Beneficial Spam

I'm not a huge fan of spam of any kind.  With respect to blogging, spam is usually comment spam or some type of solicitation like trying to get me to blog about whatever they are selling, selling being them wanting me to blog about their latest, greatest topic or promote them in some fashion.  Well, yesterday I received a rather interesting piece of spam.  This spam 'technically' was an offer for me to join their services to gain organic traffic to one of my blogs.  In this case, it was a simple piece of spam surprisingly addressed to my blog team that ended up turning out to be rather informative.  What they did is include five points that they felt my blog was lacking that was affecting the organic traffic I was receiving from search engines.  I don't know if they actually analyzed my blog or it was just a generic five points that would be applicable to most blogs. 

Some of the major factors which can be overcome for your website to rank well in SERP organically and increase your social media presence are:

1.       Seems like your website carries a lot of technical errors which prevents search engine to crawl and index your website properly.

2.       Your website needs a proper keyword selection and optimization.

3.       Your website is not well furnished with enough quality and theme based back links.

4.       Your website should be more inclined towards Social media promotion and a regular updates in major social networks.

5.       Missing quality web and promotion contents (Article, Blogs etc.) which is preventing your website to gain more authority and ranking in Web Market.

The five points were gave me a something to ponder.  I'm not sure what the technical errors are as I have meta tags and Blogger is rather good at providing the necessary ground work to allow search engines to crawl and index blogs within their system.  Keywords are based on the content of each blog post and while I do pay attention to keywords, I don't write blog posts around keywords.  Rather, I use keywords naturally as I would in discussing that topic.  The quality and theme based back links may be something to work on.  However, back links are not something I tend to solicit.  I let them happen naturally.  Occasionally I leave a link back one of my blogs when commenting but even that is almost a waste of time since many bloggers have these types of links set to rel='no follow'.  Most of the back links I get to my blogs is from other bloggers liking what they have read enough to share with their readers.  I have social media buttons on my blog and promote them on social media as well so without spamming via social media I can't really do much more.  The last point is just a bit insulting because let's face it any blogger who is trying to make it in the blogosphere including myself is writing what they consider quality content.  Furthermore, I include quality content such as quotes and other interesting tidbits.

In all, this was likely a generic list aimed to get me to sign up to their services and part with a bit of hard earned cash.  Well, their marketing ploy didn't work but it did get me thinking a bit.  As always, there is room for improvement in my blogging so perhaps it's  time to formulate a new strategy and try a few new things.  After all, becoming stagnant in the world of blogging is never good!

Google May Penalize For Cross Linking Between Your Own Blogs

A couple of weeks ago, I read an article that started out saying that Google may penalize if you cross link between your own blogs.  While this may be the case, what Google really is saying is if you have a couple of blogs and occasionally do a natural link from one to another, there isn't a problem.  What they don't want is someone who has twenty blogs, consistently cross linking between them.  So, in my case where I author six blogs, it would be fine for me to link to one of them if blogging about a topic related to the that blog.  For example, a link to a tomato sauce recipe on my cooking blog from my gardening blog if I were discussing tomatoes on my gardening blog and mentioned a particular variety was ideal for making a sauce would be acceptable.  Also acceptable is something to the effect 'I also author' or 'Author of' and links to your other blogs in the sidebar which would by search engine standards result in one link to each of your other blogs similar to a blog roll.  What is not unacceptable is excessive cross linking especially those cross links that are not natural.

Back when I first started blogging a little over seven years ago, it was a common practice for those bloggers interested in making money from their blogs to set up a number of blogs.  Excessive cross linking was widely done even though it likely wasn't acceptable back then either.  My youngest blog is almost five years old and yet despite authoring six blogs, I seldom link between them.  I have links to each in the sidebar but other than than there are very few times I will make a link from one of my blogs to another.  So, for me excessive cross linking between my blogs is a non-issue but for those who do, they may find themselves penalized.

Promoting a Blog with Contests

A couple of years ago when I was active in the now defunct blog advertising networks and visiting a multitude of blogs on a daily basis, I noticed some bloggers used contests as a way to promote their blogs.  I'm not sure how this method of promotion worked for them but at the time I set the notion aside.  Back in March I was offered an opportunity to run a sponsored contest on one of my blogs.  The sponsor supplied the giveaway and was responsible for sending the gift to the winner.  All I had to do was blog about the contest and determine a winner.  I was rather impressed at the results with 60 comments on that one post.  Oh sure, it's not near as many comments as some bloggers get but I thought it was rather good.  That post brought me rather good traffic as well as a few Facebook likes.  So the results were good!

I'm running another contest on the same blog this month.  This time I am sponsoring the giveaway myself.  It isn't an expensive giveaway at a value of $10 but it is on topic for the blog.  So far, that post has 6 comments and it is only a couple of days old with the contest ending on May 29 giving plenty of time for more comments. 

I think contests or giveaways may be a good promotional tool for certain niche blogs. It is an excellent way to advertise if used correctly.  The only way to determine if they are beneficial for your blog is to try running a couple.  In order to run a successful contest, here are a few things I consider:

• the prize - The prize should fit the blog niche (eg. cookbook for cooking blog).  Keep the prize small for ease and cost of shipping or have the item shipped directly to the winner from where you buy it online.
• sponsorship - You can buy the gift yourself and take care of all the details.  An alternative is to find a sponsor to supply the gift for the giveaway.  Both will take time and effort on your part however, getting a sponsor may actually gain you more in the terms of future sponsorships and support for your blog.  These sponsorships can lead to future opportunities with the sponsors.
• the details - Clearly outline the details of the contest like who is eligible, contest end date and what the reader has to do to have a chance to win.
• length of time- Allow enough time for the actual contest.  Two to three weeks is sufficient.  Then allow time for the winner to reply once contacted.  Forty-eight hours should be sufficient.  At that time, if you don't hear from the winner, choose another and notify them.  
• promote the contest - Promote the contest via social media.

Blog Advertising

With the demise of several smaller blog advertising networks (eg. Adgitize, CMFAds, Entrecard) there are very few avenues for advertising a blog.  There are of course a few free sites where you can advertise your blog or promote a blog post, mainly social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.  There are paid sites like Project Wonderful and BlogAds as well as blog networks like BlogHer and BlogFrog.  There is also the option of running paid ads on Google, Facebook, Twitter, and traffic exchanges as well as private ads.  So, with a limited budget for advertising, what is the best way to advertise your blog?  Here are some methods I have used:

• Facebook (low to high cost) -  Paid advertising on Facebook starts at $5 for promoting a post, getting traffic to your blog's Facebook page, or getting more likes for your Facebook page.  For blog advertising, this is low priced but can quickly get expensive depending on what type of campaign you are running.  I have had good luck with the Boost Post option to promote a post and am now just trying out a campaign to get more likes for my Facebook page which hopefully will bring more traffic.  I will be reserving the Boost Post option for promoting anchor posts.
• Twitter (no cost) - Advertising your blog and/or specific posts on Twitter is as simple as making a tweet.  It costs nothing but time.  You can even use a service like Tweetfeed to use your RSS feed so each post made to your blog appears on your Twitter timeline.  Be warned, some followers don't like those who only try to promote their blog.  I have found that active participation gets me more traffic from Twitter than just using Tweetfeed.
• Pinterest (no cost) - Promoting a blog post on Pinterest is as simple as pinning it and the best part is you don't even have to pin it yourself!  Just have the Pinterest button somewhere on each post and readers who like it will pin the post for you.  In fact, that is how I discovered Pinterest myself.  I noticed traffic from Pinterest in my stats, checked it out then joined myself.  It really is a great way to get exposure for individual blog posts with little effort.  
• Project Wonderful (no to low cost) - Members of Project Wonderful are paid to display advertising graphics (banner, button, square, half banner, rectangle, leaderboard, skyscrapper) on their blogs by the winning bidder.  A member bids on that ad spot then if successful the ad is shown so you can earn a little, and I do mean little money running ads.  Members can also bid to advertise their blog on other sites in the system.  Bidding is from $0.00 to winning bid over whatever is maximum at that time.  Now it does get a bit confusing until you catch on.  If the max bid is $0.00 you have to bid $0.01 to win but the ad will display at no cost unless someone outbids you.  They would have to bid $0.02 to become winning bidder.  If their ad time is less than yours and time or their funds run out you become winning bidder again.  You will get a lot of notices as to you are high bidder, you have been out bid, you are now high bidder.  I tend to just ignore them because on any given day it can really bounce around.  The payout threshold for any money earned from running ads is $10 which I have cashed out several times but I do keep around $5 in my account just to do a bit of low cost advertising.  Project Wonderful can help get a bit of exposure for your 125 x 125 or if you decide, larger size ad.  My experience has been that while it gets exposure with folks seeing the same graphic on different blogs or sites, it does not necessarily bring you any traffic.
• traffic exchanges - Traffic exchanges can be used for advertising purposes only.  Advertising includes text and banner ads.  In general, you buy a given number of impressions so your ad is shown that number of times.  It does not mean you will get any traffic from either type of ad.  It will gain you exposure for your banner ads which can help build traffic especially since I have noticed a lot of familiar faces in the traffic exchanges that used to frequent Entrecard. 

Promoting a Blog Post on Facebook

There are three ways to promote an individual blog post on Facebook.  The first is putting a link which automatically ads a thumbnail on your personal Facebook page.  This is free and goes out to your friends as a Facebook comment.  You can also do the same thing on Facebook pages you like but this may be perceived as spamming so I don't encourage that.  The second is to put the link on your blog's Facebook page.  That will go to anyone who has liked your blog's Facebook page.  The third option is to use the post promotion option [Boost Post] below each post on your blog's Facebook page.

The Boost Post option opens a drop down menu where you can choose the desired audience, advertising budget and payment method.  Now this is a very nice feature but unlike the blog advertising bloggers were used to using with the now defunct blog advertising networks, this advertising is pricey.  It is however, reaching a much broader audience.  Unlike the blog advertising networks where advertising was done only on blogs within that network which was a rather small audience, advertising on Facebook is reaching out to thousands of people who tend to like sharing what they find with their friends who in turn share with their friends and so on.  Another huge difference between the blog advertising networks and Facebook Boost Post, is you aren't promoting your blog only one post on that blog.  So, for $5 you can promote a blog post on Facebook for a reach of 790 to 1,500 Facebook users.  That doesn't look like much.  But consider if 10% of the 790 share a link to your blog, then 10% of those share the link, well it does snowball.  In fact, if you are really lucky, a link to one of your blog posts could go viral.

The down side to the Boost Post option is of course the price.  Most bloggers are not making a lot of money with their blogs.  If they make enough to cover their costs, they are happy.  This certainly is not going to be an option most bloggers use for just any post.  Instead, I feel the Boost Post option is a good way to get readers to your blog via the extra special interest posts on your blog.   That may mean a blog post that is already a rather popular one on search engine results which means anchor posts.  For this reason, if using the Boost Post option, I think it is prudent to do a bit of blog analysis before buying a Boost Post option.

Here are my recommendations on how to use the Boost Post option on Facebook:

• use your stats - Your blog stats will help to determine which posts you should use the Boost Post option.  Pay attention to the search referral for key words used to find posts on your blog.  The visit page will help you determine the anchor posts on your blog manually.  If you are using Statcounter, click on Popular Pages in the left hand column of your stats.  This brings up a list of blog posts according to number of hits over the last 18 hours or period of your blog log.  While this list will change certain blog posts will remain within the top 10 posts on your blog.  Those are the posts best used for the Boost Post option.
• use an anchor post - An anchor post is one that has good content with information that readers are looking for so it consistently brings traffic to your blog via organic searches.  A blog may only have a few anchor posts even if it has a large number of posts.  The anchor post may be seasonal or event specific.
• seasonal posts - If an anchor post is seasonal (eg. Christmas recipes, bbq recipes, canning tips) promote this post close to the start of that season.  Occasionally you may want to promote that anchor post again mid-season.  For example, one of my most popular posts during the busy canning season (mid-May to mid-October) is how to home can green beans.  This would be a post I would promote on Facebook using a Boost Post option about a week before beans are ready to start harvesting and since beans continue for awhile I would likely promote it again in 2 to 3 weeks time.
• targeting - There are two Boost Post targeting options.  The first is to those who like your page and their friends.  The second is to Facebook at large.  I think Facebook at large is a better value for your dollar.  Those who like your page have likely already shared one or more of your blog posts with their friends.  Their friends and anyone checking out their profile providing it is public can also see their likes so your page will show that way as well.  In other words, this is free advertising via Facebook.  Targeting to Facebook at large will expose your blog's Facebook page to those who may otherwise not see it.  
• thumbnails - If a blog post has one or more images, Facebook automatically creates an image for the url when the initial post is made.  Prior to posting, you have the option to choose whether or not to use an image and if so which image to use as the thumbnail.  Always choose the best image.  For example, if a blog post has five pictures showing various stages of the process with the final image showing it completed, choose the completed one as the thumbnail.  The reason being, it has more eye appeal and is more likely to get more interest.  
• set a budget - Set a budget for your entire advertising costs for a month for your blog.  Advertising on Facebook using the Boost Post option will use up at least $5 or more of your budget.  The menu starts at $15 but you can change that.  
• start small and go slow - See what you get for that $5.  If you don't like the results, then you can try again with another post or move on to something else without being out a lot of money.