whole thing but it's already fine the way it is so why rewrite it? This isn't college - you're not going to get suspended for sharing information. You can copy and paste whole articles and link back to it [as far as I'm concerned - I see several blogs post whole articles but nobody jump down their throats about it]. I was told that it was better to post the whole article and link back so that your readers do not have to venture off your page. That's just collecting resources on one site IMO - NOT copying. It's more about convenience to me.

So he posted a whole article one or a couple times in his whole blog career - what's wrong with that? I don't see where he claimed it as his own any where in this post. He said it inspired him to share the info - which is exactly what he did.

I really don't see why the writer of this article is upset about this - it's an honor to have someone link to you and use your articles for good. Whether he did little work or most of the work - he did what you wanted for your readers - provide tips to help them to become better bloggers.

P.S. Sorry if I offended anybody but I don't think we should call him a plagiarizer just for posting a whole article [A GREAT ONE i might add] and linking back to it rather than put it in his own words.

Anonymous said...

He was obviously not clear enough, given that the majority of his commenters have thanked HIM for compiling the list, thanking HIM for "the work" to do so (which he didn't do), and so on.

Had he been clear in the beginning that he got the post in it's entirety from another site, and given a better link explanation of WHO DID THE WORK, then maybe it wouldn't be such an issue.

Also, as you can see, the original author (Darren) is a lot nicer than his fans are being about this. Don't spite him for the words of his fans.

Bottom line here is courtesy. Copying and pasting, and simply re-arranging the list was a clear attempt at trying to get by under the plagiarism radar - and it failed him miserably. He's tried to pawn this off as his own, original thought and work, and it isn't. Admit it, apologize, fix it, and move on.

Unknown said...

Darren - You've hit on the key point ... I gave clear credit, inclusive of a link, to the source of the inspiration. As stated, I'm not a professional blogger. I do this for fun. I try to share information that is helpful to people of African descent. I thought that those 42 tips were helpful to people of African descent.

I'm uncertain what blogger etiquette I violated. I would guess that traffic to your blog increased (albeitly miniscullay compared to your loft position as one of the most well-paid bloggers on earth). I figure that more people of African descent are aware of you today than were aware of you last week.

Those seem like good things.

Darren, my sense is that you've looked through other posts that I've made over the past months (I started blogging on 1/13/2007). You'll see that I regularly give a hat-tip (we use the term 'drumbeats) to the source of material that I use ... as I did for this post.

Anyhow, I appreciate your comments ... and those of your fans. My hope is that you/your fans will look at the totality of my work as a blogger and offer constructive suggestions for ways that I can improve ... as you've done in your comments on this post.

I'm not in Australia often ... but, if I ever make the trip, I look foward to meeting you.

peace, Villager

Unknown said...

Anon - Thanks for the spelling bee lesson on the p-word. Hopefully, you noticed in the first few sentences of the post that I gave credit to the inspiration for the post and shared a link to the original posting as well.

In any case, I always smile when people use the Anonymous option to be critical.

Is this your first time visiting our village? If so, welcome. I hope you come back often...

Unknown said...

Trula - My original version did have a Click here for the rest of the article ... however, the reality is that Black Blogs, such as my Electronic Village need the information ... and most of us do not click thru when given that option. As such, I used valuable blog space ... and time ... to list the points I thought were salient in full. However, Trula, I also provided a link to the post that inspired me in the first place.

I accept your critique. However, I'm glad to know that there are a bunch of brothers and sisters who now have access to the information. At the end of the day ... isn't that the point?

Unknown said...

Anon - You ask me to make a promise to my readers. Please don't confuse my blog with some commercial enterprise. I own this blog. I owned it when I had no readers and I own it at my current level of readership. Frankly, I'll own it when I have zero readers again if those that visit this village don't feel it worthy of visiting any longer.

You can call this a spam blog if you like. I imagine that hurling such hateful names is something that is easy to do as an "anonymous" comment-maker.

I appreciate you taking time to share your village voice. However, my readers know by the daily vibe that is given ... that it is my intention to provide information that is uplifting to people of African descent.

Frankly, I have more respect for Darren and Trula who shared their comments, critique and disappointment openly. Getting comments, critique and disappoitnment shared by 'Anonymous' simply doesn't mean as much to me...

Unknown said...

Deidra - If I go missing in the next couple of weeks ... refer folks from the FBI, Homeland Security, Obama's campaign staff ... and anyone else that might be looking to this thread of comments (smile).

I learned a long time ago not to sweat the small stuff. I'm comfortable that I did the right thing with my post ... and quite honestly ... I'm honored that Darren Rowse took the time to visit. He is one of the highest-paid bloggers in history. I imagine that I've become one of his favorite African American bloggers (smile again)!

Anyhow, thanx for having my back.

peace, Villager

Deidra said...

Lol EV - frankly I see it as good for both of ya'll. You helped a lot of readers and he gained in readers. I added his blog to my bookmarks. If it wasn't for your post I would not even know that his blog existed.

So for the Anon that is saying that we shouldn't thank you - I believe thanks ARE in order for providing more resources [his blog] than what we had before.

And I agree with you on the fact that some readers do not click the links. You can provide a thousand links but some readers just aren't going to click through it because they don't know what they are clicking and they want to stay on the same page.

And I'm still a little insulted by anon's comment about how it's not work to compile a lot of articles into one place [my whole blog is based off of compilation of news articles/profiles] - I beg to differ - it take work [whether it's a large or small amount] to research these things and put it out for your readers. We don't know what EV does when he's thinking of things to post - he probably rewrote the whole thing but decided that it was just one of those articles that does not need to be altered. [That's a real compliment!]

Either way - recognition was done. I recognize that BOTH authors [EV and Darren] are great bloggers.

Sorry again for offending anybody!

Anonymous said...

Villager - as I said, I do appreciate the link. I think that my concern wasn't that you didn't link, or that the link wasn't big enough in font size - it was that in saying that my post inspired yours you give the impression that you read mine and that that drew you to come up with your own 42 points.

In terms of the blogging ettiquette that you might have broken - I guess it comes down to being very clear about what you wrote or came up with and what others came up with.

Here's how I go about it - I hope this helps:

1. If a post inspires me to write a post that is on a similar topic but which I come up with my own points for I'll link to it in a similar way to you in this post.

2. If a post inspires me to write a post but I use that other person's work as a skeleton of my own post (ie I use all there points) I say this in the post (I'd probably say something like this - "I read an article written last year by Tony Hung that I found quite inspiring. It helped me a lot so I thought I'd share it's main points here with you. Below you'll find Tony's 42 points with a few of my own comments attatched. I hope it will hel you improve your blog's rankings in 2008."

If I did this I would then attempt to only use the other post's headings of points and then for each one come up with something original and unique to say about them rather than just regurgitating or copying what the other person said.

3. If I copy and paste a part of the post (I generally only do this with a paragraph or two unless I get permssion first) I will always put it in "quotation markes" and usually introduce that quote with something like 'Tony writes - " ". This makes it completely clear that I did not write that part of the post but that someone else did.

4. If I wanted people to read the points that the other person made but didn't have anything original to add to it I would simply write a post that linked to it, perhaps used one quote and recommended readers go to that blog to read the full post. This would achieve the objective of teaching your readers without republishing something that someone else had written.

As I say - this is just how I go about it and I'm sure other bloggers have other methods - however the general principles that I see most bloggers operating by include what I've attempted to outline above.

As I said in my previous comment - my reaction to your post was that it comes off as saying that you were inspired to write this post by Tony's, but that you came up with the ideas in this post. This was reinforced by the comments of readers all congratulating YOU for the wisdom of the article.

Yes, they learned something and that is fantastic - however I guess I would have just appreciated the article more if you'd been clearer in your introduction and actually added something of your own experience of blogging to the article.

For me it's not about how many visitors you send (although i did check and you sent 3) - its about being transparent.

I hope that this adds to the conversation and learning.

Unknown said...

Darren - Your post was very educational and helpful. I appreciate the time, talent and effort that you've taken in educating this young pup of a blogger. I'll keep your guidance in mind as I continue to evolve as a blogger.

peace, Villager

Trula said...

Hi Villager, see I didn't even notice it was written by Tony Hung. That's very important to know, however the similarities between your article and his remain remarkable. I do hope in the future you choose not to copy others' work.

I will try to elaborate on what I mean by saying you did your readers a disservice. You wrote:

and most of us do not click thru when given that option.

How do you know this? Is it not better to give your readers the option at least? When you assume what a black blogger will or will not do, you are denying us the same equality and attention you say we aren't getting. A clear link specifying exactly what the location is will get clicked on by interested people, black, white or of other race/ethnicity.

I also feel you did yourself and readers a disservice because the way the article was originally posted, people thought you wrote it and thus asked you even more questions about pro-blogging. Which you could not answer, because, as you have stated a few times in this comment thread, you are not a problogger. I would hate to see you feel compelled to rip off problogger.net (or any other blog) in the future in an attempt to answer the many questions raised by this post. If you give clear credit upfront, then people know where to go to get answers, and you can write about your blog's focus without the added pressure of trying to write (or copy) posts outside your area of expertise.

I appreciate the changes you made, that makes authorship of the original post clear.

Unknown said...

Trula - Point well taken. Are you interested in learning where your blog(s) stand in the Black Blog Rankings?

Eb the Celeb said...

I just implemented the contest one on www.sportz-n-albumcutz.blogspot.com

i already scour other blogs and comment. I love doing that anyway, and realized a month or 2 ago how much traffic that brings not from the person who's blog it was but more so the other people that read and comment as well. Thanks again for these!!!

Unknown said...

Eb the Celeb - Excellent. You are implementing Tip #8 re: contests. I'll head over to your blog and participate in your contest right away. Let us know how it turns out.

Anonymous said...

That's very helpful. I have especially discovered the power behind persistence, consistency, treating one subject expertly and following up on comments.

Thanks.

Unknown said...

Katch Up - Persistence is a good habit in real life and in blogging. Good point!

theceelist said...

Great advice!

www.IGotUGGs.com
www.BehindtheApprovalMatrix.com

Unknown said...

Haqikah - Asante sana! I hope you find reason to visit with us often in the future.

Marleaux said...

Wow, these are some really good tips. I also use Teamsugar.com to promote my lil blog. They have a section called link love that allows users to link sites on the internet. Then other users can "heart" that link, which is shown on their page. I usually get about 8 hits a week from this, which is good for my blog.

I'm adding a few more of your ideas also. I'll be coming back for more links next weekend. Can't do them all in one day.

Unknown said...

Marleaux - Thanx for the tip on TeamSugar.com. I'll head over to check 'em out. Thanx for sharing your village voice with us...